Category Archives: Ann Coulter

06/28/2014
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2014 National Right to Life Convention, Ann Coulter, Fred Glass, IU Student-Athlete Bill of Rights, Joy Pinto, Weight Watchers

Hot Air

In Utero

The National Right to Life Convention is happening as we speak a mere 90 miles away in Louisville this weekend.

Abortion, says Kentucky Right to Life Ass’n president Margie Montgomery, “is the leading moral issue in our world.” A 19-year-old volunteer added, “It’s the most important civil rights issue of our time.”

NRL

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Christian radio host Joy Pinto chipped in: “I have the privilege on a daily basis — being the director of a pregnancy medical center — to see the wreckage of humanity that walks in my door, because they have bit the apple, they have believed the lie that this government, that all of the politics, that even some churches tell them. That it’s okay to go use contraception, it’s okay to use abortion as a backup birth control.”

And these are quotes only from the first day of the bash.

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Sweat Equity

Have you noticed that the Indiana University Athletic Dept. has issued a student-athlete bill of rights?

The Herald Times this morning carries news of the announcement, made yesterday by Athletic Director Fred Glass’s PR people. Glass, acc’d’g to the flacks, was aghast that parents of potential Hoosier jocks didn’t know how spectacularly wonderfully their snowflakes would be treated once they committed to the IU plantation.

IU Athletics Bill of Rights

Free At Last, Free At Last….

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Certainly better, I would imagine, than some dumb schlubs who choose to attend our institution of higher knowledge to concentrate on less glamorous pursuits like playing the oboe or learning how the brain works.

Nowhere, though, does this latest B. of R. mention cold, hard cash. As in paying the football and basketball serfs whom the local populace pays through the nose to watch, in season. Which is the crux of all the folderol over the NCAA’s system of squeezing entertainment dollars out of teenagers who can dunk a basketball or transform a running back’s knee sinew into a plate of spaghetti.

Here’s a pdf of IU’s putative emancipation document.

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Don’t Mess With Fútbol

Isn’t it funny? Ann Coulter has been saying hateful, alarmist, untrue, royalist things for years now, so much so that nobody really pays attention to her anymore.

For instance, after the meltdown of that Japanese nuclear reactor in the wake of that 2011 tsunami, she bleated, “There is a growing body of evidence that radiation in excess of what the government says are the minimum amounts we should be exposed to are actually good for you and reduce cases of cancer.” A statement, BTW, that’s endorsed and/or corroborated by exactly zero reputable scientists on this or any other planet. No matter; because it was uttered by this holy land’s most prominent harpy loon, it didn’t make headlines.

The poor thing; she must feel so neglected.

Not any more, though. Ann Coulter is nothing if not clever. She’ll find a button to push and these days the most pushable buttons are being worn by soccer fans. So, even though Coulter has never stopped disparaging and slurring homosexuals, liberals, social workers, community organizers, Democrats, brown people, black people — really, anybody who is not fabulously fortunate enough to be Ann Coulter — all her verbal retching of late has raised nary a peep. But when she slanders soccer, well, dammit, that’s going too far!

To wit:

 Coulter Head

From Awful Announcing

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Comment Screen Shot

(above and below) Typical Online Comments

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Comment Screen Shot

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I’ve learned a few things running this communications colossus. One, don’t challenge anybody’s belief that eating a certain food — or, conversely, not eating something — will cure them of everything up to and including dandruff and make their lives heaven on Earth unless you want to be pilloried from here to eternity. Two, if you criticize any of the current crop of cable evening dramas — Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Orange Is the New Black, etc. — or you openly wonder why people are wasting their time watching television, be prepared to be attacked with all the ferocity of a grizzly bear mom protecting her cubs. Three, should you ever let slip even the slightest criticism of teachers or the teaching profession, you will be forthwith excommunicated from the civilized world. And, finally, do not slam soccer, or else soccer-istas will make you wish you’d never been born.

The takeaway? The most thin-skinned humans alive are foodies, “prestige” TV drama lovers, teachers, and soccer fans.

Discuss.

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Eat This, Not That

And people wonder why diets don’t work:

From Candyboots

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From Candyboots

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From Candyboots

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From Candyboots

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These are vintage Weight Watchers recipe cards, as collected by Wendy McClure who runs Candyboots. Yes, Weight Watchers was the way to lose those excess libra pondos back in the glitter ball ’70s. And shedding the poundage was simple: just eat WW’s recommended dishes.

That is, if you could get them down without gagging.

Check out more such savory lab experiments on McClure’s Weight Watcher’s Recipe Cards from 1974 page.

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12/31/2012
1 Comment
Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Books, Danny Hafley, I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists, John Birch Society, Kindle, Liberals Unite, Malcolm X, Racism, Samuel Warde, Susan Taitel, Whole Foods Market

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Monday

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THE QUOTE

“My alma mater was books, a good library. I could spend the the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” — Malcolm X

X

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BOOK SHOW-OFFS

Susan Taitel was one of my cool pals back in my Whole Foods Market days. We worked together in the wine and cheese department at the Evanston, Illinois store before I got bumped up to the education department and she took off for Minneapolis to write books.

Taitel’s been hyper productive the last year, having churned out three manuscripts (god, I hate her). Still she’s managed to consume some 48 books, evenly split between the audio variety and traditional hard copy stuff. Search me how she does it.

From her website

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In any case, she has kept a running list of the books she’s read and posted same on her website. She also breaks down her 2012 reading by books read on Kindle or where she got her traditional books (borrowed from friends or the library, for instance). It’s OCD elevated to the most positive level.

Sure, and it’s braggadocio as well. So what? It’s books! I heartily recommend that everyone who visits this indispensable site (mine, that is, although you’re welcome to drop in on Susan‘s) do the same.

Let’s all brag about what books we’ve read in the past year.

My own list will be woefully incomplete because I had not kept a real time running count throughout the year. So, I’ll just say my fave things that I read in 2012 included:

Book Cover

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Just to show how inaccurate this micro-list might be, it’s entirely possible I read one or more of those titles sometime in 2011.

Thanks to Susan Taitel, though, I’m going to keep my list faithfully in 2013.

How about you?

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THE WATERMELON MAN

I’ve been seeing a lot of links to a site alternately identified as Samuel Warde and Liberals Unite. It’s pretty boilerplate polemic stuff — every time some hillbilly drawls out the word negro so that it almost, maybe, if you listen really closely, sounds like nigger, the site runs a headline as if the Republicans are pushing for a return to slavery.

Until the other night, I never clicked on one of those links. I have enough of my own bile stored up for the GOP, thank you. I don’t need some canary in a coalmine website roiling my blood for every insult, real or imagined.

Anyway, for some reason I’ve already forgotten I clicked on a link that read “Kentucky Man Decorates Lawn With Obama Mannequin Holding A Watermelon.” The link was put up by the Facebook site, I Acknowledge Class Warfare Exists, which I subscribe to, but I’m not a fanatic about either.

From Facebook

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So, I get to the story in Liberals Unite about this fellow, named Danny Hafley, who has told questioners he put the mannequin up around Halloween and has kept it up since, and he later put a big fake wedge of watermelon in the faux prez’s hands “because he might get hungry.”

Har-de-har-har.

I didn’t even look at the vid showing an interview with the laugh-a-minute Hafley. I mean I can’t get riled up about every dope who makes racist statements and then, as Hafley did, denies being a racist.

From Liberals Unite

Naw, It’s Not A Bit Racist.

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Sure, I hope a bunch of big dogs piss on the mannequin and then when Hafley hauls the thing back into his living room, he can’t figure out what the odor is. Then again, such a refined soul just might not notice anything amiss.

In any case, I discovered something compelling. There was an ad on the site for Ann Coulter’s daily column (no link; she doesn’t need me to pimp for her). We all know Ann Coulter, right? She’s just Danny Hafler with a miniskirt, long, blond, stringy hair, skinny legs, and the worldview of a John Bircher, circa 1959.

Coulter

Right-Wing Porn

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Why, then, would Ann Coulter be advertising on an ultra-liberal website? Was the ad placed there in error?

Hell no!

At this point in this holy land’s weird, weird history, nobody listens to or reads Ann Coulter anymore except liberals who get off on having apoplexy every time she puts forth what passes for “thought.” Liberals support Ann Coulter and, for all I know, half or most of the whacked-out, wing-nutted, far-right demagogues and gangs out there. Without liberal anguish, these circus sideshow freaks would shrivel up and die.

Me? I don’t care what Ann Coulter says any longer. The next thing I want to read about Ann Coulter is that Dorothy’s house has fallen on her after the tornado.

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09/28/2012
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Andrew Beacham, Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, CNN, Great Depression, Great Recession, Huffington Post, Isaac Newton, Joe Donnelly, John Gregg, Mark Kruzan, Mike Pence, Planned Parenthood, Poverty, Republican Party, Richard Mourdock, US Census Bureau, Vi Simpson

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” — Isaac Newton

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MONEY WELL SPENT?

Bloomington’s big name Democrats will gather in Nick’s English Hut to raise dough for the party’s gubernatorial ticket tonight.

John Gregg and his ace in the hole, Vi Simpson, will press the flesh at the fabled old place starting at five. Mayor Mark Kruzan will host.

The Simpson Bump Won’t Be Enough

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With the roll that Barack Obama is on leading up to the general election in November, Gregg’s got to be hoping he can ride the president’s coattails into a victory that six months ago seemed impossible.

The truth is a Gregg win still would be a jaw-dropper. The Huffington Post’s Election Dashboard has Pence up by anywhere from 13 to 18 points in its compilation of polls.

If you’ve got a limited amount of cash to toss at a political campaign, it might be better spent on the US Senate race between Dem Joe Donnelly and Tea Party sweetheart Richard Mourdock, which HuffPo rates a toss-up.

Donnelly Can Win

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HARD TIMES, STILL

Conventional wisdom has it that when people are suffering economically, the sitting president’s going to be in hot water.

But like the Great Depression, this Great Recession has not been a conventional time. The electorate sees these bad money times as a result more of systemic failures than simply any single president’s policies.

And don’t let anybody fool you — we’re still in a big time slump. Take Indiana. More than a million Hoosiers now live in poverty, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s a nearly five percent increase from last year. Speaking of percentages, 16 percent of this state’s residents fall below the poverty line now.

Then Or Now?

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Perhaps if the Republican Party wasn’t in the clutches of whacked-out ideologues and, simultaneously, hadn’t nominated a wishy-washy boob as its standard bearer this year, Obama would be looking at a monumental poll deficit.

With enemies like the GOP, the Dems have all the friends they need.

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BATTY

Okay, let’s just say it and get on with our lives, Ann Coulter is mentally unbalanced.

HELP!

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The Harridan of the Right told George Stephanopoulis on ABC’s “This Week” wagfest that gays and women and immigrants and, well, anybody else who’s not Ann Coulter don’t have civil rights. And, no, I didn’t mistype there. You might try to get technical and say, “Hey, wait a minute. Ann Coulter’s a woman!”

That would be true were she not a nightmarish product of the TV industry’s evil brain.

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IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD PARTY

No, wait, let me amend that: the whole Republican Party is deranged.

A Tea Party candidate for Congress from Kentucky’s 2nd District has produced a campaign ad linking Barack Obama to serial killer Ted Bundy as well as Al Capone, Adolph Hitler, and the Muslim Brotherhood because he supports Planned Parenthood and has not expressed a desire to nuke the capitals of the Muslim world as yet.

Peas In A Pod: Adolph & Barack

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A word of warning: the vid shows images of aborted fetuses and murdered adults.

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THE MADNESS IS CONTAGIOUS

Wait, wait, wait! It’s CNN that’s psychotic! Dig these headlines from its online version the other night:

  • Decapitated woman lives to tell tale
  • Half-ton aunt too fat to be real killer
  • Fecal transplant saves woman’s life
  • Alcohol-enema case ‘shocks’ UT officials

That’s right — fecal transplant. I don’t even want to know.

A New Media Colossus?

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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

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Friday, September 28th, 2012

Brought to you by The Electron Pencil: Bloomington Arts, Culture, Politics, and Hot Air. Daily.

FAIR ◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds, Commercial Building West — 29th Annual American Red Cross Book Fair, +100,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, games, maps, sheet music, etc.; 9am-7pm, through October 2nd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center, outside WFHB Studios — Participate in the construction of “The Messenger,” recycled metal sculpture to be installed at B-Line Trail; 9am-5pm

CONFERENCE ◗ IU Memorial Union, Walnut Room — “Where’s the ‘World’ in Popular Music?” Interdisciplinary presented by the Colloege of Liberal Arts & Sciences, click link for schedule of events, free and open to the public; 9am-5:30pm

SEMINAR ◗ Various venues — The Combine, 3rd annual display of talent , innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit, featuring speakers, workshops, idea pitches, and mixers; through Sunday, September 30th, today’s events:

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Workshops; 9am

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Verge Power Pitch Session; 4pm

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Tech Cocktail, mixer; 7pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — “Maria, Put the Tea Kettle on! We’ll All Have some Tea”; Anthropologist April Sievert discusses artifacts found at the Munson House at Spring Mill State Park in Lawrence County; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Art Museum — Noon Talk series: “Weston, Callahan, and Cameron,” presented by Garrett Hansen, guest curator of the Kinsey Institute’s exhibit, “A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners“; Noon

POLITICS ◗ Nick’s English Hut — Fundraiser for Indiana Democratic gubernatorial ticket John Gregg & Vi Simpson; 5pm

ART ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Opening reception for lobby exhibit, Stone Belt Art; 5:30-8pm

TEENS ◗ WonderLab — Teen Night, 5:30-8:30pm

DANCING ◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Salsa Under the Stars, part of National Hispanic Heritage Month; 6pm

OKTOBERFEST ◗ KRC Banquets — Music, dancing, & food, featring the Hungry Five German Band, the Bloomington Bones, & the Bloomington Brass Band; 6pm

ART ◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — Opening reception for the exhibit, The Art of Fenella Finn; 6pm

RETREAT ◗ Bradford Woods — One Diva Weekend, for gay/bisexual men; Begins at 6pm, through Sunday at 1pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — Derek Jarman Super 8 Films; 6:30pm

WORKSHOP ◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Buddhism in Everyday Life Series: “What Is the One Most Important Thing on the Buddhist Path?” Presented by Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Meet the Fokkens“; 7pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Gymnasium — Hoosier volleyball vs. Illinois; 7pm

OPEN HOUSE ◗ IU Radio-TV Services Building — WFIU Annual Listeners Reception; 7-9pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Joe Sanford; 7-9pm

NATURE ◗ Twin Lakes Sports Park — Bats in the Park, learn about bats, presented by the Center for North American Bat Research & Conservation; 7pm

MUSIC & POETRY ◗ Sweet Claire Bakery — Jacqueline Jones LaMon, poet, & Erol Ozsever, classical guitarist; 7-8:30pm

STAGE ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Comedy, “RX,” by Kate Fodor; 7:30pm

STAGE ◗ IU Halls Theatre — Drama, “When the Rain Stops Falling;” 7:30pm

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU SoFA McCalla School — Group exhibit, “Aufheben,” photographers presented by curators Zachary Norman & Aaron Hergert; 7:30pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier women’s soccer vs. Illinois; 7:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theatre — Ryder Film Series: “Neighboring Sounds“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Matt MacDougall Quartet; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 8pm

BALLET ◗ IU Musical Arts Center — “Light and Shade,” Presented by IU Ballet Theater; 8pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — The Reacharounds; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s Place — Grandview Junction; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts — Ryder Film Series: “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Wakefield; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Live Turkish music, Istanbul Breeze; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bluebird — Thomas Rhett; 9pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Blue“; 9:30pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 10:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 11pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Fleshpot on 42nd Street“; Midnight

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “What It Means to Be Human,” by Michele Heather Pollock; through September 29th
  • “Land and Water,” by Ruth Kelly; through September 29th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibits opening September 28th:

  • “A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • “Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits:

  • “¡Cuba Si! Posters from the Revolution: 1960s and 1970s”
  • “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
  • “Thoughts, Things, and Theories… What Is Culture?”
  • “Picturing Archaeology”
  • “Personal Accents: Accessories from Around the World”
  • “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”
  • “The Day in Its Color: A Hoosier Photographer’s Journey through Mid-century America”
  • “TOYing with Ideas”
  • “Living Heritage: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia”
  • “On a Wing and a Prayer”

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit:

  • “Outsiders and Others:Arkham House, Weird Fiction, and the Legacy of HP Lovecraft;” through November 1st
  • “A World of Puzzles,” selections form the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s On — Exhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Culture: “CUBAmistad photos; through October

ART ◗ Boxcar Books — Exhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Papercuts by Ned Powell; through September

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

  • “Bloomington: Then and Now,” presented by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions“

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The Electron Pencil. Go there. Read. Like. Share.

01/21/2012
1 Comment
Abbie Hoffman, Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau, GOPac Memo, HL Mencken, John Wayne Gacy, Julia Karr, Liberals, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Republican Party, Rick Santorum, Ronald Reagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, US Supreme Court

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken

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NEWT’S LATEST BOGEYMAN

Our boy Newty has created a brand new bete noir.

You may recall that almost 20 years ago Newt Gingrich, as the virtual capo of the Republican Party, wrote the infamous “GOPac Memo.”

Mob Chieftan

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The memo advised Republican candidates for Congress that specific words and phrases would galvanize public opinion for the GOP and against the Dems. In fact, the memo’s title was “Language: A Key Mechanism of Control.”

Gingrich was convinced that the repetition of these words would create indelible images within the minds of voters, much like a TV sitcom hypnotist’s use of trigger words.

Here are some of the words Gingrich recommended Republicans use to associate with themselves and their party:

  • Common sense
  • Confident
  • Courage
  • Duty
  • Family
  • Liberty
  • Moral
  • Pro-flag
  • Proud
  • Strength
  • Tough
  • Truth

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As for the Democrats, Gingrich urged his confreres use these terms:

  • Anti-flag
  • Bizarre
  • Cheat
  • Collapse
  • Decay
  • Disgrace
  • Impose
  • Lie
  • Pathetic
  • Radical
  • Shame
  • Sick
  • Taxes
  • They/them
  • Traitors
  • Waste

Democrats, According To The GOPac Memo

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You had to figure the word taxes would be in there. The first word a Republican infant utters upon emerging from the womb is taxes.

Garry Trudeau in his “Doonesbury” strip called the GOPac memo “The Magna Carta of attack politics.”

Anyway, the single most damning, uncomplimentary, insulting word on the list would turn out to be liberal.

To be branded a liberal was tantamount to being barred from winning another election for the rest of your life.

One of the reasons the Democrats so infuriate me is that, instead of embracing the liberal label, they ran from it as if it was analogous to child molester.

Otherwise Known As The List Of Prominent Liberals In Indiana

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Thanks in huge part to the GOPac memo, the GOP staged its mini-revolution in the election of 1994. The party gained control of both the House and the Senate and Gingrich became the Speaker of the House.

Say what you will about the craven, cynical nature of the memo, it worked. And Newty is nothing if not an astute politician.

Today, you can be forgiven for thinking liberals don’t even exist in this holy land.

So, now that the Georgia Doughboy is running for president, he finds himself in need of another monster under the bed. He has found it. And he’s got a name for it.

Gingrich’s sworn enemy in these Republican primaries is Mitt Romney. Ergo, Romney must become Newty’s new Godzilla or John Wayne Gacy.

Romney

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This week, Newty found the damning terminology for Romney. Since the liberal dragon has been slain, Gingrich has had to move the enemy bar lower.

Here’s the crushing epithet Gingrich now uses against Romney: He’s a Massachusetts moderate.

The horror — a moderate.

Yep. That’s what he called Romney this week, his voice dripping with Newt-ish contempt. “I am the only viable conservative candidate,” Newty added.

Yikes. If these Great United States, Inc. move any further to the right, Ronald Reagan’s gonna be lumped together with Abbie Hoffman.

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LEFT BRAIN-LESS

Some of my pals on the far left seem to be going just as batty as Newty — only, of course, in the opposite direction. A lot of radical bloggers and Facebook-posters are so disgusted with the wishy-washy politics of Barack Obama that they’re actively calling for his defeat this November.

They say, What’s the difference between Obama and the Republicans?

Well, I have the answer, in three words: Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The nation’s second female US Supreme Court Associate Justice will turn 79 in March. She’s already been walloped in recent years by colon cancer and pancreatic cancer. She’s as frail as a newborn robin. Plus, she has indicated she’d like to retire at the age of 82, which would mean whoever is president in 2015 will select her successor.

I shudder to think of who Newty Gingrich or Rick Santorum might tap to become the sixth conservative member of that august ennead.

Ann Coulter?

She’s No Moderate

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TRUTH IS FICTION

Boxcar Books hosted a book release party for Bloomington’s Julia Karr last night, before the region was iced in.

Karr’s new book, “Truth,” is the sequel to her young adult dystopian novel, “XVI” (or “Sixteen” for the Latin-deprived among us.)

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She read a few pages from the fresh tome and took questions from the audience. Karr then revealed she has to split up her writing session each day, sitting at her keyboard for a few hours each morning before going to her day job and then doing the same thing after work.

As expected at these affairs, there were plenty of questions about how an unpublished author can break into the business. Karr kindly advised the wannabe scribes on how to write the perfect query letter and how frustrating and heartbreaking the whole process of trying to get a first book published is.

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Karr handled the questions better than I would have. Forget about getting your book published, I’d have advised. Try something easier, like climbing Denali in the middle of winter.

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11/12/2011
1 Comment
Ann Coulter, Brad Wilhelm, Child Molestation, Chris Sturbaum, Gene Simmons, IDS, Indiana Pacers, Indianapolis Colts, Jeff Saturday, Lolita, Mark Kruzan, Michele Bachmann, NBA Lockout, Penn State University, Regina Moore, Republican Party, Rev. Fred Phelps, Rhino's Youth Center, Rush Limbaugh, Soma Coffee, South Pacific, Tea Party, There Is Nothin' Like a Dame, Uncategorized, Voter Turnout

Today, Saturday, November 12, 2011

THE BROAD BRUSH

Generally when The Loved One drives me to Soma on a Saturday morning the most we offer to each other in the realm of conversation are grunts. We understand each other enough to know that human verbal intercourse is not biologically possible before we have our caffeine.

Today is different.

This Penn State thing has been on everybody’s mind this week. Even The Loved One, who doesn’t know a Nittany Lion from the Nattily Attired, has followed the story.

What In The Hell Is A Nittany Lion Anyway?

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And she’s come to a conclusion.

“Here’s what I think,” she began as she negotiated the construction zone at 3rd Street and the Bypass.

My first instinct was to grunt. I reached down deep into my reserves of civility and said, “Yes, my precious angel?”

“Every man, except you and some other men I know, is a child molester,” she said.

I sat up straight. I surely wasn’t going to grunt at this pronouncement.

“Huh?”

“That’s what I believe. There are just too many incidents. It happens far too much. The only thing I can say is that the only man who’s not a child molester is a dead man.”

Wow. Normally I feel somewhat itchy about carrying the XY chromosome, what with fellow males like Rush Limbaugh, Gene Simmons, and the Rev. Fred Phelps running around loose. (Then again, the Double-X set can claim Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann, so there!) Anyway, I suddenly felt awash in guilt by association.

If Rush Is A Guy, I Don’t Want To Be One

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“But darling,” I protested, “Methinks you’re hyperbolizing. Yes, we hear about child molestation but that’s because it’s news and news usually is the unusual.”

The Loved One shook her head. “It happens everywhere. And what about the way men look at teenaged girls?”

“Well,” I said, “you have to consider this. Wouldn’t it be natural for men to look at a female just as soon as she reaches sexual maturity? I mean, a fourteen-year-old can be alluring because she’s already grown all the necessary appurtenances. But laws and mores forbid us from acting on those instincts so most men don’t.”

“That’s just what I’m getting at,” she countered. “Women see things differently than men. Women feel that if you’re thinking about it, it’s just as bad as doing it. Take ‘Lolita.’ The men who saw it probably thought, ‘Oh, it’s just a movie.’ But it deeply affected a lot of women who saw it.”

At this moment I thought I’d hit upon the coup de grace. “If what you say is true, ” I said triumphantly, “why do you exclude me and these unnamed other men you know. Aren’t we, then, child molesters, too?”

I waited for The Loved One to relent and say, “Yeah, you’re right. I exaggerated.”

And waited. And waited.

By the time we reached Indiana Avenue, I’d shrunk into a corner of the car seat. If the Prius had an ashtray, I’d have jumped in.

She pulled up in front of Soma, we kissed each other goodbye, and I watched her drive off. My wife. MY love. The woman who posits that I’m a child molester.

Marriage is a fascinating experiment.

Remind me to tell you about the time The Loved One called me gay because I knew all the words to “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” from “South Pacific.”

♢

ONE IN FREAKIN’ TEN

The Herald Times (log-in required) reports this morning that voter turnout for Tuesday’s local elections was 10 percent.

Yup. Ninety percent of the enlightened, educated, broad-minded populace of Bloomington, Indiana and surrounding environs chose to give the finger to democracy.

Oh, sure, the election was pretty much a joke. After all, Mayor Mark Kruzan and City Clerk Regina Moore ran unopposed. And every single Republican who lives in this blessed county ran in the election (that would be three GOP-ers overall.)

And The Winner, In A Unanimous Decision, Is…

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But there was a semblance of a race for the three at-large seats in the Bloomington Common Council. Chris Sturbaum faced a nominal challenge in the 1st council district as well.

The Me Party-ists won so many of last November’s Congressional contests in large part because voters who actually possess cerebellums stayed home.

Maybe we’re not so smart after all.

♢

THE SECRET

So far, the Indy Colts are the worst team in the National Football League. Their record stands at 0-6.

It’s a civic embarrassment. The combined record of the Colts and the Indiana Hoosiers would be an execrable 1-15. Yech.

Clearly these are not glorious days for professional and collegiate bone snappers and ligament rippers in the great state o’Indiana.

Sad Sundays

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Something had to be done so the Colts’ Jeff Saturday, a mountain of gristle and muscle who plays center, called a team meeting this week. Apparently, he roared at his mates and then revealed to them the secret to winning which he, a 13-year veteran of the human carnage that is NFL football, has learned.

He spoke about his revelation later in a press conference. “…[I]t needed to be said and I said it,” Saturday explained.

The secret? Saturday told his fellow Colts they must “play better.”

Oh.

♢

LESS IS MORE

Speaking of sports, who do you think will have the better basketball season — the Pacers or the Hoosiers?

My vote is for the Pacers. They probably won’t play a single game now that the NBA lockout talks have devolved into the coldest of labor wars.

Grounded

♢

YOUNG MEDIA MOGULS

Laid my mitts on a couple of local publications I’d never seen before this week. One is put out by high school aged kids, the other by college students.

“The Antagonist” is a monthly publication of Brad Wilhelm‘s Rhino’s Youth Center. Rhino’s caters to kids from the ages of 13 through 18. The fall issue of “The Antagonist” is devoted to horror, natch.

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You’ll find some fairly fascinating stuff within its semi-glossy pages. James Pfister lists some of the haunted sites in and around Bloomington. The IU Career Center, so the story goes, is ghost-infested because abortions were performed in the place many years ago. Who knew?

A kid named Ricky pens a fairy tale with a moral and the aforementioned Pfister rates local buildings in their efficacy as safe havens in the event of a zombie invasion. The fourth cover features a colored pencil drawing of Puffy the Vampire Bear.

Nice work.

“The Black Sheep” bills itself as “A college newspaper that’s actually about college,” which I suppose is a jab at the IDS for running stories about silly things like local news and world events.

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The tabloid provides a guide to lying to loved ones when the college student returns home for Thanksgiving. There’s plenty of value in that. Hell, I’m 55 and I still fudge things when I report back to the clan for the holidays.

An attached photo also endorses alcohol as a therapeutic bracer against the onslaught of kin. Count me in again. Man, I’ve contemplated dosing myself with morphine when forced to rub shoulders with my blood relations.

On the other hand, “The Black Sheep” descends into over-weening snarkiness at times. Here’s an example. In a piece about IU being an alcohol-free campus, the writer types, “… it is supposed to be dryer than Mother Theresa’s (sic) corpse’s vag.”

So “The Antagonist” is refreshing and creative while “The Black Sheep” is world-weary and shock-jock-y. That can describe the difference between many 14-year-olds and 19-year-olds.

♢

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