Drawing: Circle Jerk

By Jack Brummet

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Drawing: Sally

By Jack Brummet

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Movember: The last President to wear a mustache - William Howard Taft

By Jack Brummet, Presidents Editor

As Movember comes to a close, here is a photo of  President William Howard Taft, the last President to sport a mustache.  He later became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  Justice Felix Frankfurter once remarked to Justice Louis Brandeis that it was "difficult for me to understand why a man who is so good a Chief Justice...could have been so bad as President."

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From All This Is That Eight Years Ago. 2004: Hucking eggs in Kent, Wash.

By Jack Brummet, South King County Editor

[From All This Is That eight years ago.  This is one of Jack's several dozen posts on growing up in Kent,. Washington.  This particular post was made in the first month of ATIT's life in 2004 /ed,].

For a couple of years, one of our favorite pastimes was hucking eggs at cars. Not that we were particularly destructive, but we were boys, and destruction was part of our makeup...whether it was instilled by nature, or nurture. Eggs were the perfect vehicle--a dozen cost fifty-three cents, they wouldn't kill anyone, didn't dent sheet metal, and did no real damage to the finish of those 50's and 60's behemoths with leaded, toxic, permanent paint.

Eggs were peripheral to the fun; they were the catalyst. Eggs triggered behaviors in drivers that tapped into our fight or flight response. The egged driver had one of three responses:

• They drove on obliviously, or tapped their brakes and kept moving.
• They stopped and maybe got out, checked the egged fender, and drove off.
• They went completely ballistic; crazy as a sh*thouse rat; or went for their shotgun, or pistol.

We aimed for Response Number 3. It was all about the adrenaline. Ours and theirs.

Those most likely to respond were also the most likely to inflict serious damage if they actually caught you. They were big and they were dumb. The men who gave chase were brain-damaged palookas who fly off the handle, berating clerks and starting fights in taverns; the dolts who bullied anyone that bisected their arc. These knuckleheads were chronically pissed-off guys with quarter-inch fuses and were always ready for-- and, indeed, welcomed--a fight. After all, we weren't exactly innocent bystanders. This would be a righteous stomping of The Guilty.

We could have saved a lot of eggs if we had figured out a way to profile these guys. Any of the victims could be turned, or converted into a Number 3 if they departed the relative safety of their car. As they walked around the car, inspecting the egg on the windshield or fender, a second fusillade of eggs flew from the bushes. If you hucked five or six eggs at a stationary target at least a few would make the target...perhaps splattering on their coat, or hitting the car and doing peripheral damage when they splattered. If they actually stopped or slowed down, we always launched a second volley. A driver who was willing to turn the other cheek was suddenly pushed to the brink.

It was all about the chase, and the resultant adrenaline rush. When you hit the the right guy's car, he came after you. The best ones slammed on their brakes and immediately began driving around in circles, revving their V8s, screeching around corners, trying to find the perpetrators. It added an aural element to the rush.

We always had proximate hiding spots and a loose escape plan. There was always a vacant garage, a boxcar, an abandoned car, or a hedge to hide behind. Once in a while, 'though, we'd be walking along the street, and someone--usually Lonnie Edwards--would attack a house or car as we were walking around. With no plan, and no cover, there was chaos as we scrambled for shelter anywhere. It was almost more scary to hit a house, because you were out in the open, and you never knew when someone would open the door, jacking shells into a ten gauge shotgun. Back in the 60's, not a lot of people were packing heat in their cars. These days egg hucking could very well be fatal.

Some victims would comb the neighborhood relentlessly for half an hour, racing up and down the streets. Sometimes we would would end up exposed. As the car rushed up and slammed on its brakes, we played innocent. They hadn't actually seen us, after all. "We did see four, five guys were running right over there..."

The Police would frequently be called of course, and we'd give them a blast of eggs too. Answering a complaint, or after having an egg tossed at their prowl car, they would drive around the neighborood too, sometimes cruising with their lights off, hoping we would show our faces. If they'd pursued us on foot, they might have found us, but on foot just wasn't real big in 1965. After the police showed, we would, naturally, switch locations.

One night, we stumbled on a fresh delivery of eggs, sitting on the loading dock of Westland Hatchery. Each case contained a gross (a dozen dozen), or 144 eggs. We spirited away several boxes, and suddenly had 600 eggs to toss. Our first attack came as we hid to the side of the hatchery in overgrown bushes. The first hundred eggs were fired as cars passed the hatchery, as if the hatchery itself were waging war on the beer-fogged drivers. Central Avenue was littered with hundreds of eggshells before the night was over.

We lobbed all 600 eggs that night and the beast was sated. We took the sport as far as it could go. We never hucked eggs again, and retired at the top of our game, just barely unbeaten and un-arrested.

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One more wacky sign from Beijing

By Jack Brummet, China Travel Editor

I can't remember the name of the highway over which this is posted, but I took this shot on a road coming into town from the airport...

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Poem: Konking Out

By Jack Brummet

In the end, evil konks out
Like a squid simmered in its own ink,
Because evil fails the moment

It overcomes good
By consuming the energy
To which it owed its duration.

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ATIT Reheated - The Johnson Treatment: LBJ's version of persuasion and coercion, with photos and links to 15 previous stories on LBJ and "The Johnson Treatment"

by Jack Brummet, Presidents Editor

 

Here, LBJ, the Majority Leader, puts the strong-arm on Theodore Green, a 90 year old Senator

The Johnson Treatment has been described as having 'a large St. Bernard licking your face and pawing you all over.'   LBJ was a big man, and the original "close talker."  The Johnson Treatment was a singular combination of physical intimidation and coercion, and it was one of his most effective tools as he mastered the Senate, and later, to a far lesser degree, the Presidency.   The phrase "The Johnson Treatment" is sometimes also used to describe being violated by unwanted company.  LBJ would paw you, lean into you, get right up in your grill and ask you for a favor.  Except it wasn't really asking.  Here are a few of our favorite photographs of LBJ giving the Treatment, along with links to fifteen previous article on LBJ, LBJ's War, and, of course, The Johnson Treatment.

LBJ leans on Hubert Humphrey, who would later become his VP

LBJ leaning on his friend Abe Fortas, whom he would later name

to the Supreme Court, and even later attempt to elevate to Chief Justice.

Fortas eventually resigned after four years on the court, due to ethical issues.

LBJ putting the screws to Dan Rather, who had asked an impertinent question

Putting The Johnson Treatment on Richard Russell

LBJ gives soon to be President Dick Nixon the treatment

Whitney Young gets a taste of The Treatment

Eartha Kitt gets a frosty dose of the treatment after she questioned his war

One person to whom he couldn't give the treatment...his boss, Jack Kennedy

The Johnson Treatment

LBJ and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King meet up

LBJ howls like a dog

Another good LBJ photo

And another. . .

One of the heroes and villains paintings

LBJ In A Characteristic Pose

Running Mates: Senators Lyndon Johnson And JFK

The Johnson Treatment, Part 6: The Hump and Senator Russell get the treatment

The Johnson Treatment, Part 5: Senator Richard Russell (Dem., Georgia) Undergoes The Treatment

The Johnson Treatment, Part 4: President Johnson Gives The Treatment To Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas

The Johnson Treatment, Part 3: LBJ Gives Eartha Kitt The Treatment

The Johnson Treatment, Part 2: Richard M. Nixon, Republican Presidential Front-runner Gets The Treatment

He's Not Close Enough To Give Him The Johnson Treatment, But LBJ Appears To Be Answering A Pointed Question From Dan Rather

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Copyright (C) 2012 by All This Is That. All This Is That contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make these materials available to advance the understanding of political, economic, literary, artistic, and social issues. In some cases we satirize, parody, or lampoon materials from other sources. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of copyrighted material as provided for by section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit for research, educational, and entertainment purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', please read and follow our Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license and attribute the work to All This Is That, along with our URL (http://jackbrummet.blogspot.com). 

Poem: The Earth Is In Motion

By Jack Brummet

The mountain is the youngest child

Of heaven and earth,
Striving ever upward

As it tumbles down,

Like the five volcanoes
That surround me.

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Word breakdown No. 6 - "Brummet"

By Jack Brummet

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Mitt Romney Poses For Photographers After Lunch At The White House

Photo by Mona Goldwater, White House Correspondent

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Four years ago on ATIT: Best Friends Forever? Hillary and Barack start down the road of world affairs

By Pablo Fanque,
All This Is That National Affairs Correspondent

Painting by Jack Brummet


Click the BFFs to enlarge

Global warming definitely exists, at least in the relationship between the two former arch-rivals Ex-Senator Obama and Senator Clinton. They are now unquestionably the most powerful man and woman in the Democratic Party (and soon, arguably, the world).

After all the bitterness on the campaign trail, Hillary's masterful speech at the Dem's convention this summer sealed it. In fact, Obama's top aides jumped out of their seats backstage and gave her a standing ovation as she walked by.

Obama soon called to thank her. Fast forward to when--->>

Late last week future President Obama reassured Clinton she would have direct access to him and that she could select her own staff as secretary of state. And the deal was done.

Some people even think ('though most people doubt) that Obama and Clinton could become close friends. There is a lot of mutual respect and they are both extremely intelligent. As it turns out, Obama is much more a centrist that the rabid Obamanistas could have ever believed, which seems to be a page from the Bill Clinton playbook. Dean Acheson was no friend of President Harry Truman and Henry Kissinger, while in agreement with Dick Nixon intellectually, clearly was no personal friend. Rusk, McNamara, et al. were not JFK pals, and were, in fact, more conservative. It will be fascinating to watch the relationship unfold between Clinton and Obama. . .whether it becomes a train wreck, or whether they become close, or even BFFs, as they work the world.

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Triple self-portrait

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge

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