Sunday, May 31, 2015

Changing American Demographics - St. Joan of Arc School Harrowgate Philadelphia - 1957


In a changing American demographic from white to moca, from urban to suburban, from blue collar to white collar and or pajama (work from home), the boomers have been on a ride of a lifetime.

Saint Joan of Arc in Harrowgate Philly is defunct. It as a building designed by famed British architect George A. Audsley as his last project, in his eighties, the building still functions as a “charter” school, whatever that is.

The church, the parish was officially dissolved in 2013, merged with 3 or 4 other ethnic enclave churches, just as much for lack of attendance and or interest in the ancient Christ myth as the fact that celibacy and a lack of numbers in the priesthood make serving in the sheep with good shepherds impossible. That and the AD of Philly had millions to pay for decades of corrupt buggery hidden from view etc. Needed to sell a lot of R/E.

In looking back this photo is the first grade class of boys circa 1957 and there is 62 kids reporting this day for the photo, probably the official - take your kids photo day marketing thing. The nuns, the catholics were always nickeling and dime-ing the inmates in order to finance and survive, getting their cut on the promotions, Chocolate Bars, Half and Half lottery tickets on Bingo night, even shoes at one point but rather unsuccessfully I might add. The Nuns, women married to Christ and their faith, devoted their lives to us children. For that I am grateful but somehow the picture looks strange to me. It came into view the other day on some Facebook page and the comments there reflected re-awaking to memories, of childhood connections reconnected across the vastness of America now where many of these children and their sisters, siblings now live.

There are probably ten or so kids not present, out sick with sniffles etc. in this photo.

My first grade class numbered in the nineties for students, the baby boom yet to peak, in a latter first grade class, my own.
They used to bolt two of these old cast iron and wood desks together and sit three of us across. If you took a few sick days, you lost your place in the three across temporary daily seating thing. Lost your pencils and boxes of cardboard letters and numbers used as a teaching aide too etc. Lost in the shuffle of life.

Have to wonder in retrospect what was the effect of the baby boom on class size in the local public schools. But for us factory working, Irish Catholics and Italians mostly in this photo, parochial school was the only way to go. 

No PTA meetings and you did what you were told. And if you got out of line with a little ADHD? That was what the wooden ruler, wooden chalk board pointer was for - to crack over your knuckles on break over your back to get your attention – to focus. That did happen once with the chalk board pointer but at a higher grade level, bigger boys etc., but luckily not to me. Sounds terrible. LOL. But considering the memories I see mentioned in comments on Facebook, few remember the discipline.


The only thing I notice greatly between then and now, besides the numbers thing, size of the class, physical size of the room, was how white lower middle factory working class Harrowgate was in 1957.  

The demographics, they are a changin’.


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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Rep.Sam Johnson 3rd Texas - Key Player in Handing Over Social Security to Wall Street




Rep Sam Johnson 84 - 3rd Texas 84 refuses to retires on full Congressional Pension – too much money and favors to be had from Wall Street Cronies? War on the American Middle Class.

Banruptcy of Social Security began on January 20, 2015.


It all sounds like “good government,” but the politics are rich.

House Democrats were not consulted on the rules change, and liberals accuse the GOP of trying to cull the weak from the herd, pitting the disabled against pensioners to undermine the larger Social Security coalition.

In fact, the new rule’s fine print leaves an escape hatch for Republicans to move tens of billions into the disability fund if this gambit fails. Still, the upshot could be a one-two punch Democrats most fear: a first-round debate over disability funding in 2016 followed by a bigger battle over all of Social Security in 2017, when Republicans hope to control both Congress and the White House.

“They’re looking for a new weapon,” said Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on Ways and Means. “What they’re doing in this rule is to use any problems within disability as a way to attack the whole system. It’s dangerous doubletalk when they have been the problem, not the answer.”



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Saturday, May 23, 2015

Duggar Christian Hate Factory Program Takes a Temporary Hit on News of Josh’s Terrible Family Secrets – Tip of the Iceberg




The media is rolling in the muck of these inbred Christian overpopulationist Duggar family as a baby mill in fulfillment of fundamentalist literalist “Christianity”. 

The Duggars look like a disturbed dysfunctional family on first and last glance to me. Have seen one or two episodes of the so called “reality” show and can understand why an unsupervised oldest child starved for affection from his cold holy money marketing money making parents, why molestation and incest happened.

The Duggars are selling the Grit Guns and God of bullshit ex-preachers like former governor Huckabee of Arkansas who supplement their incomes as Christian Hate pundits on FOX NEWS. The agenda they sell is inhuman and inhumane to their families but hey it is the South and they still have not reconciled their soul’s conscience to the institution of Slavery.

In all the media hype and Mike Huckabee’s forgiveness of a fellow privileged white male penis of Josh Duggar reinforcing the disease of GOP White Fragility, the victims, the little girls who were molested are forgotten. Whatever. A terrible whatever.


America has got to get to some common ground of common sense and self-love in TV land and stop selling this self-hating Christian bullshit packaged by the GOP as politics of the so-called superstitious common toxic good of the masses for the benefit and exploitation and profits of the 1%.



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Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Frank Furness, Architect - Frankford & Southwark Railway’s Depot – 1878 – Trolley Depot View circa 1917



1917 Photo - Philadelphia and Southwark R.R. Deport (1878)
(Public Domain)


The image of the Frankford Elevated line on Frankford Avenue below reaches a point of construction circa 1917 when the steel structure was planted. Building to right above and below is old “Dummy Depot” built for the Frankford and Southwark Railway Depot as a unifying piece of architecture 1-1/2 stories with a clock tower joining two previously built separate train sheds in 1878. 

(Photo below I would say was taken from balcony of the old "Seven Stars" Hotel at Frankford and Oxford Aves..)

Progress of Frankford El Construction - Frankford and Oxford Aves. - circa 1917
(Public Domain)


Bromley Map of Philadelphia - 1910

Depot building with clock tower attributed to Frank Furness, Philadelphia architect.



Oxford Ave Intersection with Frankford Ave and Arrott Street
(Google Map - Present Day)

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Sunday, May 17, 2015

Why Not Brand the Poor on the Forehead in Kansas with a “W” for Welfare to Identify those (sub-humans) on the Dole




Punish the poor - Regressive Welfare ATM Tax on the Poor in Kansas

“Damn the poor” Jesus used to say or must have said.

Limit of $25 per day deducted from your welfare cash stipend - $20 for drugs - $1.00 fee for the Welfare Cash withdraw. Then another $2.00 to $4.00 for banking fees (Bankers outsourced Tax on the Poor) for use of robot ATMs to access handout(s) cash from the state.

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Rumors have it that “rent moocher” State Senator Michael O’Donnell (R - Kansas) will co-sponsor a new “Welfare Recipient Identification Bill” - WRIB - for the poor of Kansas that Governor Sam Brownback is eagerly waiting to sign into law.


The Bill: That the poor on Welfare over 18 will be branded on the forehead to identify them as “takers” so that they can be called out by honest tax paying white people in the supermarket checkout aisle or the food court at the mall – go to the end of the line for Mickey Ds etc. you despised lazy non-working parasites on our great good Kristian (“K” for Kansas”) state. 


(Pending legislative ideas still floating around the O'Donnell churchsite homestead Kristian Think Tank are exploring possible ways to force women to give back "Adam's Rib" to the guys. 



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Saturday, May 9, 2015

Queer People – a Christian Message – 1938


An Episcopalian Editorial from 77 years ago. Take from it what you may.


Queer People: An Editorial from Church News of the Diocese of Pennsylvania (1938)

Queer People

Though we have been so regimented by the radio, the beauty-parlor, the automobile manufacturers and the tailors, that we all sing the same songs, name our children for the same actresses, use the same slang, have the same accent, smoke the same cigarettes and wear the same style clothes, as everybody else, there are still a few natures so stubborn that they cannot be bent into the same shape, or so free that they cannot be poured into same mold. 
We call them “queer” people, because they are different from the rest of the herd, and we smile patronizingly at them. But indeed we should be glad that they exist, for though they may not be saviors of the world, as some claim, they at least add most savor to life. How flat, stale and monotonous our daily diet for eye and ear would be without those who dressed differently, spoke differently and acted differently from the regimented majority.

It is to the credit of the churches that they attract so many so-called queer people; for since queer people are usually persecuted by the mob, they know that in the churches they will find Christian love and charity.


Look around for them some Sunday, especially in our large central-city churches, and thank God that there is one place where queer people know they will not be laughed at because they are not exactly like all the rest of our mass-produced population. Some of them are poor, some are rich, some are not too bright, others are thwarted geniuses. But all have their little oddities and eccentricities; they do not conform, and therefore are “queer”.  God knows! Maybe in his sight the rest of us are queerer than they. 


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Friday, May 8, 2015

Dan Cathy’s Christian-Hate (Oxymoron?) Chick-fil-A Marketing Symbol Replaces Swastika in Redneck Pennsylvania High School




During the high school's televised announcements that morning, two students on the broadcast wore Chick-fil-A T-shirts, Snyder said.
The students didn't say anything about the Gay-Straight Alliance or the school's LGBT community, but she believes they knew what they were doing.
The appearance started a flurry of tweets, with students calling out the two boys who wore the Chick-fil-A shirts.
The tweets continued over the weekend, and on Monday students who tweeted at the boys wearing the shirts were called to the high school principal's office.
Students were told they were being punished for tweeting during school hours, and because some of their tweets contained obscenities, Snyder said.
She said about 15 students were suspended and others were given detention....


Wednesday, May 6, 2015

The Latest Update on the Obama Invasion of Texas - Jade Helm - Walmart Tunnels


Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Ayn Rand Priestess and Professional Agitator Pamela Geller Just Another Rupert Murdoch Hate Tool



A group of progressive Muslim-Americans plans to build an Islamic community center two and a half blocks from ground zero in lower Manhattan. They have had a mosque in the same neighborhood for many years. There’s another mosque two blocks away from the site. City officials support the project. Muslims have been praying at the Pentagon, the other building hit on Sept. 11, for many years.

In short, there is no good reason that the Cordoba House project should have been a major national news story, let alone controversy. And yet it has become just that, dominating the political conversation for weeks and prompting such a backlash that, according to a new poll, nearly 7 in 10 Americans now say they oppose the project. How did the Cordoba House become so toxic, so fast?


In a story last week, the New York Times, which framed the project in a largely positive, noncontroversial light last December, argued that it was cursed from the start by “public relations missteps.” But this isn’t accurate. To a remarkable extent, a Salon review of the origins of the story found, the controversy was kicked up and driven by Pamela Geller, a right-wing, viciously anti-Muslim, conspiracy-mongering blogger, whose sinister portrayal of the project was embraced by Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post.

Monday, May 4, 2015

Governor Paul LePage of Maine Does his Daily “Two Minute Hate” Towards the Poor


Little well known fact, besides the daily RNC talking points sheet is a small DVD showing two minutes of da poor buying Lobster, Giant Alaskan Crab Legs and Filet Mignon at the supermarket checkout counter with their EBT card. The loyal GOP viewer then begins a silent and then turning into their daily “two minute hate” rant against da poor, always black or really white trash looking actors (James O’Keefe Casting Inc.COM) in the video who then meet out in the parking lot filling their Escalade SUVs with their groceries all the while laughing at the taxpayers and sharing a common passed around “40” to quench their welfare stealing thirsts.

Oh the poor.  Jesus can live with them but not someone from the club.



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Sunday, May 3, 2015

Corporation Team Building Daily Gem of Wisdom - 3 May 2015


If only Adolph Hitler had owned an Apple Watch or iPhone - then certain unpleasantly interpreted aspects of human history such as World War Two or the Holocaust could rethought of as merely being Apps - successfully or unsuccessfully run depending on individual, local or cultural POV.

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Friday, May 1, 2015

Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas Prepares Earth For Jesus’ Second Coming by Victimizing Children’s Education


Sam Brownback's / Koch Brothers Kansas Social Experiment



“If there is a God, and it loves every child – the poor child, the Muslim child, the child without a church – its ways never have been more mysterious, to some, than meager state education budgets signed by well-heeled Christian governors.

In a hypothetical Venn diagram, one circle representing extremist Christians and the other fundamentalist capitalists, the lens-shaped overlap contains Sam Brownback, the newly re-elected governor of Kansas. It also includes a broad spectrum of citizens who have supported him: working-class members of the Tea Party, wealthy members of C Street, a middle-class college student who once handed me an essay on zero-sum economics while wearing a T-shirt that read: “pro-life, pro-God, pro-gun.”

Governor Brownback, in his state of the state address, said: “Kansas is the most pro-life state in America. And we are not going back.” Kansas is also $280m short on due payments for this fiscal year, following an experiment with historic tax cuts now in its fourth year. The projected shortfall for next year is nearly $650m. On this point, too, Brownback is not going back: “We will continue our march to zero income taxes.” Indeed, while his administration recently called for slowing deep tax cuts, lofty supply-side goals remain.

This ideological juxtaposition, in which subjective morality is controlled by the state and in which citizens’ objective needs are left for the market to sort out, is by now familiar to most voters. But its most poignant setting, perhaps, was the main focus of Brownback’s speech: public education.


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