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THE QUOTE
“I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, Mr. President, but I do say not more than ten to twenty million dead depending on the breaks.” — General Buck Turgidson in “Dr. Strangelove: Or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”
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A RAIN OF RUIN
This is both stunning and terrifying.
Isao Hashimoto of Japan has created a CGI video depicting every nuclear explosion on Earth since the first one in the New Mexico desert in July, 1945. The first few years plod along but then, by 1962, when Hashimoto’s vid becomes a perverse symphony, it’s as though we’re trying to blow the planet to smithereens.
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Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z-Z
In the days and weeks leading up to the Republicans’ self-love orgy going on this week in Tampa, people asked me how excited I was to have this glorious opportunity to spout off even more than I usually do about them.
Whatever “It” Is
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The answer: Not much. And a correction: the opportunity is not glorious.
Funny, huh?
As in ironic.
As I wrote yesterday, all politics is theater. And the convention on Florida’s west coast is the GOP’s big showbiz opening.
What am I going to write? That they’re liars and alarmists? I may as well recycle any of dozens of posts I’ve already written about that.
What have we learned thus far that we didn’t know already? That Ann Romney still has a schoolgirl crush on her big boy?
He Lights Up My Life
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Wake me up when it’s over.
Oh, and I’ll have another fine opportunity to take a well-earned beauty nap when the Dems convene in Charlotte next week.
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FAT CHANCE
There never was any chance Chris Christie of New Jersey would be tabbed by Willard Romney to be his running mate. The fact of the matter is Christie’s too fat.
Chris Christie
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Last fall when the idea of a Christie run for the White House was floating around, some op-ed writers danced around the topic of his belt size. Pseudo-liberal blowhard Michael Kinsley even suggested that a Christie presidency would set the wrong example for the nation, as if tens of millions of folks would suddenly start scarfing down entire Tombstone pizzas in a sitting (hey, wait a minute — that is happening already.)
His girth precluding him from coming within a couple of blocks of the White House is both an insult and a rather reasonable proposition.
It’s insulting because most people have a prejudice against fat people. The thin harbor within themselves the notion that fat people are greedy pigs who are swallowing too much of the Earth’s resources, primarily Wavy Lays and Sara Lee frozen cakes.
People are fat, the svelte among us believe (whether they admit it or not), because they are lazy cows.
Choose whichever round animal analog you wish, the comparison is never praise.
Not A Bull, Not A Bear, Not A Lion
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Republicans might love Christie’s stances but they’d hate to look at him for four or eight years. The fat, we’ve decided, are unsightly. And can you imagine how Dems would jump all over President Christie for his width? He’d be the poster boy for the rapacious rich in progressive cartooning and editorializing.
As wise policy, keeping Christie out of the Oval Office merely insures that we won’t have to suffer the grief of burying him a year and a half into his presidency due to his heart exploding like a water balloon. I mean, even Bill Clinton was thought to be too corpulent when he was first elected. He had to lay off Big Macs and pretend to exercise a bit before the nation felt comfortable that we weren’t an infarct away from a Gore Administration. Still, Clinton twice had to have his cardiac plumbing Roto-Rootered to keep him alive.
Even though we’ve become the fattest nation on Earth, we just don’t like fat people.
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WRONG FROM RIGHT
Really, you’ve got to love the Right Wing. They give us so much to laugh at.
For instance, there’s a new book out about the raid to find and kill Osama bin Laden. It’s written by a guy named Richard Miniter and it’s called “Leading from Behind.”
Miniter argues that Barack Obama spent years screwing up the hunt for Obama. Which is odd, considering the fact that the president ordered the raid to get the al Qaeda leader. And it worked.
That is, Obama accomplished something in his first term that George W. Bush failed to do for seven and a half years. Yet Obama screwed up. Miniter so far is silent on Bush telling us the mightiest military in the history of the planet was doing everything it could to round bin Laden up even as the number one terrorist traipsed at will from Afghanistan to Pakistan.
Actually, No
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See, that’s the way it is with today’s Republicans and their various Tory pals. Nothing a Democrat does can be praised, even tepidly. Especially Barack Obama. In fact, the Republicans told us early on in his term that their sole raison d’etre until 2012 would be to bring down the president.
Nice patriotic gang, eh?
By the way, those who dared criticize Bush’s handling of Afghanistan and his Family Honor War in Iraq were immediately branded traitors by the same bunch that’s ravaging Obama today.
I’d laugh out loud but too many people buy into the Republican line.
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Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.
❏ I Love Charts — Life as seen through charts.
❏ XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”
❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.
❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.
Indexed
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❏ I Fucking Love Science — A Facebook community of science geeks.
I Fucking Love Science
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❏ Present/&/Correct — Fun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.
❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.
❏ Mental Floss — Facts.
❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.
❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.
❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.
❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.
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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, games, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
◗ Kinsey Institute, Morrison Hall — Volunteer docent training; 3-4:30pm
◗ Monroe County Public Library — It’s Your Money series: Free, confidential session with a financial expert; 4:30pm
◗ Bear’s Place — Music: Jamey Aebersold All-Star Quintet; 5:30pm
◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Music: 220 Breakers; 6-8:30pm
◗ City Hall, Showers Plaza — Women’s Bike Ride; 6pm
◗ The Player’s Pub — Music: Below Zero Blues Band; 6:30pm
◗ IU Cinema — Film: “Little Otik”; 6:30pm
◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Music: Jeff Nelson & Sylvia McNair host a presentation of performances by Jacobs School of Music students; 7:30pm
◗ The Comedy Attic — Best of the Bloomington Comedy Fest; 8pm
◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Drama: “Working”; 8pm
◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Magic Mike”; 8pm
◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Team trivia; 8:30pm
◗ Max’s Place — Music: Americana showcase; 9pm
◗ The Bishop — Music: Outdoor Velour; 9pm
◗ IU Cinema — Film: “Conspirators of Pleasure”; 9:30pm
◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Magic Mike”; 11pm
ONGOING
◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:
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“40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st
◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:
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“A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
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Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
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Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
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“Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
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David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
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Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
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Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
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“French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st
◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:
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“Media Life,” drawings and animation by Miek von Dongen; through September 15th
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“Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture”; through September 15th