Bill O’Reilly | The Electron Pencil

10/18/2014

Andy Borowitz, Bill O'Reilly, breitbart.com, Centers for Disease Control, Commercial Development, Dr. Thomas Frieden, Ebola Outbreak, Epidemiology, Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un, North Korea, Parking, The New Yorker, Trolley Circulators, Washington Post

Hot Air

We’re all gonna die!

Like the headline sez, but it ain’t gonna be ebola that gets us.

This is not West Africa. We’re turning ourselves inside out over the fact that one guy has died (and he was recently arrived from West Africa.) Now two other people have it.

The populace of this holy land is having conniption fits over this non-epidemic, thanks mainly to a corporate media whose most precious talent is the ability to scare the poo out of us. They’re doing so.

Anyway, let’s turn to a little science. Have you caught this piece in the Washington Post?

Click Image For Full Story

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Each of the grid charts illustrates how a specific disease spreads and kills (if at all). Ebola may be a killer but it ain’t a spreader. At least not a fast one. It simply does not jump from body to body easily.

An alert medical system and educated populace can stem the disease relatively quickly.

So, no, Centers for Disease Control head Dr. Thomas Frieden does not need to resign, despite the demands he do so by that noted epidemiologist Bill O’Reilly and the learned experts at breitbart.com. See, Frieden does not think ebola is gonna kill us all, nor does he want to seal our borders against the even more terrifying and dangerous natives of Africa.

Almost as perilous is what fear of ebola is turning us into. Andy Borowitz of The New Yorker states the case clearly and firmly (satire alert, natch):

You Know The Drill — Click For Full Story

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And, of course, since we live in a nation awash in grievances, some among us consider themselves victims even though they haven’t got a fever. For instance, I know a nurse who is loudly proclaiming on the interwebs that nurses, as always, take the blame for everything. She’s referring to suggestions that the nurse who caught ebola from the Liberian man in Dallas may have employed faulty personal protection practices while caring for him.

The idea being, she might have touched her eyelid or mouth with a contaminated glove finger, a simple mistake that any human can make. But, naturally, chronically aggrieved parties interpret any criticism as the moral equivalent of slavery.

Nah, Don’t Click The Image

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This is the first time I’ve ever heard that nurses are being blamed for anything. They, like teachers, are the Virgin Marys of our society, above reproach, free of sin, spotless vessels. Now, suddenly, they’re the fall guys for everything?

We Americans are weird.

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Big City Blues

The Herald Times reports this morning (paywall) that Monroe County is going full steam ahead with plans for a 220-spot parking garage next to the Zietlow Justice Center and jail. Only “The full cost of the project is not known.” and “A construction date has not been set.”

So scotch the full and the steam. The ahead while you’re at it, too.

All I know is the county and the city had better get cracking on throwing up some parking garages quickly, what with hotels springing up everywhere near the formerly quaint Courthouse Square. Hell, no fewer than three developments are in the planning stages for the intersection of Lincoln and Kirkwood avenues alone. And another is planned for the bank property at Washington and Kirkwood.

Bloomington’s Future?

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It’ll be easier to catch ebola in Bloomington than find a parking space once all these structures go up. To steal and mangle a line from Jerry Seinfeld, They’re gonna be building hotels inside of hotels soon.

Anyway, here’s my suggestion. Let’s build a nice round number of parking facilities spaced out to ring the downtown area. Say six of them. The existing parking facilities — on 4th Street, on Walnut and 7th, and behind the Buskirk Chumley Theater will give us a total of nine. (Let’s leave the Monroe County Municipal Library lot for library patrons, shall we?) Eliminate street parking for a two or three block radius around the Square, maybe more. Contract with a private company to run regular trolley service between all the lots, the Courthouse, the Zietlow facility, the hotels, the library, the Buskirk Chumley, the Sample Gates, City Hall, and whatever other attractions and municipal service centers there are in the vicinity.

Catch The Trolley

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How do we pay for it all? Slap a room tax on all the new hotels going up. Add a food and beverage tax to all appropriate places within the service area. Hell, a five-dollar surcharge on a hotel room isn’t going to kill anybody. And adding 50 cents to a dollar to everybody’s grub and booze tab isn’t going to stop people from stuffing their faces and getting sloshed.

If Bloomington wants to pretend it’s a big city, it’s going to have to act like one.

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The Haircuts Of Kim Jong-Un

As a public service, I’m providing a photographic timeline of the North Korean Dear Leader’s coifs. Historians and researchers will benefit greatly from this.

A Very Young KJU With His Daddy-o, KJI

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KJU Adopts The Adolph Look

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KJU Opts For The Collegiate Crew Cut

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KJU Shaves The Sides

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KJU Ditches The Part

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KGU Sprouts Speed Racer Villain Horns

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KJU’s Pompadour/Fade Begins To Attain Towering Heights

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You’re welcome

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07/31/2013

2 Comments

All the President's Men, Bill O'Reilly, Bloomington High School North, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Gawker, Goodbye Columbus, Hair Original Soundtrack, Hillary Clinton, Jesus Diaz, Joel Osteen, R.E. Paris, Slaughterhouse Five, Slavery, Surf Thugs, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, The Invisible Man, Trayvon Martin, White Boys/Black Boys

Your Daily Hot Air

Some Of My Best Friends Are White

Oh man oh man! A flamboyant tip o’the lid to book babe RE Paris for this one. She points out a spot-on farcical indictment of white culture and parenting from Gawker writer Jesus Diaz.

See, a bunch of ultra-violent, scary, faux-uniformed surf thugs raised havoc in Huntington Beach, California this week. They are, of course, white as white can be. Diaz takes this phenomenon and runs with it.

Discrediting Their Race

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Following the template set recently by white navel-gazers bemoaning the black culture’s putative failings in raising children, taking responsibility, committing acts of mayhem upon each other and so on in the half-dozenth or so generation of fallout and blowback to the Trayvon Martin affair, Diaz points the finger at caucasians who are letting their race down.

“Many people don’t want to hear this kind of tough love,” Diaz writes, swiping the line from numerous white commentators. He then goes on to cite cherry-picked stats: 84 percent of whites are killed by other whites and most white rape victims are raped by whites.

Diaz calls white leaders Joel Osteen, Bill O’Reilly, and Hillary Clinton to task for not speaking out on the issue of white on white violence at surf rallies, equine events, and Ivy League campuses. He then spreads the blame uniformly across the entire white population — again, just as white self-appointed moral guardians are doing with blacks: “When did so many white parents fall asleep at the wheel?”

No Excuse

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And in a brilliant crescendo, Diaz throws the old slavery-is-no-excuse rotten chestnut back at the pasty-faced commentators. “Whites in America,” he writes, “have been out from under their European ancestros’ boot heels for centuries…. So being ‘oppressed’ is no longer an excuse for behavior like this. How long must we wait for the white community to get its act together?”

Satire, my friends, is a crusher.

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Bah!

So, sophomores at Bloomington High School North who wish to take a certain Honors English course were compelled this summer to read Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.

While typing this, I pondered whether to write forced at gunpoint rather than compelled. Obviously, I went with the less dramatic verbiage, although I’m having second thoughts about it all.

Why on this green Earth would a 15-year-old choose to spend her or his precious summer vacation reading a suicide pill like CD’s DC?

Happy Summer Vacation!

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Look, Dickens specialized in writing about the hellholes of Victorian England. And while some literary titans like George Orwell and Leo Tolstoy slobbered all over themselves praising him, my own fave commentator Oscar Wilde thumbed his nose at Dickens.

Regardless of where Dickens fits in the penman’s pantheon, forcing teenagers to descend into his netherworlds seems an act of child abuse.

Add to that the fact that the Penguin Classic edition of DC runs a full 1024 pages. Sheesh! Was there any time left for a swim in the pool, a hike in the woods, or a bike ride for BHSN sophs?

Have Fun, Kids!

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Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of teachers assigning Disney-like pap to their charges for summer reading. I’d be even more huffy if BHSN sophomores were ordered to read the latest books of consumer-porn, vampire-porn, or other Butternut Bread boluses that pass for teen lit now.

But man, you’re hitting me where I lived some 40 years ago: The books most teachers assigned to me in high school had no connection to my life or anything I was interested in. I would have greedily eaten up The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Slaughterhouse Five, All the President’s Men, The Invisible Man, or Goodbye, Columbus over any given summer. The authors of these books wrote in a language that I understood about issues and conflicts I recognized.

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The Mayor of Casterbridge and Lord of the Flies meant nothing to me, especially since they were set among the British, who always seemed to me to be a gang of stuffy pains in my ass.

All I’m asking is for teachers to meet their students halfway.

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White Boys/Black Boys

From the Hair original Broadway cast soundtrack. This link accesses the entire soundtrack recording. Scroll down to and select White Boys/Black Boys or just listen to the whole thing. You can’t go wrong either way.

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07/09/2013

Your Daily Hot Air

Flying Saucers And Pink Dresses

Yesterday, of course, was the 66th anniversary of the fabled crash of the UFO into the desert in southeast New Mexico.

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It seems that UFO conspiracy theories have petered out in recent years because we have better, juicier fever dreams to keep folks with hyper-active imaginations awake at night. Keep in mind that Dick Cheney personally directed the 9/11 attacks and Barack Obama was bred by foreign Muslims to take over this holy land. These two fairy tales are a tad more urgent and compelling than a government cover-up of the crash of the family flying saucer driven by some drunken ET teenagers out for a joyride. (h/t to Maxwell Bodenheim of Forest Park, Illinois, for this explanation.)

Joyrider

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Anyway, the 50th anniversary of the second oldest conspiracy theory I can think of is fast approaching and this one just may overshadow, at least for a time, the sins of Cheney and Obama. That is, the assassination of John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963. (The oldest consp/theo is probably the plot by FDR and the Imperial Japanese Navy General Staff to stage Pearl Harbor so’s the USA could jump that much more quickly into WWII. I’m telling you, these conspirator types are brilliant.)

The JFK theory tied together pretty much all the bogeymen that scared the poo out of the widest range of the American citizenry in the mid-60s. The Russkies, Castro, the Mob, right wing generals, the CIA, LBJ, Nixon, the federal reserve, representatives of huge defense contractors, and even anti-Castro exiles met in some secret location to get their stories straight on the impending whacking of the Prez. Not only was this gang brilliant, their ability to coordinate such a massive planning confab — flights had to be booked, hotel rooms reserved, boxed lunches brought in; all in secret — was awe-inspiring. Just getting Castro and his exiled opponents in the same conference room must have been nothing short of a miracle.

LBJ And The Man He Whacked

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The city of Dallas is planning a big shindig for the 50th to be held smack-dab in Dealey Plaza, where the hit took place. It’s not known if organizers will stage a reenactment but I’d bet against it. OSHA regulations put in place since the assassination probably would preclude having an actress in a pink Chanel suit climb on the trunk of the limousine.

Imagine, though, the field day the conspiracy theorists are going to have, come this fall. Already, Bill O’Reilly’s two assassination-porn books, Killing Lincoln and Killing Kennedy, are New York Times bestsellers. Sales of the latter likely will go through the roof starting in September.

Here are a few fun facts about Jackie Kennedy’s famous dress. It’s in a vault in Maryland, embargoed until the year 2103. Jackie’s mom sent the suit and the purse her daughter carried that fateful day to the National Archives shortly after the assassination. The suit has never been cleaned. Oh, and Coco Chanel, despite never having commented on the fact that one of her creations had suddenly become a gruesome icon, did say some years later that, because of her penchant for wearing miniskirts, Jackie “wears her daughter’s clothes.”

Jackie And The Pink Suit

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Coco sure knew what the important things in life were, no?

A website dealing with all things Jackie actually has an entire page devoted to the pink suit.

And, natch, the chic ghoul can buy a replica pink suit on eBay; it’s a steal at $189.99.

That pink pillbox hat Jackie wore? It’s missing.

One of the archivists in charge of the suit said a couple of years ago, “It looks like it’s brand new, except for the blood.” Which is like saying December 7th, 1941 was a perfect day in Oahu, except for that mess down by the docks.

I was seven years old when Lee Harvey Oswald did his thing. I was vaguely aware of the existence of President Kennedy. I only knew the nuns at St. Giles had red-rimmed eyes when they told us we were to go home that gray Friday afternoon. My second-grade classmates and I momentarily believed the word assassination signified something really good, considering we’d never heard it before and it allowed us to bolt school early.

When I got home, my mother was compulsively vacuuming in front of the TV. She was crying. I’d never seen her cry before. I figured she personally knew JFK. Otherwise, why would she be so busted up that he’d died?

That, I can safely say, was a loss of innocence. Believe me, we’re going to be sick to death of hearing that phrase by November.

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Abraham, Martin & John

To this day, this song brings tears to my eyes. It was released soon after Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in 1968.

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12/10/2012

2 Comments

50 Shades of Chicken, 9/11, Aaron Freeman, Bill O'Reilly, Boice Tomlin, Book Corner, Colin Powell, George W. Bush, Heaven Is For Real, Iraq War, Maureen Dowd, Public Opinion Polls, Republican Party, Ryder Film Series, Saddam Hussein, Sam Cooke, United Nations

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Who would have ever thought blacks would get out and support the first black president? Who would have ever thought women would shy away from the party of transvaginal probes? Who would have ever thought gays would work against a party that treated them as immoral and subhuman? Who would have ever thought young people would desert a party that ignored science and hectored on social issues? Who would have ever thought Latinos would scorn a party that expected them to finish up their chores and self-deport?” — Maureen Dowd

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YOU AND IRAQ

Comic and politico Aaron Freeman has put out a call for anyone who can honestly say she or he was not taken in by the Bush Administration’s rationalizations for the Iraq War in late 2002 and early 2003.

Aaron Freeman

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You remember, don’t you? Georgey-boy, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, and even Colin Powell stood on their heads to implant the images of bloodthirsty brown people, mushroom clouds, and general panic in our imaginations in order to snow us into attacking the Saddam Hussein regime.

Perhaps the saddest moment of the buildup to war was Secretary of State Powell half-heartedly trying to sell the United Nations General Assembly on “evidence” that Hussein and his wild-eyed pals were thisclose to launching a big one against this holy land.

The funnyman — Freeman, not Bush — wonders why anyone would have doubted the word of the Bushies, considering the fact that most highly intelligent people he knew at the time bought the casus belli hook, line, and sinker.

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So, take yourself back some ten years to those glory days of yore. Try to remember what you were thinking at the time. And don’t forget we were only a little more than a year past the 9/11 attacks. Be honest and tell us, in the poll below, if you bought the Bush line or you thought, even as we were gassing up our B-2 Stealth Bombers, that he and his gang were full of shit.

Oh, and leave a comment in the box labeled “Other” explaining why you thought one way or the other.

Thanks in advance.

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POLL WATCHING

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THE SHORT OF IT

That’s all for today, kiddies. I been working my fingertips to the bone, trying to get the new Ryder magazine and film series website off the ground, along with publisher Peter LoPilato and developer Boice Tomlin. As a result, I feel lazy today.

Remember to stop in at The Book Corner. A few words of advice, though. Do not buy either of Bill O’Reilly’s bestsellers, “Killing Lincoln” and “Killing Kennedy.” Do not buy “50 Shades of Chicken.” And do not buy any of those I-died-and-went-to-heaven books.

Don’t You Dare!

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Reading should improve your mind, not shrink it.

Otherwise, buy anything you want.

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CHAIN GANG

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07/12/2012

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Acadame, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.” — Ambrose Bierce

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SANDUSKY’S CO-CONSPIRATORS

“The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims.”

So there you have it. The official damnation of Penn State University by former FBI chief Louis Freeh’s gumshoes.

The Freeh report was released this morning.

And, no, this is no outside slam job. Freeh et al were hired by Penn State to dig into the sludge that threatens to drown the institution.

This is more satisfying even than the guilty verdict Jerry Sandusky earned after years of sodomizing 10-year-old boys. He’s a sick man. But his superiors at Penn State gave him license to fuck and blow children and to force them to blow him.

Now, riot over that one, Penn State faithful.

PSU Erected A Statue Of The Unindicted And Thankfully Dead Joe Paterno

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DUMB TIMES

Have you caught Jimmie Walker’s latest act yet.

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The “actor” who played JJ on the 70’s CBS-TV sitcom “Good Times” is doing the grand tour promoting his memoir. It’s called “Dyn-o-MITE: Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times,” the catchword, of course, being his great contribution to American culture.

Walker doesn’t like Barack Obama.

“Sometimes even a brother, you have to let him go,” Walker told Bill O’Reilly yesterday.

Walker, you may recall, won precisely zero Emmy Awards for his portrayal of a jiving, shucking Negro on the show. Walker’s JJ made Stepin Fetchit and Little Black Sambo look like George Washington Carver.

Now he’s talking politics. On Fox News, no less.

Oh, just a little irony here. Walker was the beneficiary of a Great Society program when he attended a federally-funded writing class for unemployed youth after he graduated from high school.

We taxpayers want our money back.

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WE’RE NUMBER…, UM…, WHERE ARE WE?

Bummer!

Bloomington did not make the list of coolest college towns on Ranker.com.

Here they are, in order:

Boulder, Colorado
Austin, Texas
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Berkeley, California
Madison, Wisconsin
Burlington, Vermont
Charlottesville, Virginia
Washington, DC

Georgetown Students Can See Mitch McConnell On The Streets On Any Given Day

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Santa Cruz, California
Oxford, Mississippi
Eugene, Oregon
Amherst, Massachusetts
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Iowa City, Iowa
Athens, Georgia
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The Tuscaloosa Motel 6

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Richmond, Virginia
Gainesville, Florida
Los Angeles
Durham, North Carolina
Clemson, South Carolina
Knoxville, Tennessee
Atlanta

Honestly? Washington, DC?

Tuscaloosa?

Jeez, you’d think Leo Cook’s weekly Bloomington’s Got Talent! show at the Bluebird alone would earn us a spot on the list. Go figure.

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

◗ IU Simon Music Library — Guest lecturer Professor David Castilo speaks about 18th Century Brazilian music; 5pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Janiece Jaffe; 5:30pm

Janiece Jaffe

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◗ Third Street Park — Outdoor concert series, Bloomington Community Band; 6:30pm

◗ IU Ford Hall — Latin American Music Center Guest Series: Recordist David Castilo plays Brazilian music; 7PM

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Homebrew; 6-8:30pm

◗ Panache Dance — Local First July mixer, wine, cheese, and Samba dancing; 7-8:30pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It With You”; 7:30pm

◗ Monroe County History Center — Architectural history researcher Bill Coulter speaks about how to trace the history of your building; 7pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Two for the Show; 8pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Music Series: Recital participants in the IU Summer Percussion Academy; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Chelsea Peretti; 8pm

Chelsea Peretti

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◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Team trivia; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — New Old Cavalry; 9pm

◗ Uncle Elizabeth’s — Karaoke; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This @#!%”; through July 30th
Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ 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:

Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ 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

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

“What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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The Electron Pencil

Category Archives: Bill O’Reilly

Hot Air

We’re all gonna die!

Click Image For Full Story

You Know The Drill — Click For Full Story

Nah, Don’t Click The Image

Big City Blues

Bloomington’s Future?

Catch The Trolley

The Haircuts Of Kim Jong-Un

A Very Young KJU With His Daddy-o, KJI

KJU Adopts The Adolph Look

KJU Opts For The Collegiate Crew Cut

KJU Shaves The Sides

KJU Ditches The Part

KGU Sprouts Speed Racer Villain Horns

KJU’s Pompadour/Fade Begins To Attain Towering Heights

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Your Daily Hot Air

Some Of My Best Friends Are White

Discrediting Their Race

No Excuse

Bah!

Happy Summer Vacation!

Have Fun, Kids!

White Boys/Black Boys

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Your Daily Hot Air

Flying Saucers And Pink Dresses

Joyrider

LBJ And The Man He Whacked

Jackie And The Pink Suit

Abraham, Martin & John

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The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

YOU AND IRAQ

Aaron Freeman

POLL WATCHING

THE SHORT OF IT

Don’t You Dare!

CHAIN GANG

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