Was Warren Harding A Bad President?
It is a cliche of history classes that Warren Harding was one of the worst men to occupy the oval office. (Richard Nixon was the POTUS the last time PG studied history. This cliche does not consider the last forty years.) PG is a fair minded person, who is always looking for something to write about. The question for Mr. Google was “was warren harding a terrible president?”. Answers dot com has a generous helping of biographical sketches.
Warren Gamaliel Harding was born Nov. 2, 1865, Caledonia OH, and died Aug. 2, 1923, San Francisco CA. (His birthplace is also cited as Blooming Grove OH, and Corsica OH.) He published a newspaper, got into politics, and was elected to the US Senate. In 1920, he was a compromise candidate, on the tenth ballot of the Republican convention. He clobbered James Cox, (His family firm, Cox Enterprises, owns Channel 2 and the fishwrapper.) and became President March 4, 1921.
The United States was in an economic downturn in 1921. The War in Europe ended in 1918, and a postwar depression was on. The last two years of the Wilson administration had been chaotic, with the President suffering a debilitating stroke. In a few years, the roaring twenties were on, and America was prosperous for a few years.
Mr. Harding was reputed to be a womanizer, gambler, and heavy drinker. He was not an activist President, but allowed his cronies to do what they wanted to do. This proved to be his downfall. “I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends. They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!”
There was a major scandal involving oil reserves. It centered around a place in Wyoming called Teapot Dome. The details of this affair mostly came to light after the death of President Harding. Albert B. Fall, the secretary of the interior, was convicted of a felony for his role in the affair… the first cabinet officer to become a felon while in office.
Mr. Harding went on a trip to the west, to make speeches and deals. He was the first President to go to Alaska. While in Alaska, he read some documents about the crooked dealings of his friends. In a few days, he was in San Francisco. He had been in ill health during the trip.
“On Thursday, the President’s health appeared to be improving, so his doctors went to dinner. Harding’s pulse was normal and his lung infection had subsided. Unexpectedly, during the evening, Harding shuddered and died suddenly in the middle of conversation with his wife in the hotel’s presidential suite, at 7:35 pm on August 2, 1923. Dr. Sawyer (a homeopath, and friend of the Harding family), opined that Harding had succumbed to a stroke, but doctors there disagreed. … After some discussion, the doctors issued a release indicating the cause of death to be “some brain evolvement, probably an apoplexy”. Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy. In retrospect, scholars speculate that Harding had shown physical signs of cardiac insufficiency with congestive heart failure in the preceding weeks. Naval medical consultants who examined the president in San Francisco concluded he had suffered a heart attack. “
The sudden and mysterious death of a President, with reports of a scandal surfacing, is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. Mr. Harding did appear to be in poor health, so this may have been a natural occurrence. The truth will never be completely known.
One aspect of the Harding administration that is not well known is his attitude about race. In the years after World War I, America was engulfed in race hatred. The Ku Klux Klan had a revival. “In a speech on October 26, 1921, given in segregated Birmingham, Alabama Harding advocated civil rights for African Americans; the first President to openly advocate black political, educational, and economic equality during the 20th century.” Mr. Harding supported an anti lynching bill, which a Democratic filibuster kept from passing.
Jimmysnax brings the Internet tradition of snarky commentary to the legacy of Warren Harding. Apparently, former newspaperman Harding could not write his way out of a paper bag. (In 1923, radio was a novelty. The printed word was the primary means of communication.)
Run your eyes over one of the best known examples of his waterboarding of the English tongue: “I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.”
Here’s what H. L. Mencken said about Harding’s speech writing and speech making: “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.” The 20’s were a wonderful time for language!
Or as E.E. Cummings put it, announcing Harding’s death: “The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This repost is written like Kurt Vonnegut.
Horses On Drugs
This episode started out as a repost. Google and reality got in the way, and there is no telling where we will wind up. Pictures (except for the divas) are from The Library of Congress. Ansel Adams took these pictures at the Japanese Internment Camp, in Manzanar CA, in 1943.
Awful library books is one of the actors in this drama. It is a good waste of your time. (The link in the repost does not work, because Awful library books has a new web address.) On top of the shelf today is Lee the Rabbit with Epilepsy. Other uplifting volumes on the front page include Isn’t One Wife Enough?: the Story of Mormon Polygamy and When Cavemen Go Bowling.
The book that Awful Library Books chose to “weed” was Latawnya, the Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs. The links in the original post no longer work, so google was enlisted to find a replacement. Believe it or not, this galloping tale has a wikipedia page.
The original book was targeted at African American youth. The author has daughters named Latawnya and Chrystal. The author has sued amazon, wikipedia, and urban dictionary.
A possibly illegal reproduction is found using the link. One of the comments tells a cautionary tale: ” It seems that many of these comments are viciously lampooning the work of a genius. I, however, see the visionary work of Mrs. Gibson. This insightful masterpiece presents the very real dangers of horse peer pressure. Just last week my daughter, Amber, was walking to school on a normal, idyllic day in suburbia. Then out of nowhere a Clydesdale galloped brazenly over to my precious princess and offered her a 40 oz bottle of Olde English 800 and a marijuana cigarette.”
Clydesdales have long been used to promote the products of the Anheuser-Busch company. When PG was younger, he worked on the mall maintenance crew at Northlake Mall. One day, the Budweiser Clydesdales made a visit. PG was given a shovel and bucket, and told to walk behind the horses.
One of the reasons for the drug problem is drug education. Many of these programs, while well intentioned, make the problem worse.
Courtesy of Awfullibrarybooks, we can see today “LATAWNYA, the Naughty Horse, Learns to say “No” to Drugs“. This uplifting story is about the afternoon when Latawnya goes out to play with her sisters Daisy and LaToya. Suddenly they meet four strange horses, Connie, Chrystal, Jackie, and Angie. They like to drink and smoke drugs.
The author of this tale was born in Mississippi, and lives in California. She says “Thank you, G-d”.
In 1986, there was an oversupply of cocaine coming into America, and new ways of using the product were needed. Someone had the idea of making crack. The media did its part, by running scare stories about the new drug sensation. “One puff makes your head feel like it is exploding”. The stories had the combined effect of scaring parents, and making crack cocaine irresistible to certain people. Crack became a part of the life.
The first time PG heard about oxycontin was a drug education flyer at work. It promised an overwhelming rush to the user who injected the substance. PG imagined the reaction of some of the druggies he had known to this promise…where can I get some?
PG is in the detoxed, old fogey stage of his life. Millions of others are not. When they read stories about horses who drink and smoke drugs, they learn to believe the opposite of what the drug educators tell them. Many will not live to be detoxed old fogeys.
S. Bear Bergman
PG was tired of staying at home, and accepting almost any invitation that came his way. On the Sunday before the Stupor Bowl, there was an event on Covington Highway. (Spell check suggestion: Convincing) This meant getting on I285 , and dodging people in a hurry to get somewhere. After finding the site, and having the parking spot approved by the host, PG stepped onto the front porch. Sitting there, smoking a cigarette, was the entertainer of the night.
S. Bear Bergman told stories this evening. A person, wearing a shirt that said “No one knows I am transexual”, took money. PG was not into making conversation with people he did not know, and found a seat near the front. It wasn’t until the show started that he realized that a lamp on the table next to him was shining under the shade into his eyes. This was an issue throughout the evening.
The talent stood in front of the front door to the small house. This illustrated the first story. It was about airplanes, and a well dressed woman who thought sitting next to the talent created a risk of infection. The punch line of the story also serves as a book title, “The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You”. The book was available for sale, on the table with the oppressive lamp.
At some point in the presentation, it became known that S. Bear Bergman is a transperson. Wikipedia fills in a few blanks. “S. Bear Bergman (born September 22, 1974 as Sharon Jill Bergman) is a transgender author, poet, playwright, and theater artist. Bergman identifies as neither male nor female and prefers pronouns “ze” and “hir”.
The talent is sporting a luxurious goatee. Bear did not make PG wonder about gender. (This is one matter where PG is often not paying attention.) This video features a more ambiguous appearance.
Bear used the phrase Ze in his presentation, without explanation. Does Ze mean Bear, the husband, the son, or all three? Another mystery involves the son. The spouse is another transperson. Did spouse produce the baby? Did spouse have transitional surgery? It is not just nosy housewives at Starbucks who want to know.
Another story involved the wedding planning. Bear lives in Canada, with husband and son. One partner was Jewish. The family of the non Jewish partner had a lot of questions. It all turned out ok, except for someone’s Uncle setting a tablecloth on fire. By this time, anything that could not be explained was said to be “traditional”, including a tablecloth fire.
At one time in his dumpster diving past, PG found some 3d pictures of a Jewish wedding. To a recovering baptist, this was rather exotic. The process of 3d pictures never did catch on. PG was trying to remember the last time he saw those pictures, and what box they are in today.
After the intermission, Bear told a story about karma. Part of this tale is in this video. The two dogs, of the host, barked every time the house applauded. Fortunately, the karma did not run over the dogma.
The rest of the night went smoothly, and everyone found the nearest exit with no problem. PG took the surface roads home. There is an eatery in downtown Dickhater called “Pita Pit“. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Sliced Bread
The best thing since sliced bread
Is the bag containing the loaf.
This plastic package keeps crumbs in,
And moisture out.
A bread sack can be used for many things
After the last slice is consumed.
It is not a toy for small children.
The Second Great Flood
Here is part one . Somewhere in his drifting around the internet, PG found a reference to the story of Noah and the Ark. A light bulb above his head switched on, and the answer was apparent: Global warming is the second great flood.
In the Biblical story, G-d was upset with the way man was doing things. She gave Noah a heads up, and he was ridiculed by the good citizens of the day. Finally, it rained forty days and forty nights, and everyone except Noah got wet.
In the modern version, G-d sees man making a wasteland of the bountiful planet. An amazing resource like oil is controlled by hateful tyrants, and burned to make cars run. The signs of dis ease are apparent to some, but they are ridiculed by the good citizens of the day.
This time, things are different. Instead of forty days and forty nights, it is two hundred years of burning fossil fuels. It is a time of war, and rumors of war.
Here is part two . PG was shooting from the hip the other day, and said that G-d was causing global warming. At first it seemed a bit goofy, but like other thoughts about her (G-d is in the details,) the more PG thinks, the more sense it makes.
A lot has to do with your idea of who G-d is. (maybe the four other w’s… what, when, where, and why… should also apply.) Although PG would not put global warming past Jehovah or Mary’sbabydaddy, those conceptions are just a bit obsolete. The idea of G-d that PG uses is the fifth element, to go with earth, air, fire and water.
The moonies have another view…that G-d is the difference between a human being and five dollars worth of chemicals. There seems to be an overall body of knowledge that makes the earth function. A DNA, or software. This framework of knowledge is how PG views G-d.
Right now, man is living in a paradise. A planet with earth, air, water and fire that is uniquely fabricated to support intelligent life. The role that G-d played in facilitating this planet is a mystery. There is a balance of life here…the right amount of gravity, the right ph balance in the oceans, the proper mix of gases in the atmosphere. Man has been granted this paradise…it was not earned, it was given out of the bounty of G-d. And man has done his best to destroy the environment. Promiscuously burning fossil fuels is just part of the damage.
There does seem to be a plan to deal with this. If the level of CO2 in the air goes above a certain level, then the temperatures will start to rise. This has been proven time and time again. There are nay sayers…some of whom are not on fossil fuel industry payrolls… who say this is a natural process, and has nothing to do with the actions of man. These people are similar to the upstanding citizens who ridiculed Noah when he built his ark.
It should be noted that the story of Noah and the ark might be a myth. That is, it is full of symbols and allegory, and is not to be taken literally. It could be that in an ancient time, G-d got fed up with the evil deeds of man, and decided to teach a lesson. This could be what is happening today.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This repost is written like Daniel Defoe.
Choice
WT is very sick. He has cancer. After a round or two of chemotherapy, and the devastating side effects, the cancer is back. More chemo is being applied, and dialysis is being done to his kidneys. It may work, and it may not.
This feature is not about this particular struggle. It is about the refusal of our culture to accept the concept of scarcity. If a person, whose bills are covered, wants to spare no expense to live one more day, then that wish is granted. Is this really the best use of our resources?
A few more things about WT. He is a wonderful man, with a loving family and lots of friends. It is a quality life we are extending. WT is also sixty-ish, and has already lived more than many. At what point do we say, enough is enough?
With the discovery of deficit spending, our government does not choose between guns or butter. It orders both, in heaping quantities, and puts the bill on the tab. As long as the interest is paid on the money borrowed, the machine keeps churning. One of the biggest sources of government spending is health care. We spend money like there is no tomorrow, without asking if it is really a good investment.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Coffee Of The Day
Coffee of the Day is House, M.D.
“Bold, slightly bitter, ironic.”
South of Ponce de Leon,
It is hot, black, and strong.
Personification of Joe,
Leads to bad jokes,
Roasting the elderly comedian.
The Great Speckled Bird
One day in the eighth grade, PG had a sore spot in his eye. They called it a stye. One afternoon, he got out of school, walked to Lenox Square, saw a doctor, and got some drops to put in his eye.
When he left the doctor’s office, there was a man, standing in front of Rich’s on the sidewalk, selling a newspaper. He had dirty blond hair down past his shoulders. PG asked what the newspaper was. Mostly politics, the man said. PG gave him fifteen cents for a copy of “The Great Speckled Bird”.
The Bird was an underground newspaper. It was so bad, it needed to be buried. If you are under fifty, you have probably never seen one. These papers flourished for a while. The Bird was published from 1968 to 1976. The April 26, 1968 edition was volume one, number four. This was what PG bought that day.
The Georgia State University Library has a digital collection. Included in it are copies of The Great Speckled Bird. Included in this collection is edition Number Four . PG went looking for that first copy. He needed to be patient, for the GSU server took it’s time. Finally, the copy he asked for came up. It was mostly politics.
When PG saw page four, he knew it was the edition from forty four years ago. “Sergeant Pepper’s Vietnam Report” was the story of a young man sent to Nam. It had a paragraph that impressed young PG, and is reproduced here. The rest of the article is not that great, which is typical of most underground newspaper writing.
A couple of years later, PG spent the summer working at the Lenox Square Theater. The number two screen was a long skinny room. If you stood in the right place, you could hear the electric door openers of the Colonial Grocery store upstairs. The Bird salesmen were a feature at the mall that summer, which not everyone appreciated. This was the year of the second, and last, Atlanta Pop Festival. PG was not quite hip enough to make it. He was back in the city, taking tickets for “Fellini Satyricon”. The Bird was printing 26 pages an issue, with lots of ads, pictures, and the distinctive graphics of the era.
Stories about hippies, and the Bird, can be found at The Strip Project.
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” .
This is a repost, written like H.P. Lovecraft.
Global Belly Laugh Day
The previous post is about the morbid custom of putting death notices in newspapers. Part of the festivities was noting famous fatalities that occurred on January 24. It is a diverse crew. “Grim reaper recruits on January 24 include Caligula (41). Ira Hayes (1955), Winston Churchill (1965), William Griffith “Bill” Wilson (1971), L. Ron Hubbard (1986), Ted Bundy (1989), Chris Penn (2006).”
Ira Hayes was born into an Arizona tribe, Akimel O’odham. In World War II, he joined the Marines, and was included in the famous picture taken on Iwo Jima. After the war, Ira Hayes became a drunk.
Winston Churchill was the British Prime Minister during that same conflict. He is considered a hero, even if his most famous speech was made by an actor. Mr. Churchill was also fond of alcohol. “Madam, you are ugly” “Sir, you are drunk” “Yes, but in the morning I will be sober.”
Bill Wilson was the original of Anonymous Alcoholic. He has a lot of friends.
The synchronicity between Caligula, L. Ron Hubbard, and Ted Bundy is a bit more subtle. Caligula was a historic figure, and anything said about him is subject to dispute. He might have really been a warm, fuzzy kind of guy. L. Ron Hubbard was the founder of Scientology, and Ted Bundy was a serial killer. Chris Penn is the brother of Sean, and his character in Reservoir Dogs fired a lot of shots.
January 24 is a lot of things. It is the birthday of Oral Roberts (1919) and Neil Diamond (1941). January 24 is also Global Belly Laugh Day. On January 24 at 1:24 p.m. (local time) smile, throw your arms in the air and laugh out loud.
Obituary Mambo
Andrew Sullivan had an uplifting feature, the other day, about obituaries. As is his custom, he found an article at another site, threw out a juicy quote, and moved on. It is up to Chamblee54 to provide more detail, and put up pictures for the text averse. These pictures today are from the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church cemetery. This is a repost.
It is a common practice to look at the obituaries (aka “Irish sports page”) first thing in the morning. If the reader is not included, then the day can proceed as normal. This custom does not take into account the possibility that you have died, and your family it too cheap to purchase a notice.
The article in question is THE DEAD BEAT CLUB Ten things you don’t know about the obit biz. It starts off by saying that the family members are usually happy to help the obit scribe. They have stories about the recently deceased, like ” Eddie “Bozo” Miller boasted of regularly drinking a dozen martinis before lunch, yet he lived to age eighty-nine.”
Newspapers take different approaches to obituaries. Some assign rookies, or use the death beat as punishment for troublemakers. Others give the job to their best writer. The paid notices are usually written by family members, with the help of the undertaker.
Of course, there is the occasional oddball. Alana Baranick, obituary writer for Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer and lead author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers , likes to visit every municipality in the United States named Cleveland.
One oft repeated saying is that obituaries are about life, not death. As the source puts it: “The British “quality” newspapers — The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Independent, substantiate the old chestnut about obituaries being about life, not death. These papers rarely mention the cause of death, focusing instead on presenting a vivid account of a lived life. American papers have an unhealthy fixation on death. It’s common for “complications of chronic pulmonary disease” or “bile duct cancer” to show up in the story’s lede, never to resurface.”
Only one obituary has won a Pulitzer prize. ” Leonard Warren, a Metropolitan Opera baritone, dropped dead mid-performance in 1960. Sanche de Gramont (who changed his name to Ted Morgan), a young rewrite man at the New York Herald Tribune, banged out the obit in under an hour and won a 1961 Pulitzer in the Local Reporting, Edition Time, category.”
There is an The International Association of Obituarists. The headquarters is in Dallas TX, presumably near a grassy knoll. They have an annual convention, which is said to be a lively affair. The 2005 conference was in Bath, England. The 2007 conference was in Alfred NY. There is also the Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
IAO was founded by Carolyn Gilbert, the lady who puts the bitch in obituary. Ms. Gilbert collaborates on a page, Remembering The Passed. RTP has a series of podcasts. They require an apple app to listen, which is too much work for PG.
Death is a part of life. Every language has a word for it, and English has a number of slang expressions. An incomplete list would include : ““passed on”, “are no more”, “have ceased to be”, “expired and gone to meet their Maker”, “are bereft of life”, “have ceased to be”, “rest in peace”, “push up daisies”, “whose metabolic processes are now history”, “are off the twig”, “have kicked the bucket”, “shuffled off their mortal coil”, “run down the curtain” or “joined the Choir Invisible”
Columbia Journalism Review (Motto: Strong Press, Strong Democracy) has a feature about Obit. “Krishna Andavolu is the managing editor of Obit an online magazine intended for those interested in obituaries, epitaphs, elegies, postludes, retrospectives, grave rubbings, widow’s weeds, and other such memorabilia of expiration. Part eulogistic clearinghouse, part cultural review, Obit purports to examine life through the prism of death. Founded in 2007 by a wealthy New Jersey architect who sensed an exploitable niche after seeing a middle-aged woman distraught over the death of Captain Kangaroo, the site is a locus for enlightened morbidity.”
OM is worth a visit. The top story features a picture of Betty Ford, who survived Breast Cancer, Alcoholism, and The White House, to die at 93. The site has an ad from Newlymaid.com, with the creative suggestion to Trade In Your Old Bridesmaid Dress & Get a New Little Black Dress.
OM has a popular feature called Died on the same day. Grim reaper recruits on January 24 include Caligula (41). Ira Hayes (1955), Winston Churchill (1965), William Griffith “Bill” Wilson (1971), L. Ron Hubbard (1986), Ted Bundy (1989), Chris Penn (2006).
No google search is complete without someone trying to make money. Obituaries Professionally Written says ” … we believe in honoring a life with respect, dignity and integrity. When needed, euphemism is used liberally. “
OPW content provider Larken Bradley says “”Obituary writing is an honor, a privilege, and great fun … I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”… After she dies she expects her obit headline will read, “Obituary Writer, Six Feet Under.”
The Book
Irving Stone was promoting Depths of Glory,
a book about Camille Pissarro.
Mr. Stone said:
“The book is the great creation of man. It is greater than cement, the wheel, or running water.”
He died four years later.
Pictures: “The Georgia State University Library”.
The Grapes Of Math
It was another day of converting pictures, and listening to the internet. Fiction was called for. Mr. Google supplied the Pulp Fiction Podcast.
The pictures today are by Chamblee54. They were taken at Short Mountain Sanctuary, during the 2012 fall gathering. SMS is an “intentional community”, located in Cannon County, TN. You will find the salt of the earth here, as well as various other condiments.
The night before featured a live person speaking, instead of the disembodied sputter of the computer. It was strange to not be multi tasking, but to focus on the speaker. The time was well spent, but no pictures were produced that evening.
After a while the stories were not fun. An interview with Elaine Steinbeck was next. The author of John Steinbeck, she talked about the impact of “The Grapes of Wrath”. It also was revealed that the dog in “Travels with Charley” had belonged to Elaine.
In 1980, PG lived in a hostel in Seattle WA. One of his roommates was Peter DeGroot, a PhD candidate from the University of Utah. Mr. DeGroot had just read “The Grapes of Wrath”, and went out picking strawberries one day. That afternoon, the bus stopped at a store, and all the pickers went inside and bought wine. Mr. DeGroot bought a beer. “I thought it would be good form.”
After this, it was time to get out. Put a few layers on, and ride the bike through the cold air. Before leaving, PG looked at the blog stats. By 4pm, 19 people had clicked on Migrant Mother. This post is about a famous photograph from the Great Depression. The Pretty Bad Depression continues.
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