Jean D. Mckinnon
The first picture in this episode is a family portrait of the Quin family in Washington Georgia. The nine surviving children of Hugh Pharr Quin are sitting for the camera. Mr. Quin had joined the Georgia State Troops of the Army of the Confederacy at the age of 16, and after the war went to Washington to live with his sister. Mr. Quin was in the church choir of the First Methodist Church when he met the organist, Betty Lou DuBose. They were married January 22, 1879.
The original name of Mrs. Quin was Louisa Toombs DuBose. She was the daughter of James Rembert DuBose. His brother in law was Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State of the Confederacy, and a man of whom many stories are told.
In this picture, Mrs. Quin is holding the hand of her second youngest daughter so she will not run away. This is Martha (Mattie) Vance Quin. She is my grandmother.
After the Great War, Mattie Quin was living in Memphis Tennessee, where she met Arthur Dunaway. Mr. Dunaway was a veteran of the war, and was from Paragould, Arkansas. On July 23, 1922 her first Daughter, Jean, was born. This is my mother.
Mr. Dunaway died in 1930, shortly after the birth of his son Arthur. There were hard times and upheaval after this, with the family settling in Atlanta. There her third child Helen Ann Moffat was born on December 12, 1933. This is my Aunt Helen and my mother’s best friend.
Jean lived for many years with her mother and sister at 939 Piedmont, among other locations. She joined the First Baptist Church and sang in the choir. She got a job with the C&S bank, and was working at the Tenth Street Branch when she met Luther McKinnon. He was a native of Rowland, North Carolina. They were married October 6, 1951.
They moved into the Skyland Apartments, which in those days was out in the country. Mom told a story about Dad taking her home from Choir practice, and going home on the two lane Buford Hiway. There was a man who went to the restaurants to get scraps to feed his pigs, and his truck was always in front of them. This was a serious matter in the summer without air conditioning.
Soon, they moved into a house, and Luther junior was born on May 6, 1954. This is me. Malcolm was born May 10, 1956, which did it for the children.
The fifties were spent on Wimberly Road, a street of always pregnant women just outside Brookhaven. It was a great place to be a little kid.
In 1960, we moved to Parkridge Drive, to the house where my brother and I stay today. The note payment was $88 a month. Ashford Park School is a short walk away…the lady who sold us the house said “you slap you kid on the fanny and he is at school”.
In 1962, our family followed the choir director from First Baptist to Briarcliff Baptist, which is where my parents remained.
In 1964, Mom went back to work. She ran the drive in window at Lenox Square for the Trust Company of Georgia until it was time to retire. She became a talk radio fan when RING radio started, and was a friend of her customer Ludlow Porch. She gave dog biscuits to customers with dogs.
During this era of change, Mom taught me that all people were good people, be they black or white. This was rare in the south. She later became disgusted with the War in Vietnam, and liked to quote a man she heard on the radio. “How will we get out of Vietnam?””By ship and by plane”.
Eventually, it was time to retire. Her and Dad did the requisite traveling, until Dad got sick and passed away February 7, 1992. Mom stuck around for a few more years, until her time came December 18, 1998. This is a repost.
The Labyrinth And The Maze
Walking the labyrinth is a practice in many traditions. “The labyrinth is a tool for personal, psychological and spiritual transformation. … It combines the imagery of the circle and the spiral into a meandering but purposeful path from the edge to the center and back out again. A labyrinth is unicursal – it is only one path. The way in is the way out. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again.” Last Saturday, I walked into, and out of, a labyrinth.
There are similarities between the labyrinth, and her sister, the maze. Both labyrinth, and maze, have four parts. There is the path you walk on. The path has several layers. The largest layer is on the outside, and the smallest one in the center. Most, though not all, labyrinths are circular.
The layers of path are separated by a wall, which is the second part. There is an opening in this wall, which enables you to go from one layer, of path, to another one. Finally, there is a barrier across the path, which does not allow you to go any further. This is a section of wall, which crosses the path at a ninety degree angle.
Both the labyrinth and the maze consist of these four parts. The difference is the way that the openings, and the barriers, are used. In the labyrinth, you walk the entire length of the course, in an orderly manner. In the maze, you must make choices. If you make the correct choice, you can move on to the next level. If you make the wrong choice, you will come to a dead end.
Saturday’s labyrinth walk was led by a man, who we will call the Guide. He talked to the group before walking the labyrinth. I got a late start, and missed most of his comments.
Later, I spoke to the Guide, and mentioned some of the similarities between the labyrinth and the maze. The Guide became angry at my observation. He said something about sacred geometry. The Guide also mentioned that most labyrinths are on the ground only, where the maze often has walls that physically prevent you from walking over.
”Labyrinths and mazes have often been confused. When most people hear of a labyrinth they think of a maze. A labyrinth is not a maze. A maze is like a puzzle to be solved. It has twists, turns, and blind alleys. It is a left brain task that requires logical, sequential, analytical activity to find the correct path into the maze and out.”
“A labyrinth has only one path. It is unicursal. The way in is the way out. There are no blind alleys. The path leads you on a circuitous path to the center and out again. A labyrinth is a right brain task. It involves intuition, creativity, and imagery. With a maze many choices must be made and an active mind is needed to solve the problem of finding the center. With a labyrinth there is only one choice to be made. The choice is to enter or not. A more passive, receptive mindset is needed. The choice is whether or not to walk a spiritual path.”
Is it possible to change a labyrinth into a maze, or a maze into a labyrinth? You would leave the basic path, and walls, in place. You would then re-arrange the openings, and barriers, so that the walls and path become either a labyrinth, or a maze. It is a binary choice. Your course is a labyrinth, with a logical unicursal direction. Or, it is a maze, with both correct choices, and dead ends.
The labyrinth walk is a well established spiritual tradition. There is also the possibility of using the maze as a alternative. In the labyrinth, there are no choices, and you are free to focus on your spirit.
In the maze, you will need to make choices. You will not have any clue about which choice is correct, and which one will lead to a dead end. You will have to maintain your enlightened state, while dealing with adversity. This is life … dealing with incorrect choices, while maintaining a level of grace.
There are many labyrinths available. The labyrinth locator can direct you to one, with information about how much public access is available.
Old Men is a portable labyrinth, which frequently appears at Burning Man events. It is made of tent stakes, and fabric walls. “The labyrinth is a modification of a 15th century design. It is octagonal, with four entrances leading to the center. Each path splits and rejoins twice before reaching the center. The participant can then choose which of the four paths to exit from.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Destroy The Village To Save It
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” This is one of the most familiar lines about the Vietnam War. It is often cited today, when discussing the response to COVID-19. Who said this?
It was “originally reported by Peter Arnett of the Associated Press, who quoted an unidentified American officer on why the village of Ben Tre was leveled during the Tet Offensive in early 1968. … A two-paragraph version of the AP dispatch was buried on page 14 of The New York Times, with no byline,” on Feb. 8, 1968. … “BENTRE, Feb. 7 (AP) It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,” a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.”
“Almost instantly, however, the line was being misquoted everywhere. On Feb. 10, an Oregon newspaper rendered it “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.” Two weeks later the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported on a group of protesters carrying a banner that read, “It Was Necessary to Destroy the Village in Order to Save It.” In whatever form, the words had become a mantra of the anti-war movement, a … summary of what was wrong with the entire Vietnam adventure.”
“The day before Arnett’s story ran, the Times’s James Reston had asked in his column, “How do we win by military force without destroying what we are trying to save?” … Associated Press itself had used a similar phrase almost exactly a year before Arnett’s dispatch. In late Jan. 1967, the AP distributed a wire photo of a different village with a caption that read in part: “The Americans meantime had started to destroy the village to deny it to the Viet Cong.” The photograph was published across the country. One wonders whether the officer Arnett was quoting had come across the caption the previous year.”
“But the actual father of the metaphor — the man who put it into roughly the form we know today — seems to have been Justice Edward White of the U.S. Supreme Court. In a 1908 decision known as the Employers’ Liability Cases, the justices were asked to give a narrow reading to a congressional enactment concerning common carriers in the District of Columbia. The court refused. The requested reading, according to White’s opinion for the majority, would in effect add a new clause to the statute. He then explained why doing so would be wrong: “To write into the act the qualifying words therefore would be but adding to its provisions in order to save it in one aspect, and thereby to destroy it in another — that is, to destroy in order to save, and to save in order to destroy.””
The fighting in Ben Tre took place during the Tet Offensive. This is widely seen as a turning point in America’s involvement in that conflict. “On January 30 1968 … the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong launched a massive military offensive that proved the battle raging in Southeast Asia was far from over, and that President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration had grossly oversold American progress to the public. Although U.S. troops ultimately ended the offensive successfully, and the North Vietnamese and the Vietcong suffered brutal loses, these bloody weeks triggered a series of events that continue to undermine Americans’ confidence in their government.”
“Cronkite was so shocked at the devastation of the communists’ Tet offensive that he went over to see for himself what was really going on.” On February 27, 1968, “he concluded the war was a stalemate, probably unwinnable. … Lyndon Johnson was said to have watched the broadcast and exclaimed to his press secretary, George Christian, “If I have lost Walter Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
Is Prayer That Great?
Prayer is not always a good idea. Somebody has to say it.
Many of my objections are in the phrase, Prayer is talking to God, and Meditation is Listening. We love to talk, and don’t have time to listen. Talking is yang, active, power. Listening is ying, receptive, passive, and indicates respect for the person you are paying attention to.
No one ever says I am going to meditate for you. Although maybe you should.
Prayer is used as an aggressive weapon. “I am going to pray for you” is the condescending conclusion of many religious arguments. I have had it shouted at me like a curse.
There is also the matter of prayer as entertainment. While this may be cool to those who are on the program, it can be repulsive to others. Once I volunteered to lead the prayer before a dinner. The story is repeated below.
Now, prayer is not a completely bad thing. One of the cherished memories of my father is the brief, commonsense blessings he would give before meals. In the context of a church service, prayer plays a useful function. Some famous prayers are beautiful poetry. In Islam, the daily prayers are an important part of the observance. Who am I to say it is wrong? (A note to the Muslim haters, and other opportunists …We are all God’s children.)
When someone is in a bad way, people want to think they can help. While it does not hurt to pray for someone, but it is nothing to boast about.
The problem is when people are proud of their prayers. There are few as prideful as a “humble servant.” While it may mean something to you, not everyone is impressed. And in a religion devoted to converting others, you should care what people think.
So much for world affairs. It is time to tell a story, with no moral and no redeeming social value. In 1980, I was staying at a place called the Sea Haven Hostel, affectionately known as Sleaze Haven. This was in Seattle WA, as far as you can get from Atlanta, and still be in the lower 48. I was working through Manpower, and staying in a semi-private room for $68 a month.
There was a Christian group that met in the basement on Sunday Night. Now, as some of you may know, I am a recovering baptist, who hasn’t been to church since 1971. However, the lure of a free meal was hard to resist, so I went to a few meetings.
One night, after sampling the neighborhood beer supply, I cheerfully joined in the discussion. This was the night when I realized that the Bible is not “the Word of God.” This concept has been very handy in dealing with the ravings of our Jesus-mad culture.
They seemed to like me, though, and welcomed me back. Maybe it was the southern accent.
One Sunday, after the dinner was finished , it was time to have a prayer to begin the meeting. I raised my hand. Now, believers enjoy prayer as entertainment. When they bow their heads, you see them stretching, in anticipation of a good, long, message for God.
My prayer was a bit of a disappointment. Instead of a long winded lecture about Jesus and the magic book, I said what was on my mind. “Lord, thank you for letting us be here today.” What else do you need to say? This double repost has pictures from The Library of Congress.
I Used to Be Charming Part Five
This is the fifth, and final, installment in the chamblee54 serial book report on I Used to Be Charming, by Eve Babitz. The pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” The other four parts of this series are available: one two three four
It’s an old cliche about drug abuse … life becomes boring when you quit using. That might be true with Miss Eve. She got scared because of AIDS, and got cleaned up from her druggie ways. She started taking dance lessons, and got into ballroom dancing. When she tried to commit suicide by Tiparillo, the physical activity of dancing aided her recovery.
Hippie Heaven (Vogue October 1992) was the first story that made me want to take notes. “Especially the red rayon forties dress, cut on the bias, that I’d worn the nights I waited in the Troubadour bar in West Hollywood, looking for trouble like Jim Morrison.” Lord, whatever happened to Eve? Writing for Vogue about a dress “cut on the bias.” This is the Dowager Groupie, talking about clothes. Even Eve’s sister Mirandi … who started out as Miriam … made leather suits for Jimbo.
Eve says something about Leicester Square, in London. The Rolling Stones did a song, Cocksucker Blues. They owed a pesky record label one more song, so they decided to give them something they would never play on WQXI. So Mick says something about hanging out in Lester Square, but it turns out to be Leicester Square.
Scent of a Woman (Vogue March 1997) is where Eve finally gets her mojo back. Vogue published SOAW a few weeks before Eve’s catastrophic fire.
Some say that smell is the most animal of our senses. Aromas get directly from the nose to the brain, without the mental filters navigated by sound and sight. In SOAW, Eve discusses the various perfumes of her life. When she was young, the only perfume she felt comfortable with was Here’s My Heart, by Avon. True, it did not make her smell like old stationary, as Chanel N°5 did, but you don’t get more uncool than Avon.
“My great aunt sold Avon when I was a kid, and she and my conservative-about-fragrances mother (the one who flushed my Evening in Paris down the toilet) approved this for me. It was OK, girly, kind of little girly and nowhere near as exciting as Evening in Paris, but I liked it all right. It made me think I was missing something in fragrances, but it was enjoyable to wear.” Avon introduced Here’s My Heart in 1957. Nobody is sure when it was discontinued.
One afternoon in the sixties, Eve went swimming at the house of a Hollywood somebody. In the bathroom, there was a bottle of Le De by Givenchy “Le De came about when Hubert (Givenchy) chose decided to gift his friend (Audrey Hepburn) with a perfume; actually he commissioned two, the other being L’interdit (created in 1957 and commercialized in 1964) and they were hers alone for a whole year. In 1958 the idea of launching perfume under the aegis of his house saw Le De being introduced to the market while L’Interdit was immortalised in … Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”
“And then the unthinkable happened. They took Le De Givenchy off the market — or at least they cut back its distribution to the point where it became impossible to find. This is something Andy Warhol would have picketed Givenchy with me for. (Andy Warhol had an extremely funny section in his autobiography The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again,) in which he says that whenever a product is “improved,” the manufacturer should leave the original, unimproved product on sale, too, because a lot of people don’t want what they already like pulled from the shelves.”
Amazon has a terrific one star review of the Warhol book. “I bought this due to a need for additional references. It’s written by warhols assistant and is filled by drivel, pompousism and things you may say on acid trips while your in a room wrapped in tin foil. Save your money and if you a want book about Andy warhol use one of the autobiographies written by an author after Andy died and has no connection to him or his factory friends.”
The last fun chapter is I Used To Be Charming. IUTBC is about the fire, on April 13, 1997. “I had just finished brunch with my mother; my aunt Tiby; my sister Mirandi; and my cousin Laurie. Mirandi would be driving my mother back to her place, where I was also living at the time, and I looked forward to smoking the Tiparillo I’ve been saving for the ride in peace and quiet. The cigar was one of those fashionable but hideous cherry-flavored ones I loved because smoking them made me feel like Clint Eastwood; everyone else hated them. I grabbed one of the wooden matches, struck it against the sandpaper side of the box, when all of a sudden the match fell from my hand. The gauzy skirt I’d put on to go out dancing later went up in flames; my panty hose melted to my legs. Thank God for sheepskin Uggs, which protected my lower legs from burns.”
When Eve struck that match, in a 68 VW bug, her life changed. There were a lot of rude comments about cigars. Tiparillos in particular have a curious market niche. One ad campaign had a picturesque young lady working the crowd, with her pitch “Cigars, cigarettes, Tiparillo’s?” “The modern smoke, found in all the right places, with all the right people.”
Another ad campaign asked the oh-so-modern question ”Should a gentleman offer a Tipparillo to a lady?” A later campaign produced a TV classic. “In 1970 the Federal Trade Commission banned cigarette commercials from American airwaves. However, cigars did not fall under the FTC ban, and so we have these two commercials from 1973 for Tiparillo cigars, which — if you believe the ads — must be offered to a lady, which will be appreciated more than “candlelight and small talk.”
Fiorucci, the book takes up the last 48 pages of IUTBC. Eve wrote text for a collection of graphics from the Fiorucci fashion emporium. Fiorucci closed its retail stores in the eighties, and is mostly known today because it rhymes with Gucci. “Zeigt und erklärt, wie und warum Fiorucci in den 70ern und 80ern bigger than life war. Das Buch ist Kunst, Marketinghandbuch und Poesiealbum in einem.”
Cadavre Exquis
When you are the featured poet at a reading, it is good manners to show up on time. I was scheduled to feature at the Little 5 Poetry bash, but the traffic had other plans. I got to Java Lords at 1832, got a cup of coffee, and went into the lobby of 7 Stages theater. It was empty. I sat down, and took a notebook out of my backpack. As I was looking for an inkpen, Rosser Shymanski walked in, wearing a lovely pair of lime green shoes. The event was outside on the patio.
Han Vance, the primary perpetrator of the event, was on the microphone. “Tomorrow is my first UNNIVERSARY, would-be 13th wedding anniversary so I’m gonna do a special set before you go.” It was an emotional evening for Mr. Vance, but he pulled through. There were only two more poets reading, Mitchell Padgett and Mark LaFountain.
After a while, Rosser pulled some clipboards out of a box, and introduced a parlor game. Each person would start a group poem. You write two lines. Fold the paper over the first line, and pass the clipboard on to the next person. They write two lines, hide the first one, and pass it on to the next person. When you fill up the page, you have a poem.
“Cadavre exquis is similar to the old parlour game consequences – in which players write in turn on a sheet of paper, fold to conceal what they have written, and pass it on to the next player – but adapted so that parts of the body are drawn instead.
It was invented in 1925 in Paris by the surrealists Yves Tanguy, Jacques Prévert, and Marcel Duchamp. The name ‘cadavre exquis’ was derived from a phrase that resulted when they first played the game, ‘le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau’ (‘the exquisite corpse will drink the new wine’).”
Some killjoy observed that stream of consciousness is more fun to write than it is to read … and don’t even think about editing. There is a discussion to be had whether consequences, with or without truth, should be chosen before an exquisite corpse.
May 6, 2024
May 6 is a day in spring, with 35% of the year gone by. It has it’s fair share of history, some of which did not turn out well. In 1861, the Confederate Congress declared war on the United States. In 1937, a German zeppelin named “Hindenburg” exploded while trying to land in New Jersey. In 1940, Bob Hope did his first show for the USO, somewhere in California.
Roger Bannister ran the first sub four minute mile, on May 6, 1954. The current record is 3:43.13 by Hicham El Guerrouj on July 7, 1999, with a party with Prince to celebrate. Since most track meets now use 1500 meters, the mile record is obsolete.
On this day, Georgia executed two notable prisoners. In 2003, Carl Isaacs was put to death. Mr. Isaacs was the ringleader in the 1973 Alday family killing, in Donalsonville GA. Five years later, in 2008, William Earl Lynd was poisoned by the state. This was the first condemned man to die after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that execution by poisoning was constitutional.
Taurus is the sign for those whose blood starts to pump May 6. Included are:
Maximilien Robespierre (1758) Sigmund Freud (1856) Rudolph Valentino (1895)
Orson Welles (1915) Willie Mays (1931) Rubin Carter (1937)
Bob Seger (1945) Tony Blair (1953) Luther Mckinnon (1954) George Clooney (1961)
To make room for these folks, someone has to die. For May 6 this would mean:
Henry David Thoreau (1862) L. Frank Baum (1919) Marlene Dietrich (1992)
This repost, written like H.P. Lovecraft, has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
The Whole Nine Yards
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Some Thoughts On The UCLA Chaos What if widespread disorder is. . . bad? And should …
Israel tells U.S. it will punish Palestinian Authority if ICC issues warrants
Mozart was baptised as Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart.
UCLA: Jewish girl sent to ER after reportedly beaten by pro-Palestine pro-testers
Fact check: Biden, like Trump, received multiple draft deferments from Vietnam
‘Let the coach and GM pick’: Panthers owner pays Charlotte restaurant surprise visit …
Blinken Asked About Pro-Palestinian Protests Erupting On College Campuses
The Mysterious Origins of the Phrase ‘The Whole Nine Yards’ By Ellen Gutoskey
#452 – The Strawberry Statement 2024 / The Eternal Adderall Shortage
So Columbia Really Screwed This Up, Huh? Plus some other thoughts on the protests …
Petition for removal of MESAAS professor Joseph Massad garners 47,000 signatures
“… Because of Internal BS” Stu Cook Remembers Tom Fogerty & Demise of Creedence
We Don’t Need Warrior Cops Policing Campus Protests Heavily armed …
Daily Wire Issued Gag Order Against Candace Owens During Public Debate Negotiations
Media is Engaged in a Coverup of Biden’s Epic Foreign Policy Failure in Niger.
boogie nights ~ putney swope ~ bukowski ~ ramon navarro ~ ucla
amadeus ~ zoom 5-5-24 ~ namaste ~ hamas ~ nico ~ kink down south ~ Manley Pointer
repost ~ racist ~ walk this way ~ october 7 ~ hasbara
meitnerium ~ mahmood od ~ lord of light ~ lol ~ early voting
#nationalpoetrymonth 29/30 ~ #nationalpoetrymonth 30/30 ~ this is your monday morning reader for today. The photograph was taken by Jack Delano in October 1940. “French-Canadian potato farmer waiting with a truckload of potatoes at a starch factory in Caribou, Maine for his potatoes to be graded and weighed” Photo caption by X. ~ Priestess Serena Malone, administrator at Church of Satan, told Reuters via email that Satanists are atheists and do not have prayers. “So, it is a hoax,” Malone said. “Hysterical Christians have been spreading that nonsense about ‘LOL,’ but there is no basis in truth for that silly rumor. ~ my spirit animal is a raccoon, because I’m cute but love to eat garbage, just watch me go home an hour too soon, with abusive relationship baggage, eye doctor: what brings you in here today?, i’m having trouble seeing the red flags, coke in a bathroom the very next day, a fitness class is good for scumbags, inspired by the tweets of @sarafcarter ~ joy of finding change in a payphone, wear a dress backwards for charm, hillary clinton for president crone, def leppard drummer with right arm, hairball retrieved from shower drain, can be dried out and glued on tight, oreo stuffing fights toothpaste pain, two wrongs do not make you right, out of toilet paper? find a doggie, lick mud you find at a port a pottie, say “you” instead of “u” in a text, when you cry wolf at night after sex, grace to know the difference between, true wisdom and clever string of sheen ~ Manley Pointer, an Atlanta based poet, is currently using the voice of Luther Mckinnon to give readings. Mr. Pointer, the illegitimate son of George P. Burdell, does not make personal appearances. The next performance will be Monday, May 6, at Java Lords in Little Five Points. ~ Atlanta poet Manley Pointer is currently using the voice of @chamblee54 to give readings. Mr. Pointer, the son of George P. Burdell, does not make personal appearances. Java Lords L5P 05/06/24 ~ @XavierRyanXXX @Cumrade_Powers @Sherman_Maus @Adam1DAAT @CarltonHouseton ~ blinken said he is hopeful Hamas will accept Israel’s “extraordinarily generous” offer for a cease-fire in Gaza in return for the release of hostages. “In this moment, the only thing standing between the people of Gaza and a cease-fire is Hamas,” ~ @coldxman “free speech,” the related debates, can be a dandy distraction from the life and death issues “antisemitism” is the current red herring. October 7 rape has been exploited as much as it can be. Who knows what the next shiny object will be? ~ this is a resonse to a comment on reddit. … “Regarding Israel-Gaza war/conflict and neutrality in war. … I couldn’t care less about it. … Sure it’d be great if people didn’t have to suffer and they could find peace….but I really couldn’t care less if they didn’t and decided to blow each other up instead. That’s on them. Here is my comment: I just wish that were the case. Fwiw, I am on team Palestine. 1 – The United States is supplying weapons to Israel. We are seen as enabling the bad behavior by Israel. 2 – There is a possibility of a war with Iran. Even if the USA does not have forces involved, a major conflict involving Iran could be disastrous. Iran can shut down the Strait of Hormuz. This would prevent a significant portion of the world’s oil supply from reaching the market. This could have a devastating impact on the world economy. 3 – Iran has a strong military, as does Lebanon/Hezbollah. The Iron Dome is not infallible. There is a possibility that these actors could do enormous damage to nuclear armed Israel. If it appears that hostile forces are going to “wipe Israel off the map,” then Israel might use nuclear force. This would have serious consequences for the environment. ~ Little 5 Poetry Bash, And Han Vance Present, Manley Pointer, With Luther Mckinnon, May 6, 2024 1830 – 2130, Open Mic Signup 1800, Java Lords 1105 Euclid Ave ~ Cognitive Dissonance is a handy concept. Another one is Narcotizing Dysfunction. That is when you hear so much about a topic, you cannot stand to hear another sentence. ~ Once a man was driving, with a penguin in his car. The officer pulled him over, said to take it to the zoo. Next day, the man and the penguin had shades on. The same officer pulled him over. “I told you to take him to the zoo” “I did officer, now I am taking him to the beach.” ~ @TylerChaseXXX @AdamGravesXXX @ConnorTaylorXXX ~ the spell check suggestion for inebrience is inebrience ~ “… always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” Elie Wiesel said this in his acceptance speech for the 1986 Nobel Peace prize. The next paragraph was about “the Palestinians.” Facebook memes are *never* the answer to complex problems. ~ Show Me Where Your Wooden Leg Joins On, You Can Get Another One From Amazon, Hope You Don’t Think I Believe That Crap!, I May Sell Bibles But I Know A Trap, Catholic Salvation Might Disappoint Her, Give Me Back My Leg Young Manley Pointer, From “Good Country People” Flannery O’Connor ~ This is a repost from 2017. ~ “the only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.’ Churchill’s assistant, Anthony Montague-Browne said, that although Churchill had not uttered these words, he wished he had. ~ I wrote a blog post about Churchill , including this tidbit. I wanted to mention this item in a conversation, and did a google advanced search. Google did not want me to find this. I finally looked in a list of blog posts that I keep. ~ In 1937, Mr. Churchill spoke before the Peel Commission It was discussing “partitioning British mandated Palestine into Arab and Jewish states.” At the time, Mr. Churchill was a minor figure in British politics, disgraced by his blundering in the Great War. The quote: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.” ~ 007 0515 0504f 0515f petition the lord ~ This is a repost from 2021. ~ report: Hamas Accepts Gaza Cease-fire Deal; Israeli Officials Reject Prospect of War Ending. According to the report, Hamas was guaranteed by the U.S. for a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and that Israeli forces will not continue fighting once the hostages are released. An Israeli official told Haaretz that ‘Israel will, under no circumstances, agree to end the war as part of a deal’ and is determined to enter Rafah ~ @wildethingy Jokes about schrodinger’s cat are dead. Unless you’ve not heard them before. But I won’t know that, until I post them. ~ @BarakRavid 🚨NEW: Israeli warned the Biden administration that if the International Criminal Court issues arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, it will take retaliatory steps against the Palestinian Authority that could lead to its collapse. My story on @axios ~ As the Daily Wire Publicly Negotiated a Debate with Candace Owens, it Secretly Sought — and Obtained — a Gag Order Against Her ~ @nomarquee The brilliant @AliAbunimah shows how Israel’s own newspapers like @haaretzcom have debunked Sheryl Sandberg’s fake documentary. Watch how Facebook’s propaganda extraordinaire weaves her web of lies! Honestly as a survivor I’ve never seen so many people wishing rape that never happened so badly onto their own people. It’s honestly sickening level of self dehumanising! ~ putney swope ~ pictures for today’s monday morning reader are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Sixty Nine Years Thirteen Presidents
This is a repost from 2021. … Every four years, someone will say this is the worst choice ever. Every four years, someone will say this is the most important election ever. They are always correct. The choice in 2024 was between Donald John Trump and Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Choosing between those two idiots will be challenging. The good news is that most people live in states where the electoral votes are conceded to one of the duopoly parties. These voters can focus on local elections. Unfortunately, Georgia is now a “swing” state.
Listening to the news shows that came on before the cartoons, PG heard the phrase “President Eisenhower”. As a friend explained to him, G-d made everything, but the President is Eisenhower.
When he was six, PG moved to a new house, and started first grade. There was an election that fall, and someone named Kennedy became President. PG wasn’t old enough to pay attention to the news yet, except when it looked like the Russians were going to kill us all in 1962.
The first news story that PG clearly remembers was the day when his fourth grade teacher, Miss McKenzie, told the class that President Kennedy had been shot. One of the worst moments that weekend was the moment when a plane landed in Washington, and the new President spoke on television. THAT was the new President? Yuck.
Lyndon Johnson was a larger than life figure, and was hated by millions of Amuricuns. While there was some good done by LBJ, it was overshadowed by the War in Vietnam. When he left office in 1968, the voters had a horrible choice …Hubert Humphrey, Richard Nixon, or George Wallace.
Tricky Dick Nixon is another larger than life figure, with millions of Americans screaming for his impeachment. For some reason, there were others who passionately admired the man.
In 1973, the oil companies tried to say there was an oil shortage. Later that year, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan attacked Israel, and the Arab oil producers cut oil to the USA. After this embargo, OPEC was in charge of the oil supply, and the price of gasoline increased 200%. The era of big money oil was on. What a convenient war.
After the ethical shortcomings of Mr. Nixon became too obnoxious to ignore, Gerald Ford became President. On a policy level, Mr. Ford was like all the other Presidents…some things he got right, some things he got wrong. On a personality level…the show business part … Mr. Ford excelled. His family provided harmless fodder for the gossipmongers. He was a likable man, a welcome break from the meanness of Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson.
When PG was a kid, there had never been a President from Georgia. It seemed impossible. When Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter announced he was running, it seemed like another ego tripper running for President. The funny thing is, Jimmy won. It still seems a bit unreal.
Jimmy was a Democrat, with attack Republicans fighting him every step of the way. This is a problem later Democrats in the Oval Office will have. On the policy level, Jimmy did better than many realize. Many of his achievements only bore fruit after he left office. On the show biz front, his down home Georgia routine did not appeal to many Yankees. In 1980, Jimmy was defeated by an actor.
PG was worried when Ronald Reagan took office. With America’s nuclear arsenal, and the Soviet Union wheezing it’s threat, many thought that Ronnie would start the war to kill us all. The good news is, this war never happened. Whatever tough talk came out of Washington was not matched by military adventurism abroad.
Mr. Reagan was the master of show business. He was an actor, playing the greatest role of his career. It was said that if America had a figure head monarch, Mr. Reagan would have been terrific. On the policy front, taxes were cut, and the budget increased. The national debt went over a trillion dollars. This was seen as a historic moment.
When Mr. Reagan’s two terms were over, George H.W. Bush took over. This was an era where the Democrats could not do anything right on a national level. Mr. Bush presided over a war, and brought the troops home when the mission was over. His image never appealed, and the whiners were not pleased. A computer salesman named Ross Perot decided to run as a third party candidate.
In the winter of 1992, PG had a little job downtown. One day, there was a rally at the CNN center for a little known Presidential candidate. PG went, and said to a friend, If this guy gets elected, you are going to regret not going to see him. At the time, War Winner Bush seemed unbeatable, and PG said that with high sarcasm.
When he got to CNN center, it was obvious that a big money event was unfolding. The place was packed, with school children bused in to fill all the seats. Finally, the speakers blared “Twist and Shout” at top volume, and Bill Clinton walked on the stage. PG was not especially impressed.
Mr. Clinton inspired toxic hatred, but managed to keep the boat floating. He won reelection, with the Republicans seeming to self destruct. The economy was going good, the budget was balanced, and the haters went wild. After a entertaining sex scandal, the Clinton years were over.
A couple of weeks before the 2000 election, PG liked neither candidate, and did not think it made much difference. (With Georgia’s electoral votes certain to go Republican, PG did not have a vote.) He listened to someone talking, who thought that it was important that Mr. Gore won. PG remembered that conversation often during the next eight years.
George W. Bush was a disaster. It is possible that 911 was a personal vendetta against the Bush family, and would not have happened if Mr. Gore was President. The reaction of Mr. Bush to this tragedy was to start two wars that we have not been able to finish. In 2021, we are still in Afghanistan.
Barack Obama was next, the first dark skinned President. He continued the war happy ways of the Bush regime. BHO was reelected in 2012, and given four more years to wage war. He managed to avoid the second term scandals that crippled Mr. Nixon and Mr. Clinton.
In the next election, the democrats decided that calling people racist was a good campaign strategy. As a result, Donald J. Trump was elected. America is more racially divided than ever, something the election of Mr. Obama was supposed to remedy. With the nation distracted by screaming racism, the congress has cut taxes, and produced a multi-trillion dollar budget deficit.
Joe Biden is now in the oval orifice. Mr. Trump, while not as bad as anticipated, was awful. Covid-19 hit, and Mr. Trump did not stop it. The national debt went through the roof. OTOH, Mr. Trump did not start any new major wars. Mr. Biden will struggle to keep his cognitive decline within Presidential levels. America might survive. Pictures for this feature are from the The Library of Congress.
Wednesday Morning Consultants
This is a repost from 2017. … Wednesday morning consultants have been buzzing since last November. There are lots of opinions about why Hillary lost to Donnie. Today’s text will take a look at the numbers. With 270 electoral votes needed to win, Donald Trump (DJT) got 306, and Hillary Clinon (HRC) got 232. Gary Johnson (GEJ) and Jill Stein (JES) also were on the ballot.
One commonly heard excuse for this result is racism. The repubs are racist, and anyone who voted for them is racist. This trope ignores the fact that essentially the same voting population elected a dark skinned man in 2008 and 2012. Did you ever hear anyone say “If you vote for Mitt Romney (WMR) you are a racist?” Maybe the demoze could have focused on the numerous ethical shortcomings of DJT, rather than scream racist.
Today we will look at five states. Four went Republican in 2016, after going Democrat in 2013. The fifth, Wisconsin, went Republican both times. The states are Florida (29), Michigan (16), Ohio (18), Pennsylvania (20), and Wisconsin (10). These five states had a total of 93 votes. Here are the links for the data used: fl2016, fl2012, mi2016, mi 2012, oh2016, oh2012, pa2016, pa2012, wi 2016, wi 2012.
Florida saw DJT won by 130,770, in a state won by BHO by 75,189. Both demoze and repubs saw increases in 2016 over 2012, with DJT getting 454,434 more votes than WMR. GEJ/JES also had substantial increases. We don’t know how 270,026 votes won by GEJ/JES affected the overall total.
2016 Trump 4,616,515 Clinton 4,485,745 Johnson 206,007 Stein 64,019
2012 Romney 4,162,081 Obama 4,237,270 Johnson 44,681 Stein 8,933
Michigan was a shocker. Most pundits assumed it would go to HRC, who lost by 11,612. The demoze lost 293,718 votes, and the repubs gained 167,132. GEJ (who was not on the ballot in 2012) and JES gained 202,553. It is possible that more than 11k BHO voters became “racistized,” and voted for DJT.
2016 Trump 2,279,805 Clinton 2,268,193 Johnson 173,057 Stein 50,700
2012 Romney 2,112,673 Obama 2,561,911 Johnson not on ballot Stein 21,204
Ohio has been the strategic electoral prize for years. DJT won by 454,983 votes, after WMR lost by 103,481. With a margin of victory that large, the GEJ/JES increases don’t matter much. HRC focused on Ohio in 2016, leading some to speculate that her campaign was so yukkky, that the more voters saw of it, the more likely they were to vote against her.
2016 Trump 2,771,984 Clinton 2,317,001 Johnson 168,599 Stein 44,310
2012 Romney 2,593,779 Obama 2,697,260 Johnson 47,287 Stein 12,148
Pennsylvania got the attention of demo strategist Chuck Schumer. “For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.” In a state BHO won by 287,905 votes, HRC lost by 68,236. This might be due to the 123,097 vote increase by GEJ/JES, or the fact that BHO had 62,783 more votes than HRC.
2016 Trump 2,912,941 Clinton 2,844,705 Johnson 142,653 Stein 49,912
2012 Romney 2,619,583 Obama 2,907,488 Johnson 48,758 Stein 20,710
Wisconsin is the only state, examined in this post, that WMR won in 2012. In fact, DJT got 204,483 less votes than WMR. HRC got 26,536 less votes than BHO, while losing to DJT by 27,257. GEJ/JES gained 109,542 over 2012.
2016 Trump 1,409,467 Clinton 1,382,210 Johnson 106,442 Stein 30,980
2012 Romney 1,613,950 Obama 1,408,746 Johnson 20,279 Stein 7,601
Pictures for this revisionist history update are from The Library of Congress. Images include “Earl Carrol picking beauties for vanities, 1/23/25.”
Always Take Sides
“… always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.” This meme, illustrated by the gnomic face of Elie Wiesel, turns up on facebook a lot. (Elie Wiesel is pronounced like Elly Mae Clampett) Some find it inspiring. Others think it is simplistic and manipulative.
There are two questions. Did Mr. Wiesel say that? What was the context? The quote appears in the acceptance speech for the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. The next sentence is “Sometimes we must interfere.” We immediately go from the absolute always, to the conditional sometimes. That is progress, even if it does not fit on a bumper sticker.
“Elie Wiesel was born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928. … In May 1944, Wiesel was deported to the Auschwitz concentration camp along with his parents and his sisters. Wiesel and his father were slave laborers at Auschwitz. His father died in January 1945 during a forced march to another camp, Buchenwald, and his mother and younger sister were murdered as well. After the war, Wiesel moved to France, where he worked as a journalist.”
The Israel-Palestine problem was just as vexing in 1986 as today. Here is what Mr. Wiesel said in his speech. “More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon. I trust Israel, for I have faith in the Jewish people. Let Israel be given a chance, let hatred and danger be removed from her horizons, and there will be peace in and around the Holy Land.”
Who is the oppressor in the Middle East, and who is the victim? Many sides can make a case for their cause. Who is the better at persuasion? Who is better at playing the shady game of influence, and money. Often, more noise encourages the tormentor. The answer to age old conflicts is seldom found in bumper stickers, or facebook memes.
“… to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore.” “Always take sides” means that you pick one side in a conflict, and use the tools of rhetoric to promote that cause. It can be tough to tell the good guys from the bad guys. Human suffering is human suffering. Simplistic rhetoric is *never* the answer.
In 1986, the Iran-Iraq war was raging. Hundreds of thousands of men died. Many said the war was allowed to go on intentionally. Allegedly, if Iran and Iraq were not fighting each other, they would be fighting Israel. The United States was allied with Iraq, while making arms deals with Iran. Israeli dealers participated in the United States-Iran arms trading. The profits from those deals went to supply terrorists in Central America. “Sometimes we must interfere.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
#NationalDayofPrayer
Good Morning God. Please give me the slack I need to make it through this life. I have a birthday soon, and am getting older. Please give me less pain, both above and below the neck. Thank you for letting me get this far. Thank you for the gift of sobriety, and the memory of inebrience. The gift of moderation would have been helpful. Help me to overcome body chemistry telling me to be unhappy. If this doesn’t work, help me hide it better.
Please tell Christians to make less noise, joyful or otherwise. Please help me forgive Christians for their good intentions. Please give Christians the gift of humility. Let us know that a real man keeps control of his temper. Please tell those praying today that it is better to listen than to talk.
Please find a happy medium for Atlanta water. Let us have neither drought nor flood. It would help if the developers would move to North Carolina, and the politicians would develop a conscience.
God, please try to get along better with Allah. Please help White people and Black people to show kindness and respect for one another. Please be good to the people who have already lived, and are now deceased. Please understand that I am not in a hurry to join them.
Please help Mr. Biden with the mess this country is in. Please help Israel get along with her neighbors, and live within her borders. Please help the world resolve the carbon dioxide problem.
Thank you for the birds that sing. Thank you for dogs, and dog owners who clean up. Thank you for earth, air, fire, and water. Thank you for people who enjoy this prayer. Please help those who are offended to get over it. Namaste, amen, all my relations, Good Bye.
Today is the #NationalDayofPrayer. This is a repost. Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Chamblee54 
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