Quincy Jones - Summer In The City has been added as a related post - related requested by lurgee on that post.

"The Indian Grave Drainage District in Quincy, Illinois still has three operational Model 32 engines, and three engines are on standby as back-up power generators in Delta, Colorado."

That's impressive and disturbing at the same time. I know the old stuff is often more reliable and cheaper to acquire, but surely a surplus tank engine from the boneyard would be easier to maintain.

http://www.realufos.net/2013/05/ufo-quincy-massachusetts-faa-and-mayor.html

http://www.sott.net/article/261674-Mystery-aircraft-frightens-Quincy-Massachusetts-residents

http://www.kcra.com/news/mysterious-aircraft-puzzles-quincy-mass-residents/-/11797728/20099200/-/5bjrwx/-/index.html

and then

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2013/05/mystery_smell_irks_quincy_neighborhood

along with

http://now.msn.com/mysterious-foot-discovered-by-boys-in-quincy-massachusetts


So a picture is now forming.
Quincy has crossed over in to The Twilight Zone.
Dun dun duuuuuuuuuun

Gee, is that the Mayor of Quincy? Look, both you tin-foil hat-slappers here, lemme break the programming down so you can understand how your brains function after a steady diet of bullshit fed you, your lives to date:

The bobblehead newscasters treat this little story like some tongue-in-cheek kicker(kickers the last news story of a newscast), complete with placating tones and smug expressions, feeding the sense of the absurd or impossible. Having been programmed to regard information according to such cues, your opinion is molded not based upon the information presented but the manner in which it's presented, in this case a formulaic and predictable response (as evidenced in the comments above) considering the implications of the event.

Sorry kids, you can't help it, it's part of the programming.

Ok so, been a month and 3 weeks, and shagen454 axeded.so..

ChogBlog 1


Ok so, been trying to figure out the best way to inspire myself musically without the use of my un-damaged vocal range, with a go-to musical instrument battery I know my way well-enough around to use as a framework for a studio-I can get sounds outta anything, have access to any rudimentary keyboard but am flexible with strings, woodwinds, bass. Now you have to understand if yer mind interprets a musical instrument as some outer-space device requiring a manual or instruction via direct-transmission in order to fire: I can coax pleasing tones from vegetables. What I need is a new kick. I can go for miles rendering compositions only I want to hear with a guitar, harmonica, saxophone-IO crave arrangements, and bass and drums..

Can Keep great time and love percussion, vibes, marimba, steel-drum but never had a set to wail on worth a fuck till now: Same as it ever was….

Worlds’ the oyster, and fuck the dumbshitz, I have access by nature of incarnation and geographical locale and resources to make anything happen-Goin’ for percussion and bass, and solo-Only I can work with a band of miscreants, those dwelling inside my own head, be-damn! The logistics of other fleshapoids in the way for the task of rendering!!....Why bother? Make it and take it to musicians I don’t have to fuck with-Maybe I should have been Quincy Jones fucking adopted white baby…..


Shootin' for a fat stack 'o pearly-white Slingerlandz, maybe Ludwig-Need 2 stellar floor toms and oh fuck....adding shit already-!

Everyone knows the best captain is Peter (Peter Peter Peter) Quincy (Quincy Quincy Quincy Quincy) Taggert (Taggert Taggert Taggert)....Jason Nesmith!

Tags for this video have been changed from 'groovy funk, quincy jones, 70s' to 'groovy, funk, quincy jones, redd foxx' - edited by jonny

Also, some of his numbers are way off. According to the US Census (see #29), 79% of the population was urban in 2000, not ~20% as he claims.

For a breakdown of metro areas by population, look at #21 at the US Census link, "Metropolitan Statistical Areas--Population by Age". There were 131 million votes cast for president in 2008. If you want to arbitrarily define urban as 1 million people or more, there are 126.4 million voting-age people living in metropolitan areas.

Sliced a different way, according to the US Census, a presidential candidate can get to 50% of that if they take the voting age populations of just the top 12 metropolitan areas:

New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA
Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA
Chicago-Joliet-Naperville, IL-IN-WI
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD
Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown, TX
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC-VA-MD-WV
Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL
Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH
San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA
Detroit-Warren-Livonia, MI

I don't know where he gets his numbers--maybe by using strict city limits?--but they're not even close to reality. According to the facts, in a pure popularity vote, a presidential candidate can safely ignore the rural areas and still win an election.

The electoral college is imperfect, but whatever you want to replace it with should do a better job of representing a diversity of interests--geographic, demographic, and politic--than a direct popular vote.

Ignoring your blatant and ignorant mischaracterization of the bible for a moment, perhaps you don't realize the role the 10 commandments has played in our legal system. Not withstanding that every single one of those commandments were once laws of this nation, it has also profoundly influenced the legal system as a whole. Some quotes:

Delware supreme court:

Long before Lord Hale declared that Christianity was a part of the laws of England, the Court of Kings Bench, 34 Eliz. in Ratcliff's case, 3 Coke Rep. 40, b. had gone so far as to declare that "in almost all cases, the common law was grounded on the law of God, which it was said was causa causans," and the court cited the 27th chapter of Numbers, to show that their judgment on a common law principle in regard to the law of inheritance, was founded on God's revelation of that law to Moses.
State v. Chandler, 2 Harr. 553 at 561 (1837)

John Adams

"It pleased God to deliver on Mount Sinai a compendium of His holy law and to write it with His own hand on durable tables of stone. This law, which is commonly called the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, . . . is immutable and universally obligatory. . . . [and] was incorporated in the judicial law."

John Quincy Adams

The law given from Sinai was a civil and municipal as well as a moral and religious code; it contained many statutes . . . of universal application-laws essential to the existence of men in society, and most of which have been enacted by every nation which ever professed any code of laws. . . . Vain, indeed, would be the search among the writings of profane antiquity . . . to find so broad, so complete and so solid a basis for morality as this Decalogue lays down."

Chief Justice John Jay

The moral, or natural law, was given by the sovereign of the universe to all mankind."

Jusice James Wilson

"As promulgated by reason and the moral sense, it has been called natural; as promulgated by the Holy Scriptures, it has been called revealed law. As addressed to men, it has been denominated the law of nature; as addressed to political societies, it has been denominated the law of nations. But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same divine source; it is the law of God. . . . What we do, indeed, must be founded on what He has done; and the deficiencies of our laws must be supplied by the perfections of His. Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. . . . Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistants. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The divine law as discovered by reason and moral sense forms an essential part of both. The moral precepts delivered in the sacred oracles form part of the law of nature, are of the same origin and of the same obligation, operating universally and perpetually."

Alexander Hamilton

"The law of nature, “which, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God Himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this.”"

Justice Joseph Story

"I verily believe Christianity necessary to the support of civil society. One of the beautiful boasts of our municipal jurisprudence is that Christianity is a part of the Common Law. . . . There never has been a period in which the Common Law did not recognize Christianity as lying its foundations." (emphasis added)
>> ^shuac:
Actually, the first ten commandments (out of a total of 623) were written by the jews and later co-opted by christians.
If they were authored by god (the way many people claim), you'd think they'd be the greatest top-ten list ever created anywhere at any time, greater than any writer living or dead. You'd think that, wouldn't you?
Here they are. Get ready.
1. I am the lord god, you shall have no other god before me.
2. Thou shalt not make an image or any likeness of what is in the heavens above (so much for religious art & sculpture)
3. Thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain
4. Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy (ignored by more christians than probably any other commandment)
5. Honor thy father and mother (apparently regardless of whether they're worthy of honor)
6. Thou shalt not murder (except when god does it or commands it)
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery (also ignored by many christians)
8. Thou shalt not steal (like, say, evangelical preachers?)
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, his field, his manservant or his maidservant, his wife, his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbor's.
A pretty unimpressive list, I must say. Nothing about slavery or rape or genocide here...but then, what would the rest of the bible actually contain if not for slavery, rape, and genocide? Number ten is my personal favorite because it's probably the first prohibition against a particular brand of thought. Thoughtcrime, as George Orwell would've put it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/29/opinion/29collins.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

Gail Collins did an op ed on Bachmann, referencing this moment.

Excerpt:
History is superimportant to Bachmann, who claims that she left the Democratic Party when she was a college senior, after reading “Burr,” Gore Vidal’s caustic historical novel. “He was kind of mocking the founding fathers, and I just thought ‘what a snot,’ ” Bachmann told The Star Tribune. It was, she said, a transformational moment so critical to her worldview that she can still remember what she was wearing. (“A tan trench coat, blue pin-striped shirt, like a tailored shirt, and dress slacks.”)

It’s not everybody who switches political parties over a historical novel, but Bachmann’s vision of the past is the core to her ideology. The men who created the Constitution were perfect heroes, so infallible that they fully understood the right to bear arms would someday include semiautomatic pistols capable of firing 30 bullets in 10 seconds.

Last week, Bachmann was in Iowa, setting off alarm bells about her possible presidential ambitions and delivering a speech in which she claimed that the founding fathers had “worked tirelessly” to eradicate slavery. She then cited John Quincy Adams, who was not a founding father.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

haha, only if I become a serial killer and decide to track each of you down and kill you in bizarre ways - dropping a rusty flour sifter as my calling card - leaving the police scratching their heads unable to determine what ties all the deaths together ... hmmm. Sounds like a job for a Sheriff Lobo Quincy tag team special episode.




>> ^dotdude:

So dag, should we expect film about YOU and The Sift?

Turns out they reference it explicitly. From Youtube: Nightmares On Wax - Nights Interlude [Quincy Jones "Summer in the city" ] CD: Smoker's Delight

Sounds like these guys are cribbing from Quincy Jones: http://videosift.com/video/Quincy-Jones-Summer-In-The-City

Not drunk, just a visionary. “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” -John Quincy Adams

Don't talk about how "spot on" something is if you have no idea about it. If you really want to know something about the church's history regarding blacks, study this web site: http://www.blacklds.org/history

The government of the United States also has a history of racism and discrimination toward black people, but current members of government aren't accused of being racist just because their organization has a history of racist members. Members of U.S. government are welcome to cite examples from the Civil Rights movement in discussions of civil liberties, although they are part of the very entity that opposed that movement in the past. I don't see this as hypocrisy. I see this as progression.

I do not seek to justify the racist statements made by leaders of the church, but to explain that neither Joseph Smith nor the doctrines of the church were racist in any way, and that the church has long since left behind those policies. There is here an important distinction between policy and doctrine.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was one of the first religions to baptize and ordain black people. Joseph Smith himself ordained Elijah Abel, a black man, who later became a member of the Quorum of the Seventy, a leadership position holding the High Priesthood, in 1936. Joseph Smith opposed slavery, but is often misunderstood on this subject. Like many religionists of his day, in 1936 he believed that slavery was a curse upon the seed of Canaan, but he did not use this as a justification for slavery. He stated that God would abolish slavery in his own time. In 1944, he ran for president on an anti-slavery platform. http://www.blacklds.org/Aprilma

In March 1842, Joseph Smith wrote the following in a letter on the subject of slavery, "I have just been perusing your correspondence with Doctor Dyer, on the subject of American slavery, and the students of the Quincy Mission Institute, and it makes my blood boil within me to reflect upon the injustice, cruelty, and oppression of the rulers of the people. When will these things cease to be, and the Constitution and the laws again bear rule? I fear for my beloved country mob violence, injustice and cruelty appear to be the darling attributes of Missouri, and no man taketh it to heart! O tempora! O mores! What think you should be done?"

In January 1843, on the "situation of the negro," Joseph Smith said:

"They came into the world slaves mentally and physically. Change their situation with the whites, and they would be like them. They have souls, and are subjects of salvation. Go into Cincinnati or any city, and find an educated negro, who rides in his carriage, and you will see a man who has risen by the powers of his own mind to his exalted state of respectability. The slaves in Washington are more refined than many in high places, and the black boys will take the shine of many of those they brush and wait on." http://www.blacklds.org/quotes#boil

While Joseph Smith was acting as mayor, "a colored man named Anthony was arrested for selling liquor on Sunday, contrary to law. He pleased that the reason he had done so was that he might raise the money to purchase the liberty of a dear child held as a slave in a Southern State. He had been able to purchase the liberty of himself and his wife and now wished to bring his little child to their new home. Joseph said, ‘I am sorry, Anthony, but the law must be observed and we will have to impose a fine.’ The next day Brother Joseph presented Anthony with a fine horse, directing him to sell it, and use the money obtained for the purchase of the child."

"The horse was Joseph’s prized white stallion, and was worth about $500; a huge sum at the time. With the money from the sale, Anthony was able to purchase his child out of slavery."

Concerning the ban on blacks from the priesthood, it would appear that following Joseph Smith's martyrdom, certain members claimed that Smith believed that blacks were not entitled to the priesthood, although the overwhelming flood of evidence suggests that Joseph Smith was not racist, that he was anti-slavery, and that he believed that blacks were entitled to all of the same blessings of the church as other members.

An account of how the priesthood ban on blacks falsely came into being:

1879, Abraham Smoot (the owner of 2 slaves) and Zebedee Coltrin claim Joseph Smith instituted the Priesthood ban in the 1830s (L. John Nuttal diary, May 31, 1879, pg. 170, Special Collections, BYU). The Smoot affidavit, attested to by L. John Nuttall, appears to refer only to a policy concerning slaves, rather than to all Blacks, since it deals with the question of baptism and ordination of Blacks who had "masters". This affidavit says that Smoot, "W.W. Patten, Warren Parish and Tomas B. Marsh were laboring in the Southern States in 1835 and 1836. There were Negroes who made application for baptism. And the question arose with them whether Negroes were entitled to hold the Priesthood. And…it was decided they would not confer the Priesthood until they had consulted with the Prophet Joseph; and subsequently they communicated with him. His decision was they were not entitled to the Priesthood, nor yet to be baptized without the consent of their Masters. In after years when I became acquainted with Joseph myself in Far West, about the year 1838, I received from Brother Joseph substantially the same instructions. It was on my application to him, what should be done with the Negro in the South, as I was preaching to them. He said I could baptize them by consent of their masters, but not to confer the Priesthood upon them" (quoted in Wm. E. Berret, Historian, BYU VP of CES, The Church and the Negroid People).

But Coltrin says the ban was to be universally applied to all blacks. In L. John Nuttal’s Journal (pages 290-293) we find, "Saturday, May 31st, 1879, at the house of President Abraham O. Smoot, Provo City, Utah, Utah County, at 5 O’Clock p.m. President John Taylor, Elders Brigham Young, Abraham O. Smoot, Zebedee Coltrin and L. John Nuttall met. Coltrin: I have heard him [Joseph Smith] say in public that no person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the Priesthood." According to Coltrin, "…Brother Joseph kind of dropped his head and rested it on his hand for a minute, and then said, ‘Brother Zebedee is right, for the spirit of the Lord saith the Negro has no right nor cannot hold the Priesthood.’… Brother Coltrin further said: ‘Brother (Elijah) Abel was ordained a Seventy because he had labored on the Temple…and when the Prophet Joseph learned of his lineage he was dropped from the Quorum, and another was put in his place. I was one of the 1st Seven Presidents of the Quorum of Seventy at the time he was dropped.’" Coltrin claims that Abel was dropped from the quorum of Seventy sometime before or during 1837 when Joseph Smith Jr. learned that Abel was Black. Apostle Joseph F. Smith successfully argues against this point on the grounds of Abel’s two additional certificates of ordination to the office of Seventy, one dated 1841 and the other from some time in the 1850s after Abel arrived in Salt Lake City. Coltrin’s memory is shown to be unreliable in at least two specifics: His claimed date (1834) for Joseph Smith’s announcing the alleged ban is impossible, since Coltrin himself ordained Abel a Seventy in 1836. Also, he incorrectly identifies which of the quorums of Seventy Abel was ordained to. Abel, on the other hand, claims that "the prophet Joseph told him he was entitled to the priesthood." President John Taylor, on the other hand, said that Abel’s ordination as a Seventy "was allowed to remain". The other element that makes Coltrin’s story suspect is the claim that Joseph didn’t know Abel was black. Anyone who has looked at a picture of Abel has easily identified him as a black man.

From the Council meeting minutes of 4 June 1879 (Bennion papers as quoted in Neither White nor Black, Bush and Maas, Signature Books, pg. 101, note 29.)

Five days after Coltrin related his account: "Brother Joseph F. Smith said he thought brother Coltrin’s memory was incorrect as to Brother Abel being dropped from the quorum of the Seventies, to which he belonged, as brother Abel had in his possession, (which also he had shown brother J. F. S.) his certificate as a Seventy, given to him in 1841, and signed by Elder Joseph Young,Sen., and A.P. Rockwood, and a still a later one given in this city. Brother Abel’s account of the persons who washed and anointed him in the Kirtland Temple also disagreed with the statement of Brother Coltrin, whilst he stated that brother Coltrin ordained him a Seventy. Brother Abel also states that the Prophet Joseph told him that he was entitled to the priesthood."

Because this policy was never explained, many members of the church sought to explain the ban, and they turned out to be very misguided.

President David O. Mckay said in 1954 that “There is no doctrine in this church and there never was a doctrine in this church to the effect that the Negroes are under any kind of a divine curse. There is no doctrine in the church of any kind pertaining to the Negro...it is a practice, not a doctrine, and the doctrine some day will be changed."

In 1988, Elder Dallin Oaks, the man originally quoted in this rant, said "It is not the pattern of the Lord to give reasons...some people put reasons to [the ban], and they turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There is a lesson in that...I'm referring to reasons given by general authorities and elaborated on by others. The whole set of reasons seemed to be uneccessary risk-taking...The reasons turn out to be man-made to a great extent."

In 1981, Elder Bruce R Mckonkie said, "Forget everything I have said, or what … Brigham Young … or whomsoever has said … that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world."

I admire anyone who got through all of that. The same kind of misunderstandings occur on the topic of Native Americans.

I think that the church's past of racism is shameful and sad, but I feel strongly that it has no bearing on the current state of affairs. Many individual members of the church may be racist, but it is not a racist church.