Dreadlocks And Mohawks
There is a tasteful feature on the innertubes now, A Few Good Reasons Why White People Should Not Wear “Mohawks” or Dreadlocks. Yes, this is another polemic about cultural appropriation. If you want to skip the text, and look at the pictures, no one will get mad. Or get even. If you read the text, you might get odd. It is your choice.
The gist of the tract is “When white people wear “Mohawks” or dreadlocks it twists those hairstyles into symbols of privilege rather than symbols of survival and resistance.” Little is known about why the Natives of Upstate New York wore their hair the way they did. Isn’t calling this hair choice “symbols of survival and resistance” playing into the game of misunderstanding non European cultures?
The tract is not well written. Maybe the author feels like using good grammar is appropriating someone else’s culture.
There is one part of the tract that had PG shaking his buzz cut head. This is a free country. Can’t I do whatever I want? This country has never been free for people of color/non-white people. Certainly, you can choose wear your hair however you want. Historically, however, people of color have not been able to make that choice. This is not why the Bronner Brothers are multi millionaires. Black Americans spend more on hair care products than the gross national product of many African countries.
Both mohawks and dreadlocks are high maintenance affairs. After his struggles with shoulder length redneck curls, PG is not about to shave the sides of a beaver tail every day. And dreadlocks have always seemed to be just a bit on the dirty side. The rastas are welcome to wear dreadlocks, as long as they pass the spliff.
One thing PG has wondered was answered as a result of this polemic. Did the Mohawk tribe really wear their hair that way? When you type “Did the Mohawk… ” into google, the rest of the phrase to pop up is “Did the Mohawk Indians have mohawks?” Someone else has wondered the same thing. Wikipedia has more information.
The mohawk (also referred to as a mohican in British English) is a hairstyle in which, in the most common variety, both sides of the head are shaven, leaving a strip of noticeably longer hair in the center. Though mohawk is associated mostly with punk rock subculture, today it has entered mainstream fashion. The mohawk is also sometimes referred to as an iro in reference to the Iroquois, from whom the hairstyle is derived – though historically the hair was plucked out rather than shaved. … The Mohawk and the rest of the Iroquois confederacy (Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Tuscarora and Oneida) in fact wore a square of hair on the back of the crown of the head. The Mohawk did not shave their heads when creating this square of hair, but rather pulled the hair out, small tufts at a time. … Therefore a true hairstyle of the Mohawks was one of plucked-out hair, leaving a three-inch square of hair on the back crown of the head with three short braids of hair decorated.
They didn’t shave the sides of the head, they plucked the hair out. That does eliminate the need to shave the sides of your head every day. This is not the way the fashion conscious hair people do the modern mohawk. The question arises if this non authentic hairstyle is really cultural appropriation.
Wikipedia goes on to add that this do might not be an Iroquois invention. “The hairstyle has been in existence in many parts of the world for millennia. For instance, the Clonycavan Man, a 2000-year-old male bog body discovered near Dublin in 2003, was found to be wearing a mohawk styled with plant oil and pine resin. Artwork discovered at the Pazyryk burials dating back to 600 BCE depicts Scythian warriors sporting similar mohawks. The body of a warrior occupying one of the kurgans had been scalped earlier in life and wore a hair prosthesis in the form of a mohawk. Herodotus claimed that the Macai, a northern Libyan tribe, “shave their hair so as to leave tufts, letting the middle of their hair grow long, but round this on all sides shaving it close to the skin.” Amongst the Pawnee people, who historically lived along in present-day Nebraska and Kansas, a “mohawk” hair style was common.”
Part of the polemic took a question and answer format. “But, I wear my hair this way as a statement against oppressive cultures and governments. How is that racist?” “You can take a stand against oppression and dominant cultures without appropriating the cultures of the people being hurt by them. Appropriation actually enforces oppression, it does not stand against it. Appropriation is part of the problem, not part of the solution”
To paraphrase this, you can be anti racist without proudly avoiding high maintenance hairdoos. Especially one that bears little resemblance to the actual article.
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library.” This was written like James Fenimore Cooper.
Writer’s Tackle
A facebook friend was fixing to break down and get a cell phone. Sometimes it seems like you are the last holdout, but there are plenty of folks without. There are still people renting a land line from the phone company, and that has been over for thirty plus years.
PG is still a smart phone holdout. He is happy with his stupid, twelve button device. When you can prepay for a smart phone by the month, then maybe it will happen. Until then, PG is a neo luddite.
For the sake of recycling text on a day with writers tackle, here is the reply: I am a tracfone fan. I got one at a yard sale, but they are cheap enough to buy new. I buy the time card at a store. The time lasts for three months, and then you get more. You don’t need that many minutes if it is just for emergency use. I might pay five dollars a month for my cell phone. If you are going to keep it, you can buy a card which gives you double minutes as long as you have a tracfone. For twenty dollars, this is a good investment. For people that never know what to get you for christmas, a time card is a great present. ~~~
The outdoor office thing is moving along. There were some paving stones in the back, which have been fashioned into a walkway to the office entrance. The good news/bad news is a hurricane going ashore south of here. This is supposed to bring a bunch of rain to Georgia. When you have a shaky source of drinking water, rain is always appreciated. Using the outdoor office can wait.
The other option was the front porch. After looking high and low through the house, PG was about to give up, until he looked in one more spot and found his mother’s old sewing table. It is now is use on the front parch, and the wifi reception is *good*. Wifi may trump feng shui after all.~~~
Which is the best phrase, writer’s block or writers tackle” The traditional saying is writer’s block, meaning that you are blocked from thinking of anything to say. However, if you take the football paradigm, then it has a different look. A tackle is something that stops you. A block is what prevents a tackler from stopping you. In that case, a block would be something that sets you free to get a first down, and a tackle stops you behind the line of scrimmage. ~~~
There is a dandy website, Musings On Iraq. The offering today is How Operation Desert Fox Finished Off Iraq’s WMD Programs.
ODF was a four day bombing procedure in December 1998. It was probably motivated, at least in part, by the desire of Bill Clinton to divert attention from the impeachment proceedings. Apparently, it did a lot of damage to the WMD program in Iraq, or what was left of it.
Operation Desert Fox was widely derided for years, but turned out to have a far larger impact upon Iraq than most critics believed. Only lasting four days, many analysts doubted that it could have much affect upon Saddam Hussein. After all, he was still in power, and many thought that with inspectors no longer in the country, Iraq would restart its weapons programs. As it turned out, Iraq had destroyed most of its WMD stockpiles, and was largely trying to hide the extent of its programs from the outside world by 1998. Desert Fox convinced the regime that the U.S. was intent on maintaining sanctions to contain the government, and there was no way for it to rebuild its WMD effort as a result. Those operations ended, with only some small-scale work on toxins for assassinations left. This was not known until after 2003 however when Saddam was overthrown, and outside experts were able to go through all of Iraq’s documents, and interview its personnel. Even though Desert Fox was very limited in scope, it came at just the right time in the history of the Saddam regime to put an end to its weapons of mass destruction.
In 1998, Saddam Hussein was playing both ends against the middle. He wanted Iran to think that there were WMD, and for the rest of the world to think otherwise. This strategy played into the hands of those who wanted to invade Iraq.
The truth is that WMD were the excuse for the war, not the reason. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was quoted as saying “The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy, we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.” When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, there was no search for issues to satisfy U.S. government bureaucracy.
Today, the talk is of an attack on Iran, to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon. The situation with the Palestinians is the need for distraction. What does Operation Desert Fox say about the wisdom of an attack on Iran? “General Anthony Zinni (commander of Desert Fox) was much more positive about the campaign he had just commanded. The General knew that any military strike could only have limited impact upon the WMD program. Since some precursors, agents, and weapons could be made in small rooms, there was no way to eliminate those elements.”
“Is”
PG stumbled onto over a tweet while waiting for a phone call. He knew that nothing good would come of this, but took the plunge anyway. The tweet was: @tejucole Want to be depressed by humanity? In the Google search box, type “is,” followed by a space bar.
When you type a phrase into google, four suggested searches appear. For “is”, the suggested searches are is lil wayne gay, is anderson cooper gay, is john travolta gay, is frank ocean gay. There are “About 25,270,000,000 results (0.18 seconds.) Yes, that is trillions, like the national debt.
The top result at google is typically paid for. For “is”, the top spot belongs to is.gd. “Shortening 675,999,170 URLs, That have been accessed 33,400,546,003 times. is.gd is an ethical URL shortener supported by MEMSET.®”
.gd does not stand for G-d damn, but represents the internet the domain for Grenada. This was the site of an American military intervention in 1983. Operation Urgent Fury was the war Ronald Reagan won. For all his love of recreational saber rattling, Nancy’s husband was not so foolish to start anything he could not finish.
The second result typically goes to wikipedia. “Is” powers a number of abbreviations, and at least two towns: “Is or Hit, an Iraqi town on the Euphrates River,” and “Is or Ys (also Ker-Ys or Ville d’Issy), a mythical city in the 5th-century Britain in France.”
Dictionary.com features a header ad for, ho ho ho, Green Giant frozen vegetables. The google teaser says “3rd person singular present indicative of be. Relevant Questions. Is Santa Claus Real? Is Miley Cyrus Pregnant? Definition of Is? Is Ciara a Man? Idiom. 2. as is.”
To those of a certain age, discussions of “is” bring us back to Bill Clinton. 1998 was a simpler, gentler time. There were no American wars, except for a few distraction bombings of Iraq. The economy was in good shape. The only thing for the media to worry about was the sexual activity in the oval office. Bill Clinton and the Meaning of “Is”, was written September 13, 1998, three years before 911.
Years from now, when we look back on Bill Clinton’s presidency, its defining moment may well be Clinton’s rationalization to the grand jury about why he wasn’t lying when he said to his top aides that with respect to Monica Lewinsky, “there’s nothing going on between us.” How can this be? Here’s what Clinton told the grand jury (according to footnote 1,128 in Starr’s report): “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is. If the–if he–if ‘is’ means is and never has been, that is not–that is one thing. If it means there is none, that was a completely true statement….Now, if someone had asked me on that day, are you having any kind of sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky, that is, asked me a question in the present tense, I would have said no. And it would have been completely true.”
The distinction between “is” and “was” was seized on by the commentariat when Clinton told Jim Lehrer of PBS right after the Lewinsky story broke, “There is no improper relationship.” Chatterbox confesses that at the time he thought all these beltway domes were hyperanalyzing, and in need of a little fresh air. But it turns out they were right: Bill Clinton really is a guy who’s willing to think carefully about “what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” This is way beyond slick. Perhaps we should start calling him, “Existential Willie.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Cory Doctorow. writes like this.
The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/pca2S-6cP. The ethics of this link are not known.
Shade Festival
It was almost two pm, on the last sunday before labor day. This is the sunday of the shade festival in Grant Park. It is also the time to go see the living walls . To pass the time before leaving, PG was twisting through the tweets of Teju Cole. He saw a double feature. It had trouble written all over it.
@tejucole 1. None of your business. 2. None of your business. 3. None of your business.
4. No. 5. None of your business.
@tejucole Want to be depressed by humanity? In Google search box, type “is,” followed by a space bar.
Sure enough, PG opened a new tab, and typed “is” in the google spot. Instead of hitting the space bar, he hit enter, which may or may not affect the results. Just as he was about to sink into the nerdosphere, the phone rang. It was Uzi, saying that he would be over in a few minutes. This limits the time that PG can devote to this hopeless endeavor. When he gets back this evening, there will probably be something else to occupy his attention.
Teju Cole is known for telling little stories in 140 characters. They are like a Chinese drawing, where the blank spaces are an opportunity for your imagination to take over. Even if the riders were to show up in the next minute, these little stories will be waiting.
@tejucole Going up Monte Salvatore in the Swiss Alps, C. M. Chandler, of New York, did not put a foot wrong, but coming down, he did.
@tejucole Hilarious lads in Williamsburg placed bullets on the tracks. A train set them off and Browhall, real estate agent, was shot in the leg.
@tejucole Unable to pay for his mother’s funeral, Zindel, 17, of Broome Street, had to rob a grocery store. Bullshit. His mother is alive and well.
@tejucole Miss Curran, newly arrived from Ireland, is the fourth fatality in as many years at Room 21 of the Broadway Raines Hotel. Hoodoo?
@tejucole Earth must look peaceful from space. In Chicago, Mr Brand underestimated his wife and got a black eye, a torn ear, and two missing teeth.
@tejucole Deaf-mute Max Katz crossed Canal Street. Peddler Selig Katz (no relation) hurried down the Bowery. “Look where you’re going!” Blows ensued.
@tejucole Alas, Mrs Mary Thomas, of Pittsburgh, neglected to remove her false teeth last night and did not live till morning.
@tejucole Nobody’s perfect. The artiste on East 22nd Street who shoots at high heels from a distance got Rebecca Sussman in the foot.
@tejucole In addition to heading a 4th Avenue firm, Rosa Zindel also wrote fiction: $5,795 in fake checks, to be exact. She was arrested for forgery.
Before PG ran out of tweets, Uzi arrived, along with his nephew Hazmatt. The trip down Clairmont Road, into, town began. The plan was to see a few of the walls, and then go to the festival.
The first wall was an underpass, and it was not worth stopping for. The second was on Hosea L. Williams Boulevard, in Kirkwood. Last year, this location took a bit of looking, but this time it popped right up. It was a black and white drawing, and looked like the artist had a good time painting it.
The next stop was painfully trendy East Atlanta. There were two walls on Flat Shoals, but PG was not sure where to turn. He found a risky place to park, and walked over to where the murals should have been. One was on the side of a nightclub that had changed names at least twice recently. There was a parking lot between two buildings, with a padlocked gate blocking the entrance. The murals were inside, on facing sides of the two buildings. PG took pictures between the barbed wire.
A picture of George W. Bush with a Barack Obama mask led PG to tell a story. Once, PG was in a group of people taking phone calls during a public television fundraiser. Once, when the cameras were rolling. PG held a picture of Ronald Reagan in front of his face. Some people were horrified. The fundraising was not affected.
The next stop was Grant Park. Parking karma was with PG, who found a place a block off Boulevard. The portopotties had been moved, and were next to the entrance. (The spell check suggestion for portopotties: opportunities) This was a welcome sight for all three travelers.
The shade festival is the last summer festival in Atlanta, and usually comes at a time when people are tired of festivals. It has fairly light attendance, which may account for the parking karma. The festival crowd was a diverse bunch, with everybody friendly and enjoying the afternoon.
PG walked a few steps behind Uzi and Hazmatt. Even before PG tore up his knee, he was a slow walker. The lesson today was that lots of food venders were giving samples, and the slower you walk, the more samples you get.
There were no funnel cake samples given away. The funnel cake truck had bright new banners to welcome the cake funnelers. PG remembered something he read earlier this week… the guy working in the funnel cake truck has never cooked anything before except meth.
After a while, PG decided that the photographic theme of the day was going to be fat women. This was a racially diverse observation.
On the way back north, PG found the Krog Street tunnel. (The spell check suggestions for Krog: Grog, Frog, Grok, Kroger) The plan was to hit a few murals on the way home, but the only one they found was on Irwin Street, and it was not that special. There is always next sunday.
Going into the Piccadilly on North Druid Hills, PG thought of an incident there, but decided not to mention it. Uzi read PG’s mind, and felt obligated to talk about it out loud. Once, PG and Uzi went into the men’s room at this facility. A serving line employee was in there, in the finishing stages of taking a dump. He went back to work without washing his hands.
The Life After Death Post
This post has been in the works for a long time. It is about life after death. This is a big deal to Jesus worshipers. It is fair to say that the entire religion has devolved into a scheme for life after death. Either you agree, and go to heaven, or disagree, and go to hell. PG has thought long and hard about this, and has a few thoughts.
One problem with this concept is human nature. When you have a religion based on broadcasting a message, some of the believers go overboard. Some will let their pride get in the way. They enjoy the power that seems to come with spreading this message. When a person hears this “good news,” shouted by people who are bad news, then it is natural to doubt the message.
A facebook friend supplied this quote “More people have been brought into the church by the kindness of real Christian love than by all the theological arguments in the world, and more people have been driven from the church by the hardness and ugliness of so-called Christianity than by all the doubts in the world. ” The $64 question becomes: Do people who have been repelled from Jesus go to hell?
There is also the matter of people who simply do not agree with the scheme for life after death. Of all the standards to use, why would G-d use the doctrine of one branch, of one religion? Does G-d even exist? Are the billions of people who never even heard of Jesus destined for hell? Many good people ask a lot of good questions. They are not happy with the answers, no matter how much others may believe.
PG was raised in the Southern Baptist tradition. For various reasons, he resisted the pressure put on children to “make a profession of faith”, and be baptised. When he was 17, he quit going to church. In 1979, there was a week in a Moonie camp in California. There have been many books read, a bit of thinking and talking, and a few odd meetings attended. There were 7 years working closely with an abusive professional Jesus worshiper. After a while, PG got tired of worrying about it all, and just wanted to enjoy the time he has on this planet.
Which brings us to today’s post. In no particular order, here is the product.
1- G-d does not write books. The Bible was compiled by the Council of Nicea from a variety of texts. These texts were written in a multitude of languages, and copied by hand. It is possible that the scribes copying them made mistakes. It is possible that errors in translation were made. It is probable that texts were not included in the Bible, for various reasons. The Bible is the product of man’s labor, with possible inspiration by G-d.
The first commandment says Thou shalt have no other gods before me. When you call the Bible the word of G-d, you are, in effect, making a G-d out of a book. When you violate this common sense commandment, you are going to have problems.
2- The first commandment… Thou shalt have no other gods before me. .. does not make an exception for the so called son of G-d.
3- Jesus was killed because he was a trouble maker. His death, and reputed resurrection, have nothing to do with what happens when you die.
4- What happens to people after they die is none of your business. Living people should be concerned with life, and not worry about what will happen when you die.
5- You should have faith in G-d to take care of you when you die. Period. Don’t scream about Jesus. Don’t kill the infidel. Don’t worry about your soul. G-d took care of you before you were born, and she will take care of you after you die.
6- What you say does not become more true the louder you say it. The way you say something is more important than the words you say. It is more important to show kindness to your neighbor, than to scream the so called truth.
7- The decision to end a life is G-d’s job. You are better off when you let her make this call. This applies to war, abortion, captal punishment, and euthanasia, and other forms of humans ending life.
8- G-d should be enjoyed. G-d should bring nourishment to life. G-d should NOT be fought or argued over. The third commandment…Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain. … is another common sense rule that is shamelessly violated by those who claim to be “saved”. When you forget this rule, you cause trouble.
9- When copying some commandments for use in this post, PG found this. 23 Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold. PG has heard about the ten commandments all his life, and yet has never heard this line. It is just 6 verses after the tenth commandment, which is about coveting. The tenth commandment is obsolete in this era of wealthy churches.
10- Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. These men were Union soldiers in the War Between the States. This was written like Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe This is a repost.
One Million Moms Versus Skittles
It has been a bad year for Skittles . First, a young man, armed with a package of Skittles, was killed by a neighborhood watch dude. Now, One Million Moms is calling for a boycott.
It seems like there is a commercial that OMM and Catholic Vote don’t like. Arguably, anyone with an I.Q.over room temperature doesn’t like the ad either.
It opens with a young lady making out with someone in a walrus suit. Another young lady comes in the room. The first young lady looks up, and says “This isn’t what it looks like” “Good, because it looks like you’re making out with my boyfriend” “No this isn’t Bobby, he just looks like Bobby.” Somebody has very, very strange taste in boyfriends.
This is where the sales pitch comes in. The young lady is feeding Skittles to the walrus suit. The candy has a new style out, where the color on the outside is different from the flavor on the inside. They get back to smooching, and the logo comes on the screen.
When you see this on youtube, there is a footer ad, and a sidebar ad, for a Christian dating service, Christian Mingle. It is not known if the actor playing the walrus is saved.
Catholic Vote denouces the ad, in no uncertain terms, with a hardhitting expose, No Ragu or Skittles for me — Two horrendous new commercials. “And Skittles? Who would want to taste the Rainbow (interesting logo choice), if it involves kissing animals? Can’t imagine more corporations are going to jump on the bestiality bandwagon…”
The CV comments are fun. Tim I believe commercials are on to get people to buy the product.Talking about how stupid the commercials are.Does not help the marketing firms.when you don`t buy the product. Joshua Mercer So you think readers of CatholicVote will be more willing to buy Ragu and Skittles because of what I wrote? A peculiar allegation.
One Million Moms is a division of American Family Association. It is highly unlikely that there are a million members. Some of the other actions include: Oreo – No Longer Favorite Cookie Send your email letter to Oreo (Kraft Foods) now! Ask that they remain neutral in the culture war versus promoting the homosexual agenda. DC Comics and Marvel Gay Superheroes Please send DC Comics (Warner Bros. Entertainment Company) and Marvel (Disney) an email urging them to change and cancel all plans of homosexual superhero characters immediately. Ask them to do the right thing and reverse their decision to have sexual orientation displayed to readers. Mattel Considering Kardashian Barbie Urge Mattel to reverse their decision to partner with the Kardashian brand by sending them an email now.
HT to Dangerous Minds. Pictures are by The Library of Congress.
Bless His Heart
Willard Mitt Romney has gone too far this time. The American Thinker tells the story.
“Speaking at LeClaire Manufacturing in Bettendorf, Iowa yesterday, Governor Romney delivered the ultimate Southernese insult to his opponent. (Video link here.) “It is free men and women that drive our economy. Freedom is what makes America work. And President Obama, bless his heart, has tried to substitute government for free people-and it has not worked, and it will never work.”
American Thinker is impressed by the use of BHH by WMR. It is probably written by a clueless yankee. Which is what WMR is, in addition to being an amoral chameleon. For a yankee politician to say bless his heart is simply not appropriate.
The sad truth is that so many southerners despise BHO that it will get little attention. This election is going to be dirty, dirty, dirty. When it comes to gutter politics, there is nothing like a republican. WMR has shown that he will say absolutely anything to get elected. Still, if you are going to use an unfamiliar phrase, you should do it properly.
Bless his heart is derived from bless her heart. It is a genteel expression. The proper use is to refer to the target, say BHH, and then make an unflattering comment about this person. This is best done in a civilized conversation. An example would be “Aunt Martha, bless her heart, thinks she is losing weight, but is still big as a cow”. The spoken commas are important.
By contrast, WMR was making an arm waving stump speech. He spit out the words as though they were rotten meat. This is how a yankee politician uses a genteel southern expression.
Southerners are used to it. It is like people who use y’all in the singular form. As any southerner knows, y’all is the only acceptable second person plural in the english language. It is superior to youse guys, or whatever abomination they employ in New Jersey.
Since he was in Iowa, it is unlikely that WMR had the southern vote in mind when he made that speech. Indeed, the south is solidly red state, as well as red neck. WMR is assured of the electoral votes in Georgia. The electoral college has stolen the vote from the people of Georgia again.
Politicians have been pandering to voters since the photo op was invented. If poorly done, it can have a devastating effect. Here is one story.
A story from McGovern’s campaign for presidency: in an effort to attract Jewish vote in a part of NY city with a large percentage of observant Jews among the “registered voters”, he apparently went to a kosher eatery where, in presence of a crowd of regular patrons, reporters & photographers (don’t know whether there were TV cameras or not) he asked for a “kosher hot-dog and a glass of milk”. His handlers probably told him that observant Jews eat kosher meat; I am sure that he was hoping to impress the target audience with his “wholesome” habits. Unfortunately, little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
This was a comment to another story. “I’m sort of staring at the meat display, lots of salamis and sausages, and then various hams. And the hams’ price signs have all been tagged with festive PERFECT FOR CHANUKAH banners.”
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
I Don’t Give A Reservoir
99% Invisible has a dandy featurette about the Hoover Dam. According to this show, men went there looking for work in the depression. People used to working in New York offices did not do well in the desert, and man of them died.
There is a monument to the dam at the site. It is something to do with the alignment of the stars, at the moment that Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the dam. There is some kind of synchronicity, or maybe simultanaeity, with the alignment of stars when the big star in the sky led the wise men to the manger with the baby Jesus.
No one knows why people always used the middle name when talking about Mr. Roosevelt. Even fewer people know that Herbert Hoover’s middle name was Clark, or that the S. in Harry S. Truman did not stand for anything. Presidential middle names did not become a big deal until John Fitzgerald Kennedy, or JFK, was the POTUS. It is suspected that this was a subtle dig at his Irish background. Today, wingnuts gleefully remind everyone of Barack Hussein Obama.
Getting back to Hoover Dam, it is a big piece of work. They had pipes running through the interior of the dam, with cool water running through them. The water helped the concrete to cool and dry. The mass of concrete was that big. If those cooling pipes had not been installed, there would be wet concrete inside the dam today.
Has anyone ever wondered why Dam, as in reservoir, sounds the same as a popular cussword? They are spelled different, with G-d’s last name sporting a silent n. According to Dictionary.com, dam, with no n, is derived thusly: 1275–1325; Middle English < Middle Dutch, Middle Low German, dam; akin to Old English for-demman to stop up, block. For the cussword : 1250–1300; Middle English dam ( p ) nen < Old French dam ( p ) ner < Latin damnāre to condemn, derivative of damnum damage, fine, harm
The concrete facility is either a noun or a verb. It blocks the flow of water, which can create a lake, provide drinking water, or destroy the value of land under the lake. The cussword is versatile, serving as a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. It is said to be a gift. PG wonders whether you should gift wrap a damn if you give one. Rhett Butler would not know.
Dam or Damn: A Grammar Lesson is a blog post about the damm dam dilemma. There is an interesting comment. “Dam” is correct if you’re using phrases such as “I couldn’t give a dam.” A “dam” is an Indian coin of very little value. Although, ever since it’s infamous misuse in Gone With the Wind (“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn”), “damn” has entered common usage (particularly in the USA).”
Pictures are from The Library of Congress. This was written like H. P. Lovecraft.
99% Invisible is supported by donations, and always wants more.
Mack The Knife Is Going To Take It
The second day of the backyard office project is a work in progress. The afternoon session was not as groovy as the first time. The bugs are hungrier, and the wi fi connection went out a couple of times. The front porch has a roof and concrete floor, and is closer to the router. While the ambiance of working in the back yard is greater, wifi reception may prove to be the deciding factor.
There is a story at the Daily Beast this morning, The Long, Strange U-Turn of Twisted Sister’s ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It’. It seems that Dee Snider’s makeup went gooey over VPOTUS wannabe Paul Ryan using the Twisted Sister song, “We’re not going to take it”.
A public statement was made: “I emphatically denounce Paul Ryan’s use of my band Twisted Sister’s song, ‘We’re Not Gonna Take It,’ in any capacity.There is almost nothing he stands for that I agree with—except the use of P90X.” Mr. Ryan’s string pullers knew they were whipped, and issued their own statement: “We’re not gonna play it anymore.”
The smart people in wingnut land are busy this week, trying to pull Todd Akin’s foot out of his mouth. Questions about why legitimate rape is any sillier a concept than just war have gone unanswered.
WNGTI has a twisted history. When it *came out*, it was so revolutionary that Tipper Gore denounced it in the Senate. Soon, it began to be the background sound in commercials. The Daily Beast notes: “No ad, however, rivals the most bizarre commercial to use the song: A 2007 spot for Yaz birth control. A perky chorus of women sings about how they’re not going to take the uncomfortable symptoms of old birth-control pills, and are opting for Yaz instead. “ There is no word on whether Catholic employee insurance would pay for Yaz.
Politicians have long used rocknroll to fire up crowds. When Bill Clinton spoke at the CNN center in 1992, the song was “Twist and Shout”. If the walls of the oval office could sing, that would be their song.
In 2010, Karen Handel paid $93,000 to facilitate an appearance by Sarah Palin. The theme music for that event was “We’re not going to take it.” After the speeches, the song was played over, and over, and over. A week later, Ms. Handel lost the runoff.
Dee Snider is not the rebel he used to be. The video embedded here shows thinning hair, and much less makeup. His tweets show that he is not totally gone establishment. @deesnider Did I mention how great it is to see my grandkids again? We miss @tweetjesse and his family so much! #heavymetalgrandpa @deesnider In West Hollywood in search of perfect leather officers cap for outfit on #HollistonTV. Cool reception at gay leather shop. #whatamiwood?
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
This was written like William Gibson.
Keeping A Box Score On Hypocrisy
PG had set up an outdoor office. He ignored the insulting chatter of the birds, and set about writing something. But, first things first, he had to go inside and get more coffee.
The new space was a glorious concept. It took time to put together. There is a stone circle in the back yard, It has a five foot radius in the middle. The walls are about twenty four inches high, and are piled three to four deep with all types of stone. This was a project that PG built seven years ago, with a patina of magnolia leaves that will never be fully cleared. It was nice to look at, but useless.
There was an outdoor table thrown away on Dresden Drive. It was a good height to work on, and had a 24″ circular top. There was a layer of salmon colored tiles, set in mortar, on the top. The table had been left outside for too long, and showed it. Many of the tiles are missing. The underside of the top has layers of rust that flake off when you touch it. It was almost perfect.
The laptop revolution had taken it’s time to get to Parkridge Drive. One thing PG has not adjusted to is the keyboard on the number two machine. It just is not any good. Fortunately, there was an old keyboard that could be recycled. It was a 2000 model compaq, with a row of useless buttons on top. Those buttons add a couple of inches to the width, and when you try to fit everything you need on a 24″ circle, those two inches hurt. (That’s what someone said last night.)
It is all going to work. The plug in mouse is a trackball, and does not need much room. The new office is set in the middle of the stone circle, and the feng shui is so groovy it hurts. It is time to write.
The text in part two is a repost. It is about football. PG is not afraid to talk about religion, but it is best to do so before the fervor reaches the peak of tribal frenzy. This is why the post about the downside of football is posted in August. The official season has not started, much less the January playoff frenzy. If you said during Super Bowl week that season tickets require the ritual sacrifice of your firstborn daughter, Pittsburgh fans would consider that a fair bargain.
The post below is about the physical cost of football. There are statistics about emergency room visits and knee injuries. This cost is horrific, and would not be tolerated in almost any other activity.
There is another cost to football. This is the palatial stadiums that the NFL pressures teams into building. At this time, there is a new stadium going up in California. It will be used about a dozen times a year for the forty niners. The cost of this new facility is enormous. To help pay for it, season ticket fans will have to buy something called a personal seat license. This is a document that they need to buy season tickets. This license will cost eighty thousand dollars. When PG googled the phrase Personal Seat License, one of the options was Personal Seat License Tax Deduction. What a wonderful world.
Out of fairness for billionaires, PG decided to check out the Niner PSL price. Only *one percent* of the seats will cost $80k. “This week , the team began to charge between $20,000 and $30,000 for a Stadium Builders License (SBL) for a Club seat. A fan will then have to pay between $325 and $375 per ticket per game. SBLs are akin to the Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) used by many teams.”
This goes on everywhere. In Atlanta, where the Falcons have won five less Super Bowls than the Niners, there is talk about building a new stadium. The Georgia Dome is only twenty years old. To get it built, the birds threatened to move to Jacksonville. A new hotel motel tax was installed, despite the Georgia governor running on a campaign promise of no new taxes. The local sewers continue to deteriorate, the roads and trains are falling apart, the schools produce junkies and Jesusmongers, and yet these people have the gall to demand a new stadium for a team that could not get into the second round of the playoffs if Rankin Blank’s bankbook depended on it.
The NFL is not the only guilty party. College football tears up young bodies too. These young men are supposed to be amateurs, while the schools rake in the bucks. They get drug tested so they can go on TV and sell beer. As the late Furman Bisher said, if you are keeping a box score on hypocrisy…
Pictures for today are by Chamblee54. They were taken at a dance performance. A personal seat license was not required. This post was written like David Foster Wallace. PG admires the work of Mr. Wallace, but does not consider him a role model. The spell check suggestion for PSL is PAL.
Football is just around the corner. The teams are busy with the pre season, and soon weekends will be full of hitting and drinking. Perhaps this is a good time to wonder whether football is worth the human cost. Especially now, with a national debate raging about the future of our health care. Football injuries keep hospitals hopping during the autumn.
This is a recycled post. There is a helping of hypocrisy here, as PG enjoys watching the hits.
Football season is here. While the games are fun to watch, the players are paying the price. Your health insurance premiums just might be affected.
Football is a contact sport. On every play, the linemen block other lineman to keep them from tackling a back. Someone gets hit on every play. Most of these hits are “clean” and cause only bruises. Some are “dirty”, and cause injuries. Even the clean hits can hurt someone.
There are an estimated 187,000 emergency room visits every year are due to football. What if an illegal drug sent 187k to the er annually? There would be a hue and cry to kill the pushers.
Knee injuries are especially prevalent. An estimated 45,000 knee operations are performed each year due to football injuries. Arthroscopy is a wonderful invention.
With all those helmets slamming into each other, head injuries occur. “The researchers found that there is approximately one catastrophic head injury per every 150,000 athletes playing, or 7 catastrophic injuries yearly. There were 0.67 injuries per 100,000 players at the high school level and 0.21 injuries per 100,000 for college level football players.” Often, the coaches get caught up in the do or die spirit of a big game, and don’t get the player the medical attention that he needs. “Football is a very macho sport. Athletes are taught to play through pain,” …“But concussions range in severity and symptoms, so all a player may experience is a headache several hours after impact. High school players need to be educated in these symptoms and encouraged to self report.”
Even cheerleading squads are reporting more injuries, due to botched stunts.
When you see the players in their youthful glory, you don’t think what they will look like after they quit playing. Many players know this, but the lure of today’s glory justifies the pain of tomorrow. The heroes of yesterday often walk with pain today.
Coat Of Many Colors
Someone on facebook said that it is a shame Molly Ivins is not around to comment on the weird goings on. Yes, Ms. Ivins has gone to that BarBQ in the sky, but we still have Margaret and Helen. They are still blogging up a storm, even if it is someone’s grandson that does the writing. The small print they use is evidence that a youngun did it. What old person can read type that small?
PG knows about cntr + +, and decided to visit. There was a dandy post, Two Wrongs Make a Right Wing Republican Ticket. Here are a few quotes, and then we will explain what this has to do with Dolly Parton forty years ago. Lets hope that the wig in that video has been replaced.
HELEN: That Obama even ran as a black man and wouldn’t you know it – he’s still a black man. Romney is a white guy. Which is probably why so many people in the Tea Party are so excited about the Romney/Ryan ticket – neither are black. I’m sorry, Margaret. That was low… even for me. Obama’s color has nothing to do with it. He’s black. So what. In contrast to Obama, Romney is a man of many colors. Nope. He’s just a white guy.
What I meant to say is that Romney is white but he has a coat of many colors. No, that’s not right either. That was Donny Osmond. Margaret, what is that expression about a horse of many colors? You know. The one that means you can’t trust Romney any farther than you can throw him?
I can’t think of the expression right now, but what I am trying to say is that you can’t throw Romney very far. He’s too rooted to his principles and an unwavering commitment to his beliefs. Like the way he was pro-choice and now is not because it would prevent him from being a Republican president. And how he believed that government-controlled healthcare was needed and now it isn’t because it would prevent him from being a Republican president. And how he was proud of his record at Bain Capital but only the good stuff. If anything bad happened it was on a day when he called in sick…
Two faced! That’s what I meant to say. It had nothing to do with the color of his face or his coat at all. And I am not even sure why I was thinking about a horse. … Now I know why I was thinking about a horse. Paul Ryan is a horse’s ass. If you are a woman under the age of 39, you might want to trust me on this one. Never vote for a horse’s ass. I mean it. Really.
MARGARET: If I recall, Helen, you were under the age of 39 for about 59 years. Howard says that the expression about a horse changing its colors is a racing term and you should just stick to what you know. I’m not sure about this Ryan fellow, but Howard sure likes him. Of course, Howard’s a numbers guy too. The last thing I need is another budget in my life. I haven’t had a new coat in 40 years much less a coat of many colors.
When PG saw this, he thought about the song, “Coat of many colors”. The b side was by Porter Wagoner, “Coat of many sequins”. COMC is about a woman who is too poor to buy her little girl a coat at the store, so she makes a quilt. The other kids make fun of her, but little Dolly knows that the coat is really made of love. Mitt Romney never had a coat of many colors.
The song talks about a story in the Bible. PG had heard about the story, but didn’t remember the details. He must have been daydreaming in Sunday School when that story was taught. With the help of google, Genesis 37 appears, as if by magic. Pass the popcorn.
2 These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brethren; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives: and Joseph brought unto his father their evil report.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
4 And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
Ok, hold on for a minute. Israel had at least two wives. The Biblical definition of marriage must be between a man and two women.
The story gets a bit weird here. Joseph has this dream, where he becomes the boss hog brother. The other brothers decide something needs to be done, that Joseph needs to die. Reuben tries to help Joseph, and has a plan to save him. Joseph is stripped of the coat of many colors, and placed in a pit, with no water. Before Reuben can sneak Joseph out of the pit, a camel caravan comes by. Twenty pieces of silver change hands, and Joseph is sold into slavery. The brothers decide to pull a cover up, and make it look like Joseph was dead. Reuben made another sandwich.
31 And they took Joseph’s coat, and killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the coat in the blood;
32 And they sent the coat of many colours, and they brought it to their father; and said, This have we found: know now whether it be thy son’s coat or no.
33 And he knew it, and said, It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces.
34 And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his loins, and mourned for his son many days.
35 And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning. Thus his father wept for him.
What a story. Bigamy, slavery, and a dishonored father. Some people call that “The word of G-d”. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This was written like James Joyce.
She Always Carries Jonquils
PG found Archival Atlanta: Electric Street Dummies, the Great Stonehenge Explosion, Nerve Tonics, and Bovine Laws : Forgotten Facts and Well-Kept Secrets from Our City’s Past at the Chamblee library. There are always more stories to be heard. Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost. It is written like Margaret Mitchell.
In the 1840s, the Western and Atlantic railroad wanted to hook up with the Central of Georgia railroad. The spot for the meeting was called Terminus. One idea was to name the town for William Lumpkin, a former Georgia Governor and a railroad executive. Lumpkinville sounded bad in the mouth, and the new town was named “Marthasville”, after the daughter of the Governor. (Martha is buried in Oakland Cemetery.) Few people liked this name, and someone decided that the feminine form of Atlantic was Atlanta. Unlike the state flag, this is unlikely to change.
The new town prospered, and recovered from the unpleasantness of 1864. In 1875, there was a problem with stray cows. The answer was the “1875 Cow Ordinance”. The law required that cows be kept in a pen at night. A fine of two dollars was assessed for every stray cow that was caught.
About this time, there were a few very busy railroad tracks going through downtown. People were getting tired of waiting for the trains to go through. One by one, viaducts were built over the tracks, creating a forgotten ground floor. This was built up into Underground Atlanta in the sixties, which was red hot for a while, then cooled off, and is now so so.
In 1897, J.W. Alexander was the first person in town to own a “horseless carriage”. One day, he decided to take a ride to East Point. A mule objected to the device, and kicked man and machine into a ditch.
It is a rule that all history books about Atlanta have to discuss Coca Cola and Gone With The Wind. There are only so many stories to go around. This book tells of an Alpharetta farmer who bought the Tara set from MGM. He stored in a barn, the location of which was a secret. Betty Talmadge wanted to buy it, and the price went from $375k to $5k. After a while, the sale was finalized. There was only one problem…the farmer died, and never told anyone where the barn was. Mrs. Talmadge got the money from her husband’s overcoat, went to Alpharetta, and found the barn. The set was moved into another secret location, where it was in 1996, when Archival Atlanta was published.
Sam and William Venable owned Stone Mountain, and had a quarry there. (The Ku Klux Klan held meetings on the mountain.) (The spell check suggestion for Ku Klux is Kook Klutz.) Sam built a large granite house at 1410 Ponce de Leon Avenue, and stocked it with ammunition. He thought a race war was on the way, and wanted to be prepared. One night, a chimney overheated. The roof caught on fire. The explosives in the attic exploded, and took the roof off. The house was repaired, Mr. Venable died, and the house became part of a Lutheran church.
One of the few ante bellum houses in Atlanta is near Grant Park. It was once owned by Lemuel Grant, who donated the land for the park. He stays in a large marble house in Oakland Cemetery now. The Grant Park house was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. John Marsh, in partnership with Boyd Eugene Taylor. After the death of Mrs. Marsh (also known as Margaret Mitchell), she was known to visit the house. “Margaret just wanders through the house, looking things over. She never talks, and she always carries jonquils. The first night she came I was very shocked. I went out to her grave at Oakland Cemetery the next day. I’d never been to the house before. But I was almost certain of what I’d find. The plot is covered by a bed of jonquils.”
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