Category Archives: Bain Capital

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I have to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand.” — Paul Ryan

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THE ME PARTY

So, Willard opts for one of America’s biggest Ayn Rand groupies.

True Love

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Frankly, I’m glad. Romney’s vice presidential tab provides us with a necessary referendum on where we want to go.

Will the Great United States, Inc. be the land of the mythical rugged individualist? Will the number two man in the nation be a profit-oriented slave to economic theory? Or will we cast our lot for four more years of a man who pays exquisite lip service to hope and change?

Yeah, I’m fabulously unimpressed with the choices I’ll have this November. But I’ve still got my c-note on Barack. And he’s still got my vote.

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THE LAST STAND

Indiana’s second-greatest writer, Monroe Anderson of Gary, has the Sikh Temple Shooting all doped out.

Monroe Anderson

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Wade Page is the canary in America’s racial coalmine. Anderson points out that this holy land already has passed a point of no return.

To wit: just over a year ago, minority births for an entire year in the US exceeded those of whites.

And that train ain’t slowin’ down, babies.

The End Is Near

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Guys like Page, who immerse themselves in thoughts of white and black and brown and oh dear god what’ll happen to us all when the mud races take over, are doing doing what little they can to delay the inevitable.

Those of us who are sane don’t care what color our progeny will be in 50, 100, and 200 years. The Page gang thinks about it constantly.

They think they’re losing the battle but they’re not going down without a fight.

Expect more guys like Wade Page to pop up over the next few years.

Oh, and don’t kid yourself. It’s one of the driving forces behind the monolithic force of the gun lobby.

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MITT’S BLOOD MONEY

One more thing about Mitt:

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And I predict this will have absolutely zero effect on the American electorate.

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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.

❏ I Fucking Love Science — A Facebook community of science geeks.

❏ Present & Correct — Fun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Beach House On Present/&/Correct Blog

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❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ 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.

Click To Read Entire Article

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❏ 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.

◗ IU Gladstein Fieldhouse — Hoosier to Hoosier Community Sale, flea market for items rescued from student moveouts; 7:30am-3pm

◗ City Hall, Showers Plaza — Farmers Market; 8am-1pm

◗ Unitarian Universalist Church — Summer garage sale; 8am-1pm

◗ Bloomington American Legion Post — Back-to-School Breakfast, all you can eat, sponsore dby the Bloomington Community Band; 8-11am

◗ Discardia ReBoutique — Grand opening, non-profit gift store featuring goods made from recycled materials; 10am-6pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Workshop: Mind Training through Pain and Disability, presented by Ani Choekye; 10:30am-noon

◗ IU Art Museum — Theme tour: Exploring German Expressionism; 2-3pm

◗ Downtown Nashville — Second Saturday Village Art Walk; 5-8pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet”; 7pm

◗ IU Cinema — Film: “To Rome with Love”; 7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Barbara McGuire; 7-9pm

◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier Women Soccer vs. Northern Kentucky University; 7:30pm

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Music: Area Code 812, Blue Mafia; 7:30pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theater — Ryder Film Series: “The Pigeoneers”; 8pm

◗ Cafe Django — Ron Kadish Quartet; 8-10pm

◗ Max’s Place — The Groundsmen; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Tim Wilson; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Polisse”; 8:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Dirty Kluger; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — Sheila Steven, Bigg Country; 9pm

◗ Lake Monroe, Paynetown SRA — Perseid Meteor Shower Party at Deer Run Shelter; 9:15-10:45pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — David Dwyer; 9:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — James Woodard & Friends; 10pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Coming — Media Life; August 24th through September 15th
  • Coming — Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture; August 24th through September 15th

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

◗ Monroe County History Center —Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.” — Kin Hubbard

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YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN, BABY

In the first chapter of Thomas Frank‘s latest book, he describes the ways people during the Great Depression rallied around each other.

Groups of farmers, for instance, would pitch in to help save another farmer whose land was in danger of being foreclosed on. And if they couldn’t scrape up enough cash, why, they’d all go down to the town en masse and shake their fists at the president of the bank.

Solidarity

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People were angry, Frank observes, and they knew precisely where to direct their rage.

The point of this and other anecdotes in the chapter was that 75 years ago just plain folks understood that they were all in this together. The misfortunes that befell seemingly every other person in America, they knew, had a hell of a lot to do with an economic system that was rigged to ensure money would remain in the hands of the moneyed.

Mr. Moneybags

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It was really a heartening account of what I can only describe as patriotism. Neighbors cared for neighbors. Americans felt a kinship with each other (as long as they were white, natch).

Frank concludes the chapter by flashing ahead to the 21st Century. He describes visiting a Tea Party rally. The participants are as angry as their predecessors from the Great Depression were. Only the Tea Party-ists’ rage isn’t directed against banksters and plutocrats. No, it’s aimed at those people an earlier generation would have embraced and comforted.

One Tea Party placard Frank describes says everything you need to know about this holy land today: “Your mortgage,” it reads, “is not my problem.”

Go Help Yourself

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Pick up “Pity the Billionaire: The Hard Times Swindle and the Unlikely Resurgence of the American Right” if you get a chance. If you need to economize, wait for it to come out in paperback on September 18th.

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BULLY PEOPLE

Speaking of plutocrats, how about that Jamie Dimon, the capo di tutti capi of JP Morgan Chase, announcing yesterday that his firm lost a couple of billion dollars last year on some extremely risky “positions”?

Dimon, of course, is speaking in code — he really means he and his fellow degenerate gamblers chased bad bets with more bad bets.

Dimon: “Believe Me, I Can Stop Any Time I Want.”

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Addicts and obsessives all seem to share the predilection to soft-soap their unhealthy habits, and Dimon is no different.

The Me Party-ists don’t see Dimon and his compares as the problem, though.

Perhaps he and his pals aren’t easy enough targets for the Me Party-ists. Should that be true, I might be tempted to come up with yet another snarky moniker for the folks who gave us Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann: The Bully Party.

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BULLY BOY

Yes, Mitt Romney bullied kids way back when he was a student at Richboy Tech.

I don’t like it. No one should like it.

“I’m Tougher Than A Fag!”

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But I hope we’re not going to write off all pols for the nitwit, often cruel, things they did as teenagers. There is, after all, redemption, no?

I prefer to write off Romney for the bullying he’s done to people as an adult.

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Electron Pencil event listings: Music, art, movies, lectures, parties, receptions, benefits, plays, meetings, fairs, conspiracies, rituals, etc.

Friday, May  11, 2012

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits, “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”; through July 1st — “Esse Quam Videri (To Be, Rather than To Be Seen): Muslim Self Portraits; through June 17th — “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”; through July 1st

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Arts Center — Exhibits at various galleries: Angela Hendrix-Petry, Benjamin Pines, Nate Johnson, and Yang Chen; all through May 29th

◗ Trinity Episcopal Church — Art exhibit, “Creation,” collaborative mosaic tile project; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County Public Library — Art exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

◗ B-Line Trail at the Bloomington Banquet Sculpture — Bloomington Bikes Week, Women’s Ride: Noon

◗ Deer Park Manor — Edible Lotus Night Bazaar, tastings from 20 local restaurants; 6pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — Cardinal Stage Company presents “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”; 7pm

◗ Boxcar Books — James Capshew reads from his book, “Herman B. Wells: The Promise of the American University”; 7pm

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◗ IU Cinema — Film, “The Kid with a Bike”; 7pm

◗ IU SOFA, upstairs theater — Ryder Film Series, “The Raw and the Cooked”; 7pm — “444 Last Day on Earth”; 8:45pm

◗ Panache Dance — Jennifer Luna teaches salsa with dance party to follow; 7:30pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall — Ryder Film Series, “Keyhole”; 7:45pm

◗ Cafe Django — Earplane, Latin-Brazilian jazz; 8-11pm

◗ IU SOFA, downstairs theater — Ryder Film Series, “The Fairy”; 8:15pm

◗ The Bluebird — Kip Moore; 9pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Qwintis Sential, Lonewolfe 10man; 9pm

◗ Uncle Elizabeth’s — Vicci Laine and the West End Girls; 10pm & midnight

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◗ The Comedy Attic — Dan Telfer; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Dave Walter Karaoke; 11pm

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