Back in 1969 Jerry Brendt took this photo of two brothers messing around with white girls. This was not Selma, but Boston's Combat Zone where people could be people.
The Caddy is a convertible and the girls love the horseplay. Everything seems perfect.
Everything depends on your point of view or disposition.
"it's just a car, girl.
In 1980 my firend Carmine slid a .38 across the table of John's Italian Restaurant. I looked at it for a few seconds, the asked, "What's this?"
"A gun," said the Sicilian plumber.
"For what?"
"For protection. This is the East Village."
Junkies ruled the streets, thieves plagued the unknowing, and project thugs roamed the street for prey.
"Fuck protection. I can take care of myself." I pushed the weapon back to Carmine. "Plus the only way I would take it would be if you gave me a thousand bullets. Like you said, "This is the East Village."
The Upper Lower East Side was dangerous to a fault, but I was in my prime.
25, 165, and angry.
"Your choice, but never say I didn't give you an edge."
"Not to worry, I'll never say that."
I shunned guns.
In New York or Paris, or Hamburg or Pattaya, yet my sense of invincibility doesn't prevent white mother-fucekrs from try9ing to teach everyone how dangerous they can be with an AR-15 in their hands.
Last month several masked gunmen entered the Kentucky Statehouse armed to the teeth.
The fascist police waved them around the gun detectors. They stood at the top of the stairs. If I had a hammer in my hand, I would have whacked them in the heads, but I'm in New York City. We don't act like we are trying to reinstate slavery, because we well know that the banks have made us all slaves and I need Uncle Carmine to come out of the grave to re-armed me for the coming battle, although this next time I might need more than a thousand rounds.
After his exoneration by a GOP majority Donald Trump has regaled his victory by pushing out the boundaries of his party's extreme convictions. He has ousted his critics within the government and pursued the rejection of Stone's sentence for selling out the country to the Russians and lying to the Congress. Trump even showed his true self by tweeting 'If you attack the king, then you have to kill him."
Trump has attacked the social benefits of SSE and Medicare.
# 45 has upped the stakes of Hitlerian politics by messaging that ICE will be supported by armed gangs in their pursuit of illegal aliens in 'sanctuary cities' like NYC or LA.
Fascism.
Pure and simple, yet 45% of American voters favor the White House resident.
"I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it."
Not if I was on the block.
Thankfully the old shit is old.
The 2020 Kili Intiative team has departed from the Kibo Lodge in Loitokitok for the Maasai Plains under the guidance of JM, Ma'we, and Fast Steve.
The road down to the highway is so familiar from last year with Mount Kilimanjaro looming behind the group of Tanzanian and Kenya young adults.
The valley stretches for miles to the east filled with lions, elephants, giraffes, zebra, and countless other African species.
At one point the map is spread atop a hill and the team navigators see to find where they are and where they need to go.
"I told you we need to go left..." "I have no idea where we are..." "Can you see if there is a Java nearby?"
Needless to say they found Inkisanjane.
They made dinner inside the school.
At night the team sat around a campfire. In less than a week I will join them and Commander Tim, but not on LoLoipange.
The Hill of Thorns.
I will be leaving New York on Monday February 17 to meet the 2020 Kili Initiative team in Marangu Tanzania. Originally, the first Mt Kilimanjaro climb was just going to be a one-off ascent, with the singular aim of raising a few US dollars for community projects and to offer 10 young Africans the opportunity to reach the highest point in Africa. Since its inception, KI has lead more than 500 climbers to the summit of Mt Kilimanjaro, including 220 youth from Africa and beyond, and raised hundreds of thousands of US dollars for youth-based activities in Kenya and Tanzania. Mt Kilimanjaro has inspired, saved and transformed.
I will be joining the team for my second climb as well as fill in sections for my film about the 2019 climb and team members to promote the project.
I thank you for your past help and hope you can help me achieve the summit and complete my filming.
Asante
Peter Nolan Smith
https://www.gofundme.com/f/top-of-africa/donate
"Women are always right and they are never more right then when they are wrong and you try to convince of this." Pascha Ray.
They're different creatures rom man as proven by this email from Brian LeBouef featuring a short story exercise written by a male and female student at the U of Phoenix.
The professor told his class: "Today we will experiment with a new form called the tandem story. The process is simple. Each person will pair off with the person sitting to his or her immediate right. As homework tonight, one of you will write the first paragraph of a short story. You will e-mail your partner that paragraph and copy me on the email. The partner will read the first paragraph and then add another paragraph to the story and send it back, also copying me. The first person will then add a third paragraph, and so on back-and-forth. Remember to re-read what has been written each time in order to keep the story coherent. There is be absolutely NO talking outside of the e-mails, and anything you wish to say must be written in the e-mail. The story is over when both agree a conclusion has been reached."
The following was actually turned in by two of his English students: Rebecca and Gary.
THE STORY
(first paragraph by Rebecca)
At first, Laurie couldn't decide which kind of tea she wanted. The chamomile, which used to be her favorite for lazy evenings at home, now reminded her too much of Carl, who once said, in happier times, that he liked chamomile. But she felt she must now, at all costs, keep her mind off Carl. His possessiveness was suffocating, and if she thought about him too much her asthma started acting up again. So chamomile was out of the question.
(second paragraph by Gary)
Meanwhile, Advance Sergeant Carl Harris, leader of the attack squadron now in orbit over Skylon 4, had more important things to think about than the neuroses of an air-headed asthmatic bimbo named Laurie with whom he had spent one sweaty night over a year ago. "A.S. Harris to Geostation 17," he said into his trans-galactic communicator. "Polar orbit established. No sign of resistance so far..." But before he
could sign off a bluish particle beam flashed out of nowhere and blasted a hole through his ship's cargo bay.
The jolt from the direct hit sent him flying out of his seat and across the cockpit.
(Rebecca)
He bumped his head and died almost immediately, but not before he felt one last pang of regret for psychically brutalizing the one woman who had ever had feelings for him. Soon afterwards, Earth stopped its pointless hostilities towards the peaceful farmers of Skylon 4. "Congress Passes Law Permanently Abolishing War and Space Travel,"
Laurie read in her newspaper one morning. The news simultaneously excited her and bored her. She stared out the window, dreaming of her youth, when the days had passed unhurriedly and carefree, with no newspaper to read, no television to distract her from her sense of innocent wonder at all the beautiful things around her.
"Why must one lose one's innocence to become a woman?" she pondered wistfully.
(Gary)
Little did she know, but she had less than 10 seconds to live.
Thousands of miles above the city, the Anu'udrian mothership launched the first of its lithium fusion missiles. The dim-witted wimpy peaceniks who pushed the Unilateral Aerospace disarmament Treaty through the congress had left Earth a defenseless target for the hostile alien empires who were determined to destroy the human race. Within two hours after the passage of the treaty the Anu'udrian ships were on course for Earth, carrying enough firepower to pulverize the entire planet. With no one to stop them, they swiftly initiated their diabolical plan. The lithium fusion missile entered the atmosphere unimpeded. The President, in his top-secret mobile submarine headquarters on the ocean floor off the coast of >, felt the inconceivably massive explosion, which vaporized poor, stupid, Laurie and 85 million other Americans. The President slammed his fist on the conference table. "We can't allow this! I'm going to veto that treaty!
Let's blow 'em out of the sky!"
(Rebecca)
This is absurd. I refuse to continue this mockery of literature. My writing partner is a violent, chauvinistic semi-literate adolescent.
(Gary)
Yeah? Well, you're a self-centered tedious neurotic whose attempts at writing are the literary equivalent of Valium. "Oh, shall I have chamomile tea? Or shall I have some other sort of F---ING TEA??? Oh no, I'm such an air headed bimbo who reads too many Danielle Steel novels!"
(Rebecca)
Asshole.
(Gary)
Bitch.
(Rebecca)
F__K YOU - YOU NEANDERTHAL!
(Gary)
Go drink some tea - whore.
(TEACHER)
A+ - I really liked this one
And that's says it all about men and how they treat women.
Of course this is totally sexist and racist, especially when they both go Homo Sapiens and attack us Neanderthals.
The world is not flat, but scholars of pseudo-cosmography cling to the belief in a 2D Earth like Seven-Day Adventists' hope for the 2nd Coming of their Messiah.
As early as 150BC Greeks divined the world was round through mathematics.
Western historians claim that ancient societies espoused flat-worldism, however the center of the cult was Kabbalishers in Europe, where the skies were too dark to witness the rotation of the planet.
Tibet and Egypt revered astrologers, however truth-seekers were burned at the stake in Europe.
Galileo Galilei suffered a life sentence of house arrest under the pedo-Vatican. Math was scorned. Telescopes were considered sacrilege. Knowledge was taboo. In death his desiccated middle finger promotes his regard on the Holy Roman Church's understanding on the universe.
As long as they love God.
Personally I would rather hang with tramp Barbies than extoll the existence of a flat earth.
I have flown in Space over the northern pole
I have seen the the curvature of the earth.
I've circumnavigated the planet ten times.
The world is not flat, but it seems that way when you hit the surface.
Unless it's in the snow.
Snow is soft to a fallen man.
Even in a round world society.
The 2013 Christmas season had been a disaster on 47th Street.
Back in the 1990s I usually sold close to a quarter of a million in jewelry and my commissions provided a healthy six-month cushion for the winter, however in 2013 my sales from Thanksgiving to the Winter Equinox totaled less than $25000. After Xmas Richie Boy didn't need my services and my commish would carry my expenses only into the second week of January. He needed money and a lot of it, for his firm along with most ground-floor stores in the Diamond District were adrift in dangerous waters.
After New Year's Manny, my octogenarian boss, complained that the lack of sales was due to how we set up the window.
"You have to spread out the rings. Show people what we have." Manny roamed the street looking at other firm's windows. Any shop with customers inside it had to be doing something right. Our exchange was a morgue. We had very few diamond rings in the case.
No one-carat stones for the common man.
Everything was a big ticket item and the rich weren't shopping on 47th Street.
n y before New Year's I came into the city from Brooklyn to drop off pearls. I met Sammie at Richie Boy's counter. I gave him his goods and he returned my memo.
"I've never seen a Christmas like this." Sammie had been in the business over thirty years.
"The jewelry business is dead." I had been working on the street since 1990.
"Why do you say that?" asked a Hassidic Rebbi. Sol was renown for his wisdom. Many of his followers were diamond merchants. He must have heard their moans.
"Prices went up. Customers don't want to come into the city. They see the ads for Zales and Jared and hit the malls, but mostly people shop online. For everything. No one even knows 47th Street exists." I had excuses galore for the collapse of our industry.
"That's rubbish," grumbled Manny from his desk. He regarded idle talk as a waste of time. "Hard work is what makes a business flourish."
"How do you hard work yourself out of this hole?" Sammie was seriously seeking an answer.
"It won't be easy. The street has to advertise itself. Our old customers are dying off. We need new blood, but most people under forty never buy jewelry, because they can't commit to a relationship. All they have are their smart phones and smart phones don't need diamonds."
"You don't know nothing," smirked Manny. He had been in the business for over sixty years.
"Have you ever seen it this bad?" Sol demanded in a quiet tone. The rebbi didn't want anyone to know what he thought of the economic climate.
"I got robbed for a half-million dollars. That was a bad time during a time of good money. All we have to do is make one good sale and everything will be fine." Manny waved his hands in the air like he was trying to conjure a rich customer from thin air. The exchange remained empty. "But when that is, I don't know."
"What do you know?" The Rebbi stepped closer to the counter.
"I know nothing," Manny admitted in an unexpected display of honesty.
"Then you are the smartest man on the street, for anyone with all the answers hasn't heard all the questions." The Rebbi blessed Manny and walked into the cold winter air.
Sammie and I looked at each other.
"So ignorance is a blessing?" Sammie buttoned his jacket. He had to go to see a pearl merchant in Chinatown.
"Socrates said, to know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge."
"Sounds like Greek bullshit to me." Manny waved for us to leave. "I have work to do, not bullshit to hear, you beatnik bums.
"Happy New Year, Manny." I wished the old man. Manny and I went back in the years. Many of them had been good and I hoped for more to come, if we were lucky. He slipped an envelope filled with $100 bills across the counter.
"I wish it was more."
"I wish I had sold more." For his sake as well as mine.
"Maybe 2014 will be different, but what do I know?"
"Nothing. Just like me." Ignorance was always easier to achieve than enlightenment.
"Exactly. Come back later and we'll have a drink. Maybe two." My boss dug into his pile of papers. The answer to his problems wasn't in his bills, but it was better to look where it wasn't than where it was with only one day left in 2013.
Nothing really bad could happen in that time, especially when ignorance is blessed by a rebbi.
The last numeric palindromic date on the Gregorian Calendar was 11-11-1111 AD or XI-XI-MXXI Anno Dominum, although time in 1111 AD for most of the Christian world was ruled by the old Julian Calendar, but Pope Gregory changed the calendar to stop Easter from wandering all of the months. Yesterday 02-02-2020 was the first time in 919 years that the date could be correctly read from right to left as well as left to right.
I checked to see what happening on ye olde 11-11-1111.
Nothing of note in the western world.
Then again it was a Saturday.
Another work day for the masses.
Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday.
Kansas City won over San Francisco.
Otherwise nothing of note happened in the modern world.
Here are some stunning examples of how uneducated people are from THE GREAT BRITISH QUIZ CONTESTANTS.
UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE (BBC2) Jeremy Paxman: What is another name for 'cherrypickers' and 'cheesemongers'? Contestant: Homosexuals.. Jeremy Paxman: No. They're regiments in the British Army who will be very upset with you
BEG, BORROW OR STEAL (BBC2) Jamie Theakston: Where do you think Cambridge University is? Contestant: Geography isn't my strong point. Jamie Theakston: There's a clue in the title. Contestant: Leicester.
BBC NORFOLK Stewart: Who had a worldwide hit with What A Wonderful World? Contestant: I don't know. Stewart I'll give you some clues: what do you call the part between your hand and your elbow? Contestant: Arm Stewart: Correct. And if you're not weak, you're...? Contestant: Strong. Stewart Correct - and what was Lord Mountbatten's first name? Contestant: Louis Stewart Well, there we are then. So who had a worldwide hit with the song What A Wonderful World? Contestant: Frank Sinatra?
LATE SHOW (BBC MIDLANDS) Alex Trelinski: What is the capital of Italy ? Contestant: France. Trelinski: France is another country. Try again. Contestant: Oh, um, Benidorm. Trelinski: Wrong, sorry, let's try another question. In which country is the Parthenon? Contestant: Sorry, I don't know. Trelinski: Just guess a country then. Contestant: Paris.
THE WEAKEST LINK (BBC2) Anne Robinson: Oscar Wilde, Adolf Hitler and Jeffrey Archer have all written books about their experiences in what: - Prison, or the Conservative Party? Contestant The Conservative Party.
BEACON RADIO ( WOLVERHAMPTON ) DJ Mark: For 10, what is the nationality of the Pope? Ruth from Rowley Regis: I think I know that one. Is it Jewish?
UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE Bamber Gascoyne: What was Gandhi's first name? Contestant: Goosey?
GWR FM ( Bristol ) Presenter: What happened in Dallas on November 22, 1963? Contestant: I don't know, I wasn't watching it then.
PHIL WOOD SHOW (BBC RADIO?MANCHESTER) Phil: What's 11 squared? Contestant: I don't know. Phil: I'll give you a clue. It's two ones with a two in the middle. Contestant: Is it five?
ROCK FM ( PRESTON ) Presenter: Name a film starring Bob Hoskins that is also the name of a famous painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Contestant: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
JAMES O'BRIEN SHOW (LBC) James O'Brien: How many kings of England have been called Henry? Contestant: Er, well, I know there was a Henry the Eighth .. ER. ER ... Three?
THE VAULT
Melanie Sykes: What is the name given to the condition where the sufferer can fall asleep at any time? Contestant: Nostalgia."
STEVE WRIGHT IN THE AFTERNOON (BBC RADIO 2)
Wright: Johnny Weissmuller died on this day. Which jungle-swinging character clad only in a loin cloth did he play? Contestant: Jesus.
Christians can find Jesus everywhere and Jesus is always the right answer to any question.
Cheers, Britain. The USA is right with you.
The English completely dominated the British Islands and Ireland by 1745 with the defeat of Scotland at the Battle Of Culloden. The Crown sent out merchants and armies across the globe to traffick in slaves, opium, and raw materials, thereby creating a commercial network touching ever continent on Earth on which the sun never set.
All that changed after World War II.
Goodbye colonies in India, Africa, America, Asia.
Yesterday Britain shrunk smaller with its exit from the European Union and two EEU workers crumpled up the Union Jack without any ceremony.
Next to go; Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Gibraltar.
All so they can drink warm beer.
