Chamblee54

Some may find this hard to believe, but sometimes I don’t have anything to say. That is what archives are for. A few items from this time in 2007 will provide space between the pictures. These images are courtesy of ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
Four years ago, I was making local deliveries. Talk radio was a part of the delivery lifestyle.One day I was at a red light next to the Big Chicken … I was at a stop light by The Big Chicken. I asked her, “What do you think of Newt Gingrich?” The Big Chicken rolled her eyes. The beak opened and shut.
One post from those more innocent times has the festive title he told her the time . Those who read “The catcher in the rye” remember how the girls always knew what time it was. In all fairness, I have not heard the commercial described in this story again. Either the radio network had a fit of morality, or the advertiser did not pay for any more time…
I was listening to a radio whiner named Mike Gallagher. He is flamboyantly conservative, with a special emphasis on illegal immigration. He speaks often about his Christian beliefs. (I can’t bring myself to use the word faith…it has been ruined by the Jesus worshipers)
The station he is on in Atlanta is 920 WGKA. It is owned by Salem Broadcasting, which will not carry Neal Boortz because he is pro choice and supports Gay Marriage. (OK, I am taking Squeal’s word on this. It could be that his syndicate wants too much money to carry the show).
I first became aware of WGKA two years ago, when they had billboards all over town…”WGKA 920 AM…LIBERALS HATE US”. Most Liberals don’t even know they exist. I am not sure that Liberals exist.
Now, there is a certain commercial that I hear on the Mike Gallagher show on WGKA 920. It is for a souped up radar detector that claims to block the signals from police radar. They advertise that if you get a speeding ticket while using their device, that they will pay for it. An actress in the commercial says “I’ve got a smart man in a fast car. Lets get moving”.
This product helps people violate the law. Excessive speed has been shown time and time again to be a major factor in highway deaths. And this “Conservative Christian” is promoting a product that helps people violate this life saving law.

PG should have listened to his inner guiding voice. Those were some great dreams, and you can have some more if you just stay in bed. Call Uzi, tell him you don’t feel like going to that silly parade, he will understand. Of course, PG does lots of sleeping in these days, and feels the need to go out and be part of humanity. The first indication that this might not be a very good day was the dreaded smell of burning food. PG forgot to turn down the flame on his breakfast veggies, the water in the steamer boiled up, and the result was not pleasant for any of the senses. He made some ramen noodles, opened the windows and doors to the kitchen, and got a call from Uzi. Just meet me in front of the GP building. Uzi and PG live off different branches of the Marta north line. The logical thing to do was ride the trains downtown, and meet up there. Two years ago they did this, and while there were a lot of people, the crowds were manageable. You could make plans to meet someone, and actually do it. At the Chamblee station, there was a line of people at the Breeze card machine. This is bad omen number two. Those machines are temperamental at the best of times, and waiting behind families, unfamiliar with breezecardmachine use and loaded with children in costume, is trouble waiting to happen. PG got the trips loaded onto his card, and made his way up to the platform. Chamblee is the next to last stop on this line, and when the train arrived, it was standing room only. It got progressively more crowded, until the mob scene at Peachtree Center. Doing anything… going through turnstiles, going up an escalator, even walking up the 169 step stairs… involved waiting in line. PG had some vague idea about going to the food court and getting coffee. He left the station through the unfamiliar north end, and saw that one of the exits was boarded over. This seems to happen every time he goes downtown. Thinking he was doing the right thing, he climbed the 169 unit stairs. When he left the station, he was horrified. It was a mob scene. Not only was it a struggle to take two steps in any direction, PG was on the side of Peachtree across from Georgia Pacific. He got his phone out to call Uzi, but tracphone was only doing emergency calls. PG looked at the entrance to Marta, and almost went home. The crowd was a bit less intense going north, towards the Regency. The Marching Abominables  played, and PG decided to try to find a better place. He walked around the Sun Trust building, where the bronze Barbie dolls outside looking bored. If you went around the block, you could find a spot on Baker Street, where the nurses home for St. Joseph hospital used to sit. A building could block the direct sun, and the crowd was thin enough to see the marching weirdos. One of the issues PG faced … in addition to hunger, heat, crowds and lack of coffee … was a general lack of enthusiasm for the whole fantasy trip. Not that he wasn’t tolerant, it just didn’t amuse him. The nonstop barrage of marching chemicals, medieval wenches, starship troopers, and red eyed mutants just plain got boring after a while. (There was a subtext of violence. Many of the costumes were based on critters offing other critters. Many of these killers wouldn’t last five minutes in a real firefight. This make believe murder was another reason to be over this scene.) Is PG an old fogey? An elderly dullard with no life? Maybe. YOU GOTTA PROBLEM WITH THAT? Finally, enough was enough. PG made his way to a train station, and was on the way home. There were six messages on his machine. Uzi had gotten his message, and had sent calls to PG’s home phone. Other comments are borrowed from twitter. Some people enjoy DragonCon. They are welcome to it. Spend your money here, and go home when it is over… Dear guy at #DragonCon wearing the shirt that says “Dead girls can’t say no”: what is wrong with you? No, seriously. What. … Attn. MARTA ride customers: If you are barking like a dog all the way to the dome, you probably shouldn’t be rude to our #DragonCon riders ,,, If anyone has a photo of me being chased through the Marriott lobby by a xenomorph, please email it to me … Just saw Darth Vader with a Mickey Mouse head walk by. #DragonCon (nightmares) … Finally in the Walking Dead panel.. After the staff let in the side of the line that had NOT been waiting an hour like us. Dbags … A 20-sided die in UGA colors! My worlds are colliding today. … To the ultimately annoying person behind me in the Grand Ballroom, turn off the bloody beeping!! … $70 for William Shatner’s autograph … Apparently everyone going to the big football game is staying in our hotel. It’s like high school again … Thought for the day: “I love the sound of zip ties in the morning.” … There are too many Waldos at #Dragoncon. Takes the challenge out of it, you know? … Well, it’s only Saturday and already I’m sick of #DragonCon. … and to the #dragoncon staffer who was so gentle and polite when my temper frayed after the panic attack: thank you. You were awesome. … This conversation I can’t help overhearing is making me depressed. KackassCon? #DragonCon … #dragoncon is just no fun. No fun at all. If you aren’t here you aren’t missing anything! #hardtotypewithastraightface … I wish that people attending a Q&A, would ask a Q to get an A. … All of the costumes w/ random hipster glasses tacked on: NO. Automatic failure. … nerds at #dragoncon love to show off their #FatNerdBoobs … Shatner, after 10 minutes of storytelling, “So… what was the question again?” … Just saw Al and Peg Bundy cosplayers. That makes me very happy!! #dragoncon … holy #FatNerdBoobs Batman! #dragoncon … everyone knows he died in 1973, right after “Poseidon Adventure.” “@MarkArum: I just met Ernest Borgnine. #dragoncon rocks.” …. Pokemon drinks beer. who knew? #dragoncon … OMG. So many UGA fans on #MARTA. @itsjentastic and I might die. Where are the #dragoncon nerds or the crackheads. … When you are at #dragoncon, please take the time to check out “Rigamortis: A Zombie Love Story.” A 30m zombie musical 11:30PM on 9/3 … DragonCon. I believe I have all of my Steampunk outfits packed. The bike gets packed tomorrow for shipping on Monday. We live our art. …

PG was going to write about some depressing subject. People that are not kind to each other. People in Israel and people in Gaza just don’t seem to get along. Somebody driving a “faded red F-150 pickup truck” in Livonia MI was mean to a little girl. (HT to Neo Prodigy .)
There is a saying, “if a story seems too bad to be true, it probably isn’t”. PG tried to google that phrase, and got confused. Then he seemed to remember reading it in a column by Molly Ivins. Another google adventure, and there was this film. Miss Ivins, who met her maker January 31, 2007, was promoting a book. She sat down with a bald headed man to talk about it. PG could only listen to 24:30 of this video before being seized with the urge to write a story. There is a transcript, which makes “borrowing” so much easier. This film has 34 minutes to go, which just might yield another story or two.
Molly Ivins was a Texas woman. These days there is a lot of talk about Texas, with Governor Big Hair aiming to be the next POTUS. Mr. Perry claims that his record as Texas Governor qualifies him to have his finger on the nuclear trigger. Miss Ivins repeats something that PG has heard before… “in our state we have the weak governor system, so that really not a great deal is required of the governor, not necessarily to know much or do much. And we’ve had a lot of governors who did neither. “ It makes you wonder how much of that “economic miracle” is because of hair spray.
Texas politics makes about as much sense as Georgia politics. For a lady, with a way with words, it is a gold mine. “the need you have for descriptive terms for stupid when you write about Texas politics is practically infinite. Now I’m not claiming that our state Legislature is dumber than the average state Legislature, but it tends to be dumb in such an outstanding way. It’s, again, that Texas quality of exaggeration and being slightly larger than life. And there are a fair number of people in the Texas Legislature of whom it could fairly be said, `If dumb was dirt, they would cover about an acre.’ And I’m not necessarily opposed to that. I’m–agree with an old state senator who always said that, `If you took all the fools out of the Legislature, it would not be a representative body anymore.'”
We could go through this conversation for a long time, but you probably want to skip ahead and look at pictures. ( Which are from The Library of Congress ) There is one story in this transcript that is too good not to borrow. For some reason, Molly Ivins went to work for The New York Times, aka the gray lady. In August of 1977, she was in the right place at the right time.

LAMB: And how long did you spend with The New York Times as a reporter?
Ms. IVINS: Six years with The New York Times. Some of it in New York as a political reporter at City Hall in Albany and then later as bureau chief out in the Rocky Mountains.
LAMB: Would you take a little time and tell us about reporting on the funeral of Elvis Presley?
Ms. IVINS: Oh, now there is something that when I’ve been standing in the checkout line at the grocery store and if I really need to impress people, I just let fall that I covered Elvis’ funeral. And, boy, people just practically draw back with awe. It may yet turn out to be my greatest claim to fame.
I was sitting in The New York City Times one day when I noticed a whole no–knot of editors up around the desk having a–a great scrum of concern, you could tell. It looked sort of like an anthill that had just been stepped on. And it turns out–The New York Times has a large obituary desk, and they prepare obituaries for anybody of prominence who might croak. But it turns out–you may recall that Elvis Presley died untimely and they were completely unprepared.
Now this is an enormous news organization. They have rock music critics and classical music critics and opera critics, but they didn’t have anybody who knew about Elvis Presley’s kind of music. So they’re lookin’ across a whole acre of reporters, and you could see them decide, `Ah-ha, Ivins. She talks funny. She’ll know about Mr. Presley.’
So I wound up writing Elvis’ obituary for The New York Times. I had to refer to him throughout as Mr. Presley. It was agonizing. That’s the style at The New York Times–Mr. Presley. Give me a break. And the next day they sold more newspapers than they did after John Kennedy was assassinated, so that even the editors of The New York Times, who had not quite, you know, been culturally aton–tuned to Elvis, decided that we should send someone to report on the funeral. And I drew that assignment. What a scene it was.
LAMB: You–you say in the book that you got in the cab and you said, `Take me to Graceland.’ The cabbie peels out of the airport doing 80 and then turns full around to the backseat and drawls, `Ain’t it a shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town?’
Ms. IVINS: That’s exactly what he said. `Shame Elvis had to die while the Shriners are in town.’ And I kind of raised by eyebrows. And sure enough, I realized what he–what he meant after I had been there for awhile because, you know, Shriners in convention–I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a whole lot of Shriners in convention, but they were having a huge national convention that very week in Memphis. And they tend to wear their little red fezzes, and sometimes they drink too much and they march around the hotel hallways tooting on New Year’s Eve horns and riding those funny little tricycles and generally cutting up and having a good time. That’s your Shriners in convention, always something very edifying and enjoyable to watch. But they–every–every hotel room in Memphis was occupied with celebrating Shriners, and then Elvis dies and all these tens of thousands of grieving, hysterical Elvis Presley fans descend on the town.
So you got a whole bunch of sobbing, hysterical Elvis fans, you got a whole bunch of cavorting Shriners. And on top of that they were holding a cheerleading camp. And the cheerleading camp–I don’t know if your memory–with the ethos of the cheerleading camp, but the deal is that every school sends its team–team of cheerleaders to cheerleading camp.
And your effort there at the camp is to win the spirit stick, which looks, to the uninitiated eye, a whole lot like a broom handle painted red, white and blue. But it is the spirit stick. And should your team win it for three days running, you get to keep it. But that has never happened. And the way you earn the spirit stick is you show most spirit. You cheer for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You cheer when the pizza man brings the pizza. You do handsprings end over end down the hallway to the bathroom. I tell you, those young people will throw–show an amount of spirit that would just astonish you in an effort to win that stick.
So here I was for an entire week, dealing with these three groups of people: the young cheerleaders trying to win the spirit stick, the cavorting Shriners and the grieving, hysterical Elvis fans. And I want to assure you that The New York Times is not the kind of newspaper that will let you write about that kind of rich human comedy.
LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Because The New York Times, at least in my day, was a very stuffy, pompous newspaper.
LAMB: What about today?
Ms. IVINS: A little bit better, little bit better than it was.
LAMB: And…
Ms. IVINS: Has–has–it has a tendency, recidivist tendencies, though. You–you will notice if you read The Times, it–it collapses into pomposity and stuffiness with some regularity.
LAMB: Why did you leave it?
Ms. IVINS: Well, I–I actually got into trouble at The New York City Times for describing a community chu–chicken killing out West as a gang pluck. Abe Rosenthal was then the editor of the Times and he was not amused.
LAMB: Did–but did they let it go? Did they let it…
Ms. IVINS: Oh, no. It never made it in the paper. Good heavens, no. Such a thing would never get in The Times in my day.
POSTSCRIPT PG found some pictures, marked up the text, and was ready to post the story. He decided to listen to a bit more of the discussion between Molly Ivins and the bald headed man. When he got to this point, it became apparent that he could listen to Molly Ivins talk, or he could post his story, but he could not do both at the same time.
Ms. IVINS: Oh, well, of course, I’m gonna make fun of it. I mean, Berkeley, California, if you are from Texas, is just hilarious.
LAMB: Why?
Ms. IVINS: Well, of course, it is just the absolute center of liberalism and political correctness. And it is a veritable hotbed of people, of–bless their hearts, who all think alike, in a liberal way. And, of course, I’m sometimes called a liberal myself, and you would think I would have felt right at home there. But I just am so used to–I’m so used to Texas that I found the culture at Berkeley hysterical.

The Prairie-Grass Dividing

The prairie-grass dividing, its special odor breathing,
I demand of it the spiritual corresponding,
Demand the most copious and close companionship of men,
Demand the blades to rise of words, acts, beings,
Those of the open atmosphere, coarse, sunlit, fresh, nutritious,
Those that go their own gait, erect, stepping with freedom and command,
leading not following,
Those with a never-quell’d audacity, those with sweet and lusty
flesh clear of taint,
Those that look carelessly in the faces of Presidents and governors,
as to say Who are you?
Those of earth-born passion, simple, never constrain’d, never obedient,
Those of inland America.

When I Peruse the Conquer’d Fame

When I peruse the conquer’d fame of heroes and the victories of mighty generals,
I do not envy the generals,
Nor the President in his Presidency, nor the rich in his great house,
But when I hear of the brotherhood of lovers, how it was with them,
How together through life, through dangers, odium, unchanging,
long and long,
Through youth and through middle and old age, how unfaltering,
how affectionate and faithful they were,
Then I am pensive—I hastily walk away fill’d with the bitterest envy.

We Two Boys Together Clinging

We two boys together clinging,
One the other never leaving,
Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,
Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,
Arm’d and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.
No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening,
Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking,
on the turf or the sea-beach dancing,
Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing,
Fulfilling our foray.

A Promise to California

A promise to California,
Or inland to the great pastoral Plains, and on to Puget sound and Oregon;
Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain,
to teach robust American love,
For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you,
inland, and along the Western sea;
For these States tend inland and toward the Western sea, and I will also.

Here the Frailest Leaves of Me

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting,
Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them,
And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.

No Labor-Saving Machine

No labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made,
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage for America,
Nor literary success nor intellect; nor book for the book-shelf,
But a few carols vibrating through the air I leave,
For comrades and lovers.

A Glimpse

A glimpse through an interstice caught,
Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night,
and I unremark’d seated in a corner,
Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near,
that he may hold me by the hand,
A long while amid the noises of coming and going,
of drinking and oath and smutty jest,
There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little,
perhaps not a word.

A Leaf for Hand in Hand

A leaf for hand in hand;
You natural persons old and young!
You on the Mississippi and on all the branches and bayous of the Mississippi!
You friendly boatmen and mechanics! you roughs!
You twain! and all processions moving along the streets!
I wish to infuse myself among you till I see it common for you to
walk hand in hand.

Earth, My Likeness

Earth, my likeness,
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you eligible to burst forth,
For an athlete is enamour’d of me, and I of him,
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me eligible
to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words, not even in these songs.

I Dream’d in a Dream

I dream’d in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks
of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream’d that was the new city of Friends,
Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,
It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,
And in all their looks and words.

What Think You I Take My Pen in Hand?

What think you I take my pen in hand to record?
The battle-ship, perfect-model’d, majestic,
that I saw pass the offing to-day under full sail?
The splendors of the past day? or the splendor of the night that envelops me?
Or the vaunted glory and growth of the great city spread around me? —no;
But merely of two simple men I saw to-day on the pier in the midst of the crowd,
parting the parting of dear friends,
The one to remain hung on the other’s neck and passionately kiss’d him,
While the one to depart tightly prest the one to remain in his arms.

To the East and to the West

To the East and to the West,
To the man of the Seaside State and of Pennsylvania,
To the Kanadian of the north, to the Southerner I love,
These with perfect trust to depict you as myself, the germs are in all men,
I believe the main purport of these States is to found a superb friendship,
exalte, previously unknown,
Because I perceive it waits, and has been always waiting, latent in all men.

Sometimes with One I Love

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage for fear
I effuse unreturn’d love,
But now I think there is no unreturn’d love,
the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently and my love was not return’d,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)

To a Western Boy

Many things to absorb I teach to help you become eleve of mine;
Yet if blood like mine circle not in your veins,
If you be not silently selected by lovers and do not silently select lovers,
Of what use is it that you seek to become eleve of mine?

Fast Anchor’d Eternal O Love!

Fast-anchor’d eternal O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
Then separate, as disembodied or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation,
I ascend, I float in the regions of your love O man,
O sharer of my roving life.

Among the Multitude

Among the men and women the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else, not parent, wife, husband, brother, child,
any nearer than I am,
Some are baffled, but that one is not—that one knows me.

Ah lover and perfect equal,
I meant that you should discover me so by faint indirections,
And I when I meet you mean to discover you by the like in you.

O You Whom I Often and Silently Come

O you whom I often and silently come where you are that I may be with you,
As I walk by your side or sit near, or remain in the same room with you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.

That Shadow My Likeness

That shadow my likeness that goes to and fro seeking a livelihood,
chattering, chaffering,
How often I find myself standing and looking at it where it flits,
How often I question and doubt whether that is really me;
But among my lovers and caroling these songs,
O I never doubt whether that is really me.

Full of Life Now

Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.

When you read these I that was visible am become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)

Poems are from Leaves of Grass, Book V: Calamus by Walt Whitman.
Text is courtesy of Project Gutenberg.
Formatting of text, and pictures, by Chamblee 54. Calamus Part One  , Calamus Part Two
The spell check suggestions for Calamus are Camus, Musicals, Musical.

The morning feature at chamblee54 tuesday was Can You Trust Your Coffee Mug?. (We are going to conduct this lesson without using an eight letter word for waste product of a male cow.) In addition to polluting coffee mugs, these words of wit adorn bumper stickers, note pads, buttons, t shirts and signs. They go by names like aphorism, epigram, bon mot, maxim, proverb, saying and motto. These are not complete lists, and cover only english. (There is a french phrase in there, but english has never been picky about borrowing expressions from other languages.)
One of the stops on yesterday’s journey was All Aphorisms, All The Time. Maybe the best plan is to focus today’s output on aphorisms. Dictionary dot com says aphorism means “a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation, as “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (Lord Acton). ” Above this is a header ad for Go to Bermuda dot com. Below it is this message: “Jesus Loves You. Here is a Prayer That Can Change Your Life http://www.Jesus2020.com. ” The no profanity pledge gets tougher by the minute.
Aphorisms Galore! is the top google result. It is sponsored by AFLAC, and hopefully does not feature the wit and wisdom of the AFLAC duck. If you create a user profile, you can get an email subscription to the Aphorism of the day, and you will see fewer ads.
Most of the facilities listed by Mr. Google are lists of aphorisms. These have their place in the world, and will be looted in the second part of this feature. An exception is Aphorisms By Hippocrates . This is a complete work, written in Greek around 400 BC. It begins: “Life is short, and Art long; the crisis fleeting; experience perilous, and decision difficult. The physician must not only be prepared to do what is right himself, but also to make the patient, the attendants, and externals cooperate.”
Erik Max Francis has a list of 280 “Pithy little things I’ve written.” “Here are a bunch of quotes I’ve written over the years. I’m sure some of them have been said before, but as far as I know, what’s shown here is original (if you know otherwise, let me know). And no, just because something appears here does not mean it is part of my personal philosophy. (Apparently that needed to be explicitly spelled out.) “ This list begins with “They say that every species has an inherent need for play. “ and devolves down to “Just say no to incoherent unit systems. “
It should be noted that these words to live by were written by mortal men. Just because someone said something lofty and inspiring does not mean that he practiced it in life. Maybe it is because this person did not really think the thought, but was parroting the words of someone else. Credit often does not go to the proper person, especially when royalties are involved.
Another “word to the wise” is about the difference between truth and a clever arrangement of words. Just because something makes you smile, or has a pleasing play of english verbs and nouns, that does not mean that it is to be believed. (The middle three letters of believe are lie.) The phrase “more truth than poetry” should be taken to heart.
The second part of this feature is a list of aphorisms. They will be copied from the source ( Timeless Aphorisms) which creates the least work in formatting. Epigrams will enter, proverbs will proliferate, maxims will max out, and bon mots will go back to France, where they belong. Chamblee54 is not a purist blog. The pictures today are Union soldiers from the War Between the States. They are from The Library of Congress .

We tend to do the things we know how to do, instead of trying to do the things we ought to do.(R. Anshen; Science and man) A likely impossibility is always preferable to an unconvincing possibility. (Aristotle; Poetics) Writing makes an exact man. (Francis Bacon) Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. (Francis Bacon; Essays) God never wrought miracle to convince atheism, because his ordinary work convince it. (Francis Bacon; Essays) It is venturesome to suggest that a co-ordination of words can resemble the universe very much. (Jorge Luis Borges) In the Lawrence family bible, opposite Genesis I, was pencilled firmly the date of creation: March 2, 4004. (Catherine Drinker Bowen; Yankee from Olympus) The pleasure of criticizing robs us of the pleasure of being moved by some very fine things. (Jean de la Bruyère; Les caractères) All real living is meeting. (Martin Buber; I and Thou) Probability is the guide of life. (Bishop Butler) A hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg. (Samuel Butler) Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises. (Samuel Butler; Note-books) The short words are best and the old words are best of all. (Winston Churchill) It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. (Winston Churchill; Roving commission, My early life) The authority of those who teach is very often a hindrance to those who wish to learn, (Cicero; De natura deorum) Do you know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed? (A. Count Oxenstierna; Letter to his son, 1648) I cannot think that the world as we see it is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of Design… I am, and shall ever remain, in a hopeless muddle. (Charles Darwin; Letter to Asa Grey) I am inclined to look at everything as resulting from designed laws, with the details, whether good or bad, left to the working out of what we may call chance. Not that this notion at all satisfies me. I feel most deeply that the whole subject is too profound for the human intellect. (Charles Darwin; Letter to Asa Grey) I remember well the time when the thought of the eye made me cold all over. (Charles Darwin; Letter to Asa Grey) What is strange, what is marvelous, is not that God really exists, the marvel is that such an idea, the idea of the necessity of God, could have entered the head of such a savage and vicious beast as man; so holy it is, so moving, so wise, and such a great honour it does to man. (Fedor Dostojevsky; The brothers Karamazov) The world, I have come to believe, is a very queer place, but we have been part of this queerness for so long that we tend to take it for granted. (Loren Eiseley; The immense journey) One does not hold science in contempt without holding reason in contempt; one does not hold reason in contempt without holding Man in contempt. And one does not hold Man in contempt without insulting God. (Anatole France; L’Orme du mail) Chance is perhaps the pseudonym of God when he did not want to sign. (Anatole France; Le jardin d’Epicure) Treason does never prosper, for if it does prosper, none dare call it treason. (Jim Garrison in ‘JFK’) It is in self-limitation that the master shows himself. (J.W. von Goethe) It is opposition that makes us productive. (J.W. von Goethe) Your poetic sense should always accompany you but never lead you. (J.W. von Goethe) Just when ideas fail, a word comes in to save the situation. (J.W. von Goethe; Faust) Man errs as long as he strives. (J.W. von Goethe; Faust) If the world were good for nothing else, it is a fine subject for speculation. (William Hazlitt; Characteristis) A hidden connexion is stronger than an obvious one. (Heraclitus) When I struggle to be terse, I end by being obscure. (Horace; Ars poetica) When the matter is ready the words will follow. (Horace; Ars poetica) Our highly organized Universe could not have emerged from the big bang which has no more order than a wet jellyfish. (Fred Hoyle) ’Tis one thing to know virtue, and another to conform the will to it. (David Hume; A Treatise of Human Nature) The older one gets, the more unutterably mysterious, unlikely and totally implausible one’s own life and the universe at large steadily becomes. For practical purposes, one tries to make a little sense of it all; for non-practical purposes one opens oneself up receptively to the mysterium tremendum et fascinans within and without. (Aldous Huxley) Two things fill my mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. (Immanuel Kant; Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) What could an entirely rational being speak of with another entirely rational being? (Emmanuel Levinas; Totality and Infinity) The man who says that the world is a machine has really advanced no further than to say that he is so well satisfied with the analogy that he is through with searching any further. (Walter Lippmann; Preface to morals) A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than for other people. (Thomas Mann) Trust in Allah, but tie your camel. (Moslem proverb) Criticism is the art by which a critic tries to take part in the fame of the artist. (G.J. Nathan) The last thing one discovers in writing a book is what to put first. (Blaise Pascal; Pensées) I cannot forgive Descartes. He would gratefully have left God out of his whole philosophy. But he could not help making him give one flip with His thumb to set the world in motion. After that he had no more use for God. (Blaise Pascal; Pensées) The eternal silence of those infinite spaces strikes me with terror. (Blaise Pascal; Pensées) When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou has ordained; what is man, that Thou are mindful of him? (Psalm 8) The fundamental rule of style is to think only of the thought one wants to inculcate, and consequently to have a thought. (E. Renan; Souvenirs d’enfance et de jeunesse) One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important. (Bertrand Russell; The conquest of happiness) To be brief is almost a condition of being inspired. (George Santayana; Little essays) If you cannot – in the long run – tell everone what you have been doing, your doing has been worthless (Erwin Schrödinger; Science and humanism) [on looking at an expensive shop] How many things I can do without! (Socrates; Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers) Quotation is a servicable substitute for wit. (W. Somerset Maugham) The more that, which one says, is great and difficult, the more is it necessary to be simple and without pretensions in style. (Stendhal) Don’t be afraid of making mistakes. Don’t miss small details, keep your eyes open and be modest in everything except your aims. (Albert Szent-Györgyi) The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win you are still a rat. (Lily Tomlin) Evolution is a hypothesis which hardened into dogma before it had been thoroughly analysed. (E.W.F. Tomlin; Fallacies of evolutionary theory) The time to begin writing an article is when you have finished it to your satisfaction. By that time you begin to clearly and logically perceive what it is you really want to say. (Mark Twain) The secret of being tiresome is in telling everything. (François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire) This paper of yours is so lightly written that you must have sweated terribly. (George Wald) Selah.

This is a two part post. Part two is a repost from a year ago. It is about a similar subject. The pictures are from ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has a book coming out, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir. As is the custom, he is appearing in front of every camera, that does not break, to promote his effort. Heads are exploding left and right. Mr. Cheney defends the use of torture, and just about every thing he did while in office.
Democracy Now had an interview this morning with Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell from 2002 to 2005. He says “I, unfortunately—and I’ve admitted to this a number of times, publicly and privately—was the person who put together Colin Powell’s presentation at the United Nations Security Council on 5 February, 2003. It was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I regret it to this day. “ Colonel Wilkerson goes into detail about the doctoring of information about WMD in Iraq. The idea that Mr. Cheney was a war criminal was discussed.
The next segment on Democracy Now featured an interview with Ashley Joppa-Hagemann . She interrupted an appearance by Donald Rumsfeld Saturday. Mrs. Joppa-Hagemann gave Mr. Rumsfeld a program to her husband’s funeral. Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann committed suicide June 28, before being deployed to combat duty. Mrs. Joppa-Hagemann said, after she gave the funeral program to Mr. Rumsfeld “All I remember is him saying, “Oh, I heard about that.” And after that, all I remember is being bombarded with security personnel and being pushed out and told not to return.”
The opening segment of today’s show is not directly related to the war stories, but seems to fit in. It is the story of a family owned radio station in Vermont that managed to stay on the air when Irene was plowing through. The station, WDEV, provided a great service to the local residents. Station owner Ken Squier said: ” Indeed, yeah. Well, I’m sure that that went on, but one of the reasons that this radio station is 80 years old and still—kind of, I’m sure, seen as a fuddy duddy and a little grey—exists, because we are a reference, we are a place people can go to and feel assured that, whether it’s town meeting day or these days, these exceptional days that we’re going through right now, that they have a voice. And really, it’s the same old business about how radio needs to work, which is, let the people really be a part of it. And you can do that on a commercial radio station and exist. You won’t make quite the profit of the—of those milking machines that just pour out the music and treat it like milk. It is more than that. And it becomes something that is of consequence in the community. Radio needs to be of consequence. And I’m lecturing to the choir here, aren’t I?







This is a repost .A few things have happened in the last year. The “last combat troops” are out of Iraq. While no one seems to totally believe this, it is an useful illusion to maintain. Most of the hand wringing is over Afghanistan. In that war, there was no debate before the invasion. We went in as to get revenge for 911. Invade first, find a goal later. The word liberation is seldom used.
While working on this post, PG had a thought about 911. He has long suspected that certain players knew about the attacks, and, knowing of the benefits for their schemes, allowed the attacks to go forward. This is tough to prove or disprove, and gives the power players the excuse they needed for the militarization that followed.
The thought for this morning concerns George W. Bush. It is well known that POTUS is a puppet, the public face that does what the string pullers tell him to do. Did the power players tell W what was going to happen on 911?
Pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
One thing that PG likes to do is investigate “things he has always heard”. With google, you can often find the source, and a few things more. Some urban legends are tough to trace, often because they don’t exist. Others pop up 575k results is .49 seconds.
The myth PG was chasing was the notion that government officials said our army “will be greeted as liberators” in Iraq. On March 16, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney was on Meet the Press.
MR. RUSSERT: If your analysis is not correct, and we’re not treated as liberators, but as conquerors, and the Iraqis begin to resist, particularly in Baghdad, do you think the American people are prepared for a long, costly, and bloody battle with significant American casualties?
VICE PRES. CHENEY: Well, I don’t think it’s likely to unfold that way, Tim, because I really do believe that we will be greeted as liberators. I’ve talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. The president and I have met with them, various groups and individuals, people who have devoted their lives from the outside to trying to change things inside Iraq. And like Kanan Makiya who’s a professor at Brandeis, but an Iraqi, he’s written great books about the subject, knows the country intimately, and is a part of the democratic opposition and resistance. The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but what they want to the get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that.
There are a few things to say 78 months later. Why did the Vice President have this much power? The VP is supposed to dedicate buildings and go to funerals. Dick Cheney was clearly a very powerful man, and he was not elected to that job.
Mr. Russert, rest his soul, seems to have gotten one detail wrong. The conquest of Baghdad went smoothly, with few American casualties. It was the occupation that would be “long, costly, and bloody …with significant American casualties”. One of the casualties has been the American economy.
There probably were many Iraqis who welcomed the change, Clearly, Mr. Hussein had some enemies, and there were some who did see the invasion as liberation. There were others who did not. Players in other countries saw an opportunity to come to Iraq and make trouble. The regime that was changed had many employees, who were bumped out of jobs. “The people of Iraq” were no more a monolithic force, all acting the same way, as the people of America would be if they were invaded.
Even if the Americans were “greeted as liberators”, there would be many challenges. The country had no experience in dealing with democracy. The different ethnic groups did not like each other. Sunnis were seen as having been privileged, and many were looking to settle the score. It seems obvious that these problems were not anticipated.
There is a debate in The United States about the use of torture. It seems apparent that “enhanced interrogation” was used extensively in Iraq and elsewhere. The use of torture would seem to be an admission that we were not greeted as liberators.

The facebook friend linked to an article with the catchy title “Falser Words Were Never Spoken”. It is about the quotes used to decorate coffee mugs and automobile bumpers. Many of these phrases are inspiring and life changing. The only problem is, the famous person never said it. The key phrase of this feature is When you start to become aware of these bogus quotations, you can’t stop finding them. Mr. Google produces 23 million results.
The second result, and this is true , is typical. It has a quote from the NYT article, and a second quote … “Don’t believe everything you read.” – Julius Caesar. Since Mr. Caesar did not speak english, this is a translation. Since he lived a long time ago, it was written down by someone, probably years after it was said. The wikiquote page for Mr. Caesar does not mention this quote. This probable misquote was in several of the results. You should think before you retweet.
This trip to google city is a disappointment. There are a lot of people quoting the NYT and JC, but little commentary of the business of jazzing up quotes. There are lots, and lots, and lots, of quotes. There are heartbreak quotes by redneck girl, sponsored by Allstate insurance. The quotegarden has Quotations about Men. There is a site devoted to clever sayings, All Aphorisms, All The Time .
AAATT has a post about a book of clever sayings, Landmines of the Mind: One Thousand Asseverations, Surmises, and Questions about the Design of the Universe and the Meaning of Life. The amazon comments are fun. Plagarism R’ Us By Robert L. Cronyn “Some great aphorisms from the ages. Problem is, no citations, thus rendering the book useless. I suppose the auther wants me to attribute these great thoughts to him since no one else is acknowledged. Loved the thoughts, hated the lack of sources . . . ” author’s response to Cronyn By Manfred Weidhorn “There is no documentation because the aphorisms are original and are all mine. Thanks for the inadvertent compliment! “
If you want to bask in wisdom, follow the links and dive in. Check the batteries on your BS detector first. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

These two stories are borrowed from Gartalker’s Blog. The pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” .
One day Bubba is setting at home watching the Saints play ball. He has the house to himself and is totally enjoying the solitude. Mary Jane has gone down to Wal-mart. Bubba knows she will be gone until after the game. The kids are all over at their Aunt’s house for the afternoon. Things  can’t get any better.
“Touch down!” The announcer screams as if he had made the catch himself. Bubba jumps up, and his beer goes one way, and the sack of Doritos fly the other.
Finally, after the Saints get the extra point and placed themselves in a good position on the score board Bubba eases back down in his chair. Before he can get settled in there is a knock at the door. Bubba cusses under his breath, and for the first time wishes one of the boys was at home to answer the door. Before he can make it to the door, there is another knock. The second knock is louder and more impatient sounding than the first. When he opens the door there stands two large deputy sheriffs.
Bubba says, “What has them boys gone and done now?” The bigger of the two deputies seems to ignore Bubba and ask to see a picture of Mary Jane. “What you need a picture of my wife for?”
“Please Mr. Jones surely you have a picture of your wife.”
“Course I do.” Bubba then fishes a picture of Mary Jane out of his wallet.
“Here you go. Now what is this all about?”
The first deputy studied the picture a moment and then passed it to the junior officer. Both looked at each other, as if they were in agreement. “Mr. Jones I hate to be the one that says this, but it looks like a truck ran over your wife.”
Bubba frowns. “I know it does but she has a great personality, and their ain’t no one in the county that can out cook her.”

There was a couple unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family. On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr. Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, ‘Well, I’m off now. The man should be here soon.’
Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale. ‘Good morning, Ma’am’, he said, ‘I’ve come to…’
‘Oh, no need to explain,’ Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
‘Have you really?’ said the photographer. ‘Well, that’s good. Did you know babies are my specialty?’
‘Well that’s what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat ! After a moment she asked, blushing, ‘Well, where do we start?’
‘Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there.’
‘Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn’t work out for Harry and me!’
‘Well, Ma’am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.’
‘My, that’s a lot!’, gasped Mrs. Smith.
‘Ma’am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I’d love to be In and out in five minutes, but I’m sure you’d be disappointed with that.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Mrs. Smith quietly.
The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. ‘This was done on the top of a bus,’ he said.
‘Oh, my God!’ Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.
‘And these twins turned out exceptionally well – when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.’‘She was difficult?’ asked Mrs. Smith.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look’
‘Four and five deep?’ said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.
‘Yes’, the photographer replied. ‘And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling – I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in.’
Mrs. Smith leaned forward. ‘Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh…equipment?’
‘It’s true, Ma’am, yes.. Well, if you’re ready, I’ll set-up my tripod and we can get started.’
‘What do you need a tripod for?’
‘My cannon. It is way to heavy to hold in my hand for any length of time.’
Mrs. Smith fainted.

Andrew Sullivan had a post today with the lurid title Do Atheists Understand Christian Arguments? And Vice Versa?. The post reported a study, which was filled with semantic nonsense. However, it did use the phrase Epistemic Humility. Pictures today are from XXX, and are probably more fun than the text.
Perhaps a definition of terms is in order. The Free Dictionary says “Phrase not found in the Dictionary and Encyclopedia. Please try the words separately … Epistemic: 1. (Philosophy) of or relating to knowledge or epistemology 2. (Philosophy / Logic) denoting the branch of modal logic that deals with the formalization of certain epistemological concepts, such as knowledge, certainty, and ignorance [from Greek epistēmē knowledge]” Humility “The quality or condition of being humble.”
The first response from Mr. Google was Lambeth 1998 and Epistemic Humility. This was at a wonky facility called The Anglican Scotist. They do serve up a definition of EH. I. “What is epistemic humilty anyway? According to the doctrine of epistemic humility, Christians cannot have absolute certainty about anything in their dogma outside a minimal core, the kerygma. On everything else, they should always remain open to correction and reversal–in particular correction, that so far as they can know, is intended by God.”
PG is already getting nervous. He feels that practice is more important than belief. He also has little patience with the little intellectual worlds that some religions build for themselves. Third, he does not have a clue what kerygma is, or whether it is curable.
The Free Dictionary says that kerygma is “The proclamation of religious truths, especially as taught in the Gospels.” … “the essential news of Jesus, as preached by the early Christians to elicit faith rather than to educate or instruct.” This sounds like something else that you have to understand, in order to understand the rest of the message.
Perhaps the true course of action can be found at The Kerygma Program. This is a proprietary venture. “Adult Bible Studies with a Difference … Kerygma is REALLY THERE for you! … You get more than bible study resources from Kerygma. You get a partner … Whether by phone or email, or in person, a Kerygma consultant is there for you. We will come to you! Face-to-face brainstorming sessions with your Committee can provide a pivotal moment in decisions that will affect the life and vitality of your congregation for years to come. Get ready to think BIG!”
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy presents something called Humility Theory. This is based on a story about Socrates. The story is that Socrates interviewed some of the smart people of his day. Many of them were smart, but many claimed to be smarter than they really were. Socrates decided that the true wise person is the one who is aware of how much they do not know. This gives us Humility Theory 2 (H2): S is wise iff S believes S does not know anything.
PG has noticed how learning about a subject makes you aware of how much there is that you don’t know. The admission of ignorance is often the first step to knowledge. There is also the matter of boasting about knowledge. While this is not always a sign of ignorance, it is usually very annoying. And lets not even consider those who boast of being a “humble servant”.
Rankin File is written by a University chaplain named Steven Rankin. (Is it time for a moratorium on questionable puns as blog titles?). His contribution to the EH discussion is Epistemic Humility and the Force of Ideas. A key sentence is “Christians of all stripes (especially Christian college and seminary professors who don’t recognize that they’re doing it) make the mistake of confusing the force of an idea with coercive tactics in arguments.” The ideas here are presented from a Christian POV.
This view is seen here. “Coercive tactics sometimes fly under the flag of “informal fallacies” in logic. When I think I can undermine your idea by making a reference to something about you personally – the charge of “homophobe” is a classic example on a very contentious topic – it’s called an informal fallacy (ad hominem attack), but it is also a power move. Another one is “fundamentalist” (or “liberal”).”
Name calling is a sure way to degenerate a discussion of ideas. What is noteworthy here is his first two choices … homophobe and fundamentalist… are likely to be used against a Christian. It is the third insult… liberal… which would be used by a Christian, against someone who disagrees with their ideas. It is presumably included here for “balance”.
Mr. Rankin ( apologies if he has a PhD) tips his hand later in the essay. “What about when an idea that I hold as fundamentally true, say, that Jesus Christ is God in the flesh and the Savior of the world, is considered exclusionary (here’s the power) by someone who doesn’t believe that idea? If I insist that Jesus Christ is the only way to the Father, what about people who don’t agree?” This sentence is vigorously disputed by many people, PG included. And yet, Mr. Rankin sees it as kerygma, a fundamental truth. It is as if he is wearing red glasses, which turn everything red is his path white. Everything he sees is filtered through this concept.
Jim Manzi was a key figure in an earlier discussion of Epistemic Closure. He ventures again into epi land with this piece, Jim Manzi on the Stimulus and Epistemic Humility. This feature was written by Reihan Salam, and deals with the economic stimulus. The ideas here are rather horrifying, and have little to do with online Bible study programs.
Stand to reason blog chimes in with an exciting title, Epistemic Humility or Intellectual Instability? “If you are consistently changing your beliefs, one of two things (or possibly a combination) is happening. Either, 1) you’re constantly getting a flood of new information that forces you to reevaluate (which happens in science, but not usually in theology), or 2) you didn’t think very carefully about your convictions the first time around. There is little virtue in saying, “I’ve changed my theology many times over the last few years.” This isn’t humility; it’s instability. ”
If religion were an intellectual affair, rather than an emotional one, this might make sense. In the Southern Baptist tradition, ten year olds are routinely pressured to “make a profession of faith”, be baptised, and go to heaven when they die. These children do not have the emotional or intellectual capacity to “think very carefully about your convictions the first time around.”
Some of the comments to this post are fun, and are a good way to wind up this feature. If you google “epistemic humility”, you can read much more about this *fascinating concept*. ” i was christian and became agnostic. i dont recommend it to anyone – it sux. … which one “sux”–being a Christian or an agnostic……? … Now I understand why folks become agnostic. It saddens me. “

Living a diamond life in a rhinestone world. // “Writing is…that oddest of anomalies: an intimate letter to a stranger.” —Pico Iyer // “I live my life as an open book. I just don’t intend to read it to anyone.” // I write, you read. It’s a clean and simple relationship. // This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by WMG. The audio has been disabled. // If you know someone or are related to someone who suffers from stupidity post this on your wall. People need to understand that stupidity is real and should be taken seriously. You could be sitting next to a stupid person right now. There is still no known cure for stupidity and sympathy does not help. // There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic. – Anais Nin // Never go to bed angry. Stay awake and plot your revenge! // “Don’t speak to me about your religion; first show it to me in how you treat other people. Don’t tell me how much you love your God; show me in how much you love all God’s children. Don’t preach to me your passion for your faith; teach me through your compassion for your neighbors. In the end, I’m not as interested in what you have to tell or sell as I am in how you choose to live and give.” – Newark Mayor Corey Booker // I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. ~ Joseph Campbell // I just want to make it clear that a hobby is not a pre-requisite for a fulfilling lycanthropic lifestyle. // “The problem with quotes on the Internet is that it is hard to verify their authenticity” – Abraham Lincoln // The economy is so bad that I got a pre-declined credit card in the mail, CEOs are now playing miniature golf, Exxon-Mobil just laid off 25 congressmen, Angelina Jolie just adopted a child from America, Motel 6 will no longer leave the light on, a picture is only worth 200 words, and Wall Street was just renamed Wal-mart Street. Finally I called the suicide hotline, got a call center in Pakistan and when I told them I was suicidal, they got all excited and asked if I could drive a truck. // A redneck mountaineer took his son to a school to enroll him. “My boy’s after larning’, what d’ya have?” he asked the teacher. “We offer English, trigonometry, spelling, etc.,” she replied. “Well, give him some of that thar trigernometry; he’s the worst shot in the family. // Aristotle writes, “If everything, when it is behaving in a uniform manner, is continually either moving or at rest, but what is moving is always in the now, then the moving arrow is motionless.” // Bertrand Russell adds, “It is never moving, but in some miraculous way the change of position has to occur between the instants, that is to say, not at any time whatever. … The more the difficulty is meditated, the more real it becomes.” // “I have never thought much of the courage of a lion tamer. Inside the cage he is at least safe from other men. There is not much harm in a lion. He has no ideals, no religion, no politics, no chivalry, no gentility; in short, no reason for destroying anything that he does not want to eat.” — George Bernard Shaw // Energy is wasted when you try to influence people who have already decided they’re not going to be happy or nice. Let them be as they are & spend energy on the people that love & accept you, where you are, & as you are. // OMG!….I was in in the public restroom – I was barely sitting down when I heard a voice in the other stall: “Hi, how are you?” Me: embarrassed, “Doin’ fine!” Stall: “So what are you up to?” Me: “Uhhh, I’m like you, just sitting here.” Stall: “Can I come over?” Me: (attitude) “No, I’m a little busy right now!!” Stall: “Listen, I’ll have to call you back. There’s an idiot in the other stall who keeps answering all my questions! ~~ Re-post if this made you laugh // “The reverse side also has a reverse side” // “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” ~ Charles Kingsley // “Forgetting is very important to the experience of awe or wonder.” // I feel encouraged when people agree with me, but even more encouraged when people persevere in disagreeing with me in a mutually respectful way. I value hearing others’ perspectives. It helps me make informed decisions instead of stumbling around in the dark…. With all due respect, you’re totally wrong on that one. // #justbecause i said, you’re cute doesn’t mean i like you. // I’m done copying posts. I just don’t get it, and I think it clutters up Facebook. I wish people would stop asking to “copy and paste this post.” Copy and paste THIS *insert gesture here* // “…run down by the drunken taxicabs of absolute reality.” -AG // “The minute a writer offers nine hundred ninety-nine out of one thousand facts, the worm of bias has begun to wriggle.” // “Get the HELL off the beach right now. You’re done. You’ve maximized your tan. Evacuate.” // ‘An action is not virtuous merely because it is unpleasant to do.” // “The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” — Carlos Castaneda // “I think Lady Gaga’s fashion is derived from her covering herself in industrial adhesive and rolling around in a landfill. She’s basically a living Katamari.” // Money weed pussy and more money // Brian: “Stewie, you’re quoting Scriptures out of context and you can’t even read.” Stewie: “Welcome to America, Brian.” // If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution. // Some woman just screamed “GOD I AM SO BORED!!” from her balcony behind me. Preach it, lady. //Selah

There was an event last night, Big Joy Salon/Benefit/Reading and Screening. PG was in the house. The question now is how to best remember the event. James Broughton was a poet, film maker, babydaddy to Pauline Kael, and all around mischief maker. PG is a prose kind of guy. Perhaps the best way to chronicle the evening is to follow the slogan “Follow your own weird”. Don’t get mad get odd. The chit chat part of the evening went on until 7:45, when Franklin Abbott started to talk. The only seat PG could find was on the front row, which was handy for taking pictures. The Big Joy project was discussed. This is an effort to make a movie about the life of James Broughton. If you go to Big Joy dot org , you can learn a bit more. If you go to Big Joy dot com or Big Joy dot ru, a totally different message appears. 16 readers took the podium. Each read a poem by James Broughton, and some read two. Don Perryman channeled the spirit of Mr. Broughton, as he told the story of Joel Singer. ( Mr. Singer was a student of Mr. Broughton, who seduced him and became his lover. Mr. Singer was 26, Mr. Broughton was 62.) Chad Shone and Griff Tester were next, and read poems describing the passage of Mr. Broughton and Mr. Singer into their new life. Cleo Creech and A’Roara Thunder share the award for best costume. A.R. Thunder’s outfit is better suited for hot weather. Don Perryman incorporated a costume change into his presentation. It was noted that Mr. Broughton would have taken his pants off, instead of stopping with the shirt. PG brought a clipboard, and intended to take more notes than he did. “Mostly, I boddhi sit around and bask in my universal mind” “Please turn off all cell phones” “The word for no is yes, the word for no is yes, the word for no is yes, and the star and the faun are one” “Death is thinking about us all the time” “Not enough appreciation, and not enough thanks” “cinema is truth 24 times a second” At the end of the reading, a hat was brought out. In it were the ticket halves. A drawing for door prizes was held. PG noted the parade of winners before him, and accepted his loser fate. Then, his number was called. PG won a very nice book, All: A James Broughton Reader. The second part of the evening was a showing of four films directed by James Broughton. They were shown on two sixteen millimeter projectors, on loan from the Smithsonian Institute. When PG was in grammar school, they had movies like that. Those movies started with the Georgia State Flag flying in the breeze, while the canned music band played “Dixie”. The films were introduced by Andy Ditzler, who operated the projectors. He said that sixteen millimeter is a ritualistic device, where strips of images are moved by magic. The projectors did add a retro feel to the evening. The first movie shown was “Gardener of Eden”, which is embedded here. (Whatever magic celluloid has simply does not lend itself to digital transmission.) The film that PG enjoyed the most was “The Bed”. It ran at a theater in San Francisco for over a year, and is the only film he did which made money. It seems tame today, but was quite controversial for 1968. Finally, the lights came on, and it was 2011. Again.
UPDATE Videos of the readers are available at the AQLF youtube page.

This post is borrowed from Twenty Two Words, who borrowed it from someone else. The pictures are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library” .  Every year, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival has a contest for the best joke. The winner this year is Nick Helm , aka “The Human Car Crash of Light Entertaiment”. Here are the ten best jokes.
1. Nick Helm – “I needed a password eight characters long so I picked Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”
2. Tim Vine – “Crime in multi-storey car parks. That is wrong on so many different levels.”
3. Hannibal Buress – “People say ‘I’m taking it one day at a time.’ You know what? So is everybody. That’s how time works.”
4. Tim Key – “Drive Thru McDonalds was more expensive than I thought … once you’ve hired the car …”
5. Matt Kirshen – “I was playing chess with my friend and he said, ‘Let’s make this interesting’. So we stopped playing chess.”
6. Sarah Millican – “My mother told me, you don’t have to put anything in your mouth you don’t want to. Then she made me eat broccoli, which felt like double standards.”
7. Alan Sharp – “I was in a band which we called The Prevention, because we hoped people would say we were better than The Cure.”
8. Mark Watson – “Someone asked me recently – what would I rather give up, food or sex. Neither! I’m not falling for that one again, wife.”
9. Andrew Lawrence – “I admire these phone hackers. I think they have a lot of patience. I can’t even be bothered to check my OWN voicemails.”
10. DeAnne Smith – “My friend died doing what he loved … Heroin.”
PG did a bit of value added research, and found an article in The Telegraph about the joke contest. This article has the NINE WORST JOKES from this year’s festival.
1. Tim Vine – “Uncle Ben has died. No more Mr Rice Guy.”
2. V. McTavish – “The Lockerbie bomber put Lockerbie on the map, well he nearly took it off it too.”
3. Josh Howie – I’ve got nothing against the Chinese. Don’t get me Wong.
4. Card Ninja – “I went to see this show and the guy said ‘Hey kid do you like magic?’ And I said ‘Yeah!’ So he asked if I wanted to see a trick and I said ‘Yeah!’ So he said ‘think of a number, times it by 2 and if it’s odd …’ Oh no, he’s a MATHmagician! “
5. Tom Webb – “Due to the economy, profiteroles will now be called deficiteroles.”
6. Nathan Caton – “Postcode wars? That sounds like a really shit BBC game show.”
7. Andrew Bird – “My wife’s eating for two. She’s not pregnant, just schizophrenic.”
8. Mark Olver – “During my first murder I was like a dyslexic having my back teeth removed … losing my morals.”
9. Andrew O’Neill – “A song for the colour blind: “And I think to myself … why did I become a bomb disposal expert?”