Chamblee54

The first manager of the Atlanta Braves, Bobby Bragan, died thursday. He was 92 years old, and was in Fort Worth, Texas.
The 1966 Braves had Hank Aaron and Eddie Matthews, who have the most combined home runs of any teammates in baseball. The catcher was Joe Torre. The problem was the pitching, which is a big problem. The pitcher on that team that lasted the longest was Phil Niekro. The problem in 1966 was catching a knuckleball with a mitt instead of a backstop.
At any rate, the Braves lost more games than they won that first season in Georgia. In baseball, the manager is hired to be fired, and sometime that summer, Bobby Bragan was looking for a job. He became the President of the Texas League, and worked with the Texas Rangers. Maybe Mr. Bush is his fault.
Bobby Bragan was the second string catcher in Brooklyn when Jackie Robinson came to play there. At the time, Mr. Robinson was the only African American in the major leagues, and many people did not like it. Mr. Bragan was one, until he talked to Mr. Robinson on a train trip one night. After they got to know each other, they got along fine.
That first summer of major league baseball in the south, PG was a 12 year old, always ready to go to the game. On the last night of school, the Braves played the Cardinals, and lost. PG got his patient dad to go to the tunnel at the south end of the stadium, to get autographs of the players as they came out. When the last player left, PG saw Bobby Bragan leaning against a car, talking to someone.
PG went over and joined the conversation. Mr. Bragan ( who was known to talk) compared taking a pitcher out of a game to selling stock. PG asked Mr. Bragan about an incident where the manager was fired. He had walked onto the field to talk to an umpire, while carrying an orange drink. Mr. Bragan pulled his hat off, and acted for a minute like he was going to swat PG. Maybe he should have.

The Supreme Court ruled thursday that corporations can buys ads influencing an election. Direct contributions to a campaign from a corporation remain prohibited. The ruling was in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 08-205.
There is much hand wringing about this decision. PG does not see how the system could be any more corrupt than it already is, but maybe it can be. There is not much talk about campaign financing reform at the moment.
The business of influencing is slick in our country. Where dictators jail and kill, in America we put out ads and write stuff. The corporations can establish subsidiaries with happy names, and no one will be any the wiser.
The link happy obsidian wings points us to a quote about the implications of this ruling. Bear in mind that most large corporations are, to some degree, multi national.
“The Supreme Court decision in Citizens United is probably a greater catastrophe than the Mass. Senate election. In effect, it allows corporations to put unlimited amounts of cash into influencing elections.
One aspect of the ruling that hasn’t gathered much attention: as far as I can tell, the analysis doesn’t distinguish between domestic and foreign corporations. Not that it would matter much, since a foreign corporation can always establish a domestic subsidiary, or buy an American company: Cities Service, for example, is a unit of PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company. So the ruling allows Hugo Chavez to spend as much money as he wants to helping and harming American politicians. If the Russian, Saudi, and Chinese governments don’t currently have appropriate vehicles for doing so, you can count on it: they soon will.
Nor is this a problem that can be handled by “disclosure.” The ad on TV praising the opponent of the congressman who did something to annoy Hugo Chavez won’t say “Paid for by Hugo Chavez.” It will say “Paid for by Citizens for Truth, Justice, and the American Way,” which in turn will have gotten a contribution from “Americans for Niceness,” which in turn will have gotten a contribution from a lobbyist for a subsidiary of Cities Service that no one has ever heard of.
The United States has a $13 trillion GDP, and total annual campaign spending is on the order of $2 billion. Buying influence on the American government has to be the highest-leverage activity ever invented, and Justice Kennedy and his four accomplices just invited every oligarch and tyrant in the world to play. This is not just a threat to democracy; it’s a threat to sovereignty.”

PG spent another evening listening to bloggingheads and perusing the photographs in the “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University”. Can we say get a life?
The two dialogs ( the preferred spelling is diavlog)( The spell check suggestions for diavlog are diagonal, diastole and diagnose) broke down on gender lines. Robert Wright and Mickey Kaus yell at each other the entire time. At one point, Mr. Kaus was ranting about health care reform, while Mr. Wright kept pleading for him to quiet down, Mickey Mickey Mickey. ( Some groupie in “Gimme Shelter” kept squealing Mickey Mickey Mickey. Mick Jagger is a better performer than Mickey Kaus. Which one is uglier is impossible to fathom)
After about ten minutes of the screaming sausages, PG got a phone call, asking him to get his brother at the train station. When he got back, he could not stomach any more Wright and Kaus. The other conversation was Emily Bazelon and Ann Althouse. They were much more agreeable to listen to, and were able to shut up when the other spoke.
This was two days after the special election in Massachusetts, where some repub beat a demo for the senate seat. Much of the media is in an uproar about this, which is puzzling to PG. It seems like the demo didn’t really want the seat, and the people chose to elect the repub. The ladies were discussing the sex appeal and pickup truck as Mr. Brown.
The ladies were also chatting up the evolution of the political spouse. It was agreed that Hillary played the game better than Elizabeth Edwards. They both seem to have an *admiration* for Todd Palin. At one point, one of the ladies (maybe Althouse, but PG is not sure) got an IM from her husband, telling her to cool it.

It started out as a joke comment about a joke. Thank G-d for secular humanism. You’re welcome. PG got to thinking, and wondered what the punch line was. Is there a difference between G-d and man?
In “Zen and the art of motorcycle repair” the author contends that the division of G-d and man, subject and object, is the dirty work of Aristotle. PG is not philosophically grounded enough to know, but suspects that unity is better than division. Is the earth a unified whole, “thou art that”?
Now, the truth just might be that G-d is separate from man. While unity may sound appealing, it might not be the way things operate. Just because a belief makes you happy does not mean that it is true.
If there is a division between G-d and man, then where does the boundary lie?
Pictures are from the “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Margaret Mitchell was not eating at the Krystal.

Renegade Evolution has a piece about violence today. One of the ideas was that not all violence is physical, that verbal abuse can hurt just as bad.
Violence is as old as mankind. It can be argued that progressing from fighting with fists to fighting with words is a civilizing step. While a world of harmony and cooperation may be a cool thought, in reality it will not happen for a long time.
American society is violent. The land was secured through violence, and the power of government is held by force. The dominant religion of America is Jesus Worship. Verbal abuse is a sacrament of the Jesus Worship church.
The pictures are from “Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.

Did people look different back then?
PG has been cruising the picture collection at the GSU library. Most of the images are black and white, which might be part of the difference. Styles of dressing change, and there is less print media ( with posed pictures) today. Maybe people are still the same, but the pictures have changed.
Many of the ladies in today’s collection were in an organization called WOMPI- Women of Motion Picture Industry. They were working women, not stay at home cookie bakers.
When PG worked at Davisons in 1980, the employee entrance was on Ellis Street, the side shown in picture 08. In 1980, you could see the nail holes in the bricks where the words “Davison Paxon” had been attached.

The story should have aroused the skeptics. Three men held at Guantanamo Bay were said to have committed suicide on the same night. Looking back to June 2006, it seems like it slipped in under the radar. The war in Iraq was going badly, and the blame game was being played.
It turns out that those three men might have been killed by American agents. The use of torture and outlaw facilities was semi common knowledge by 2006. The reactions were split along the predictable lines…those against the war were horrified, and those who supported the war supported the torture. If the truth had been known in 2006, it likely would not have changed anyone’s mind.
It is said that in war, truth is the first casualty. In World War W, this would seem to be the case.

The following is a re-post from a year ago. The subject is a good fit for King Day.
There is a featured blog on the WordPress home today called Pakalert. They posted a feature on January 7 titled “Israel Created Hamas to Split Palestine”. The thesis is that Israel helped to start Hamas as a tool against the PLO and Fatah.
PG does not claim to know everything about Palestine. This bit of revisionism does sound a bit far fetched. But the question does arise, what role did Israel play in the creation of Hamas?
In the six day war, Israel gained control of Gaza. Israel occupied the territory for a while, and has had a great deal of control over it ever since. What did Israel do to prepare the Gazans for self government?
By all accounts, it was not a friendly occupation. Israel established settlements on Gazan territory, taking up twenty percent of the land. This is in one of the most densely populated regions on earth.
Is it surprising that a radical organization like Hamas exists? Would it exist if the Israeli treatment of the Gazans had been better during the occupation? Like many other things, the present state of affairs is a done deal. You cannot go back in time and create a better life for the Gazans…and ultimately, the Israelis.

There is a video by Martha Wash making the rounds. PG wishes he could enjoy it, but Jesus gets in the way.
The video starts out with Ms. Wash carrying on about no matter how bad things get, she is going to be strong and carry on. It sounds like church music, even though neither the G word nor the J word were spoken. ( At least in the part the PG could stand to listen to).
Jesus worship is a religion of emotion and belief. These powerful emotions have been used like a weapon on PG. Jesus has put a hurtin’ in the life of PG. Listening to church music is not going to make him feel better.
Pictures illustrating this post are from the Special Collections Department of the Pullen Library at Georgia State University.

There is a video on youtube showing a bit of Dave Letterman. He is discussing his opponent, Jay Leno. The theme of the monolog is what Mr. Leno “stands for”. In this case, it is all american values like killing natives to steal their land.
Now, the question is not about Mr. Leno’s commitment to anything, other than hair spray. It should be noted that Mr. Letterman is not without sin, and neither is as funny as Ed McMahon thought Johnny Carson was. The issue for PG is, why should a comedian “stand for” anything?
Part of the cult of celebrity worship is the attention paid to the opinions of entertainers. From Jesus worshiping quarterbacks to Jane Fonda, people in the spotlight are assumed to have valuable opinions. Often these people are very good at what they do, but woefully deficient in the rest of human behavior. They should not be regarded as role models.

PG is listening to bloggingheads and looking a pictures from the GSU library. What a pleasant way to spend an evening.
The b heads chat is about Harry Reid, and the way black people talk. The word Negro is used quite a bit, and is considered acceptable. While what Mr. Reid said was perhaps phrased clumsily, the essence of what he said…that BHO was a black man who didn’t scare was acceptable to white people… was considered to be true.
The chat then turned to Trent Lott. And PG heard something that made him stop the podcast and write down what he heard. “The difference between Harry Reid and Trent Lott is that Reid used the wrong words, but the Lott had the wrong idea”.
The rest of the chat went on about telling the difference between what people say, and the words they use to describe the thought. Someone suggested a year’s moratorium on controversy about insensitive things that people say. It was said that life would go on as before.

A blogger spoke out again about drivers who don’t pay attention to the road. Texting, eating, and cell phone talking are all culprits. The solution presented here is shame…take pictures of the offending drivers, and post them on a blog.
PG commented: “Will you help in the legal defense if one of these “shamed” drivers decides to sue?”
This got two responses: Peter G opined “Sue on what grounds? Having their picture taken in public? I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t believe privacy rights and free speech restrictions are applicable when it comes to exposing people’s driving habits on public roadways.”
A counter view came from Douglas : “You cannot publish anyone’s picture without permission. When I was an avid photography hobbyist, I often took pictures of people on the street. I was taught to always get permission. A person has a right to control over his image. I think you will find, if you consult a lawyer, that you could easily run into a problem posting images as suggested.”
Even if the case was thrown out in court, or you won in a trial, the expenses of hiring an attorney are considerable. There is also the very good chance that the “shamed” party would “not get it”. While you are concerned about the impaired driving skills, the person would… with a bit of justification…worry about the reputation damage.
PG has always wondered why the church is so quiet about safe driving. Why is courtesy on the road not seen as a moral issue? The preachers scream loud and long about sexual practices, and don’t sound a peep over the way a person drives.
Update There has been another round in the discussion.
Peter G “Your “reasonable expectation of privacy” ceases the moment you set foot into a public area, where you have neither right nor control over images taken of you. Getting angry and threatening a law suit is different from actually having a case.
Just open a newspaper, a magazine, or watch the news, and you’ll see plenty of passers-by who never gave permission to be photographed and their pictures published in print or aired on television. If that were illegal, virtually all media outlets would be getting their pants sued off day after day.”
Douglas “As you said, you are not a lawyer.”
Peter G “ “The speed of light in a vacuum is 186,000 miles per second, and I’m not a theoretical physicist. What’s your point?””