It was another Sunday morning shaking out the cobwebs for PG. He read a featurette about a “frickin’ weirdo” actor . In the fine print was a link to The Extended Socionics Test (Beta). Personality tests are always good for a few hundred words to put between the pictures. Pictures today are from ” The Special Collections and Archives,Georgia State University Library”.
The test is 75 questions, in three groups. Group one is 28 questions. They are pairs of statements, with one statement being the opposite of the other. An example is “You view the cup as half full” … “You view the cup as half empty”. Your answer is a sliding lever between the two statements. You can go strongly for one or another, go mildly for one or another, or be stuck in the middle.
The first group of questions has a lot of bad choices. PG is getting bored with this exercise. If he had finished his coffee earlier, he might not have taken on this chore.
The second group of questions has a question in the middle, with a choice of two statements. An example is “What best describes your life philosophy?… Work hard and play hard; if you’re not with us, you’re against us…. Engage in small group activities and serious discussions. Let a multitude of ideas flourish and help realize those that show promise.”
PG did not copy a sample question, from group two, before moving on to group three. To get back to group two, he had to start the test over. In this second taking of the test, he is going to be a female, born in 1984. The answers to the test will be random.
The third part of the test is 38 pairs of photographs. You choose which one of the two you prefer to spend time with. It is always two women, or two men, and nobody seems to be over thirty.
PG is INFj, The Empath, , and Ethical Intuitive Introvert . This is also known as EII (INFj) . The brief description goes like this:
“Using introverted feeling as her base function and extroverted intuition as her creative, the EII is adept at understanding people’s internal drive and motivation. She often acts reserved, respectful, and polite around others she does not know well but will eventually open up more. She implicitly trusts her intuition when judging someone, and this intuition serves her well at grasping more abstract concepts. EIIs need to constantly set new goals for themselves and they care deeply about meeting these goals. However it should be noted that these goals are very personal, and she places less weight on the conventional achievements that society values, so often any correlation is largely coincidental. At her best, the EII is known for respecting other people’s beliefs and values while also being an overachiever at school and work; at her worst, the EII’s compassion and empathy can cause her undue harm when the people she cares about are suffering. Overall, the EII cares about diligence, meeting one’s individuals goals, and respecting others; she distates behavior that is overtly loud, abrasive, or aggressive.”
The female, who was born in 1984 and gives random answers, is a EIE-2Fe . This is also known as ENFj, The Actor, and Ethical Intuitive Extrovert. Several of the photographs in part three were repeated from the first test.

These visits to alternative reality are from a variety of sources. Included are Facebook (fb), twitter (tw), Futility Closet (fucl) , All Aphorisms, All The Time (Aph) , Texts From Last Night (tln) , and Overheard in New York (ony) . Attempts to maintain a no profanity blog will be suspended for this post. Pictures were taken by Gwinnett County. // I have two things to say to the gentlemen who sent me their photographs this morning. Posing nude in front of a camera in your bathroom does not make you a model. Secondly, you may be confusing me with a photographer for National Geographic. (fb) // Last night, my kids and I were sitting in my den. I told to them, “I never want to live in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a bottle. If that ever happens, just pull the plug.” They got up, unplugged the computer and threw out my wine!! The little bastards (fb) // Figured out why I couldn’t cut these onions right – there wasn’t a glass of wine in my other hand ‘for balance’. (tw) // Before you ask, that’s actually a Mars bar floating in it. I’m not that cruel. (tw) // FFS, I’m in the bizarre end of YouTube again. This time, may I present: Vagina Bubbles From Hell (tw) // Often, cloaked like trick or treaters in the casual disguises of philosophical gossip, we wonder about the ultimate meaning of a man’s life (tw) // I keep forgetting the same thing over and over again. I know it’s important but I keep on forgetting it. (tw) // Xerox Candy Bar: Ah, you’re just a copy of all the candy bars I’ve ever eaten. (tw) // The dog was so old he looked like a stuffed dog. I tied him up to a fire hydrant and he pissed on it, but it was only stuffed piss. (tw) // Work life balance is such bullshit…. Between work, sleep, and blacking out, I pretty much wrote off my 20s. (tw) // #1: Hey, do you have change for a $20? #2: $20′s are change, bro. (tw) // One of the biggest problems with todays society is that we’ve run out of colonies of send our undesirables to. (tw) // If you can only be good at one thing, be good at lying… Because if you’re good at lying, you’re good at everything. (tw) // #1: Who gives a fuck about SOPA? #2: If you got busted downloading MJ’s Thriller, you’d get more jail time than the dude that killed him. (tw) // #1: Socialites are just bottom-feeders with money. #2: They do give mean head though. (tw) // Mitt embodies the bullshit ass-kissing banker-consultant-MBA double-talking piece-of-shit mentality we hate. He is hyphenation personified. (tw) // So sad…Please, put this on your status if you dated, know, work with or are related to (or divorced from) someone who suffers from stupidity. We all need to understand stupidity is real and must be taken seriously. You could be sitting next to a stupid person right now. There is still no known cure for stupidity, and sympathy does not help. Sometimes a 2×4 to the back of the head helps, but not a lot. But we can raise awareness! 53% won’t re-post this because they don’t know how to copy and paste. (fb) // “It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake” – Frederick Douglas (fb) // “Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not mine” – Patti Smith (fb) // “Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy” – Paracelsus (one of history’s greatest alchemists) (fb) // “If you’re gonna be two-faced at least make one of them pretty.” ― Marilyn Monroe (fb) // On April 18, 1926, Sinclair Lewis mounted the pulpit of a Kansas City church, took out his watch, and defied G-d to prove his existence within 10 minutes by striking him dead. G-d spared him. George Bernard Shaw had once made the same challenge but gave G-d only three minutes. “I am a very busy man,” he said. (fucl) // A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life.-Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (fb) // Portion out pleasure so that one can always still increase it. – Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view (fb) // Though terror speaks to life and death, and distress makes of the world a vale of tears, yet shame strikes deepest into the heart of man-Silvan Tomkins, Affect Imagery Consciousness vol III (fb) // No person wishes to abandon Christian terminology, but they can secretly change it so that it doesn’t require decision or action.-Soren Kierkegaard, Two Ages: A Literary Review (fb) // The public comes into existence because all its participants become spectators rather than participants.-Soren Kierkegaard, Two Ages: A Literary Review (fb) // To all my haters: You have my thanks, but not my respect. (tw) // “Pretty is overwhelming, having something to say on top of that can just be mindboggling.” (fb) // Charges: CRIMINAL ATTEMPT TO COMMIT CRIME // “Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.” — Bertrand Russell (fucl) // “If you can’t be a good example, then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.” – Catherine Aird. (fb) // Drunk cheerio confetti may seem like a brilliant idea when your drunk, but believe me, the next day, its a horrible, horrible mess. (tln) // He was all like, “I’ve prayed every single day just for one more night with you.”… Omg just give him a quick handy and walk out. (tln) // someone to text and fuck? since when does that constitute a relationship? (tln) // I swear my vagina formed calluses just to deal with how big he is (tln) // I’m really proud of myself for not blacking out yet this weekend! … It’s a Thursday. (tln) // Also, ran into my neighbor across the street. He told me about scheduling his vasectomy. We are officially way beyond the acceptable point for asking his name again. (tln) // and then she started to quack like a duck and u started throwing bread at her (tln) // Last thing i remember is pounding jager and puking in that nerds george foreman grill. Then i wake up this morning with some random tooth brush in my mouth (tln) // Guy on train on cell: Yeah, man, I’m not sure if I can go out tonight. (pause) I know there’s going to be a shit-ton of booze, but I think I’m staying in. I’ll go next time. (pause) I’m just saying, I have no idea what I’m on right now, but I don’t think I should mix it with alcohol. (ony) // Grandfather: You remember my cousin, Arthur? Little boy: Who? Grandfather: You remember him, he was at your bris. Little boy: Oh, right, right. (nods) (ony) // Guy to friend, about teen passing by: I know this girl, and she’ll suck your dick for free! Passing teen #1: What? Eww, gross! Passing teen #2: Really? Where? (ony) // “I make my way among the non-electric people to seek reasons for my death and my living” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) // “Hell, I couldn’t even get a job as a dishwasher.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) // “Democracy! Bah! When I hear that word I reach for my feather Boa!” ~ Allen Ginsberg (tw) // “A poem is like a radio that can broadcast continuously for thousands of years.” ~ Allen Ginsberg (tw) // going to mcdonald’s for a salad is like going to a prostitute for a hug (fb) // Q. How can you tell when a man is well hung? A. When you can just barely slip your finger in between his neck and the noose. (fb) // Tween boy #1, after exiting TD Bank with two friends: Where do you get the money you spend? Tween boy #2: Where do you think? My parents. Tween boy #3: I spend my own money. Tween boy #2: And where did you get that money? Tween boy #3: My Bar Mitzvah. I got almost $6,000. Tween boy #1: Damn, why am I not Jewish? Tween boy #2: Hey, I have considered becoming Jewish just for the money! (ony) // Teen, looking at rack of sweater vests: Hey, look–I could turn into Rick Santorum! Mother: Yeah, but then I’d have to disown you. (ony) // Hipster girl on cell loudly: Courtney! I have to pee so bad! I’m going to wet my pants! Hipster dude, walking by: You’re wearing a dress, sweetie. (ony) // Life is my favorite drinking game. (tw) // Man is the cancer of nature, growing uncontrollably and exponentially. (Aph) // If all people were thrown into the sea, the sea would immediately become cleaner. (Aph) // We live as if we had two lives. The first one is used for the acquisition of resources. (Aph) // When faith replaces knowledge, its reliability is halved but its insistence doubles. (Aph) // #1: AAPL says the US doesn’t have workers w/ the skills to make iPhones. #2: It takes a lot of skill to survive on 70¢ an hour. (tw) // I don’t let my kids watch Lady Gaga. She has such a negative message… If you’re ugly, you have to dress like a freak. (tw) // Nothing is more succinct and articulate than just doing the jerk-off hand motion. (tw) // Before you say something is fucked up, don’t forget, Newt Gingrich married his high school math teacher. (tw) // Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you have boobs. (tw) // I’m going Roethlisbergering tonight. (tw) // “…alcohol allows me to be this hero, striding through space and time, doing all these daring things.” ~ Charles Bukowski (tw) // selah

PG was minding his own business, listening to an internet discussion, when he heard a comment about Warren Harding and the word “normalcy”. This reminded PG of a post he wrote about the phrase “founding fathers”, which apparently was created by the former President. Comments were made.
Chamblee54 So Warren Harding coined the phrase normalcy . In the keynote address to the 1916 Republican convention, Mr. Harding was the first person to use the expression founding fathers . He is also regarded as one of the worst Presidents ever to serve.
rcocean Liberal propaganda. Harding wasn’t that bad at all, and simply didn’t have the time (only in office for 2 years) or live in an era when “Big decisions” needed to be made. If he’d been elected in 1916, he probably would’ve done better than Wilson. This country would be better off if we’d had more Coolidge’s and Harding’s and fewer Nixon’s, LBJ’s, and Wilson’s.
urbanxii Why, because he didn’t insist on twisting the country into his image?
donzeko I tend to think that the Harding hate is unfair. He fares badly because his administration was hit with serious corruption and scandals, but the underlying impetus seems to be his inactivity. Considering that he only served briefly and did so in a time of relative peace and prosperity, his lack of grand ideological crusading doesn’t seem like a fair reason to call him one of the worst. He shakes out quite favorably when you put him next to the other consensus worst Presidents: Buchanan, Hoover, Pierce, Johnson, etc. I figure he deserves a place solidly in the mediocre range along with the Gilded Age Ohioans.
It is a cliche of history classes that Warren Harding was one of the worst men to occupy the oval office. (Richard Nixon was the POTUS the last time PG studied history. This cliche does not consider the last forty years.) PG is a fair minded person, who is always looking for something to write about. The question for Mr. Google was “was warren harding a terrible president?”. Answers dot com has a generous helping of biographical sketches.
Warren Gamaliel Harding was born Nov. 2, 1865, Caledonia OH, and died Aug. 2, 1923, San Francisco CA. (His birthplace is also cited as Blooming Grove OH, and Corsica OH.) He published a newspaper, got into politics, and was elected to the US Senate. In 1920, he was a compromise candidate, on the tenth ballot of the Republican convention. He clobbered James Cox, ( His family firm, Cox Enterprises, owns Channel 2 and the fishwrapper.) and became President March 4, 1921.
The United States was in an economic downturn in 1921. The War in Europe ended in 1918, and a postwar depression was on. The last two years of the Wilson administration had been chaotic, with the President suffering a debilitating stroke. In a few years, the roaring twenties were on, and America was prosperous for a few years.
Mr. Harding was reputed to be a womanizer, gambler, and heavy drinker. He was not an activist President, but allowed his cronies to do what they wanted to do. This proved to be his downfall. “I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends. They’re the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!”
There was a major scandal involving oil reserves. It centered around a place in Wyoming called Teapot Dome. The details of this affair mostly came to light after the death of President Harding. Albert B. Fall, the secretary of the interior, was convicted of a felony for his role in the affair… the first cabinet officer to become a felon while in office.
Mr. Harding went on a trip to the west, to make speeches and deals. He was the first President to go to Alaska. While in Alaska, he read some documents about the crooked dealings of his friends. In a few days, he was in San Francisco. He had been in ill health during the trip.
“On Thursday, the President’s health appeared to be improving, so his doctors went to dinner. Harding’s pulse was normal and his lung infection had subsided. Unexpectedly, during the evening, Harding shuddered and died suddenly in the middle of conversation with his wife in the hotel’s presidential suite, at 7:35 pm on August 2, 1923. Dr. Sawyer (a homeopath, and friend of the Harding family), opined that Harding had succumbed to a stroke, but doctors there disagreed. … After some discussion, the doctors issued a release indicating the cause of death to be “some brain evolvement, probably an apoplexy”. Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy. In retrospect, scholars speculate that Harding had shown physical signs of cardiac insufficiency with congestive heart failure in the preceding weeks. Naval medical consultants who examined the president in San Francisco concluded he had suffered a heart attack. “
The sudden and mysterious death of a President, with reports of a scandal surfacing, is fertile ground for conspiracy theorists. Mr. Harding did appear to be in poor health, so this may have been a natural occurrence. The truth will never be completely known.
One aspect of the Harding administration that is not well known is his attitude about race. In the years after World War I, America was engulfed in race hatred. The Ku Klux Klan had a revival. “In a speech on October 26, 1921, given in segregated Birmingham, Alabama Harding advocated civil rights for African Americans; the first President to openly advocate black political, educational, and economic equality during the 20th century.” Mr. Harding supported an anti lynching bill, which a Democratic filibuster kept from passing.
Jimmysnax brings the Internet tradition of snarky commentary to the legacy of Warren Harding. Apparently, former newspaperman Harding could not write his way out of a paper bag. (In 1923, radio was a novelty. The printed word was the primary means of communication.)
Run your eyes over one of the best known examples of his waterboarding of the English tongue: “I would like the government to do all it can to mitigate, then, in understanding, in mutuality of interest, in concern for the common good, our tasks will be solved.”
Here’s what H. L. Mencken said about Harding’s speech writing and speech making: “He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.” The 20’s were a wonderful time for language!
Or as E.E. Cummings put it, announcing Harding’s death: “The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead.”
Pictures today are from The Library of Congress

There is a book, Glock: The Rise of America’s Gun . The author is promoting it, with interviews at NPR and Democracy Now . It is a good story, of an innovative product and savvy marketing. Atlanta’s Gold Club, r.i.p., played a key role in this marketing. If the book is anything like the interviews, it will be a great read.
In the NPR show, there is a contradiction. Paul Barrett, the author, discusses how gun control is a dead issue. There are more guns available in America today, and crime is going down. New York is a much safer city today, than it was twenty years ago. Then, Mr. Barrett mentions that he does not own a gun. He lives in New York, which has some of the toughest gun control laws in America. Perhaps these tough laws are the reason that New York is safer?

PG found this in his inbox. A QUICK PRAYER Please do not break. Just 27 words. “G-d, our Father, walk through my house and take away all my worries and illnesses and please watch over and heal my family in G-d’s name, Amen.” This prayer is so powerful. Pass this to 12 people including me. A blessing is coming to you in form of a new job, a house, marriage, finances, or maybe an answer to something (a prayer, a request) that you have been waiting for. Do not break or ask questions.

Some well meaning facebooker put up a link, What’s Your Reggae Name? This is a simple test, using your initials to cop a reggaename. The first one to come up here is Bongo “Sticks” Bong. It then occurred to PG that his blog identity needs a last name. PG Zorlock has the reggaename Don “Ras Clot” Fyah .
This seemed like a good excuse for a post, but needs more than one paragraph. Rap Star Name will give you handles for pop, rock, and rap. PG goes by Will O’Day, Zane Reid, and Zee P. The country button is broken.
This might not be a very long post. Looking for a republican or communist name is not productive. There was something for a fantasy name, but it was too complicated to use. If PG wre a heavy metal band , he could choose from Medieval Cannibal, Infected Mantra, Pestilential Attack, or Corroded Casket. (The heavy metal generator is sponsored by Liberty University, Training champions for christ.) Pictures today are from The Library of Congress .

Andrew Sullivan had an uplifting feature, the other day, about obituaries. As is his custom, he found an article at another site, threw out a juicy quote, and moved on. It is up to Chamblee54 to provide more detail, and put up pictures for the text averse. These pictures today are from the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church cemetery. This is a repost.
It is a common practice to look at the obituaries (aka “Irish sports page”) first thing in the morning. If the reader is not included, then the day can proceed as normal. This custom does not take into account the possibility that you have died, and your family it too cheap to purchase a notice.
The article in question is THE DEAD BEAT CLUB Ten things you don’t know about the obit biz. It starts off by saying that the family members are usually happy to help the obit scribe. They have stories about the recently deceased, like ” Eddie “Bozo” Miller boasted of regularly drinking a dozen martinis before lunch, yet he lived to age eighty-nine.”
Newspapers take different approaches to obituaries. Some assign rookies, or use the death beat as punishment for troublemakers. Others give the job to their best writer. The paid notices are usually written by family members, with the help of the undertaker.
Of course, there is the occasional oddball. Alana Baranick, obituary writer for Cleveland’s The Plain Dealer and lead author of Life on the Death Beat: A Handbook for Obituary Writers , likes to visit every municipality in the United States named Cleveland.
One oft repeated saying is that obituaries are about life, not death. As the source puts it: “The British “quality” newspapers — The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Independent, substantiate the old chestnut about obituaries being about life, not death. These papers rarely mention the cause of death, focusing instead on presenting a vivid account of a lived life. American papers have an unhealthy fixation on death. It’s common for “complications of chronic pulmonary disease” or “bile duct cancer” to show up in the story’s lede, never to resurface.”
Only one obituary has won a Pulitzer prize. ” Leonard Warren, a Metropolitan Opera baritone, dropped dead mid-performance in 1960. Sanche de Gramont (who changed his name to Ted Morgan), a young rewrite man at the New York Herald Tribune, banged out the obit in under an hour and won a 1961 Pulitzer in the Local Reporting, Edition Time, category.”
There is an The International Association of Obituarists. The headquarters is in Dallas TX, presumably near a grassy knoll. They have an annual convention, which is said to be a lively affair. The 2005 conference was in Bath, England. The 2007 conference was in Alfred NY There is also the Society of Professional Obituary Writers.
IAO was founded by Carolyn Gilbert, the lady who puts the bitch in obituary. Ms. Gilbert collaborates on a page, Remembering The Passed. RTP has a series of podcasts. They require an apple app to listen, which is too much work for PG.
Death is a part of life. Every language has a word for it, and English has a number of slang expressions. An incomplete list would include : ““passed on”, “are no more”, “have ceased to be”, “expired and gone to meet their Maker”, “are bereft of life”, “have ceased to be”, “rest in peace”, “push up daisies”, “whose metabolic processes are now history”, “are off the twig”, “have kicked the bucket”, “shuffled off their mortal coil”, “run down the curtain” or “joined the Choir Invisible”
Columbia Journalism Review (Motto: Strong Press, Strong Democracy) has a feature about Obit. “Krishna Andavolu is the managing editor of Obit an online magazine intended for those interested in obituaries, epitaphs, elegies, postludes, retrospectives, grave rubbings, widow’s weeds, and other such memorabilia of expiration. Part eulogistic clearinghouse, part cultural review, Obit purports to examine life through the prism of death. Founded in 2007 by a wealthy New Jersey architect who sensed an exploitable niche after seeing a middle-aged woman distraught over the death of Captain Kangaroo, the site is a locus for enlightened morbidity.”
OM is worth a visit. The top story features a picture of Betty Ford, who survived Breast Cancer, Alcoholism, and The White House, to die at 93. The site has an ad from Newlymaid.com, with the creative suggestion to Trade In Your Old Bridesmaid Dress & Get a New Little Black Dress.
OM has a popular feature called Died on the same day. Grim reaper recruits on July 12 include Alexander Hamilton (1804), Dolly Madison (1849), Alfred Dreyfus (1935), Lon Chaney (1973), Minnie Riperton (1979), and Mr. Butch.
No google search is complete without someone trying to make money. Obituaries Professionally Written says ” … we believe in honoring a life with respect, dignity and integrity. When needed, euphemism is used liberally. “
OPW content provider Larken Bradley says “”Obituary writing is an honor, a privilege, and great fun … I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.”… After she dies she expects her obit headline will read, “Obituary Writer, Six Feet Under.”

This story is borrowed from Gartalker, who borrowed it from someone else. The pictures are from The Library of Congress. This is a repost.
When you have to visit a public bathroom, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the stall doors. Every stall is occupied. Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the stall. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern “seat covers” (invented by someone’s Mom, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your purse on the door hook, if there was one, but there isn’t – so you carefully, but quickly drape it around your neck, (Mom would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!), yank down your pants, and assume” The Stance.”
In this position your aging, toneless (God I should have gone to the gym!!!) thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but you certainly hadn’t taken time to wipe the seat or lay toilet paper on it, so you hold”The Stance”. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser. In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Honey, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more.
You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday – the one that’s still in your purse. (Oh yeah, the purse around your neck, that now, you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time).That will have to do. You crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.
Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work. The door hits your purse,which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest,and you and your purse topple backward against the tank of the toilet. “Occupied!” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, lose your footing altogether, and slide down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course.
You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper -not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try. You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because, you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, ”You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get”.
By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl that sprays a fine mist of water that covers your butt and runs down your legs and into your shoes. The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force that you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too At this point, you give up.. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You try to wipe with a gum wrapper you found in your pocket! and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.
You can’t figure out how to operate the faucets with the automatic sensors, …..so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting. You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it??) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly,”Here, you just might need this”.
As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used, and left the men’s restroom. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long, and why is your purse hanging around your neck?” … This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with a public restrooms.It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers their other commonly asked questions about why women go to the restroom in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your purse, and hand you Kleenex under the door!

Facebook was hit by a tsunami of nouns, verbs, and adjectives yesterday, all because of the expression “tranny”. Some people, both cis-gendered and altered, do not like that word. (FYI-The word cis is the opposite of trans. A cis-gendered person is one who functions with the equipment they were born with.) Some people like tranny, and don’t care if others don’t. Esteemed elder Ru Paul is ignored. It goes on, and on, and on, and on.
A couple of passages from this snowdrift of syntax are worth quoting.
“I also don’t see how continuing to give essentially innocuous euphemisms so much power to hurt one’s own feelings is supposed to be liberatory…. And maybe it’s not even my place to have an opinion, but is it not just a stupid fucking semantic distinction? Is it really wise to make it everybody else’s job to keep you from hearing a word you don’t like because it triggers icky feelings? Doesn’t that make your happiness dependent on factors outside your own control, and ultimately frivolous ones at that? Isn’t that kinda the ultimate abdication of agency?”
“I view the contextual argument to be rather persuasive. When I was in prison most of the heteronormative population referred to me and other queers as sissys. I found that to be offensive because it was used as way or form of emasculation and thereby stripping me of equal privilege and rights in the prison industrial complexes sub culture. It was a term I denied and abhorred. Now, with the evolution of my thought processes and the de-conditioning of my overly sensitive personality I embrace the term at a level of personal empowerment and encourage its use by non heternormative peers because it is used as an identifying tool in our plight of personhood reclamation.”
PG got the memo on tranny a while back. It goes into the laundry list of language looloos, those words that polite people do not say openly. The N word, anatomical inventory, reproduction, excretion, alternate uses of all the above…. and this just gets started. The language police are everywhere, kicking ass and taking names.
While this facebook tragedy was transpiring, JoemyG-d had a related story, VANCOUVER: Transgender Activists Glitter-Bomb Dan Savage Again . You have to give Dan Savage credit for one thing…people pay attention to him. Four years ago, he wrote a sex advice column for an obscure Seattle alternative newspaper. When Prop 8 passed, he wrote a piece, commenting on the people of color who voted for it. Overnight, he was an icky racist, the poster boi for post modern political incorrectness. Here is the story.
“Dan Savage was glitter- bombed  before his appearance at The Vogue theatre in Vancouver Jan 21, the third such action against the high-profile sex columnist and political commentator in recent months. A group of six activists, who named themselves The Homomilitia for the event, said they confronted Savage as he entered the theatre through a back-alley entrance. In an interview with Xtra after the confrontation, activist Fister Limp Wrist accused Savage of “ableist, racist, transphobic, fat-phobic, sero-phobic and rape-apologist attitudes and views.” Activists handed audience members bright pink pamphlets outlining their accusations as they entered the theatre.”
Ableist, racist, transphobic, fat-phobic, sero-phobic and rape-apologist. Werq that word. This is so powerful, it doesn’t have to mention gay white male cis-gender privilege.
As this is written, there were 255 comments. Some people seem to have read all of these, and make comments on those posted later and later. The last comment, as of now, says “reading this thread has probably been the biggest waste of time of my entire JMG carreer.”
At the start of the thread are two choice items. “You don’t understand, ish. “Discuss it” is cis-male priveledge dogwhistle for “shut up”.”Many of us born male and female find the addition of the prefix “cis’ offensive… we all know who we are… we do not need you to add terms that many of us see as hateful. The funny thing is… we are accused of being phobic and using words that the Trans community does not like… yet they are comfortable using their own phobias and terms to hurt us’
Chamblee54 made one contribution to this thread. “Drew” wrote a few hundred words, describing the yukky things that Mr. Savage had written about transpeople. At 1100 pm, Chamblee54 asked “Do you have links for any of that?” This was followed by “Of course not, because if there were links, you’d go read the original source and find out that it’s either 15 years old, or a total twisting of what Dan actually said.” .
Pictures are from The Library of Congress.

The Clown Scientists have found that all our problems can be placed under one heading: SERIOUSNESS! Seriousness is the leading cause of everything from Cancer to Reincarnation.
Clown Scientists, from the Clown Academy, have already discovered a new source of healing. It is a psychic energy point located between the heart chakra and the throat chakra. It is called THE CLOWN CHAKRA
If people are feeling miserable; if they have financial problems; if their relationship situation is in the pits; if they are in ill health; if they feel a need to sue people; and most importantly, if they find fault with their brother/sister, then obviously their CLOWN CHAKRA is CLOSED! When this happens, the scientists have observed under a high-powered microscope that the cells of every organ display a Sad Face. If the CLOWN CHAKRA is open, and functioning normally, the cells display a Happy Face
The scientists realized that if a person is ill, it is because their mind has projected “whatever” onto the cells of their body and FORCED OUT LOVE which is normally found in each of our 100 trillion cells. The cells are literally saying “I Lack Love” or “ILL” for short. The scientists also discovered that all disease is due to the fact the cells are “out of ease” or “dis-eased”
When the CLOWN CHAKRA is opened and working (or rather playing) properly, the psychic mechanism “sucks up” misery, pain, anger, resentment, grievances, unhappiness, etc and CONVERTS the energy into TINY RED HEART SHAPED BALLOONS which contain LOVE & JOY
These balloons are directed to the dis-eased cell or situation, and a happy face appears instantly. When the light enters the darkness, the darkness dissipates. Sometimes these red heart-shaped balloons are called ENDORPHINS, due to the fact that when anyone experiences them, the feeling of SEPARATION ends They experience being “back home” with “ALL THAT IS” and hence no longer an orphan. This is the well know “end orphan effect” hence END OR PHIN!
So if you think someone is attacking you, Clown Scientists recommend that you visualize sending that person red heart-shaped balloons filled with Love & Joy. Remember to keep your CLOWN CHAKRA OPEN and remember to LAUGH
This message is a recycled email, not a red heart shaped balloon full of love and joy. The clown scientist is Philip Princetta. He will be in Atlanta this March. Pictures for this message today are from The Library of Congress .