Sweet Tea For Jesus
There are a lot of lips moving about the “Tea Party” these days. Many of the party people are Jesus Worshipers, who believe that the Bible is the word of G-d. While this belief is not required to join the party, it is very, very helpful. Probably, very few tea partiers are Muslims, who believe the Koran to be the word of G-d. Whatever the phrasing, these three movements are real to those who believe.
PG watches from the sidelines. He feels that practice is more important than belief. PG sees Jesus in the words and deeds of those who worship Jesus. (Is this worship a violation of the first commandment? That is another issue for another day.)
This hobby blogger drinks a lot of tea, favoring the cheapest brand available. Put two bags in a pitcher, heat the water for ten minutes, and pour the water over the bags. Sugar gets in the way of the taste, and lemons are too much work. You make the next pitcher of tea when you pour the last glass. What this custom has to do with politics or religion is a matter for those with a philosophical bent.
A blogger named Frank Turk made a video. There were 86 comments. Mr. Turk makes the comment in this video that Jesus is a real person. This is different from PG’s view, which is that Jesus is a spirit that lives in the hearts of those who worship him. To PG, this spirit has almost no relation to the person reputed to live in Palestine 2100 years ago.
In the video, Mr. Turk tells a story about tea parties becoming real . ” My brother-in-law David tells a story about the first time he visited Boston. David’s ex-military, and He says that he can remember all through school people told him about American history — about the events that happened that caused us to be a country, the list of facts. But in Boston, he found himself out in the harbor looking down into the water, and when he looked into the water and out at the harbor he realized: “Wow. This is were they dropped the tea into the harbor.” And at that moment, all those men and all the stories about them weren’t just facts or true statements anymore: the real people became obvious to him, and it changed the way he thought about our country and his part in it.”
Politics and religion are emotional affairs. Some sayings resonate, and some do not. This feature is about the concept of “real”. How political movements are based on events that only marginally relate to the movement, but make a statement that you feel in your gut. How religious movements worship a figure who has been distorted to mean what the believer wants him to mean. About how you know something is “real”.
First, the present day tea party, and the events in Boston Harbor December 16, 1773. PG wrote about the original Tea Party earlier in 2010. In the ecologically sound tradition of recycling your own work, here is what he found.
The namesake event was the Boston Tea Party. On December 16, 1773, crowds of people (some dressed as Mohawks) went on board the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver. The crowds threw overboard 342 chests, containing 90,000 pounds of tea. The crowds were unhappy because the East India Company was importing the tea into America, with a 3 pence per pound tax. (It is not known how the imitation Mohawks cut their hair.)
A website called listverse plays the contrarian. “American colonists did not protest the Tea Tax with the Boston Tea Party because it raised the price of tea. The American colonists preferred Dutch tea to English tea. The English Parliament placed an embargo on Dutch tea in the colonies, so a huge smuggling profession developed. To combat this, the English government LOWERED the tax on tea so that the English tea would be price competitive with Dutch teas. The colonists (actually some colonists led by the chief smugglers) protested by dumping the tea into Boston Harbor.”
According to Wikipedia, the Dutch tea had been smuggled into the colonies for some time. The Dutch government had given their companies a tax advantage, which allowed them to sell their product cheaper. Finally, the British government cut their taxes, but kept a tax in place. The “Townsend Tax” was to be used to pay governing colonial officials, and make them less dependent on the colonists.
In Charleston, New York, and Philadelphia, the tea boats were turned around, and returned to England with their merchandise. In Massachusetts, Governor Thomas Hutchinson insisted that the tea be unloaded. Two of the Governor’s sons were tea dealers, and stood to make a profit from the taxed tea. There are also reports that the smugglers were in the crowd dumping tea into the harbor.
Smugglers, a corrupt colonial governor, and peaceful solutions at the other major harbors. Is this the story Glenn Beck is crying about? Or has he taken a dramatic moment from history, and exploited it for his own purposes?
In a similar fashion, modern Jesus worshipers have taken a figure from the past, and created a spirit in his name. The history of Jesus is much further in the past than the Boston Tea Party, and much less is known. There are those who say the Bible is the word of G-d, and can be trusted to tell the facts about Jesus. Others are much less certain.
So, when did Jesus finally become real to PG? The watershed incident took place in the spring of 1999. By this time, PG had decided that he did not agree with the two key beliefs of Jesus worship…that the Bible is the word of G-d, and that belief in Jesus will affect what happens when you die. It was becoming apparent to PG that Jesus was different things to different people, and that not all of them were good. You need to trust your eyes, ears, and soul.
The incident took place at PG’s place of employment, a business we will call redo blue. A co worker was a Bully for Jesus. The BFJ was an angry man, given to temper tantrums, where he used Jesus to hurt people. On this day, the BFJ shouted down and humiliated PG.
When the tirade was over, PG started to run a job. BFJ took a phone call, and screamed “I never felt better in my life”. In that instant, Jesus became real to PG.
This is a repost of a feature originally published two years ago. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The tea party is still boiling water, although their influence in the upcoming election may not be apparent. PG drinks more green tea than caffeine enhanced, and continues to be alienated from Jesus. Frank Turk is still in business. PG has a facebook friend called “Sweet Tea”. This post is not about her.
Seven Years Of Chamblee 54
Seven years ago, Chamblee54 published the first post. Originally, PG wanted to argue with some Jesus worshipers, and had to set up an account to make comments. Once the account was set up, it was easy to start writing posts.
The posts came about once a week. Step by step, things were added to the mix. The posts were done with color fonts, and suddenly black fonts were obsolete. PG began to do dangerous things with photoshop, and the pics began to be added. Soon, there were pictures everyday, and there was no connection between the pictures and the text.
The slogan at first was a quote by Hunter S. Thompson…“When the going gets weird, the weird get going.” One day, there was a comment, to the effect that weird was being misspelled. Picky, picky, picky. Just remember, it takes we to be weird.
A few things happened in late 2007. PG got a dsl connection, and added a bunch of memory to the machine. GIMP was introduced as a photo program, and soon replaced photoshop.
In the winter of 2008, there was a snowstorm. When the ice melted, google didn’t want to connect PG to his blog. Many desperate hours were spent with broken english speaking tech reps, but nothing helped. Finally, Chamblee54 went to WordPress, where it has been ever since. After a while, a new theme was installed, with 720 pixel wide columns and pictures.
In november 2008, there was the nana twins, nanowrimo, and nablopomo. The first produced 58k words of gibberish. Stream of consciousness is more fun to write than it is to read. Nablopomo, which is not connected to Nambla (that anyone knows about), is a gimmick. You agree to post something on your blog everyday. Even without the annoying emails, PG manages to put up content almost everyday. The pictures are always there. The current motto is “Pretty Pictures and Ugly Opinions”.
2010 saw historic pictures added to the mix. During the summer, the codes for rainbow font were finalized, and tow sided justification gave a smooth block look to the text. There were a few more improvements, and probably some changes that made things worse.
Today is the autumn equinox of 2012. The counter went over 100k a few months ago, which is probably what Huffington does in fifteen minutes. Still, it is fun to be an actor, instead of warming a seat in the balcony. If you wonder about something, you have an excuse to look it up. If you should have an original (to you) thought, you can share it with a billion potential readers.
Part two today is a celebration of the number seven. If you get mad at this, remember to forgive seven times seventy. Another popular number this week is 47. Something about a statistic from Moneybooboo. And yes, 47 plus 7 is 54. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
This is a double repost. It is about things that come in groups of seven. Thanks and praises go to Wikipedia. The other sources are cited where appropriate.
Seven Samurai -Kambei Shimada , Gorōbei Katayama , Shichirōji , Heihachi Hayashida ,. Katsushirō Okamoto , Kyūzō ,
The Magnificent Seven – Chris Adams, Harry Luck, Vin, Bernardo O’Reilly, Britt, Lee, Chico
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World-Great Pyramid of Giza, Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Statue of Zeus at Olympia ,Temple of Artemis at Ephesus, Mausoleum of Maussollos at Halicarnassus ,Colossus of Rhodes, Lighthouse of Alexandria
Rome is built on Seven hills – Palatine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, Caelian, and Aventine. Thank you SevenMagazine.
The Seven Sisters – Barnard College, Bryn Mawr College, Mount Holyoke College, Radcliffe College, Smith College, Vassar College, and Wellesley College
“All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion and desire.” Aristotle 384 BC-322 BC Thank you Thinkexist.
The Magnificent Seven are seven cemeteries used by the citizens of nineteenth century London.:Kensal Green Cemetery , West Norwood Cemetery ,Highgate Cemetery , Abney Park Cemetery ,Nunhead Cemetery ,Brompton Cemetery , Tower Hamlets Cemetery
Seven deadly sins – lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride
Seven holy virtues – chastity, abstinence, temperance, diligence, patience, kindness
Seven goddesses – isis, astarte, hecate, demeter, kali, iana, diana
Seven dwarfs – bashful, doc, dopey, grumpy, happy, sleepy, sneezy
Seven brides – Alice, Dorcas, Liza, Martha, Millie, Sarah, Ruth
Seven brothers – Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank, Gideon
Seven husbands of Elizabeth Taylor – Nicky Hilton, Micheal Wilding, Micheal Todd, Eddie Fisher, Richard Burton (twice), John Warner, Larry Fortensky (The American Film Institute named Taylor seventh among the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.)
Matthew 18:21-22 – 21 Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? 22 Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.
Money Boo Boo Speaks His Mind
As you may have heard, a speech that WMR gave some contributors has been played for the entertainment of the general public. Most of the attention has gone to a bizarre comment about the 47 percent. A few people have commented on his understanding of Palestinians, or lack thereof. Tonight, with the help of a transcript, we are going to look at a few more gems. If we haven’t gone on too long, there is a story out today about the ability of WMR to listen.
The first is about life in China. Romney: … when I was back in my private equity days, we went to China to buy a factory there, employed about 20,000 people, and they were almost all young women between the ages of about 18 and 22 or 23. They were saving for potentially becoming married, and they worked in these huge factories, they made various small appliances, and as we were walking through this facility, seeing them work, the number of hours they worked per day, the pittance they earned, living in dormitories with little bathrooms at the end with maybe ten rooms. And the rooms, they had 12 girls per room, three bunk beds on top of each other. You’ve seen them.
Audience member: Oh, yeah.
Romney: And around this factory was a fence, a huge fence with barbed wire, and guard towers. And we said, “Gosh, I can’t believe that you, you know, you keep these girls in.” They said, “No, no, no—this is to keep other people from coming in. Because people want so badly to come work in this factory that we have to keep them out, or they’ll just come in here and start working and try and get compensated. So, we—this is to keep people out.” And they said, “Actually, Chinese New Year, is the girls go home, sometimes they decide they’ve saved enough money and they don’t come back to the factory.” And he said, “And so on the weekend after Chinese New Year, there’ll be a line of people hundreds long outside the factory, hoping that some girls haven’t come back and they can come to the factory.
The next quote will come as a surprise. WMR is proudly exploiting the name of G-d. He never misses a chance to expound on “the definition of marriage”. The chatter about abortion never stops. So what does WMR say: “The biggest surprise that I have is that young people will vote for Democrats. They look at this and say, “Holy cow! The only guys who are worried about the future of our country and our future are Republicans.” But the Democrats, they talk about social issues, draw in the young people, and they vote on that issue.”
When social issues are not on the agenda, there is saber rattling about Iran. “No. 2, we should have been aggressively supporting the voices of dissent in Iran, and when there was an effort towards revolution there we should been aggressively supporting… Instead what this administration has done is communicate to the Iranians that we’re more worried about Israel attacking them than we are about them becoming nuclear.”
The last thing the Green movement in Iran wanted was vocal American support. That would have been all the government needed to label the revolutionaries as tools of America. If these forces were to come to power, they would probably want nuclear power. Finally, if Israel does attack Iran, it is the people who are going to suffer and die. Apparently, WMR wants us to support the revolutionaries, so Israel can kill them.
“This president’s failure to put in place a status forces agreement allowing 10-20,000 troops to stay in Iraq? Unthinkable” The SOFA was negotiated by George W. Bush. Almost no one wants to keep American troops in Iraq, including our allies there.
“I wind up talking about how the thing which I find most disappointing in this president is his attack of one American against another American,”
“If we go the way of Europe, which is spending 1 to 2 percent of their economy on the military, we will not be able to have freedom in the world.” A major reason for the megadebtload is defense spending. You can’t have it both ways. First you denounce the debt, then you say we need to spend money to have freedom in the world.
That wasn’t so bad. There is time for one more story . If you get bored, and want to skip ahead to the pictures, that is ok.
It was 2004, after the Supreme Judicial Court had cleared the way for same-sex couples to obtain marriage licenses in Massachusetts. Governor Mitt Romney remained a roadblock, endorsing a constitutional amendment that would ban it.
Julie Goodridge and other plaintiffs in the landmark case had written a letter to the governor, asking for a meeting. He ignored it, so they staged a press conference at his office to read the letter to the media. That, finally, got them through his door. Once inside, they were shocked.
For about 20 frustrating minutes, say those in attendance who Boston Spirit interviewed recently, they shared their stories, pled their case, and tried to explain how equal marriage would protect them and their families. Romney sat stone-faced and almost entirely silent.
“Is there anything else?” Romney asked when they finished. With that, the meeting was over.
“It was like talking to a robot. No expression, no feeling,” recalls David Wilson, one of the plaintiffs in the case who met with Romney that day. “People were sharing touching stories, stories where you’d expect recognition in the other person’s face that they at least hear what you’re saying — that there’s empathy. He didn’t even shake his head. He was completely blank.” Occasionally Romney would say something.
“I didn’t know you had families,” remarked Romney to the group, according to Wilson.
The offhanded remark underscored that Romney, the governor of the first state prepared to grant same-sex marriage, hadn’t taken the time to look at what the landmark case was really about. By this point the plaintiff’s stories had been widely covered by national media — in particular, Julie Goodridge’s heartrending tale of how her then-partner, Hillary, was denied hospital visitation following the precarious birth of daughter Annie. It was the ignorance of these facts — and Romney’s inaccurate, insensitive answer to her parting question, that pushed Julie Goodridge to her breaking point.
“I looked him in the eye as we were leaving,” recalls Goodridge. “And I said, ‘Governor Romney, tell me — what would you suggest I say to my 8 year-old daughter about why her mommy and her ma can’t get married because you, the governor of her state, are going to block our marriage?’”
His response, according to Goodridge: “I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.”
Romney’s retort enraged a speechless Goodridge; he didn’t care, and by referring to her biological daughter as “adopted,” it was clear he hadn’t even been listening. By the time she was back in the hallway, she was reduced to tears.
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This was written like Kurt Vonnegut.
Page Fifty Two
As citizens of facebook nation know, it is International Book Week. There is a ritual for observation of this event. “It’s international book week. The rules: grab the closest book to you, turn to page 52, post the 5th sentence as your status. Don’t mention the title. Copy the rules as part of your status.”
PG had been resisting. For one thing, text from dead tree books cannot be copypasted. Posting the fifth sentence would involve typing the words by hand, which is too much work.
And so it is thursday morning of IBW, and 144 fbf have posted the meme. PG looks to his right, and sees no books in the first glance. A turn to the left shows a map book. The meme doesn’t say what kind of book, or how you can determine the fifth sentence of a diagram of residential roads, interstate highways, railroads, and industrial areas. Still, the post for today is on. Most people skip ahead to the pictures anyway. These pictures were not altered. L5P is on page 59.
One thing about map books is a refusal to use conventional page numbering. This is not a romance novel, nor is it going to change your life. The goal of a map book is to help you find your destination, and make money for the map book printer. (There are stories of map publishers inventing roads as a way of protecting their copyright.) This book is the 6th edition of Metro Atlanta, Georgia. It is printed by ADC maps. Their slogan is “The map people”. That inspires appalling visuals involving halloween parties, and the dragon con parade.
Some say that map books are obsolete. To hear these digital fascists, GPS and google have rendered dead tree street guides useless. Such words are heresy to those who have found their way with maps for years. There is a page to page flow with a book that is not available on the tiny backlit screen. You don’t have to plug in a book. If you are stuck in a car with nothing else to read, you can peruse a map, and always make a discovery.
To determine page 52, PG counted the pages by hand. The odds are on top, the evens on the bottom, just like in real life. The magic sheet is page 788. By amazing coincidence, PG lives on sheet 787. He is abundantly familiar with the contents of page 787. What is even more fun is the top of pp. 787-788 being roughly 144 yards north of where PG is typing this feature. While it is not sitting on top of the world, the top of the page can be a lively place.
The NW corner of page 788 is 33°52′30″N 84°18′45″W. This is a wooded area, owned by DeKalb County. The map shows it to be part of Peachtree DeKalb Airport. The woods used to be a part of the airport. There are abandoned light poles, and a section of red clay bulldozed into flatland submission.
This area is fun to look at on maps, because there usually a mistake. Edition 6 is no different. There is a small park, with a former little league ballpark, on Georgian Drive. The map shows this park going all the way to Tobey Road. In reality there is a strip of condos on Tobey, at the Clairmont conjunction. Before the condos were there, a used car lot was on the corner. Next to the used car lot was a house, with a goat in the back yard. The goat would chew kudzu leaves, and leave green stained vines behind.
The SE corner of page 788 is 33°48′45″N 84°15′00″W This is just a whit outside I285, a bit south of the Stone Mountain Freeway. There is a fine view of the highrises downtown on that part of the perimeter. Yes, this is OTP. The NE corner is somebody’s back yard on Henderson Mill Road, just next to I285.
The SW corner is Toco Hill shopping center. This was built in the black and white television era. It is the home of the Department of Labor. Many people have done time in that space. Here is the story of the name. “. It seems like a man was in Brazil, doing construction projects during World War Two. He had a housekeeper, who was a Brazilian Indian. Whenever he would put in a bid on a job, the housekeeper would say “toco”. It seems that toco is a Brazilian Indian word for “more luck than you can imagine.”
The 52 page bit was a bit of work, but easy to figure out. How do you determine the fifth sentence of a page from a map book? The page has letters on the top, and numbers running down the side. The idea is that you look up something in the index, and it gives you a pair of coordinates. An example is “Hardee Ave. W 788 A1 DC. That translates into page 788, coordinates A1, in Dekalb County. This is a lovely little road, with no side streets, that goes up a hill behind the airport. On the north side is the County Health Department. On the south side lie the remains of a neighborhood. It was bought out, and eliminated, due to airport noise.
The best way to determine the fifth sentence is to look for the E5 section of page 788. Technically that is fifth squared. In a biography of W.C. Fields, the fifth sentence of any page is likely to involve a fifth of whiskey. It will probably be empty.
The E5 section of page 788 is the setting of Lakeside HS. PG had a curious relationship with this facility, having gone to neighboring Cross Keys. At the time, Lakeside had the best football team in the state, and Cross Keys one of the worst. It didn’t help that the PG family went to Briarcliff Baptist Church, which was a hotbed of Lakeside attendees. In another bit of mapbook synchronicity, it seems that Briarcliff Baptist is on the right edge of page 787, which makes it due south of the house of PG.
Page 788 is a splendid little chunk of America. Between A1, and K10, dwell two interstate highways, Peachtree DeKalb Airport, Northlake Mall, and the Cecil B. Day campus of Mercer University. The latter facility is located on Mercer University Drive, which yields a terrific set of initials. Across from the mall is the transmitter tower for a 50,000 watt clear channel radio station, whose signal used to seep into neighborhood pay phones. When Simon and Garfunkel went looking for America, they could have gone to the fifty second page, the fifth sentence, of the sixth edition, of ADC (The map people) and their guide to Metro Atlanta Georgia.
Pictures today are by Chamblee54. This was written like David Foster Wallace
Being Spammy Or Unsafe
PG found an amusing post Wednesday morning. “Yesterday I posted a link to the New York Times article about what is being called “the Gospel of Jesus’ Wife,” and several friends commented on it. This morning my post has disappeared. I did not remove it, nor did I delete any of the comments, which I found interesting. When I tried to repost the article, I got this message from Facebook: “The content you’re trying to share includes a link that’s been blocked for being spammy or unsafe.” The New York Times is spammy or unsafe??? … As a theology geek, I find this new discovery fascinating. But as a Christian, my faith does not depend on Jesus’ celibacy. So if it were to be proven somehow that he was indeed married, it would not retroactively affect the relationship I’ve had with Jesus throughout my life. If anything, it would support the belief that Jesus was fully human as well as fully divine.”
Smithsonian magazine has a feature on this artifact. It is too long for a slack blogger. The NYT article is less than a page, and says enough to base this post on. The article has header ads, which rotate with the different page views. The two noted are for “Obama Victory Fund 2012” and Wells Fargo Bank. Which one is spammy, and which one is unsafe, is left for the reader to determine. Some times, you have to think for yourself.
Here is a money quote from the NYT. “A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …’ ” The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.”
The specimen is written in Coptic. This is probably related to Coptic Christianity, which is still going on in Egypt. Reportedly, there is some connection between the Coptics and the recent controversy, about a movie offensive to Muslims.
The word prove is used several times in the article. Perhaps indicate would be a more accurate verb. It is tough to “prove” anything using a 1700 year old papyrus fragment. The last paragraph in the NYT says “The notion that Jesus had a wife was the central conceit of the best seller and movie “The Da Vinci Code.” But Dr. King said she wants nothing to do with the code or its author: “At least, don’t say this proves Dan Brown was right.”
Of course, none of this means anything to most contemporary Jesus worshipers. They think the Bible is the word of G-d. This text is is inerrant, sufficient, spam free, and safe. Recent discoveries about Revelations are ignored. Like the bumper sticker says, “G-d said it, I believe it, that settles it.”
A person’s religion is a one of a kind experience. How you are introduced to a spiritual discipline is much more important than the mechanics of the church. The facebook commenter says that it won’t matter to him if Jesus has a wife. To PG, any new information would not block the memory of humiliation at the hands of aggressive Jesus worshipers.
There was another commentary published recently about the separation of G-d and spam. It was in New Yorker magazine, written by Hendrik Hertzberg. There was a post about Mr. Hertzberg at Chamblee54 once. PG sent an email to Mr. Hertzberg about the post, and got a very nice reply.
The feature in question is about the way politicians think it will help them get elected to talk about G-d. PG, on the other hand, thinks this is a grotesque violation of the third commandment. The New Yorker feature doesn’t really cover much ground, but has a bangup last paragraph.
“It was not hard to guess what idol, and what institution, the Cardinal had in mind. On the other hand, his reference to “nature and nature’s G-d” was not so clear. The phrase was there to echo the Declaration of Independence. But Dolan must know that it is pure Deism—Jeffersonian code words for a non-supernatural G-d, a G-d who creates the universe and its laws and leaves the rest up to us. Could it be that we were witnessing an unheard-of political phenomenon, a dog whistle to voters who, whether or not they believe in a rights-endowing Creator, have their doubts about the sort of deity who begets sons, writes books, performs miracles, and determines the outcome of football games? Probably not. That G-d won’t hunt. “
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This was written like Dan Brown.
Thurston Howell The Turd
Chamblee54 tries to be a tasteful, family oriented publication. Ok, maybe if you are Gomez and Morticia. Sometimes, however, the use of profanity is too much fun to pass up. The title of this post is an example. It refers to Willard Mitt Romney. Apologies are extended to any unit of animal waste that is offended by the comparison.
Many of you have heard about the video. It was made at a fund raiser, and WMR says things that will get him in trouble. This is not surprising. Many of us already know that WMR is a jerk.
What goes around comes around. Four years ago, BHO was secretly taped at a fundraiser. He said that bitter people were clinging to their guns and bibles, or something to that effect. A few said that it was tacky to secretly record a fundraising party like that. And it probably is. Especially when you know something like this could happen, and you fall into the trap.
Georgia is assumed to be sending it’s electoral votes to WMR. The white voters of Georgia must be so red that they glow. Lets take a look at the math.
For purposes of this discussion, lets make a few assumptions. PG is not a political scientist, (oxymoron alert) just a slack blogger that doesn’t know any better. Lets say one million votes will be cast in Georgia in November. Thirty percent, or 300k, of those voters are black. Lets go a step further and guess that ninety percent of those black votes will go to BHO.
That means that BHO has 270k votes. To get to 500k and win, BHO needs 230k out of the remaining 700k. This is 32 percent of the non-black vote. He probably won’t get it. If BHO wins Georgia, the election is over. Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. The spell check suggestions for WMR are WAR and WM.
The Prodigal Son
Luke 15 1 Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them. 3 And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. 7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. 8 Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? 9 And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost. 10 Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of G-d over one sinner that repenteth. 11 And he said, A certain man had two sons: 12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. 13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. 14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. 15 And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. 16 And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. 17 And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, 19 And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. 20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 21 And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: 23 And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. 25 Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. 28 And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him. 29 And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30 But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. 31 And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32 It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found. Text for today’s story is from Bible Gateway. Text formatting is by Chamblee54. Pictures are from The Library of Congress. Here is a commentary on The Power of Parable . This is a repost.
Known Unknown Or Unknown Known
The last thing PG needs is another podcast website. Yesterday, Back Story Radio walked through the door. BSR is a history project, facilitated by academics in Virginia. They have three talkers, the 18th century guy, the 19th century guy, and the 20th century guy. The 21st century guy is in the second grade, and will join them in a few years.
In January of 2011, BSR had a three part series, The Civil War, 150 Years Later. We are currently in the 150th anniversary of the War Between the States. Yesterday it was the Battle of Antietam, aka the bloodiest day in American history.
There is going to be relatively little original writing today. Instead, there is going to be a quote from the transcript. PO, EA, and BB (Peter Onuf, Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh) are the three announcers, and Blake called in a question. We will try to think of a phrase for EA to stand for.
The subject is religion in the south. It is often said that the Bible was used to justify slavery. PG has not seen this, but will take peoples word. If you ask Mr. Google, he will tell you about it. According to this quote, the preachers in the south thought that the north was a secular place. When you fought for the south, you were fighting for righteousness.
There was also the idea that having a society where one race dominated the other was morally superior to equality. The Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander H. Stephens, once gave a speech.
“Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.”
Another side of this discussion is the role of the Jesus Worship church in the African American society. This church is a powerful, and loud, part of America. It is highly ironic that this European religion has been so fervently embraced by African America. It is even stranger when you consider that this religion was forced on this population as a part of being enslaved. It is even stranger when you consider that some white people considered this shotgun marriage… of an enslaved people to the religion of a Jew … as a moral justification for horrific war.
If you find yourself thinking too hard, just skip ahead to the pictures. They are from The Library of Congress. The men in these images are Union soldiers from the War Between The States. This was written like William Shakespeare.
PO: We’ve got another call and it’s a local call from right here in Charlottesville, Virginia. Blake— welcome to the show.
Caller (Blake): Hello.
PO: So, what’s on your mind?
Caller (Blake): Well, you know, I was brought up in Virginia and have lived I guess with the Civil War for my whole life and remember very vividly the Centennial in Richmond, but recently I have been trying to learn a little bit about the, for lack of a better word, the causes and have been reading particularly about the influence of the church, in this case, mostly Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the South and was wondering how you guys viewed that. Do you feel the preachers from their pulpits and their writings led the South to the Civil War and to secession?
PO: Well, Blake, that’s a great question. Blake wants to know whether the preachers are responsible for the Civil War. That’s the short version of it. Obviously, they didn’t do it all by themselves. I’d say this is a point of departure. Many Southerners believe there was a piety deficit between North and South, that the South was a more Christian place and the North was riven by heresy and socialism and secularism and so Southern preachers did a couple of important things, I think, and that is, on one hand, to tell Southerners that they had God on their side, that they were good Christians, and second, preachers played an absolutely crucial role in the emerging pro-slavery argument.
EA: That’s really well put, Peter. I think the preachers make a real point of saying, hey, hey, hey, the pulpit is no place to talk about politics.
PO: Right.
EA: All that we say is that slavery has God’s divine sanction. Other than that, we have no political position at all to make.
PO: That’s all.
EA: That’s right. So, Southern preachers do not lead the South into secession but as Peter says, as soon as providence seems to dictate that that’s the way to go, the ministers are some of the most vocal advocates of the Confederacy.
PO: But, Ed, it’s my impression from historians who’ve written on this subject that in fact Southerners had ample ground in scriptural reference for the support of slavery and they might even have had the edge over their Northerner counterparts, at least if you’re looking for literal readings of the Bible and what it tells us.
EA:Well, that’s the crucial point, Peter. The literal historic injunctions, especially in the Old Testament do accept slavery as a reality. Increasingly, what happens in the North is that people look at the spirit of the New Testament instead. It said how can you possibly love someone as your brother and hold them in perpetual bondage so there’s plenty of energy in the Bible—
PO: Yeah, yeah.
EA: For both pro- and anti-slavery.
PO: No question, but what is also going on and what’s important for white Southerners is that they believe that they have been successful in a great missionary campaign to Christianize the quarters and it’s one of the reasons why they’re comfortable with slavery is that they have taken an instrumental role in spreading Christianity in the slave population so the idea that the slaves were an internal enemy or dangerous subversives who would rise up and revolt, that had been mitigated if not altogether eliminated for many Southerners because they thought of Christianity as a profound bond of union between black and white, even if they worshipped separately.
Caller (Blake): But would that be a true belief, do you think, or more or less just an apology for the burdens that they’d put on African American through slavery.
PO: Hey, Blake, what is a true belief?
Caller (Blake): [laughter]
PO: It’s a known unknown or unknown known. Do they believe it? I think absolutely. One of the things that we learn as historians is to take our subject seriously. They may be by our standards deluded and self-serving, but that Southerners believe they were good Christians, I believe that’s absolutely true.
EA: As a matter of fact, the South says we are in the process of creating the most Christian nation on the face of the earth, but your question, I think, Blake is right. It doesn’t take long for the end of the war for white Southerners to begin to worry, hmmm, were we fooling ourselves?
PO: Yeah.
EA: Yeah, do they really love us? [laughter] The fact that they’re moving away at the very first moment of freedom really is a confrontation with a kind of truth that the white South is really not ready to embrace.
BB: Hey, Blake, may I add an addendum to your good question?
Caller (Blake): Yes, please.
BB: Guys, I’d like to know— I do know, actually, that the church played such a crucial role in the lives of African Americans after the Civil War. Can you tell me something about religion and slaves during the Civil War?
EA: Well, one of the first thing that happens is the churches which had been the really only inter-racial space in the slave South begins separating. At the very first moment, African Americans seize the opportunity to have their own churches. You know, they’ve always gone off on their private worship ceremonies out in the woods or whatever, but in the Civil War itself, as things begin to fall apart, you find that black ministers step forward and begin leading the African American church, so you find that there’s a kind of freedom that comes maybe first in the religious realm and African Americans are quick to seize it.
PO: Well, Blake, thank you for calling “BackStory.”
Caller (Blake): Thank you very much
Rattled
PG was riding his bike one day, and found a trash pile. Being a certified member of the DeKalb Dumpster Divers, this was an opportunity. There was a collection of paperback books. The one on top had a comment on the cover… “Debra Galant does for the Mcmansions of New Jersey what Carl Hiassen did for the swamps of Florida.” You can even pronounce her last name.
Rattled is not a true story. You don’t go into court, without a lawyer, and get serious charges dismissed just by telling the truth. Especially not when the lies were told on national TV. But this is truthiness culture, where it doesn’t matter what really happened, as long as we are entertained. The spell check suggestions for truthiness are earthiness, mouthiness, and trashiness.
The acknowledgements page is usually skipped over. There are rumors of the CIA sending coded messages on this page. In Rattled, we find this on page vii: “Special thanks go to herpetologist Robert Zappalorti, who actually showed me a live timber rattlesnake and provoked it to rattle…”
Heather Peters is a tacky housewife. Her husband, Kevin, is a lawyer. He probably won’t make partner in his firm, at which point he can’t afford Heather. They are looking for a paradise in the woods, and think they found it. It is a monument to bad taste, in somewhere called Hebron Township, New Jersey. The book says this is Burlington County, and google says it is Essex County.
Two key characters are introduced early. Heather goes into the general store, where sushi has replaced fishing worms. Some old coot is sitting on a bench in front. Heather asks him for directions, and he spits tobacco juice at her. The designer footwear is not the only thing Harlan White misses.
As they are leaving the site of the new palace, some old hippie lady is leading a parade of animals across the route 381. Kevin is dreaming of a sexual reward for buying a big house, and almost runs over a duck. Clytemnestra is the favorite domestic animal of Agnes, who curses the SUV.
According to Google, NJ route 381 is between Princeton and New York City. This is the other end of the state from Burlington County. There is also Avenue New Jersey, 381, Complexo Industrial, Arujá – São Paulo, 07400-000, Brazil.
The fun starts when Harlan White is hired by Heather as a handyman. They are on the back patio when a timber rattler appears. Harlan knows snakes, and tries to get Heather to be calm. Of course, she screams bloody murder. The snake starts to rattle. Harlan throws a Ming Vase at the snake, and finishes it off with a croquet mallet.
The housing project, officially known as Galapagos Estates, was built in a wooded area that timber rattlers enjoy. The developer, Jack Barstad, got a crooked herpetologist to contribute to an enviornmental impact statement. The statement said there were no endangered species on the land. This is just one of the things Jack Barstad will have to answer for on judgement day, which might be shortly after his wife finds out about the multiple infidelities. The spell check suggestion for Barstad is Bastard. This anagram might be the origin of the name.
Agnes is a big shot at the Rolling Hills Nature Center. They have implanted tracking devices in the rattlesnakes. Agnes follows the beeping to the Peters house, and the party starts to swing. Before the night is over, both Kevin and Heather are in jail.
The fun continues for 243 pages. There are a few flaws. The girlfriend of Jack Barstad who goes to a wildlife society meeting, gets Harlan White in trouble, and disappears. Mr. Barstad hires a new companion, who plays a key role in the *climax* of the story.
PG is not an english teacher, just a slack blogger who enjoys a good story. Rattled was easy to read, and a lot of fun. The players may be cartoon characters, but they are familiar to observers of modern life. In the end, love, justice, and rehabilitation conquer all.
The book before this was Catch 22. It is praised as a classic, and does have it’s value. The problem is, sometimes the literary wonderfulness can be intimidating. PG just wants something to look at while he is eating at the pizza buffet.
Rattled,was good, dirty fun. It has a plot, and an assortment of characters. A few of the sex scenes are explicit enough to make D.H. Lawrence look like a wooden horse. It is mostly white, and any gay actors are invisibly in the closet.
Like the broadband bard said: Me? I’m a different kind of smart: I’m like an idiot savant… minus the savant part. . . Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This was written like Chuck Palahniuk.
The Tweet Goes On
Part of the fun of a free press is checking in on those you disagree with. When a man posts his twitterfeed on a blog, anyone can see what he thinks. When it is a Jesus worship blog, with a taste for drooling right wing politics, the tweet can’t be beat.
The big story is the movie, and the rioting among the faithful. In a logical world, this would be a problem for BHO. This is not a logical world. Both tweets discuss this matter. And so, here are the twoubbling tweets.
@BibChr Absolutely infuriating: bit.ly/PuARWF. If only it were parody… but these are the lofty watchdogs of liberty. (No offense, dogs)
@Frank_Turk @theanchoress: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Donated Million Dollars To Obama Campaign shar.es/uYtbh via @sharethis”
The first one links to a feature written by Mark Steyn. PG heard him on the radio once. Mr. Steyn said, referring to the war in Iraq, “They have their ribbons and banners ordered for the defeat celebration.” This was before the surge. Part of the surge strategy was for the press to declare victory. When this was said, the talking points included the term defeatocrat.
“If, like me, you’ve been wondering why the US media has all but totally failed to cover the real issues in the Benghazi murders and the embassy seizures, wonder no more. … (JOE SCARBOROUGH:) If Mitt Romney had kept his mouth shut, if he had not acted like a rank amateur, if he had not embarrassed himself–and by the way internally the campaign understands they screwed up, he’s moved on, they know that… But Romney got in the way of the media looking at the president, going, wha-, wha-, what happened here? How did this happen? Now, those questions are going to be asked in the coming weeks. But they weren’t asked in the first 24 hours because Romney was holding this horrific, irresponsible, press conference.”
Sometimes, it is tough to tell who is complaining about what. Since this is a wingnut, it is safe to assume he was whining about the media. That is what they do. When the message does not please you, you whine about the messenger.
The truth is, WMR should have muttered some platitudes about sympathy for the families. Instead, he said that a wretched movie is “American Values”. This did take attention away from questions about why the embassies are not secured better.
This seems to be a pattern with WMR. During the GOP convention, he was supposed to have a national audience for his speech. Instead, Clint Eastwood had a conversation with a empty chair. When you provide a lunatic sideshow, the main news item gets pushed aside.
Tweet number two has a great title: Anti-Islam Filmmaker Donated Million Dollars To Obama Campaign. When you go there, you note that it is Breitbart.tv. You start to hear an auto start video before long. Auto start may be the single most annoying thing on the internet.
When PG went to the link, the first thought was the *person* who created the video. The producer is a bit of a mysterious character, which should be fun for conspiracy fans. However, “Sam Bacile” was not the “Anti Islam Filmmaker”. (Spell check suggestion for Bacile: Bacilli)
“Bill Maher made a comedy/documentary called “Religulous” that’s most famous for mercilessly mocking Christianity. But what people forget is that the last twenty-minutes or so of the film make a damning case against Islam. Bill Maher made a film that mocked Islam. Oh, yes, he did. Bill Maher also contributed $1 million to a pro-Obama super PAC.”
Pictues today are from The Library of Congress.
Founding Babydaddies
People often try to justify their opinions by saying that the “founding fathers” agree with them. They often are guilty of selective use of history. A good place to start would be to define what we mean by the phrase founding fathers.
The FF word was not used before 1916. A senator from Ohio named Warren Harding used the phrase in the keynote address of the 1916 Republican convention. Mr. Harding was elected President in 1920, and is regarded as perhaps the most corrupt man to ever hold the office.
There are two groups of men who could be considered the founding fathers. (The fathers part is correct. Both groups are 100% white male.) The Continental Congress issued the Declaration of Independence, which cut the ties to England. Eleven years later, the Constitutional Convention wrote the Constitution that governs America today. While the Continental Congress was braver, the Constitution is the document that tells our government how to function. For the purposes of this feature, the men of the Constitutional Convention are the founding fathers.
Before moving on, we should remember eight men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and later attended the Constitutional Convention. Both documents were signed by George Clymer, Benjamin Franklin, Robert Morris, George Read, Roger Sherman, and James Wilson. George Wythe left the Convention without signing the new document. Elbridge Gerry (the namesake of gerrymandering) refused to sign the Constitution because it did not have a Bill of Rights.
The original topic of this discussion was about whether the founding fathers owned slaves. Many people wonder about this. If you go to google, and type in “did the founding fathers”, the first four answers are owned slaves, believed in G-d, have a death wish, and smoke weed.
The answer, to the obvious question, is an obvious answer. Yes, many of the founding fathers owned slaves. A name by name rundown of the 39 signatories of the Constitution was not done for this blogpost. There is this revealing comment at wiki answers about the prevalence of slave ownership. “John Adams, his second cousin Samuel Adams, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Paine were the only men who are traditionally known as founding fathers who did not own slaves.
Benjamin Franklin was indeed a founder of the Abolitionist Society, but he owned two slaves, named King and George. Franklin’s newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette routinely ran ads for sale or purchase of slaves.
Patrick Henry is another founding father who owned slaves, although his speeches would make one think otherwise. Despite his “Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death” speech, he had up to 70 slaves at a time. He did apologize from time to time. He knew it was wrong, he was accountable to his God, and bemoaned the “general inconvenience of living without them.”
Patrick Henry was a star of the Revolution, but not present at the Constitutional Convention. The author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, was in Europe during the convention. Mr. Jefferson not only owned slaves, he took one to be his mistress, and kidsmama.
One of the more controversial features of the Constitution is the 3/5 rule. Here are the original words “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective Numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole Number of free Persons, including those bound to Service for a Term of Years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three fifths of all other Persons.” In other words, a slave was only considered to be 60% of a person.
That seems rather harsh. The truth is, it was a compromise. The agricultural southern states did not want to give up their slaves. The northern states did not want to give up Congressional representation. This was the first of many compromises made about slavery, ending with the War between the States. This webpage goes into more detail about the nature of slavery.
The research for this feature turned up a rather cynical document called The myth of the “Founding Fathers” . It is written by Adolph Nixon. He asks : “most rational persons realize that such political mythology is sheer nonsense, but it begs the question, who were the Founding Fathers and what makes them so great that they’re wiser than you are?”
Mr. Nixon reviews the 39 white men who signed the Constitution. He does not follow the rule, if you can’t say anything nice about someone, then don’t say anything at all. Of the 39, 12 were specified as slave owners, with many tagged as “slave breeders”.
The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, have served America well. However it was intended, it was written so that it could be amended, and to grow with the young republic. It has on occasion been ignored (when was the last time Congress declared war?). However fine a document it is, it was created by men. These were men of their time, who could not have foreseen the changes that America has gone through. Those who talk the most about the founding fathers know the least about them.
A big thank you goes to wikipedia This is a repost.
This Green Thing
There is an amusing monolog on the innertubes these days. It is a grumpy old person talking about the old days. It starts out like this:
Checking out at the store, the young cashier suggested to the older woman, that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment. The woman apologized and explained, “We didn’t have this green thing back in my earlier days.” The young clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment for future generations.”
Plastic bags ARE bad for the earth. There is a spot in the Pacific Ocean where non degradable junk collects. This saltwater trashpile is the size of the Atlantic Coast Conference, and, like the ACC, gets bigger all the time. It dribbles and shoots year round.
In a perfect world, people might bring their own bags, and those bags would be made of environmentally friendly materials. However, a lot of us are not that organized. A lot of those tote bags are made of materials that degrade the environment. And then there is the paper versus plastic dilemma. Yes, paper is a renewable resource, and is buddies with that part of the environment that is not downwind from a paper mill. The problem is that paper bags weigh a lot more than plastic bags. When you ship these bags from the factory to the store, you use more fuel to ship the paper bags.
Getting back to the battle of the generations, PG finds himself caught in the middle. He remembers black and white television, jim crow, and cigarettes smoked everywhere. There are a few things things the oldtimers seem to forget. It wasn’t that long ago that PG was a kid, and hearing people say they feel sorry for your generation. Now, PG is the old fogie, and can see the points made by both the old lady and the young clerk.
The first earth day was in 1970. The concern over the ecology was something that hippies did when the war in Vietnam started to wind down. A lot of these people … i.e. the ones who cared about the earth … are the old generation that the young clerk is fussing about.
“Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana. In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us. When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used wadded up old newspapers to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.”
In the fifties, gas powered lawn mowers were everywhere. Electric mixers were in a lot of kitchens. Just how old is this lady?
Black and white TV was not all that great. There were frequent breaks in the transmission due to technical problems. The sets had something called fine tuning. If that knob went a cat’s hair too far to the right, the picture tube would have a bunch of bars, followed by the picture, followed by a bunch of bars, followed by the picture. This kinetic parade would roll down the viewing area, until someone walked over to the tv and moved the fine tuning a cat’s hair to the left.
Meanwhile, someone in the living room was either lighting, smoking, or putting out a cigarette. Back in those days, people smoked whenever and whereever they wanted to. The idea of second hand smoke had not been invented. Even if it had, few would have cared. There were reports about lung cancer, but they were laughed off.
The lady in the photograph is white. This probably helps her memories of how good the old days were. In the pre civil rights era, people that were not white did not have it so good.
Here again, PG finds himself in the middle. In the early sixties, PG was horrified by the anti-black racism in Georgia. If you said that maybe negroes are not all that bad, you would hear about it for the next hour. These days, if PG does not vigorously condemn the racial attitudes of certain people, he considered racist. Sometimes you just can’t win. Bullies will be bullies.
It is easy to make fun of political correctness. Sometimes people get carried away, and forget to look in the mirror. The thing is, all people are G-d’s children. Sometimes, what you thoughtlessly say can hurt someone. Which generation gets the credit, and the debit, for caring about their neighbors?
In a sense, the fifties were the test tube generation. Nuclear bombs were tested in the desert, with little regard for the radiation. Powerful drugs were coming on the market, and doctors were eager to prescribe them. The side effects became known later, after the damage was done. The gas guzzling cars spewed poison into the air, and no one cared. Maybe it was because the drivers were bombed. Drunk driving was not seen as a problem.
To be fair, many of the old ladies points are valid. The same is true of the young clerk. One day, if she is lucky, the young clerk will be the old lady.
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