✍
THE QUOTE
“The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you.
“And our governments are very much the same.” — Marjane Satrapi
♢
THE RIGHT CHOICE
WFHB moves glacially when it comes to hiring people. Sheez, it took the board six months to figure out Chad Carrothers was the person for the job of General Manager, even as he was whipping the station into shape operationally and financially as the Acting Boss.
So, the two-month wait to give the News Director position to Alycin Bektesh doesn’t seem so, well, endless.
Bektesh & Pal
✍
Yep, the former Assistant News Director/Acting News Director now gets to print up permanent business cards and I can’t think of a more deserving soul in the industry.
I wrote the news with Bektesh when she first joined the station as a volunteer a year ago. I thought I was the hottest pepper in the salad until she sat next to me. Alycin was aggressive, confident, knowledgeable, and damned good.
Perhaps most amazing of all was her ability to endure my incessant chatter and ribbing. Not only that, she gave it all back and then some.
Look out Chicago and New York. This chick’ll be nosing around Bloomington only for a precious short time.
♢
INNER BEAUTY?
Correct me if I’m wrong but is this not the year 2012?
The IDS reports this morning that an Indiana University junior named Brianna McClellan was tabbed Miss IU Saturday night.
The campus pageant is one of the stepping stones to the Miss Indiana and Miss America contests.
Miss America?
Miss America: A Crowning Intellectual And Public Service Achievement
✍
I mean, there are a lot of dumbass things going on in this holy land — the Republican primary reality show for one — but I had no idea we still had beauty pageants.
Oh, the participants in these things caution us not to call them beauty pageants anymore. Heavens no.
If not, then why can’t I compete in them?
I’ll tell you why: The sight of me in an evening gown would sour the audience on life permanently.
Anyway, last year’s Miss Indiana University, Jaclyn Fenwick, turned over her tiara, sash, bouquet of flowers, riding crop, and velvet handcuffs to Brianna, at which point the new Miss IU held her hand to her cheek in shock, which, if I’m not mistaken, is a gesture mandated by law in such cases.
McClellan, Shocked (photo by Kirsten Clark/IDS)
✍
Fenwick told the IDS that the Miss America thing is important because it provides scholarships to young women.
McClellan said, “I just want it to be known that it’s not a pageant. It’s not a thing about beauty…. It’s the inner beauty and scholarship.”
McClellan added that it’s really volunteerism and community service that count most in the competition.
I suppose it’s only a coincidence that McClellan and Fenwick and the runners up all possess extraordinary conventional physical attributes.
I’ll believe McClellan’s and Fenwick’s unsolicited protestations the day a 250-pound woman who wears horn-rimmed glasses and who volunteers at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank or Boxcar Books wins the title.
♢
WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO
This feature has been absent in recent weeks mainly because FB-ers have been unimaginative.
They sure made up for lost time last night and this morning.
So let’s see what the social media’s brightest minds are up to — and remember, this is a no spamily, no brattle zone.
◗ Rich Lloyd, professor of complicated stuff at Vanderbilt University, read an op/ed piece in the New York Times that’s relevant to the above discussion on beauty pageants.
✍
The author of the piece, historian Stephanie Coontz, points out that women today earn nearly 60 percent of all bachelor’s degrees, leading some observers to wonder if they’ll have a hard time finding husbands.
After all, men don’t make passes at women who wear glasses, right?
Wrong, Coontz says. That’s old hat. Read the piece and find out why.
◗ Radical lawyer Jerry Boyle, whose hands are going to be filled when the G-8 and NATO big boys visit Chicago this spring, found the fabulous quote that appears at the top of this page. It’s from graphic novel author Marjane Satrapi.
I can’t stress enough how cool Satrapi is. Her breakthrough work was the double-volume “Persepolis” saga, detailing her upbringing in Iran in the 1970s and ’80s. She personally witnessed two sets of iron hands — those of both the shah and the ayatollahs’ theocracy — squeeze the life out of that nation.
✍
Satrapi suspects that the Iranians and Americans have a lot more in common than we’d care to admit.
◗ Rainbo Club big shot Ken Ellis reminds us that today is Peter Tork‘s birthday.
✍
If you have to ask who Peter Tork is, you’ll never understand.
◗ And Bloomington’s own Betty Greenwell features a pic of the best Valentine’s Day treat yet on her FB home page.
♢
ALISON
Okay, the spelling’s wrong and the lyrics have nothing to do with her, but this song is for Alycin Bektesh. And you, reader.
♢