The Dumbest Online Events Of The Year
The well meaning crew at BAR has produced their annual internet nonsense quiz. The dumbest online events of the year is not behind a paywall, loaded with popup ads and cookie disclaimers. TDOEOTY is of limited value, but a writing prompt is a writing prompt. As the inimitable Rachel Madcow said, after Max Blumenthal heckled her at a defense industry love-in, “coming to a substack newsletter near you.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
7 – How much money was conservative personality Steven Crowder offered by the Daily Wire, an amount he described as a “slave contract”? … Has anyone considered that “conservative personality” is an oxymoron? Did God short them on personality, in exchange for good hair? Or conservative movement … why do I always think of bowel movement when describing a group of people following strawman ideology … So this person is getting megabucks from a dodgy website, and calls it a “slave contract.” Colin Kaepernick taught him well.
13 – “I’m done, I’m dead, you don’t understand, I do it to blow off steam,” a Penn State professor told cops in June this year after being arrested for bestiality with his dog. What breed was the dog? … Will Katie EVER quit talking about Moose?
15 – Everyone was welcome at the Pink Peacock, a “a queer, yiddish, anarchist café & infoshop in glasgow’s southside” except two groups of people. Who were they? … People who punctuate tweets properly. People who worry about their vehicle’s extended warranty.
17 – What did the same pundit describe this year as the “trans of traffic”? … Trying to discern the meaning of a Jordan Peterson monolog.
20 – In November, Bryan West, a 35-year-old from Arizona, secured perhaps the best/worst job in journalism. What was it? … Oral gratification from Monica Lewinsky.
24 – In December, the journalist Sarah Jeong wrote a piece for The Verge arguing that Twitter was a “harassment machine” which had tried to get her fired from the New York Times in 2018 for being “the reverse racist lady, the Asian who hates white people”. Which of these is not a real remark she made on Twitter? … I have not done any multiple choice questions yet, and I am morally required to do at least one. Since the last four letters of morally are ally, it would be best to choose the answer with an -ally. … b. “speak for yourself, i literally want to kill all the men literally” … @sarahjeong is a person of color who says rude things about wypipo. She displays this poc-privilege in option d. “white people smell like unseasoned chicken and they don’t wash their legs in the shower” This is reminescent of a meme. A fashion challenged wypipo plays the saxophone for a confused yard bird. “This is how white people season their chicken.”
Mithras
Mithras is a Persian deity, from the Zoroaster tradition.(That is pronounced Zor uh THRUS ta.) Not much is known about Mithras … did he really exist, or was he a legend? There was a cult of Mithras in the first century Roman empire.
There are supposed to be between Mithras and Jesus. These include the virgin birth, the birth on December 25, and rising from the dead after three days. Some spoilsports say the early Christians grafted Jesus onto the legend of Mithras.
One indication that this might be true is The Catholic Encyclopedia. “Some apparent similarities exist; but … it is quite probable that Mithraism was the borrower from Christianity.” This repost has pictures from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. (more…)
Bari Weiss And Refaat Alareer
This might be a mistake. I am listening to blocked and reported #195 while trying to finish a poem. Certified poopyhead @bariweiss is one of the main topics today. The thought enters my pointed little head to take notes. Nothing good is going to come out of this.
Something happens at 8:33. Jesse … or is it Katie … is talking about a notorious twitter account @zei_squirrel. I pause the show, and look in the show notes for the url to zs. “You’re blocked You can’t follow or see @zei_squirrel’s posts.” There is nothing like going to an x account, for the first time, and learning you have been blocked.
The main story boils down to the question: did Bari Weiss order the IDF targeted assassination of Refaat Alareer? IMO, Bari does not have a buddy in the IDF that can arrange a targeted killing. When the IDF mows the lawn, they do not target a specific weed.
Bari does not get out of this unblemished. She has spewed out high octane rhetoric against Gaza for a long, long time. Take this quote from 2021.
“I am writing to you from the waiting room of my fertility clinic. Getting pregnant when you are gay is not so romantic, so we try to do little things to make it nice. Last night I took a bath. We watched “Mare of Easttown.” Nellie opened a bottle of red. Then she grabbed my stomach and gave me a shot to trigger ovulation.” Does Bari Weiss have a certain amount of privilege?
“I planned to take the morning off. The doctor says that stress is not good for baby-making. But sitting here, scrolling through my phone, looking at the tsunami of lies — lies that have permeated every Instagram story and every viral meme and every TikTok video and every popular Twitter account — I am weeping.” Bari Weiss enjoys over the top writing.
“It appears that standing up for the right of innocent people to protect themselves from a genocidal terrorist organization has become extremely risky to one’s “brand.” And so lies have replaced truth. Memes have replaced morality. Hashtags have replaced history. I’m speaking, of course, about Israel.”
When the killing was over in 2021, there were a lot more Gazans killed than Israelis. There is no way to tell how many of them were women and children, or how many were Hamas. Bari probably did not call her connection at the IDF to order Operation Wall Guardian. Her purple prose did help justify it. When you start a fire, you don’t get to say where it stops. … Wall Guardian is an ironic name for the 2021 operation. An alert wall guardian would have been helpful on October 7.
Reddit note: I tried to post this commentary to Reddit. Somebody/some bot decided to substitute u/bariweiss for Bari Weiss. The spell check suggestion for u/bariweiss is barbarisms. … u/zei_squirrel was substituted for _@zei_squirrel. If you click on u/zei_squirrel you see “Sorry, nobody on Reddit goes by that name. The person may have been banned or the username is incorrect.” Reddit has a few quirks. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
O Cosmic Birther
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James Bennet says NYT guilty of “illiberal bias” in new Economist takedown
When the New York Times lost its way America’s media should do more to equip readers…
Ilan Pappe on Israel: “We are witnessing the beginning of the end”
The testimony on antisemitism from college presidents. Isaac Saul
No, Mary Was Not an Unwed Mother When we hear that Mary is “betrothed” to Joseph…
FIXED – ‘Antimalware Service Executable’ High CPU Usage Issue
EXCLUSIVE: Senate Staffer Caught Filming Gay Sex Tape In Senate Hearing Room
Senate Staffer Caught Filming Gay Sex Tape In Senate Hearing Room
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Prayers of the Cosmos: Meditations on the Aramaic Words of Jesus
Anti-Drug Backlash Pot smoke in public may prove to be drug warriors’ best friend
Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv December 13, 2011
Raskin asks how Stefanik can question anyone about antisemitism, she supports Trump
The splashback of cold bog water up your ringpiece when dropping the kids off at the pool.
Letting British Israelis fight in Gaza is a threat to the UK’s rule of law
Why Mitch McConnell Just Might Want to See Biden Reelected
How Bad Are Plagiarism Allegations Against the Harvard President? It Depends …
‘Praise Kink’ Fetish is all the Rage. We’ll be a Good Boy and Break it Down for You
“We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized they were inside us.”
Singal-Minded Apr 19, 2019 Singal-Minded, The Interview: Katie Herzog
What is white phosphorus, and what does it mean that Russia may be using it in Ukraine?
Report on Claudine Gay’s plagiarism and falsification will be available
One-fifth of troop fatalities in Gaza due to friendly fire or accidents, IDF reports
A Waiter Double-Charged Me For My Entrée. Is That Genocide?
Israel: Government to shut down critical media alleged to ‘undermine national security’
Tema Okun on Her Mythical Paper on White Supremacy
Northern Israel a ‘waking nightmare’ amid efforts to push Hezbollah from border
We Are No Strangers to Human Suffering, but We’ve Seen Nothing Like the Siege of Gaza
SCOTUS vacates ruling restricting president’s right to issue federal workforce mandates
upload ~ action ~ ssstwitter ~ upload ~ twitter video
sausage ~ the squad ~ fire island ~ war death toll ~ max blumenthal
nonzero ~ heartattack and vine ~ video ~ big butter ~ margarine
99pi ~ ui#88 ~ calamus ~ spasmodic dysphonia ~ wild boars
body cam ~ body cam ~ 8:46 ~ Derek Michael Chauvin ~ Ofc.
portfolio ~ carmichael lyrics ~ hoagy carmichael ~ academic ~ James Richardson
e=mc2 ~ abl ~ hanania ~ elise stefanik ~ The Lowest Animal
trace ~ ozymandias ~ ozymandias ~ sausage ~ robert johnson
muddy waters ~ @TRyanGregory ~ nyt ~ moyoisamazing ~ Kunstmuseum Basel
goya ~ harvard ~ Refaat Alareer ~ reading addicts ~ claudine gay
Take what you can use and let the rest rot Alice Walker [720×380] This is found in “Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O’Connor.” ~ I have always gone the most basic way of picking a politician … who is the best looking one? In that all important qualification, Vivek Ramaswamy in the clear winner here ~ the fall of minneapolis ~ Palestine will be free, from the rubble to the debris ~ because of its incendiary effects, the use of phosphorus in war is supposed to be tightly regulated under international law — but it is not banned. Phosphorus is not classed as a chemical weapon under the Chemical Weapons Convention. ~ @ScottGreenfield Can there be such a thing as hypocrisy when a core tenet of your ideology is the ends justify the means? ~ Certain actors are struggling to distract attention away from the Israeli perpetrated slaughter in Gaza. If it was not GTI or FTRTTS, something else would be called anti-semitic, or a call for genocide. This is taking a page out of the social justice playbook. A few years ago, anything you did not like was WHITE SUPREMACY or RACIST. This too will pass, hopefully before the ethnic cleansing of Gaza is complete. ~ I have long said there are some words we should retire. Liberal, conservative, racist, terrorist were first. Then white supremacist. If I tried, I could come up with more. It might be time to add genocide ~ The one thing that comes to mind is a story that Krystal told. It was about pre-mature babies in a Gaza hospital. They had been cut out of their dead mothers. ~ this is a clip of Ryan talking about Gaza. There is one of those details which drive home the horror of what Israel is doing in Gaza. “one of the poignant things that I thought that I I pulled from this was the way that their their staff are telling them that they’re they can’t really leave their house like so that nervous because if they leave their house they’re going to get killed but then and then they’re also nervous that if they leave their house their family might get killed without them so they’re making these decisions do we all stay in the same room so that if we if and when we’re killed we all die” together we don’t have to suffer the sorrow of going on with with nobody else uh or do we separate so that somebody can survive and that somebody can carry on kind of the legacy of of this family” ~ @zora It’s truly horrible that every time I see a pic of a cute kid in my timeline, it means they’ve been killed by an Israeli bomb. ~ This is your monday morning reader for another week. The Falcons are leading their division with a losing record. If you can’t say anything good, you can look at the pictures. They are usually better than the text. ~ Man is the only religious animal. ~ The Lowest Animal ~ This is a repost from 2011. It was a simpler time. … “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” was a bit of filler behind the paywall at Forbes magazine. One of the naysayer replies is available. Another, from Angry Black Lady Chronicles, is lost in an archive somewhere. The Root has a few selections from ABLC, between the popup ads. ~ Privilege was a buzzword in 2011, although it is tough to tell from 2023. We have moved on to other popular phrases. In some ways, nothing has changed. In other ways, things are very different. ~ In 2011, paywall-happy Forbes magazine ran a bit of filler, “If I were a poor Black kid.” This type of privilege product seems quaint today. ~ this has been removed because your account does not meet the minimum requirements. Don’t ask, just wait it out… ~ This is a repost from 2021. James Richardson is still alive. ~ “So many times I’ve made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.” An ivy league professor needed to publish something. He made a list of 56 smart things to say. A big ten university published it. This is how the world works. ~ @EylonALevy Since Hamas launched this war, the Israeli Air Force has struck 22,000+ targets in the Gaza Strip. Even based on Hamas numbers passing off terrorists as civilians, that’s less than 0.8 civilian deaths per airstrike. That’s what world-leading precision looks like. ~ one drunken night in 1930, Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrell decided it would be fun to write a song. The result is “Georgia On My Mind.” Ray Charles Robinson, who would have a major hit with the song 30 years later, was born September 30, 1930. ~ “The Fall Of Minneapolis” is a documentary about the death of George Floyd, and the aftermath. It features body cam footage, and tells a different story than the one told in 2020. The word murder does not appear in the text. ~ Here is a blog post about TFOM. The word murder does not appear in this text. I wanted was a copy of the autopsy report. I googled “George Floyd Autopsy,” and found a lot of commentary. Next, I did the same search on duckduckgo. The top result was the HENNEPIN COUNTY AUTOPSY REPORT ME NO.: 20-3700. The document clearly states “No life-threatening injuries identified.”The first few minutes of TFOM was body cam videos. It was downright fascinating. George Perry Floyd was BOMBED. The store clerk commented on this in his 911 call, after GPF allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit twenty. After police arrived, the clerk pointed to a parked car across the street, where GPF was sitting in the driver’s seat.The parked car was not part of the popular narrative. Why did GPF sit there in the vehicle, instead of leaving? As high as GPF appears to be, was it a good idea for him to drive? An officer … not DMC … approached the vehicle. GPF opened the car door, instead of rolling down the window. Is this important in what happened later? ~ Posting deliberate misinformation is against Reddit TOS. – Sorry, this post has been removed by the moderators of r/JoeRogan. Moderators remove posts from feeds for a variety of reasons, including keeping communities safe, civil, and true to their purpose. ~ u/Chamblee54 is permanently banned from r/JoeRogan Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/JoeRogan because your post violates this community’s rules. You won’t be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it. If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message. Reminder from the Reddit staff: If you use another account to circumvent this subreddit ban, that will be considered a violation of the Content Policy and can result in your account being suspended from the site as a whole. ~ “Did anyone see the Obama/n-word post when it first appeared? What was the time and date? Is there a cached copy available? Do you realize how easy it would be to fake that screen shot? If an incendiary post like that appeared, why wasn’t it noticed at the time?” ~ Gus Kaufman Luther I am genuinely curious about how it is you support white supremacist world views consistently, yet have always hung out in alternative spaces. Have you written about this? Luther Mckinnon Questioning the validity of a facebook post is not supporting a white supremacist world view. Vinod Babu It absolutely is when you’ll accept no standard of evidence presented in support of the claim. No one here is fooled by your indifferent truth-seeker act. ~ “We stopped looking for monsters under our bed when we realized that they were inside us.” There are indications that this quote is an invention of the modern internet. The Darwin wikiquotes does not have an entry with “monsters.” ~ there is no evidence that Mark Twain said that. It is not a good sign when you google a quote, and the second result is Quote Investigator®. It is even worse when the first result is Brainy Quote. ~ margarine was invented in the 19th century. The name comes from the Greek margarite, meaning pearl, for its presumably pearlescent luster. The dairy industry saw this as competition, and forbade dyeing margarine yellow. In some states, margarine was dyed pink. ~ God, thank you for letting us be here today [720×380] ~ “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” This is one of Oscar’s greatest hits. It was spoken by Lord Darlington, in “Lady Windemere’s Fan.” Here is the exchange: Lord Darlington. What cynics you fellows are! Cecil Graham. What is a cynic? Lord Darlington. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. Cecil Graham. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing. ~ “A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” “And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.” ~ There was an exchange once. It was many years ago, when this was still semi-plausible. A person made the argument that Churchill and Roosevelt drank and smoked, while Hitler was a vegetarian. The response was that Churchill and Roosevelt were both dead, while Hitler was alive in Argentina. ~ so i answer this ad, and the man acts like he wants me to come over … i say i am going to take a shower, send me your room number and phone number … two hours later, he says … after i send him a message … that he was locked out of his phone, do i want to come over … i ask for his room number … never hear anything more … this does not surprise me anymore ~ God, thank you for letting us be here today ~ If you listen to “War All the Time: Israel vs Palestine, 1948-82,” by Darryl Cooper/Martyr Made, you might understand why nobody wants to accept Palestinian refugees. In the last part of this show, Darryl goes into the story of Lebanon. The former Phoenicia took in some refugees. Somehow or another, Israel and the refugees got started fighting, and Lebanon got caught in the middle. (This is a greatly simplified version of the story.) Anyway, Israel invaded Lebanon, and did enormous damage. After listening to this disturbing story, I totally understand why nobody wants the trouble that comes with accepting these refugees. If Israel broke Gaza, then Israel should fix it. I am not going to hold my breath, waiting for that to happen. ~ I was looking for the George Floyd autopsy report. Google has a collection of articles, mostly denouncing Derek Chauvin. On duckduckgo, the first result is the Hennepin County report that says “No life-threatening injuries identified.” ~ Leaked Sex Tape Shows U.S. Senator’s Staffer Being Fucked Up The Ass In Senate Hearing Room On Capitol Hill Posted December 15, 2023 by Zach with 86 comments [Note: The staffer has now been identified, and this story has been updated multiple times below.] An unidentified staffer to a United States senator has filmed himself being fucked up the ass doggy style in the Hart Senate Office Building Room 216 on Capitol Hill, and leaked video of the bareback Senate sex tape was obtained by right-wing website Daily Caller. Here’s the clip, which blurs out the anal penetration and the staffer’s face: It’s not clear who the staffer is, but several right-wing internet personalities are calling him out by name and also naming the Democratic senator for whom he works. Str8Up can not confirm his identity as of right now. The twink staffer being fucked raw in our beloved nation’s capitol also had a photo taken of himself while he was on all fours and wearing only a jock strap with his ass and hole showing. The Daily Caller doctored it up with some graphics and more blurring: (Note the tip of the U.S. Capitol dome looking like it’s being shoved up his ass. Someone prove to me that whoever made this for the Daily Caller isn’t a flaming homosexual.) It’s not known if the tape was being filmed for private use or if the staffer was planning on uploading it to OnlyFans (maybe it was a custom PPV request!), but his identity and his reasoning will undoubtedly be revealed in the coming days (or hours). Via DailyCaller: A source identified the room to the Daily Caller as Senate room Hart 216- The Judiciary Room. The Caller blurred out his face because his identity has not been confirmed. Daily Caller reviewed the chat where the video leaked and confirmed it was shared in a private group for gay men in politics. If I’m not mistaken, I believe this is the first time gay pornography starring a United States senator’s staffer has been filmed on Capitol Hill, so it’s nice to see the gays making a little bit of history in Washington D.C. And if that hearing room looks familiar, that’s because it’s room Hart 216, which is the same room where Louisiana GOP Senator John Kennedy read two passages from the books Genderqueer and All Boys Aren’t Blue back in September during a hearing on book banning. ICYMI: Str8UpGayPorn can now confirm that the staffer being fucked bareback on camera in the Senate hearing room is named Aidan Maese-Czeropski, and he’s a staffer for Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland). A source tells Str8Up that Maese-Czeropski shared the sex tape of himself in a group message to several of his friends on an Instagram account he operated under the name “aidansanto” (the account is now pulled down). Before sending the video, Maese-Czeropski posted the below image to his Instagram stories, boasting about how he was fucked by a hung German man in the same room where Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing was held: Maese-Czeropski added text over the image of himself in Senate hearing room Hart 216, and it reads, “In this very room, Sonia Sotomayor had her confirmation hearing. James Comey testified on Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Aidan got some thick German sausage and a Jager sauce finish. ” ~ the government building capitol is spelled with an o. remember, the capitol has a rotunda ~ This quote is a total fabrication. I have written about this on my blog. When people get caught peddling bogus quotes, they often say that even if the attribution is false, the words are true. What about the featured quote today? It sounds good, and is great for promoting attendance at an event. But is it the truth? Look at the 9/11 attacks. They did change the world. (Nobody said that the world was changed for the better.) While it is true that nineteen men pulled off the caper, they had a lot of help. Somebody financed the operation. Other people built the airliners, and the airports where they took off. Somebody dug an oil well, pumped the crude oil, shipped the crude oil to a refinery, and produced the explosive jet fuel that propelled the attacks. In fact, it was the profits from pumping that oil that financed the attacks. “A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” flew a plane, that someone else built, into the World Trade Center. They were not “the only thing that ever has.” ~ “God, thank you …” Gnarlene Widget [720×380] ~ selah
Cynic
“A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing.” ― Oscar Wilde. This quote is one of Oscar’s greatest hits. If you think about it for a minute, it is not totally accurate. You are not supposed to think. Quoting Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde is about sounding clever, not making sense. Did he really create that definition of a cynic? This is a repost.
Oscar Wilde is a quote magnet. This is more than something you put on your refrigerator. When people hear something clever, odds are good that Oscar will get the blame. As Dorothy Parker wrote: “If, with the literate, I am, Impelled to try an epigram, I never seek to take the credit; We all assume that Oscar said it. [Life Magazine, June 2, 1927]”
Wikiquote says this line is from Act III of Lady Windermere’s Fan. It was spoken by Lord Darlington. Did the play write intend for the line to be taken seriously, or was he making the character look foolish by saying it? With Oscar Wilde, it could be both of these things at the same time.
Principle Four, of the four principles of quotations, reads “Only quote from works that you have read.” In the case of Lady Windemere’s Fan, this would mean a youtube video of the play. There is a posh BBC production available. You don’t have to watch the cell phone recording of high school players.
Lady Windemere’s Fan is a production where upper class Brits say clever things in glorious costumes. Nobody ever goes to the bathroom, or looks less than perfect. Lady Windemere’s six month old child is neither seen, nor heard. Lady Windemere finds out her husband, Lord Windemere, is having an affair with a Mrs. Erlynne. The Lord proceeds to invite the floozy to Lady Windemere’s birthday party.
After the party, the men go to their club, then to Lord Darlington’s room. There are five men in the conversation, beginning with Lord Windemere. Lord Darlington has just told Lady Windemere that he loves her, and wants her to run off with him. Lady Windemere said no. Lord Augustus is a suitor of Mrs. Erlynne, and is begging her to marry him. Cecil Graham, and Mr. Dumby, wear their splendid costumes with conviction.
The scene starts with the men saying clever things, most of them insulting to someone. Lord Augustus, or Tuppy, is the butt of many jokes. Before long, we get this exchange:
Dumby. I don’t think we are bad. I think we are all good, except Tuppy.
Lord Darlington. No, we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Dumby. We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars? Upon my word, you are very romantic to-night, Darlington.
Cecil Graham. Too romantic! You must be in love. Who is the girl?
Lord Darlington. The woman I love is not free, or thinks she isn’t. [Glances instinctively at Lord Windermere while he speaks.]
A few minutes later, we hear another famous Oscarism.
Lord Darlington. What cynics you fellows are!
Cecil Graham. What is a cynic? [Sitting on the back of the sofa.]
Lord Darlington. A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
Cecil Graham. And a sentimentalist, my dear Darlington, is a man who sees an absurd value in everything, and doesn’t know the market price of any single thing.
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress.
White Margarine
PG used to hear old timers talk about margarine being a white paste. The consumer would add the yellow color later. This bit of information had gone undisturbed for many years, until the 12:58 point of the Useless Information Podcast. There was a 1947 radio commercial for Delrich E-Z Color Pak.
Delrich E-Z margarine came in a plastic bag, along with a capsule. You broke the capsule, and yellow dye flowed out. You knead the bag, until the dye mixes with the margarine. It was considered an improvement over the mixing bowl.
Margarine was invented in 1869. “French chemist Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès … patented a lower priced spread made from beef tallow. He dubbed it oleomargarine–from the Latin oleum, meaning beef fat, and the Greek margarite, meaning pearl, this last for its presumably pearlescent luster.”
The dairy industry saw margarine as unfair competition for butter. In 1886, the federal Margarine Act was passed. Many oppressive taxes and regulations were put in place. Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Ohio enacted a legislative ban on the use of margarine.
Most butter is dyed. The rich yellow that we associate with butter only comes from grass fed cows. If the cows are grain fed, butter is a pale yellow.
Yellow was more appealing than pink. In an effort to further demonize margarine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and South Dakota required margarine to be dyed pink. The Supreme Court overturned the pink laws, citing the laws’ effect on interstate commerce.
During World War II, butter was in short supply. Margarine became more popular. Finally, the laws requiring the sale of white margarine were repealed. Wisconsin kept the white margarine law until 1967, and forbade use of margarine in public places, unless requested, until 1971.
99% Invisible recently did a show, “I can’t believe it’s pink margarine.” PIctures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.” This is a repost.
The Fall Of Minneapolis
The Fall of Minneapolis, a documentary about the death of George Perry Floyd, Jr. I have followed this case, along with the rest of America. Until recently I believed the conventional wisdom. Minneapolis police officer Derek Michael Chauvin put his knee on GPF’s neck for 8:46, and caused GPF to die. We are learning that the truth might be different.
I decided to watch TFOM, and write about it. I was also putting it off. Part of this process was finding things to include in my report. There was a report that said TFOM was conservatives pushing an agenda. Other people people have opinions on the matter. Finally, I heard The Truth about George Floyd’s Death with Glenn Loury and John Mcwhorter.
One thing I wanted was a copy of the autopsy report. Recently, parts of it have been released. The report shows high levels of Fentanyl and Methamphetamine in GPF’s system. I googled “George Floyd Autopsy,” and found a lot of commentary. Next, I did the same search on duckduckgo. The top result was the HENNEPIN COUNTY AUTOPSY REPORT ME NO.: 20-3700. The document clearly states “No life-threatening injuries identified.”
Finally, I ran out of excuses, and turned the show on. The first few minutes was body cam videos. It was downright fascinating. GPF was BOMBED. The store clerk commented on this in his 911 call, after GPF allegedly tried to pass a counterfeit twenty. The clerk then pointed to a parked car across the street, where GPF was sitting in the driver’s seat.
The parked car was not part of the overall narrative. Why did GPF sit there in the vehicle, instead of leaving? As high as GPF appears to be, was it a good idea for him to drive? An officer … not DMC … approached the vehicle. GPF opened the car door, instead of rolling down the window. Is this important in what happened later?
GPF is acting like a jerk, and resisting. GPF’s behavior is similar to the performance of Rayshard Brooks in his interrogation. GPF is taken outside the vehicle and handcuffed. GPF starts saying “I can’t breathe” at this point, which might be an indication that he could. Before long, DMC arrives, and GPF is on the ground.
Next, TFOM gets into the riots after GPF died. The Minneapolis government made some questionable decisions. The next part is the trial of DMC. It seems as though the judge made questionable calls about what evidence to admit. Many people say DMC did not receive a fair trial.
One especially controversial element here is the use of Maximal Restraint Technique, or MRT. Some people testified that MRT is not taught by Minneapolis police trainers. Others show pages from training manuals, and pictures of models demonstrating MRT. In bodycam pictures, DMC’s knee appears to be an the shoulder, and the side of the neck. This is not the story that inflamed America.
TFOM does appear to have a “conservative” approach to the story. It is tough to draw conclusions based on watching a documentary. If you want to learn more about GPF and DMC, google is ready when you are. Duckduckgo might be more helpful.
Pictures are from Second International Pageant of Pulchritude and Eighth Annual Bathing Girl Revue, May 21-23 1927, Galveston TX. They are from The Library of Congress.
Georgia On My Mind
“Georgia On My Mind” turned up of facebook this morning. Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. This is a repost from 2020.
Youtube turned up the original “© Written in 1930 by Hoagy Carmichael (music) and Stuart Gorrell (lyrics) © Gorrell wrote the lyrics for Hoagy’s sister, Georgia Carmichael. However, the lyrics of the song are ambiguous enough to refer either to the state or to a woman named “Georgia”. Carmichael’s 1965 autobiography, “Sometimes I Wonder”, records the origin: a friend, saxophonist and bandleader Frankie Trumbauer, suggested: “Why don’t you write a song called ‘Georgia’? Nobody lost much writing about the South.” Thus, the song is universally believed to have been written about the state.”
National Anthems has a story about GOOM. “STUART GRAHAM STEVEN GORRELL (1901-1963) and HOAGLAND HOWARD CARMICHAEL (1899-1981), wrote the song in 1930 almost as a lark … Hoagy Carmichael went to Indiana University, and one of his best college chums was Stuart Gorrell. Hoagy Carmichael was going to be a lawyer and Stuart Gorrell, when not hanging around the local “jazz joint” (called The Book Nook!) had promised someone that he would eventually be a success in the world of business.” The link no longer works.
“The two of them were together at a party in New York and Hoagy Carmichael played what he had of the “Georgia” music line for Stuart Gorrell and some friends. After the party broke up, the two of them went back to a friend’s apartment and worked on the tune throughout the night. Stuart Gorrell wrote what he thought would be a good lyric line on the back of a post card, (now displayed in the Carmichael Room at Indiana University) and showed it to Hoagy Carmichael. One can still plainly see the few, but important, changes that Hoagy Carmichael made on that small piece of cardboard to Stuart Gorrell’s lyrical scratchings. The song was improved upon, and the lyrics written, in that boozy early morning, and recorded in September 1930 by a band that included Hoagy Carmichael’s great friend, Bix Beiderbecke – a recording session that proved to be Bix’s last.”
“Hoagy Carmichael went on to write many more songs, some of them hits, and Stuart Gorrell kept his promise and became a Vice President at Chase Bank. Stuart Gorrell never tried to write another song lyric, but ‘Georgia on my Mind’ became a hit after World War II and Hoagy Carmichael, true to his word – although Stuart Gorrell was not legally credited as the lyricist by the music publisher – always sent Stuart Gorrell a cheque for what would have been his share of royalty. The royalty income from that song is substantial and, after Stuart Gorrell died, the income put his daughter through college.”
Mr. Gorrell wrote a letter to the Bremen (Indiana) Enquirer, August 3, 1961. “This accompanied his response to his home town’s Teen Hop patrons choosing the song as their theme song. … “Georgia on my mind” was composed more than a quarter of a century ago on a cold and stormy evening in 1930 in New York City. Hoagy Carmichael and I, in a third floor apartment overlooking 52nd street, with cold feet and warm hearts, looked out the window and, not liking what we saw, turned our thoughts to the pleasant southland. Thus was born a hauntingly sweet song. My mother, who died in Bremen in 1942, once asked a very penetrating question about the song. I had sent her a copy of the sheet music and, after reading the words over several times, she wondered aloud: “What is Georgia? A girl—or state? What do you think? Hoagy and I just love every one of you Bremen Teen Hoppers for honoring out tune by making it your theme song. Sincerely, Stuart Gorrell”
Made Myself Stupid
“So many times I’ve made myself stupid with the fear of being outsmarted.” James Richardson (b. 1950) “Vectors: 56 Aphorisms and Ten-second Essays” Michigan Quarterly Review, #17 (Spring 1999) Wish I’d Said That put this up on twitter. I made a copy of the 56AATSE. … This is a repost from 2021. Per Wikipedia, James Richardson is still alive.
It sat ignored on my desktop. until this morning. I was looking for something to work with, and started to pick out aphorisms that spoke to me. The first two to make the cut were #3 and #5, which are key players in the fibonacci sequence. Why not just eliminate all the players, except for the f-numbers? Then use those actors as a writing prompt.
First, we need to look into James Richardson. Turns out he is a recently retired English Professor at Princeton. A princeton.edu document has stories about Dr. Richardson: “Some of his colleagues in English will remember how, as department secretary, he recorded the minutes of meetings in rhyming couplets. … Jim is a philosopher-poet in the tradition of … his fellow baseball fan, Walt Whitman.” Apparently, Jim is a Yankees fan, which we can forgive.
1 “No matter how fast you travel, life walks.” Dr. Richardson is fond of semantics.
2 “Desire’s most seductive promise is not pleasure but change, not that you might possess your object but that you might become the one who belongs with it.” Ditto.
3 “There are silences harder to take back than words.” This is the first one that was noteworthy. This does not mean that I agree. Sometimes, the best thing to say is nothing at all. This goes against a commodity wisdom crowd-pleaser. “The Only Thing Necessary for the Triumph of Evil is that Good Men Say Nothing.” As Mike Hunt once said, “Don’t just do something, stand there.”
Kyle Rittenhouse might have a few things to say about this. He heard stories of angry mobs ransacking businesses, and decided to do something. Mr. Rittenhouse was severely punished for his decision to help out. Many of the people who spoke out, about the trial, should have kept their thoughts to themself. Justice is not a popularity contest.
5 “If it can be used again, it is not wisdom but theory.” 90% of the time, when people say theory, they really should say hypothesis. It is not known how this relates to reuseable wisdom.
8 “Everyone loves the Revolution. We only disagree on whether it has occurred.” There is a activist recipe. “To make an omelette, you have to break eggs.” Whenever I hear this, I feel like an egg.
13 “Like late afternoon, a pale cirrus crosses the nearly transparent moon. They are so alike, meeting, that I feel, suddenly and childishly, They like each other. Somehow I can’t help liking them for that. Somehow I can’t help feeling that they like me liking them.” Like Joni Mitchell, Dr. Richardson really doesn’t know clouds at all. We are talking about an atmospheric mass of water droplets, and a big rock traveling 403,000 kilometers away from earth.
21 “Birds are amazing, newspapers, stoves, friends. All that happens is amazing, if you think about it. All that doesn’t happen is even more amazing, because there’s so much more of it. Only habit keeps us from seeing all this. Habit is really amazing.” Is Dr. Richardson talking to newspapers, stoves, or friends? Maybe he is talking to all three. Of course, this was back when print media was much more popular than today, so maybe a newspaper was his friend. This does not account for the stove.
34 “I seem to need a larger vocabulary to talk to you than to talk to myself.” There are things that you know, that you never have to describe. When you talk to another person, you need to explain.
55 “Happiness is gratitude in search of something to be owed to.” Dr. Jim is probably grateful to the University of Michigan, for publishing his 56 Bright Ideas. When you are a high level academic, you need to publish things. UM is playing Georgia on New Years Eve. Many people in Alabama would be grateful if Georgia wins. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. Selah.
If I Were A Poor Black Kid
This is a repost from 2011. It was a simpler time. … “If I Were A Poor Black Kid” was behind the paywall at Forbes magazine. One of the naysayer replies is available. Another, from Angry Black Lady Chronicles, is lost in an archive. The Root has a few selections from ABLC, between the popup ads. Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
There is a fuss going on about an article at Forbes magazine, If I Were A Poor Black Kid. PG was reading a facebook discussion of the article, and decided he wanted to read the original. He googled white guy writing about being a poor black kid for freakin’ FORBES, and the fun began.
Angry Black Lady Chronicles tells of the day when her (white) mother took a day off, from her job as a copy editor, to get young ABL enrolled in a tougher math class. Freethoughblogs chimes in with Forbes’ Gene Marks Needs To Check His Priv. The last line says it all … “Or, as in your case, not so smart but privileged.”
If you want to read denunciations of the Forbes article, open your eyes and take a look. You might want to hurry up. because, soon, there will be another article, somewhere, that people don’t like. Maybe you can talk about the War on Christmas. This is an example of Christian Privilege gone awry. It is a safe bet that many of the poor black kids are Christians. Maybe one form of privilege will outweigh another. Or people will learn about a grain of salt.
It is ironic that the piece was published in Forbes. Malcolm Forbes was fond of saying that he was loaded with “sheer ability, spelled i-n-h-e-r-i-t-a-n-c-e.” The elder Forbes had a lavish lifestyle, with Elizabeth Taylor as a beard. His son, Steve Forbes, (Malcolm Stevenson Forbes Jr.) was quoted as saying “My father once spent $5 million on a birthday party for himself in Tangiers. Why can’t I spend a few more running for President?”.
Chamblee54 
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