Chamblee54

A vacant lot off memorial drive was swept up in a ring of fire. Johnny Cash rolled over in his grave, while Adam Lambert just rolled over.
Fire is one of the four elements, and perhaps the one most basic to life on earth. Fire is the combination of earth and air, and has a symbiotic relationship with water. If a sufficient amount of water is applied to the fire, the procedure is terminated. On the other hand, if water is held over a fire in an earthen vessel, the water becomes air. This process is essential to the production of electricity, which is the driving force behind the electric light. That is why they don’t call it the steam lite, reserving that name for a type of beer.
There is a neighborhood in Atlanta called Cabbagetown. When PG was younger, it was a place where white trash lived. Today it is the gentrified home of artists and weirdos, with property values to match. Someone there had the bright idea of a street party involving Christmas lights, on the last Friday night of spring.
A resident of this area thought this was a horrible idea, and he decided to have an alternative event. Held in a spiffed up vacant lot, the party was to have sparklers, candles, flashlights, and other means of lighting other than the edison invented bulb. PG thought this was a cool idea, and drove down from Chamblee. PG had the good taste not to run over the idiot pedaling a bike ( without any lights) through the Moreland Avenue tunnel.
The event was a splendid night of lighting without the participation of Georgia Power. There was a crisis at one point, that quickly passed over. Someone was discussing cat videos on you tube. Someone else pulled out a smart phone, and pulled up a cat video on you tube. A crowd gathered, but went back to traditional light after the video was over.
A man named Zeus made an appearance. When PG said “Hey Zeus”, the connection to Jesus and Christmas lights became apparent.(Zeus spelled backwards is sue z. This would please Johnny Cash.) Zeus brought a device for doing a fire dance. It was a chain, with these wicks at each end. The wicks could be dipped in kerosene, lit, and twirled about the head. The kerosene and burned out fireworks added an aromatic patina. This was true for the brand of fireworks called “golden shower”.
The next day, while the garden was being cleaned, PG contributed a bit of poetry to the facebook commentary. “My candle burns at both ends//It may not last the night//but oh my foes and oh my friends//It gives a lovely light//Edna St. Vincent Millay” The host of the event had a reply. “My sparkler burns at one end//It will not last a minute//Call an ambulance, my friends//My eye has shrapnel in it.”

The word advice, for all the condescencion implied, does have a neat composition. Ad is short for advertisement, and vice is a forbidden pleasure. Unless you are talking about Vice President, who should be forbidden.forgotten, and fornicated.
For some unknown reason, the subject of discourse today is advice from William Seward Burroughs. No, the TV station on Peachtree Street was not named for him.
Before we reprint this consultation, (Chamblee54 did not write the advice) we should ponder the concept of William S. Burroughs, and wonder why anyone would ask this man for advice.
Mr. Burroughs is the namesake grandson of the man who invented the adding machine. He left his heirs a bunch of money. The young Burroughs wound up in New York, and became friends with Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg.
Mr. Burroughs was married twice ( to women). The first was a platonic relationship with Ilse von Klapper, a Jew who wanted to get out of Europe. In 1936, this counted as a good deed.
The second wife, Joan Vollmer, helped make his life interesting. She is the mother of William S. Burroughs III, and was fond of speed. Mr. and Mrs. Burroughs were living in Mexico in 1951, when they decided to play William Tell. Mr. Burroughs missed the apple, and Mrs. Burroughs died.
Mr. Burroughs went on to write a few novels, including Naked Lunch. He was famous in hipster circles, and gave lie to the saying “there are no old junkies”. Mr. Burroughs settled in Lawrence KS, and lived to be 83. This leaves out a few inedible details, which are widely available, in various levels of truth.

People often ask me if I have any words of advice for young people. Well here are a few simple admonitions for young and old. Never interfere in a boy-and-girl fight.Beware of whores who say they don’t want money.The hell they don’t.What they mean is they want more money. Much more. If you’re doing business with a religious son-of-a-bitch,Get it in writing.His word isn’t worth shit. Not with the good lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal. Avoid fuck-ups. We all know the type. Anything they have anything to do with, No matter how good it sounds, Turns into a disaster.Do not offer sympathy to the mentally ill. Tell them firmly: I am not paid to listen to this drivel. You are a terminal boob. Now some of you may encounter the Devil’s Bargain, If you get that far. Any old soul is worth saving, At least to a priest, But not every soul is worth buying. So you can take the offer as a compliment. He tries the easy ones first. You know like money, All the money there is. But who wants to be the richest guy in some cemetery? Money won’t buy. Not much left to spend it on, eh gramps? Getting too old to cut the mustard. Well time hits the hardest blows. Especially below the belt. How’s a young body grab you? Like three card monte, like pea under the shell, Now you see it, now you don’t. Haven’t you forgotten something, gramps? In order to feel something, You’ve got to be there. You have to be eighteen. You’re not eighteen. You are seventy-eight. Old fool sold his soul for a strap-on. Well they always try the easiest ones first. How about an honorable bargain? You always wanted to be a doctor, Well now’s your chance. Why don’t you become a great healer And benefit humanity? What’s wrong with that? Just about everything. Just about everything. There are no honorable bargains Involving exchange Of qualitative merchandise Like souls For quantitative merchandise Like time and money. So piss off Satan And don’t take me for dumber than I look. An old junk pusher told me – Watch whose money you pick up.

There is a video floating around now, which shows Israeli soldiers unloading weapons from a container. There is a lot of text in Hebrew, which this blog does not read. The story is that the container was on the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish boat that was involved in an incident recently.
Perhaps the video is legitimate. There has been a lot of you said/I said about the raid on the Mavi Marmara. By this point, all videos must be assumed to be edited to show advantage to one side or another. Maybe there were weapons on the Mavi Marmara.
PG is not a forensic video watcher. All he can do is look at the video, and make observations. PG is sympathetic to those who seek to have the blockade of Gaza lifted, and with those who seek better treatment of the people of Gaza. He would want to thing that the video is faked.
Here are a few observations. Once again, PG is not a pro, just a tax paying American with internet access. The pictures included are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”
-The flotilla was designed to bring attention to the blockade of Gaza. ( In this, it has succeeded spectacularly.) They knew there was a chance they would not make it to Gaza, and that the cargo would be inspected by Israel. Why would they try to include weapons in this cargo, knowing it would probably be caught? If you are looking for moral high ground, you do not bring in grenades.
– There is no visual link of the container to the Mavi Marmara. It is a container on a dock. There is no evidence to link this container to the flotilla.
-The first shot of the video shows a forklift backing up, with a pallet of white sacks. The second shot shows soldiers unloading the white sacks by hand, and loading them onto a pallet.
-At 0:14, you see white sacks stacked on the floor, on the sides of the container. There are olive colored boxes in the middle.
-At 0:17, you see soldiers, in uniform, pulling white sacks off the container. They are in the middle of the container, at the end. This space that was empty in the 0:14 shot. This shot indicates that the video is not seen in the order in which it was shot.
-At 0:22, the white sacks are stacked on a pallet away from the container. They are not stacked in a neat, efficient fashion, as though they were going to be shipped on that pallet.
-At 0:27, there are six people seen, two of whom are standing in the back of the container. The olive colored boxes are seen behind them, with stacks of white sacks on both sides.
-At 0:28, there is a box of hand grenades. The box is dated 2000, and the text is in English.
-At 0:30, there is a fork lift, with a pallet of brown boxes in front. A soldier places a brown box on top of the pallet.
-At 0:34, a crate is opened with weapons inside. There is no evidence linking these weapons to either the container with the white sacks, or to the Mavi Marmara.
-At 0:36, a soldier is shown holding what appears to be a weapon, similar to the weapons in the box of the previous shot. Behind him we see a container. There are three rows of white sacks in the front of the container.
-At 0:42, a group of soldiers pulls a shell out of a casing. If this was a confiscation of contraband, and not a media show, would these soldiers be doing this?
-At 1:03, you see the text on the side of a box. The text is in English. The date is 2008. The stack of olive colored boxes on the pallet appears to have been unloaded using a forklift.
-At 1:09, green boxes are taken off the container by hand.
-At 1:36, a pallet of green boxes is moved by a fork lift. Three pallets of green boxes are in a row in front of it. There is no apparent connection to the container with the white sacks or to the Mavi Marmara.
-At 1:52, you see a close up of some weapons. The text is in English. The date is 2007. There is paperwork, which is illegible.
Watching the video is not conclusive. It may be real. It may be a fake. Most people are going to see what they want to see.

UPDATE: The first screen on the video has the date 04.11.09. Apparently, in Israel this would mean November 11, 2009. The incident with the Mavi Marmara took place May 31, 2010.
This site was found through a google search. They claim to have found this video through the ” Burlington County (NJ) 912 group”.
This is not a discussion about the right or wrong of the blockade or the flotilla. This is about sending out false information.
The people who are spreading these videos should consider the story of the boy who cried wolf. They should also consider the concept that two wrongs do not make a right. When you are caught in a lie, that is not a good time to denounce your enemy in the boldest terms.
To his credit, the person who recommended this video (via facebook) has said “Then I stand corrected. I figured that if my cousin sent this to me that it was accurate.”

The following is a repost. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
PG read “Churchill, Hitler, and the unnecessary war” by Patrick Buchanan. It makes some interesting points, and is luxuriously footnoted. This is not to say that PG believes all of it.
Part of the problem is Pat Buchanan. He is a former speechwriter for Richard Nixon, and a public nuisance since. He gave a hateful speech at the Republican Convention in 1992 which is known as the “Culture War” speech. This speech alienated many people, and was a factor in the victory of Bill Clinton.
The book starts with the deal making before World War I. Germany was ruled by Kaiser Wilhelm, the grandson of Queen Victoria. He tried to arrange an alliance with Great Britain. Instead, Britain entered into a secret alliance with France. In 1914, Europe blundered into war. The conflict turned into a ghastly stalemate, which continued until 1918. The victorious French forced a vengeful peace on the Germans, setting the stage for the second world war.
Great Britain made many mistakes. They severed an alliance with Japan. They allowed Hitler to advance, then gave a guarantee to Poland that they would defend her in a war. This guarantee to Poland is the biggest blunder of all, according to Buchanan. It made war all but certain.
Eventually, Nazi Germany was defeated, but at a frightful cost. The millions of dead in the war produced an East Europe under Communist Rule for 50 years. The British Empire was a shadow of its former self. The United States came out of the war looking good, but much of Europe was destroyed, and then ruled by Communists.
Winston Churchill does not look good. He is seen cheering the start of war in 1914. He makes numerous blunders and about faces. Churchill was an inspiring leader in the second war.( An actor made speeches for him on radio) The same could be said for Hitler, who read his own speeches.
As with all history, this book needs to be taken with a bit of skepticism. Tom Robbins makes a comparison of history to animal husbandry. A herd manager mixes bloodlines to create an improved breed. A historian takes “facts”, and mixes them to support an agenda. Both are usually up to their ankles in s**t.
After PG finished the Buchanan book, he started one by Deepak Chopra. The title was “Why is G-d Laughing?“. The first chapter tells the story of a famous comedian. He goes to the hospital when his father drops dead of a heart attack. The comedian cannot help but think of jokes. PG is going to return this to the library without reading any more.

There is a form letter floating through the intercourse now. It is a letter that Steve Martin used to send to his fans. ( The letter was recently immortalized at Letters of Note ).
He …that is Stephen Glenn “Steve” Martin (born August 14, 1945) … has moved up in correspondence with his adoring fans. Mr. Martin now gives out business cards, with the message “This card certifies that the holder had met Steve Martin and found him genuinely friendly”. What a wild and crazy guy!
This is becoming one of those really really modern days here. Listening to a djmix with a Lady Gaga song, drinking coffee out of a Mcdonalds plastic cup, and writing a tribute to Steve Martin. What a day! Oh, before we forget, there is the story about the drive in theater on I85 that was showing “Father of the Bride”. One day, the h fell off the marquee, and the title of the movie became “Fater of the Bride”. Good times.
The story of Steve Martin and PG began one night at the Great Southeast Music Hall. PG got tired of hearing how great the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band was, and decided to see a show. The show started when some guy in a white suit came out with a banjo. John McEuen stood next to him, and kept falling into the microphone stand and saying ” this guy cracks me up”. Soon, MeEuen left the stage, and the guy in the white suit comediated.
Mr. Martin said that he paid somebody five thousand dollars for a joke. He then took this arrow, with a coat hanger wire attached to it, with a shape for his head to fit in, and put it on. That got a laugh, but not worth five thousand dollars. There was another gag…”do you mind if i smoke, no do you mind if i fart”. That got a slightly bigger laugh.
In those days, you could not sell alcohol in public on sunday night in Georgia. To compensate, the Music Hall sold children’s tickets for the sunday night shows. Mr. Martin was not used to having children in the audience. “Hey kid I gotta joke for you. There were these two lesbians…”
The show went over well with the Nitty Gritty crowd. However, it is doubtful that anyone thought, this is the beloved entertainer of our generation.
Mr. Martin was not through for the night. At one point, the NGDB moved to the back of the stage, and a smarmy lounge lizard, in a white suit, came on stage. While the band played “The girl from Ipanema”, Mr. Martin sang about the girl with diarrhea.
This was one of the last shows that Steve Martin did as an opening act. (He did return to the Great Southeast Music Hall. Once, he did a week with Martin Mull, called the Steve Martin Mull Revue.) Within two years, he was a guest host on Saturday Night Live, and a certified wild and crazy guy. A couple of years later, he was famous again as “The Jerk”. Steve Martin had arrived.
The historic pictures today are from The Library of Congress. The animated dentures are from chattering teeth. The check is in the mail.

Today is the day that PG returns “Infinite Jest” to the library. He checked it out, renewed it, and took it back. After the required 24 hours on the shelf, he checked it out again, and renewed it three weeks later. Each of those check outs was 21 days. After 12 weeks, PG is throwing in the bookmark and admitting defeat.
At some point, PG began to skim over the parts that did not interest him. This became more and more of the book as time went along. The dialog with the cross dressing Quebecois terrorist was the first part to get ignored. Soon, the more arcane parts of the tennis academy did not make the cut. The horror stories from the drug treatment center usually were enough fun.
The amazon page linked above has a sick creator. There is a column to the left of the choices for IJ. The title of the column is Listmania, and the book at the top is “The best of American Suicides”.
Infinite Jest was written by the late David Foster Wallace, who chose to end his life. Mr. Wallace was a piece of work.
Much of IJ takes place in a drug treatment center, where the inmates are encouraged to attend AA meetings. Mr.Wallace was known to struggle with substance abuse. The tales of “the program” in IJ are tempered by the knowledge that, in the end, it did not work for David Foster Wallace. He found that anti depressants interfered with his ability to write, and he tried to function without them. Before long, he felt the need to take his life.
The last book that PG had to struggle with like this was Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance. That book did have a touch of plot, and the philosophical raging could be skimmed over, maybe the be dealt with at a later date. Zen is much shorter than IJ, and PG owned a copy, rather than returning to the library every three weeks.
Another book that PG was not able to finish was a biography of Roy Cohn. Mr. Cohn was such a repellent person, PG could not stand to read more.
And so IJ goes back to the library. PG got to page 738, and a discussion on dysfunctional families as viewed by the children. It is time for a lightweight, fun, story, and a book that does not weigh ten pounds.
Pictures are from the ” Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”

The world cup is about to start. It is by far the largest sporting event in the world. And, despite what you hear in this country, they play football (futbol), not soccer.
In the 19th century, the english wrote the rules for something called association football. This was different from rugby football. Somehow, soccer, a nickname for association, became the name of this new sport. When the pastime spread from the upper crust schools to the working class, it became known as football. It made sense, being a sport where you kick the ball with your feet.
In the USA, there was another sport called football. It involves beer and steroids. The ball only gets kicked when it is time for a commercial. For some reason, when association football became popular here, the name soccer stuck.
PG thinks soccer is a terrible word, for a pretty good sport. All those guttural noises sound bad in the mouth, like something is caught in your throat. Maybe, if the sport had another name north of the Rio Grande, it would be more popular. As it is, soccer is popular as a kids game, but strikes out as a spectator sport in the lower 48.
There was even a joke on laugh in once. It may be field hockey to you, but it’s soccer to me. If you get that, the social security office will be open at the usual time tomorrow.

PG was paying for dinner, when a cafeteria worker made a tacky comment to the cashier. When the worker left, PG and the cashier exchanged looks that said, in effect, that guy is an idiot.
The cashier started to ramble, and she told a story of how she called someone hon. This is something that people in the south do, when they don’t say sweetie or sugar, they say hon, which is short for honey.
So, the cashier said hon to someone, and the person was amazed. This person…PG does not recall the gender…said that they had never heard a black person say that. They thought that was how white people talk. The cashier asked,” how do white people talk”?
PG replied, “too much”.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

The text below is a repost. The past week has seen fevered defenses, and denunciations, of a publicity stunt in the Mediterranean, and the FUBAR response it generated. There is so much killing in the name of G-d these days. The repeat of this text just seems like the right thing to do. It was based on a mass product email, with an unknown author hiding in shame. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

How different our world would be, if we heeded the advice of this message/Time For G-d/ Read only if you have time for G-d/ Let me tell you, make sure you read all the way to the bottom/ I almost deleted this email but I was blessed when I got to the end/ G-d, when I received this e-mail, I thought…I don’t have time for this… And, this is really inappropriate during work/Then, I realized that this kind of thinking is… Exactly, what has caused a lot of the problems in our world today/We try to keep G-d in church on Sunday morning../Maybe, Sunday night…/And, the unlikely event of a midweek service/We do like to have Him around during sickness…/And, of course, at funerals/However, we don’t have time, or room, for Him during work or play…Because.. That’s the part of our lives we think… We can,and should, handle on our own/May G-d forgive me for ever thinking…/That… There is a time or place where../ HE is not to be FIRST in my life/We should always have time to remember all HE has done for us/If, You aren’t ashamed to do this…Please follow the directions/Jesus said, ‘If you are ashamed of me, I will be ashamed of you before my Father.’/Not ashamed?/Pass this on ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT!!/ Yes, ….. I DO Love G-d./HE is my source of existence and Savior./ He keeps me functioning each and every day./Without Him, I will be nothing. But, with Christ, HE strengthens me. (Phil 4:13)/This is the simplest test../If You Love G-d…/ And, are not ashamed of all the marvelous things HE has done for you…/Send this to ten people and the person who sent it to you!/Now do you have the time to pass it on?/Make sure that you scroll through to the end/Easy vs. Hard/Why is it so hard to tell the truth but Yet so easy to tell a lie?/Why are we so sleepy in church but Right when the sermon is over we suddenly wake up?/Why is it so easy to delete a G-dly e-mail, but yet we forward all of the nasty ones?/Of all the free gifts we may receive, Prayer is the very best one…../There are no costs, but wonderful rewards…. G-d BLESS!/Notes: Isn’t it funny how simple it is for people to trash G-d and then wonder what’s going wrong with the world?/Isn’t it funny how someone can say ‘I believe in G-d’ but still follow Satan (who, by the way, also ‘believes’ in G-d)/Isn’t it funny how you can send a thousand jokes through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord,people think twice about sharing?/Isn’t it funny how when you go to forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you’re not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it to them /Isn’t it funny how I can be more worried about what other people think of me than what G-d thinks of me/I pray, for everyone who sends this to their entire address book, they will be blessed by G-d in a way special for them/And send it back to the person who sent it, to let them know that indeed it was sent out to many more/

When you have written a blog for five years, you have an archive. When the events of the day are too depressing to discuss, you can cheerfully live in the past. With war without end in Babylon, and an Governors election in Georgia, this is one of those times.
A trip back to the happier, simpler (and employed) times of 2008 uncovered this gem. When PG went back to the source to copy it, he found a sequel. Pictures for today’s festival are from The Library of Congress.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy
Deep in the heart of Dullsville, at the end of a cul-de-sac, behind a lawn of scratchy brown grass dotted with giant plastic butterflies, three flaking cement deer, and a philodendron the size of Bob Hoskins though with fewer decorative parts, lives Heather Thompson. Heather has a mommy and a daddy. Heather’s daddy is an accountant. Her mommy is a homemaker. Before Heather was born they met, fell in love, and got married. “I love you very much and I’m having your child,” Heather’s mom said.
Danitra is Heather’s best friend. One of Danitra’s dads is an empowerment facilitator. The other is an aura consultant. Danitra doesn’t know what they do at work, except they don’t need briefcases. Before Danitra was born her daddies met and fell in love, and after seventeen years spent discussing caring and support, handling acceptance, and negotiating intimacy, they had a commitment ceremony. “I love you very much and I’m designing the rings,” Danitra’s Daddy Mike said.
One day in school Heather’s teacher, Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez, tells the class to draw pictures of their families. Danitra draws two men, Julio draws two women, and Heather draws a man and a woman. Keanu points at the woman Heather drew, with squiggly yellow hair, a crude red dress and simple brown shoes. “This dad here’s got some ugly drag going on,” he says.
At lunchtime Danitra sits on the bench next to Heather and pulls a sandwich out of a brown paper bag.“Want to trade?” Danitra asks. “I’ve got grilled eggplant and goat cheese on marjoram foccacia.” “Um, I didn’t bring lunch,” Heather stammers, kicking her brown paper bag out of sight. “I’m . . . uh . . . on a diet.”
“Diet?” Danitra asks. “Haven’t your dads told you not to buy into that patriarchal looks-based chauvinism? And anyway, what’s this then?” she asks, holding up the bag with “HAVE A SUPER DAY!” written in sparkle marker on it.
Julio, who was listening nearby, runs up and grabs Heather’s lunch. “Yeah, what’s this? It’s somebody’s lunch!” Heather jumps at the bag but Julio holds it out of reach. “You give that back!” Heather yells. “Try and make me!” Julio chides. He pulls Heather’s sandwich apart and drops it like it was electrified. He wobbles away, holding his stomach.
“Oh my God!” he cries. “There’s like dead stuff in there!” Danitra looks at the sandwich lying on the cement. “Is that MEAT? Is that like SPAM?” Claudia, sitting quietly at the other end of the bench, bursts into tears. “Heather’s eating BAMBI!” “It’s friggin’ Wonder Bread!” Julio scoffs. Keanu walks toward the bread and peers at it. “And it’s got LUBE all over it!” “You idiot, that’s MAYONNAISE.” “What’s mayonnaise?” “It’s like goat cheese for heterosexuals.”
“Heterosexuals?” Keanu asks. “Heather’s mommy and daddy are heterosexuals?” Heather starts to yell. “No! I don’t have a mommy and a daddy. I’ve got two daddies!” “Hell-OOOO!” Danitra says, drawing the word out to twelve syllables. “We can see your clothes!” “Um . . . “ Heather stalls, “then I’ve got two mommies.” “And we’ve seen you play baseball,” Julio answers.
Heather, unable to think of a response, sits on the bench and starts to cry. Danitra pulls a robin’s egg blue bandana from her pocket and dabs at Heather’s face. “Maybe your mom’s not really a woman,” Danitra offers. “Well,” Heather says, sniffing, “she cleans the house, and cooks, and does the laundry.” Danitra fumes. “We’re trying to establish that she’s female, not that she’s an idiot.”
“Maybe your dad’s not really a man,” Julio suggests.“Well,” Heather answers, wiping her nose. “He’s big and strong and he’s got a mustache.” Several of the children wonder what this proves but nobody says anything.
“So let’s say you’ve got a mom and a dad,” Keanu says. “Then where did you come from?”Heather thinks for a minute. “They went to bed together, and then I was born.” Some of her friends express further interest, but Heather doesn’t have a brochure. “Daddy put his thing in mommy — “
“Oh, man,” Keanu interjects. “Is that legal?” “HelLLLLO!” sings Danitra, who gets the word up to eighteen syllables this time. “We’re in CaliFORnia!”
“And nine months later I came out of my mommy’s tummy,” Heather adds. Several of the children wonder why they didn’t hire a surrogate with a vagina but nobody says anything.

Heather Has a Mommy and a Daddy, Part Two
One night there’s a dance at Heather’s school and her parents offer to chaperone. While Heather’s dancing with Danitra she sees from the corner of her eye her mom and dad moving onto the dance floor. She watches in horror as her mom just sort of stands there swaying, her gingham granny dress limply hanging to the floor. She grimaces as her dad starts chopping at the air like Jackie Chan being attacked by locusts.
Occasionally their movements coincide with the beat. Heather runs to the bathroom crying.“Heather, don’t feel so bad,” Danitra says. “Lots of kids have embarrassing parents.” She starts to lead Heather out of the bathroom, then stops. “Um, maybe we should stay in here a while longer. They just started doing the Bump.”
One day the class projects are due. Heather brings in the model she’s made. It’s a lump of brown Play-Doh with ketchup poured over it and dotted with marshmellows stuck on with toothpicks. She sets it on the table as her teacher comes over to look.
“Why, Heather! That’s . . . nice! Very very nice!”“What the hell is it?” Tommy asks. “TOMMY! Heather’s parents had me over for dinner once. This is what they call ‘Salisbury steak.’”
Heather bursts into tears. “NO IT’S NOT! It’s a VOLCANO! That’s lava, and that’s steam coming out.”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez comforts Heather. Danitra enters and places her project next to Heather’s on the table. “Why, Danitra, what’s this?” Danitra delicately removes the sheet protecting her project. “Versailles.”
Heather takes one look at the tiny replica of Louis XIV’s summer home, constructed by Danitra and her two dads out of two hundred cubic yards of teak plank, thirty square feet of gold leaf, sixty pounds of Italian travertine marble from the same quarry Michelangelo used, tiny topiary and functional miniature fountains, and cries even harder.
“Why did I have to have a mom and a dad?” Heather sobs. “Why can’t my family be like all the rest?”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez pulls Heather close. “Children,” she says,”every family is special, including those conforming to the rigid, stereotypical standard of male domination.” She starts to tell the class about her own family, including her hearing-impaired Hispanic mother, her height-challenged Israeli father, and her Gypsy recovering-substance-abusing brother-in-law and Armenian sex-addict half-sister, but stops, realizing the school year is only 4,074 hours long.
“Just because Heather’s parents are heterosexual doesn’t mean they’re slow-witted philistines, though there are strong correlations you don’t need a PhD in statistics to understand. But Heather is lucky to have a sweet mom and a wonderful dad and a dog named Molly and a hamster named Samson, and they all live together in a lovely house. They’ve got interesting avocado-colored appliances, carpet as long as your hair, and furniture that‘s by-and-large wood that must have taken them hours to assemble. There’s a big plastic sofa that turns into a bed, and a La-Z-Boy — ”
“A what?” Keanu asks. “A La-Z-Boy,” Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez repeats. “It’s a big vinyl chair that reclines.” “Oh, man!” exclaims Keanu, covering his face with his hands. “And I thought our Herman Miller reproductions were embarrassing!”
Mrs. Weinberg-Lopez continues. “But the important thing is, they’re a family. They’re a group united for a common purpose, where each individual is given a sense of empowerment and their shared bonds are formalized in a ritualistic manner.” “Oh,” the students respond in unison. Everybody hugs.
THE END

Peering in at dangerousminds, PG runs across the publicity onslaught of a Christopher Hitchens memoir. In the words of a media pioneer, what hath G-d wrought?
PG first came across Mr. Hitchens after the synchronized departure of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa. Mr. Hitchens did not like either one, and became notable for trashing the beloved recently departed. Mr. Hitchens said things you were not supposed to say, but suspected were true…i.e. Mother Theresa was really a horrible person. He did so in a style that was fun to read, and would escape the blue pencil of the most ruthless english teacher.
Not only was he erudite and entertaining, he was everywhere. How the man can maintain this output, while continuously drunk, is a mystery. Not only does he crank out words by the jillion, he appears on tv and radio to promote his work/self. For a marxist, the man is a terrific capitalist.
Did you know he is an atheist? If you don’t BELIEVE it, just ask.
This was all very good and amusing until 911. Then something happened, and he became a warmonger. There is the possibility that Mr. Hitchens was paid to support the carnage in Iraq. This view was proposed by chamblee54 in the early days of this blog.
In a British hatchet job (there is no bad publicity when you have a book coming out), the author discusses the WWII vet father of Hitchens, and suggests that Christopher may be having masculinity issues about not going to war as a youth. It is an old story…the men of a certain age who think war is a dandy thing, but who are too old to take up arms ( and too fat to fit into a uniform).
The Guardian piece also details the drinking habits of Mr. Hitchens. It seems he intakes as much booze as he outputs rhetoric. Some people, no matter how amusing their public persona is, you probably don’t want to meet in person.
PG got the following item from Andrew Sullivan. It is too short for a stand alone post, and too horrible not to repeat.
There was an American citizen killed in the Israeli raid on a supply boat. “Reports in the Turkish press identified the American as Furkan Dogan, 19, who was born in the United States before returning to Turkey with his family as a young child. The Cihan news agency reported that Mr. Dogan had one bullet in the chest and four bullets fired into his head from close range.”
Here is more information about the murder of Furkan Dogan. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.

PG was reading another episode in the latest orgy of mid east punditry, when a couple of things made him think. The first was a breakdown of the Knesset. Towards the end of the tally, it came out that the two Arab parties had 7 seats, out of 120. This works out to 5.83%
According to wikipedia, 20% of Israel is Arab. So one fifth of the population is represented by 5 percent of the Knesset? This is not exactly one man one vote. If Israel is really a democracy, then something should be done about that.
The second tale is best told by a quote. “Israel’s policy-making no longer seems to me to be particularly related to concrete policy objectives at all. Neither the Lebanon war nor the Gaza war had actual military goals. Both were essentially wars for domestic consumption. Hezbollah and Hamas were firing rockets at Israel, and Israelis were understandably furious. “Something” had to be done about that, to let the Israeli public know that their leadership felt their fury. So the government did “something.””
Which is more or less why the United States is in Afghanistan. When 911 happened, the people required revenge. The plotters for 911 lived in Hamburg, Germany. 15 of the 19 attackers were from Saudi Arabia. For various reasons, revenge against those countries was not an option. That left Afghanistan, where Al Queda was based.
When we attacked Afghanistan, we did not have a goal. All we wanted was revenge for 911. We wanted to do something. Almost nine years later, we are stuck.
HT to Andrew Sullivan for the article quoted above. The pictures are from The Library of Congress.