Do You Feel Safer?
No, there is no evidence that the F.B.I. organized the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Of course, the NYT is going to say that. Others disagree, and point to a plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan. If the FBI was involved in planning the January 6 incident, it will not be the first time. Here is a story from 2012 about the role federal agents played in the arrest of four elderly men in North Georgia.
A recent episode of Radiolab, Grumpy Old Terrorists, spotlights Georgia. It is about four elderly men, arrested in North Georgia for terrorist activity. The episode features Tom Junod, who wrote an article for Esquire Magazine, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. The article has much more information than a twenty minute radio show.
The story focuses on Fred Thomas. A retired Navy man, he worked for Lockheed in Virginia, and moved to Georgia when he retired. He began to hang out on the internet, focusing on a militia forum. After BHO was inaugurated, Mr. Thomas felt that America was going downhill. He met some men online who agreed. The men started to meet. One of the players was a government agent.
The informer was named Joe Sims. (PG does not know if this is his birth name.) According to Esquire, Mr. Sims is a slimy character. He got in trouble, and then got out of jail to work as a snitch.
It is interesting to note that two of wives, of the accused, did not like Mr. Sims. Charlotte Thomas, the wife of Fred, only met him once. Mrs. Thomas was a Frank Sinatra fanatic. When Mr. Sims was in their home, he saw the Sinatra shrine. Joe said, “The trouble with Frank Sinatra is that he can’t sing”.
As the story went down, the old men, and Joe the snitch, had many meetings where they said that something violent needed to be done. Joe the snitch encouraged them, and set up a meeting with an “arms dealer”. Joe handed over his money, and the old man handed over some money. The federal swat team moved in, threw flash grenades, and arrested the old men. The conspirators were so scared they wet their pants. At the same time, the Frank Sinatra shrine was raided. The carpets have burn marks from the flash grenades.
A question was raised on radiolab, do you feel safer now? The feds encouraged the scheme, and helped drive it forward. One person speculated that the sheriff should have had a talk with the old men. Let them know that the law was wise to their game, and the activity would have stopped. Is it a good role for the government to encourage people to commit crimes? In at least one case, government agents recruited and paid people to take part in the “terrorism”. Is this a good use of taxpayer money, and, indeed, does it make us safer?
UPDATE There was a similar incident recently in Forsyth Counth. This is a repost. There are some crucial details left out of this post. Readers are encouraged to read the Esquire magazine article, Counter-Terrorism Is Getting Complicated. Pictures are from The Library of Congress.
Never Doubt
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” This chestnut appeared in an email, promoting an event. PG heard a podcast last year, about another Margaret Mead story. Readers of this blog know where this is going.
@anthroreviewed “Did Margaret Mead really say that thing about broken femurs and civilization that is (once again) making the rounds online? Also, are healed femurs a marker of civilization? No. And no. As explore in the second half of this episode… “ A blog post, That Margaret Mead quote, goes into more detail about both stories.
“It’s interesting the quotes that are attributed to Margaret Mead – another is “Never doubt that a small group of people can change the world – indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” … Both are things she could have said, given her personality, but neither is fully attributed – the first instance of the story above is in Dr. Ira Byock’s 2012 book on palliative care, and the above quote only attributed to her, four years after her death, by the author of a fairly hippie-ish book on paths to world peace.”
“This quote (about the femur) has been going around Facebook since mid-March, probably encouraged by this Twitter thread, this FB post, and this article in Forbes, none of which are by archaeologists/anthropologists.”
When the bs detector started dinging, results are just a few clicks away. Highlight the suspicious quote. Right click, choose “Search Google for …,” and wait 0.51 seconds. When one of the results is a story at Quote Investigator®, you have a winner.
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. 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.” Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
July 3, 1981
July 3, 1981, was another day before a holiday. The new President, Ronald Reagan, was recovering from gunshot wounds. There was talk of an era of conservatism, with possibly severe repression.
There was an article in the New York Times. RARE CANCER SEEN IN 41 HOMOSEXUALS. “Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis…”
This was the media debut of AIDS. It would not have that name for a while. Almost nobody thought, on that summer day, just how bad AIDS would be. In five years it was obvious how serious AIDS was.
PG was on another trip to the west coast. It was becoming obvious that this would be a vacation, rather than a relocation. He was riding a bicycle, with a milk carton overloaded with camping gear. Some kids told him to get saddle bags, and carry the weight lower. If you have the weight on top, you would lose control coming down a big hill. PG did not listen to the kids.
On July 4, PG left Patrick’s Point state park, about 300 miles north of San Francisco. Coming down the first hill on highway 101, the bike shook, shook harder, and flipped on its side. PG was thrown off. The front wheel was bent beyond repair. PG gathered his gear, left the bike behind, and got a ride into the nearest town.
PG got a bus ticket to Seattle. That city was in an economic downturn, with less than half a page of help wanted ads. PG found a auto delivery service, and got a VW bug going to Oak Ridge, TN. In a few days he was in Atlanta. A few days later, a temp agency came up with a job as a driver for a blueprint company. PG worked for that company, in one form or another, for the next 24 years.
As for the gay men with Kaposi’s Sarcoma … in all probability, the patients mentioned in that article were all dead within a year. AIDS has become a dominating story in our time. At its worst, it was claiming 50,000 lives a year. With the advent of wonder drugs, the death toll has been greatly reduced. The impact of AIDS on American life cannot be adequately described. This is a repost.
Pictures today are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”. Lawrence K. Altman, M.D. is still writing articles for the New York Times.
Life Is Not A Journey
The display of a link on this page does not indicate approval of content.
I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress, I repeat myself under stress
Life Is Not a Journey To the Grave With the Intention of Arriving Safely
Linkage to Identify Deaths Among Persons with AIDS — District of Columbia, 2000–2005
overdose deaths soar to record numbers— over 100,000 in each of the past two years …
What Happens After the End of Affirmative Action? scotus is expected to rule …
A Baker Refused to Make Your Wedding Cake? Dan Savage
mutiny ~ elivis ~ control ~ ray harrell ~ enshittification
repost ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ Biblical Critical Theory. ~ twiiter ~ officer don
officer don ~ scotus ~ blog ~ 22 words ~ phyllis browne
shenpa ~ Upādāna ~ baba ram dass ~ scotus ~ candler park
gsu pics 062923 ~ madonna ~ blond office ~ Peggy Caserta ~ john martyn
solid air ~ nick drake ~ paul verhoevan ~ elizabeth morton ~ elton
hstS ~ christopher bostwick ~ george heery ~ pre-morbid intelligence ~ lesbians
sea raven press ~ baba ram dass ~ putin ~ haring ~ birdsong ~ careful
i get this past due invoice in the us mail … i call the people, and they tell me i signed up for electronic billing … surprise number one … and that they sent the original invoice by email … i asked them to send me a copy … i did not see it, so i checked the spam folder … there was a past due notice in the spam folder from a few days ago … what do companies treat people like this? ~ “I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.” This is the gold standard of opening sentences. ~ When you are revisiting a post from 2011, it can be fun to click on the links. Many of these domains are now for sale. This link has an especially amusing afterlife: “ChristWire is reloading. In the year 2016, the unthinkable happened: the reign of Barack Obama I and the potential reign of Hillary Clinton came to a complete halt Through what could only be described as a miracle from the heavens (if you look East when praying), a man first mocked by everyone ascended to lead the country into what was supposed to be a Golden Age of Morality. But alas, things are not going as expected. The world is again in peril. Americans fight over every possible thing, at the behest of divisive radicals who have invested and invaded every nook and cranny of culture. Logic is defied for saving the face of politics. Churches full of decent people think and post memes of reprehenisble nature. Political leaders invoke the very populism and divisive rhetoric that lead humanity to global wars. Science is ridiculed. Decent moral people are mocked. Wild-eyed outliers believe every word that they have been told to disagree with, no matter how logical, is a reason to grab a weapon and protest the advice to wear a mask. In times of such calamity and chaos, helpers must arise. That is where the community of ChristWire has again heard the call to arise.” ~ this is a 2011 post, about an event called “Howl-A-Than. The facebook links to the pictures work today. Theresa Davis Rupert Fike Karen Garrab ~ I have a question. I recently wrote about an event at the E-church in Candler Park. As you may know, Candler Park was a black neighborhood when that church was built. At some point, the Candler family bought/stole the land, and built the neighborhood was see today. The church building on Candler Park drive is very similar to the chapel at Oglethorpe Presbyterian. Do you know anything about when the OPC chapel was built? Also, considering the fact that Lynwood Park is nearby, is it possible that the OPC chapel was originally a black church? ~ Formicophilia, a form of zoophilia, is the sexual interest in being crawled upon or nibbled by insects, such as ants, or other small creatures. This paraphilia often involves the application of insects to the genitals, but other areas of the body may also be the focus. The desired effect may be a tickling, stinging, or in the case of slugs, slimy sensation, or the infliction of psychological distress on another person. ~ It has been a lovely friday. I took Mac to the grocery store, and went inside myself. I was checking out, and the lady said she had been waiting on us for years, but never knew we were brothers. We got to talking about the Winn Dixie across buford hiway, and how we did not like the international food store that is there now. The lady told me something she heard. These international stores would take a piece of meat that was spoiled, spray disinfectant on it, re-wrap it, and put it back on the shelf. ~ baba ram dass was on a call-in radio show in 1973. At about 30 minutes in, he discusses what kind of music he likes. “I can’t listen to entertainers anymore because they’re playing to the world. I can only listen to musicians who are playing inward.” Three minutes later, he plays a record that he likes. ~ he wishes the dog across the street would quit parking, he saw the trash cart at the street, and was happy that he emptied his bedroom can this morning, he typed most of the story, and remembered to switch the speakers on the laptop to the tacky little speakers in the foldup box. he was afraid that he had missed the end of the prompt, but was relieved to hear that he had three minutes more, he got his reaading glasses, and went on the porch, he took the laptop on the porch, and put it on the table, and remembered he left his glasses inside, he took his water bottle on the porch, and went back to get his laptop, he put his laptop, mouse, and water bottle on the marbletop table by the door, but left his glasses on the table this will complicate the conclusion of the story, he decided that the lighting was better on the porch, and the reading would be more fun out there, he finjished his korean rice bowl. this was the first time going to the kbop shop over by the walmart. he does not know if there will be a second time, he listened to a segment of killer mike on the joe rogan show. km is from atlanta, and his last name is Render. he wonders if km is kin to a mr render that he used to work with, saturday morning he saw a deer nibbling on the flower in his neighbors front yard. this is an everyday thing in some neighborhoods, but a novelty in brookhaven ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Smash Cut
Smash Cut by Brad Gooch, turned up at the Chamblee library. The subtitle is “A Memoir of Howard & Art & the ’70s & the ’80s.” The cover has a picture of Brad Gooch and Howard Eric Brookner. The 1979 picture shows BG (google does not know his middle name) and HEB is a small, well used kitchen. Someone wrote, and then scratched out, “at the Chelsea Hotel.” In the notes, we see that BG and HEB were boyfriends in 70s and 80s Manhattan. At some point, HEB got AIDS.
April 27, 1989, was HEB’s last day on the planet. I was 16 weeks into not drinking. HEB was seven days older than me. There are many other parallels between my life, and the concurrent Brad/Howard story. Their story has a lot more famous people involved.
HEB was a filmmaker, with wealthy Jewish parents. He met BG at a bar in Lower Manhattan in 1978. They go back to Howard’s place, drink vodka, and crash. They quickly become boyfriends, and have a terrific time together when they aren’t quarreling about who is fucking who. Howard is working on a movie about William S. Burroughs. When you hang out with Mr. Burroughs, it is considered good manners to take heroin. This becomes a problem for HEB.
Meanwhile, BG was in grad school at Columbia, finishing a PhD in English. He wound up as an English professor at some college. You kind of wonder how BG had time to write a PhD dissertation, while diving into the full tilt sex and drugs of pre-aids Manhattan. Nor do we ever find out how they paid for all this high octane living.
BG becomes a model, hanging out in Europe for a while. HEB decides he doesn’t want to be BG’s boyfriend anymore. That continues off and on for a few years, until that day in 1987 when HEB finds out he is HIV positive.The first year it doesn’t really cause that many problems, but then it does. The last 40 pages of this book are incredibly tough to read. HEB goes into the hospital, it seems like he’s never going to come home. BG gets a job as a professor, and publishes a novel, in addition to being there for HEB. Eventually, HEB got another o.i., and moved on.
Smash Cut is the third book by BG I have started. The Flannery O’Connor book is excellent. The Rumi book has too many unpronounceable names. SC is an fun read, full of gossipy stories about people like Andy Warhol, Madonna, and Keith Haring. The publicity machine is already cranking up for book that BG wrote about Mr. Haring. If the last 40 pages of SC are too difficult, you can skip over it. You already know how it is going to turn out. Pictures today are by The Library of Congress
How Southern Are You?
There is yet another internet quiz, How Southern Are You? When you get your score, you are invited to post the results on facebook. Do you add, or subtract, points for that? This is a repost.
There are ten multiple choice questions. The first one is “1. Which refreshing drink would you reach for on a hot summer day? Coca-Cola Sprite Sweet Tea Beer” If you are a retired drunk, who likes unsweet tea, it is ok to lie here. You have to keep up appearances. The same goes for question 2. The fact that the nearest Piggly Wiggly is one hundred miles away is of no concern.
Questions 5 and 8 are about language. Yes, the phrase “Bless your heart” means “I think you are ignorant,” but only if you are very polite. Number 8 is about Y’all, the word. The quiz only asks if you use it. It does not ask if you only use Y’all as a plural.
The first time around, PG got “You are 100% Southern.” Then he wanted to see if number 5 said “Bless your heart” or “Bless her heart.” You are probably more southern if you say the latter.
On this round, PG tried to be as unsouthern as possible. He knows better than to think a pig pickin’ is where you check out fat girls. Still, you have to do your research. On this round, the result was 3% Southern. “Well bless your heart! You don’t know the first thing about what it means to be Southern!”
Pictures are from “The Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library”.
Are You A Hipster Christian?
This is a repost from 2010. If you click on the link in this post, you will see scantily clothed Asian women, and the headline “Kumpulan Link Slot Deposit Pulsa 5000 Tanpa Potongan.” A google search for “Are you a hipster christian” leads to this: “What if Jesus called you to a church home where the pastor’s sermons weren’t available as podcasts? What if the body of believers Christ surrounded you with …” Pictures are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
PG is not a Christian. He does like to take silly quizzes, and see what he scores. When a facebook friend reported taking a test, Are you a hipster christian, PG took the bait. The test is thirty questions, and multiple choice. While this makes the grading easier, it sometimes asks you to choose the answer that you disagree with the least. When you are dealing with a prideful subculture like Christianism, a neutral observer is going to scratch his head a lot.
Question 1 should have been an indication of what was about to happen. “Which of the following books would you consider the most spiritually significant?~Sheldon Van Auken, A Severe Mercy~John Piper, Desiring God~Thomas a Kempis, Imitation of Christ~John Eldredge, Wild at Heart~none of the above.” PG has read none of those books, and only knows John Piper because his son writes a cool blog. (22 words is now a spam nightmare.) PG would have voted for Piper, except the old man likes to trash homosexuals.
Question 3 was the first time that PG agreed with the answer that he checked. “If you are a believer, how would you describe yourself?~Christian~Christ Follower~”Christian, but not in the George W. Bush sense”~Please. Labels are for the over-30 set.” PG chose the last answer, even if he is waaaay over 30. Labels belong on jars, not people.
Question 10 and Question 12 are both yes/no affairs, and PG could answer both honestly. “Be honest: Have you ever gone on a rant about “authenticity,” “narrative,” or “love without strings”?” “In the past 12 months, have you listened to a sermon by John MacArthur and enjoyed it?” Being banned from commenting at a blog, owned by a John MacArthur employee, did not affect this.
Question 18 “What would Jesus’ favorite beer have been?~Pabst~Chimay Red~Some sort of masculine stout~Jesus doesn’t drink!” Out of sheer redneck pride, PG chose PBR.
Question 19 showed a lack of sensitivity. “In the last year, how often have you argued (and significantly disagreed) with your parents about the following: politics, gay marriage, evolution, drinking, or the End Times?~Those topics never come up…because I’ve filed them forever in the “Relationship Ruiner” vault.~Maybe drinking sometimes comes up.~We debate them at every meal. Along with my eternal damnation.~I’m on the same page with my parents on all those issues.~My parents aren’t Christians and we don’t really talk about this stuff.” PG’s parents were Christians while they were alive. Questions like this are not helpful.
Question 27 is mind blowing. “What is your preferred Bible translation?~The Message~The American Patriot’s Bible~ESV~NRSV~NIV~The App I downloaded for my iPhone~none of the above.” The King James Bible was once the only game in town. Today, KJV is “none of the above.”
Question 29 was about Christian music, with the answer “I haven’t listened to any “Christian music” of the last 20 years.” Finally, it was time to know the score. “Your Christian Hipster Quotient: 65 / 120 – Low CHQ. You probably belong to the purpose-driven, seeker-sensitive, Hawaiian shirt-wearing Christian establishment, even though you are open to some of the “rethinking Christianity” stuff. You seem to like edginess in some measure but become uneasy when your idea of Christian orthodoxy is challenged by some renegade young visionary who claims the virgin birth isn’t necessary.”
Howl-A-Thon
This is a repost from 2011. The facebook links to pictures from the event work in 2023. (one two) Some of the people were strangers in 2011, but are friends today. Pictures today are from Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University Library.
PG was in the audience for the Howl-A-Thon Friday night. He sat in the back row, so he could discreetly leave when he got bored. To his surprise, he stayed to the end.
The scene of the event was the E church in Candler Park. The church is a classic granite chapel, originally built for an African American congregation. PG used to attend a “circle of healing”, that was held in the sanctuary. Some of that magic came back during the Howl-A-Thon.
PG found an updated version of “Howl”, which he called Howl 2011 (a.k.a. the anti howl). He thought it would be fun to read at the event. However, the Howl-A-Thon was tightly planned, and there was no room at the inn. It was suggested that PG read the updated Howl on the steps of the church. … The 2011 link to the Howl satire has an amusing message for 2023.
At 7:20 pm, PG stood up, and read “I saw the greatest hopes of my Christian nation destroyed”. No body stopped to listen, although a few shouted approval of key phrases. Most of the time, PG was reading for himself. It had an artistic feel to it. When he went inside, PG introduced himself to someone he had known 13 years ago. This person asked if PG had written that poem.
After a while, the MC smashed a pie pan against the microphone, and the performance began. He introduced Mr. Ginsberg to the audience, noting that the self promoting bard sent a copy of his work to William Faulkner. After this presentation, a young lady stood up and began to read a poem. She alternated reading with another man, until the first part of the show was over.
An evening of reading poems, by a dead beatnik, sounds dreadfully dull. The Howl-A-Thon was cleverly staged, and made the time go by fast. The title poem was read by 6 authors, with cheers for the parts that got the work banned in 1956. PG kept an eye on the door, but the police never arrived.
There was one part of the evening that PG would have changed. A young man read a poem about Mr. Ginsberg’s last day job, as a baggage handler at the Greyhound station in San Francisco. (The facility used to have a seedy building next door, The Atlanta Hotel.) If anyone had asked, PG would have said, please turn the intensity down a couple of notches. After the young man was through, the MC asked if anyone had a phone book for him to read.
The high point of the evening was reading Kaddish . The poem is the story of Naomi Ginsberg, the poet’s crazy mother. There is an image of the 12 y.o. Allen riding a bus, depressed because he couldn’t do anything for his mother. To anyone who has grown up with madness, it is a powerful image. The healing magic from 20 years ago came pouring out of the walls, to surround PG in lavender light.
Dark And Stormy Night
“I was stark naked, stoned out of my mind on heroin, and between my legs giving me head was Janis Joplin.” These 21 words open Going Down With Janis. Peggy Caserta was allegedly the gf, and definitely the heroin buddy, of the chanteuse.
There isn’t anywhere to go from there but up. As it turns out, the intercom is full of people who supply good opening lines from literature. It saves you the trouble of reading the rest of the book.
Here are Top 10 Most Outrageous Opening Lines in Literature, in reverse order. Three quotes are included from the comments. Ten are from opening sentences, which advertises Filipino Cupid. Pictures today are from The Library of Congress. This is an edited repost from 2012. Most of the links in this paragraph no longer work.
THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY Douglas Adams 1979 “Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.”
NEUROMANCER William Gibson 1984 “The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND Fyodor Dostoyevsky 1864 “I am a sick man . . . I am a wicked man. An unattractive man, I think my liver hurts.”
ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST Ken Kesey 1962 “They’re out there. Black boys in white suits up before me to commit sex acts in the hall and get it mopped up before I can catch them.”
TRAINSPOTTING Irvine Welsh 1993 “The sweat was lashing oafay Sick Boy; he wis trembling.”
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS Hunter S. Thompson 1971 “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like ‘I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .’ And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming, ‘Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'”
THE METAMORPHOSIS Franz Kafka 1915 “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.”
Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, 1813 “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.”
The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger, 1951 “If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”
Moby Dick Herman Melville, 1850 “Call me Ishmael.”
Peter Pan JM Barrie, 1911 “All children, except one, grow up.”
Anna Karenina Leo Tolstoy, 1873-7 “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Women Charles Bukowski “I was 50 years old and hadn’t been to bed with a woman for four years. I had no women friends. I looked at them as I passed them on the streets or wherever I saw them, but I looked at them without yearning and with a sense of futility. I masturbated regularly, but the idea of having a relationship with a woman—even on non-sexual terms—was beyond my imagination.”
The Bible author unknown Genesis 1: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the Earth”
Naked Lunch William S. Burroughs “I can feel the heat closing in, feel them out there making their moves, setting up their devil doll stool pigeons, crooning over my spoon and dropper I throw away at Washington Square Station, vault a turnstile and two flights down the iron stairs, catch an uptown A train… Young, good looking, crew cut, Ivy League, advertising exec type fruit holds the door back.”
Implicit Association Test
PG came across a link. The post was: What comes to mind when you see her headscarf? Let’s look at what your mind is seeing. (This post is no longer available online.) Technically, this is about the hijab, pronounced eeJOB. If you google hijab, you will have the opportunity to buy one.
The article talked about the unspoken assumptions people have about a woman with a hijab. For PG, these are going to be mostly positive. Most of the Muslims PG has known are great people. The turmoil caused by aggressive Jesus worshipers is absent when dealing with Muslims.
Much of the article deals with “unconscious bias.” You are given the chance to take a “test your unconscious bias and find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” PG is not sure that he trusts “Psychologists from Harvard, UW, and UVA.” Still, the only cost for taking this test will probably be damage to his mental health.
Before you start, there is a disclaimer. “IP addresses are routinely recorded, but are completely confidential.” There is a difference between confidential and anonymous. Big brother knows about PG anyway, so this test probably won’t make much difference. You are asked to agree to the following statement: “I am aware of the possibility of encountering interpretations of my IAT test performance with which I may not agree. Knowing this, I wish to proceed.” Fasten your digital seat belt.
Next, you choose a test. The first page has 15 options: Sexuality, Native American, Weapons, Arab-Muslim, etc. PG chooses “Weapons (‘Weapons – Harmless Objects’ IAT). This IAT requires the ability to recognize White and Black faces, and images of weapons or harmless objects.)
The first thing to do is answer a questionnaire. You are asked how warm or cold you feel towards white people, and black people. There is a list of statements that you agree or disagree, slightly, moderately, or strongly. Some of these statements are: I think of myself as someone who has an assertive personality, I have considered being an entertainer.
The heart of the test uses photographs. There are pictures of black people, and pictures of white people. There are pictures of weapons, like a bayonet, a historic pistol, a hand grenade, and a battle ax. There are pictures of harmless objects, like a water bottle, tape recorder, camera, and can of Coca Cola. Many of these could be used a weapons; a can of Coca Cola could be thrown at someone. Many Police consider a camera a weapon.
The pictures are flashed on the screen. You hit the e key for the left side, and the i key for the right side. At first the two choices are kept separate, i.e. you choose black or white, weapon or harmless. Then the two groups are combined. The choice is left side black weapons, and right side white harmless. Then they shift sides, to black harmless and white weapons. You are shown a picture, and choose which category to put it in.
The last questionnaire is the demographics. Annual family income is not considered. Ethnicity refers to hispanic/latin, or non hispanic/latin. Religion, age, “political identity,” gender (only male or female,) and education are considered, among other factors.
The result: “Your data suggest a strong association of Black Americans with Weapons compared to White Americans. … The interpretation is described as ‘automatic association between weapons and White Americans’ if you responded faster when weapons and White American images were classified with the same key than when weapons and Black Americans were classified with the same key.”
Whatever. Maybe PG should take another test for comparison. Maybe this time, choose a subject where hateful judgement is not in your face everyday. Since the seminal article is about the hijab, maybe … “You have opted to complete the Arab Muslim – Other People IAT.”
The opening questionnaire is different.”I attempt to appear nonprejudiced toward Arab Muslims in order to avoid disapproval from others, NO spontaneous prejudiced thoughts come into my mind when I encounter an unfamiliar Arab Muslim.”
This test is different from the race test. Instead of photographs, words were used. For the two groups of people, we have names (seemingly all male.) Examples: Arab Muslim – Akbar, Ashraf, Habib – – Other People – Benoit, Philippe, Guillame. The other categories are Good and Bad. Examples: Good – Joy, Love, Peace – – Bad – Agony, Terrible, Horrible.
PG made more mistakes in the fancy part of the Arab test. He took a couple of breaks to take screen shots, one of which is included in this report. At times, he felt himself automatically blaming the Arabs for bad things. This did not happen, consciously, in the race/weapons test.
The result: Your data suggest little to no automatic preference between Other People and Arab Muslims. … This new test was prompted by the events of September 11, 2001. Suicide pilots, identified as Arab Muslims, crashed airplanes into the World Trade Center towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. killing about 4,000 people.
While this may have some value to the ivory tower crowd, it does not tell PG much about himself. Arguably, IAT says more about the researchers than it does the respondents. It is doubtful that these tests will “find the areas of your perspective that need a little extra TLC.” This is a repost. Pictures from The Library of Congress. These pictures were not used in the IAT studied today.
Wife Is NOT Dead
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wagner ~ 3 digit colors ~ css named colors ~ hex color notation ~ richard platt
hotez ~ Vinayak Prasad ~ lenny bruce ~ careful ~ cis
repost ~ brunch ~ Yevgeny Prigozhin ~ cop city ~ prighozin
repost ~ the annointed one ~ Siddhartha Gautama ~ pride ~ burroughs ~ howard brookner
axios ~ russell dilday ~ florence ~ eroxon ~ bunions
Eroxon ~ bunion ~ ari shapiro ~ james dougherty ~ Doc 095: Mattilda
Although Eroxon is now approved in the U.S. it is not yet available for sale here and it may not become available for purchase until 2025. Pricing details for Eroxon are not yet available but in the United Kingdom, it costs the equivalent of U.S. $31.22 for a pack of 4 single dose tubes. ~ This line was delivered by Lord Goring in Act III of “An Ideal Husband.” He also said: “Fashion is what one wears oneself. What is unfashionable is what other people wear.” … “The only possible society is oneself.” … “However, it is always nice to be expected, and not to arrive.” … “Oh, why will parents always appear at the wrong time? Some extraordinary mistake in nature, I suppose.”… Lord Caversham: “No woman, plain or pretty, has any common sense at all, sir. Common sense is the privilege of our sex.” Lord Goring: “Quite so. And we men are so self-sacrificing that we never use it, do we, father?” … Lord Goring: “Now I’m gonna give you some good advice.” Mrs. Cheveley: “Pray don’t. You should never give a woman something she can’t wear in the evening” ~ was Jesus the Buddha, and Siddhartha the Christ? ~ buddha The title ‘Buddha’, which literally means ‘awakened’, is conferred on an individual who discovers the path to nirvana, the cessation of suffering, and propagates that discovery so that others may also achieve nirvana. ~ for a person good with words, why do you only send emojis instead of the words with which you are such a master? – idk sometimes words are too much work, so i send an emoji to let you know that i appreciate your message. also, I like scrolling through the emoji catalog, looking for one that i have not used before ~ what if #Prigohzin gets control of the nukes? ~ This is a repost from 2019. Cis is now considered a slur. ~ pictures today are from The Library of Congress ~ selah
Cisgress
Transgress was the center of attention in a curious facebook meme. The ten letters were displayed in a festive font. Topside magenta fades into pink dust, inside a thin blue shell. These tasteful letters were displayed on a white-as-snow background. PG saw the T-meme, and felt moved to make a one word comment: cisgress. Using all lower case was intentional.
For those who are new here, cis is the opposite of trans. The contemporary usage generally refers to gender. Cis people live with the gender assigned at birth. Trans people make adjustments. There are a lot of options. Gender non-conformance is a sensitive, emotional issue. PG expressed concerns about the c-prefix at least twice. Once, he was told “Butch up Mary.”
Getting back to facebook, there was a bit of conversation. Someone said “Cisgreassing = privilege=oppression.” To which PG replied “actually, it was a joke. I took the word transgress. I substituted cis for trans. I came up with the nonsense word cisgress.” There was only one thing left to do: Google cisgress. There were 115 results for cisgress.
Linguistically correct “Simon Hoggart (Changing the gender agenda) asks who decides whether words like “cisgender” should enter the language. I do! English is scandalously lacking in politically and linguistically correct antonyms of this sort. The Queen can create the Duchess of Cambridge, so surely I can create the much-needed expressions “cisgress” (be a good boy), “cisvestite” (bloke wearing trousers), and “cisaction” (no deal). Anyone who doesn’t disagree is a transsy.” UPDATE: This letter was removed from a facebook thread. The note: “kindy do not use trans slurs in your posts”
CIS-GReS is the second google result. It is one s short of cisgress, but will have to do. “CIS-GReS is the official group supported by the School of Computing and Information Systems, University of Melbourne. It is also affiliated with the Graduate Student Association. … If you are a graduate research student with a supervisor from CIS, this is your group.”
Pictures for today are from The Library of Congress. Russel Lee was the photographer. Tenant farmers in Oklahoma. June-July, 1939. Living conditions of tenant farmers in Oklahoma This is a repost from 2019. Cis is now considered a slur.
Chamblee54 
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