Tomorrow, The World
Writing for this worldwide communications colossus really fetches me scads of ego strokes. I get messages from around the globe telling me things like this:
Hello, its fastidious piece of writing on the topic of media print, we all be familiar
with media is a impressive source of facts.
This accolade — all sic, natch — was posted to my comment queue at 6:50 EST this morning. So this Pencil fan is either pathologically hard-working or she lives on the other side of the planet. I have no idea where she comes from — Moldova, perhaps, or The Gambia — so I can’t really describe her as a Pencillista (we are awfully exclusive, darling). I know she’s a she because her email address indicates her name is Jewel. Maybe she’s the Jewel, you know, the briefly torrid singer-songwriter from the ’90s? Then again, I’d guess the Jewel would have a better command of the English language considering she comes from Alaska. (Then again, again, there is the matter of Sarah Palin, but anyway.)
A Fan?
■
Well, welcome — sorta — to the club, Jewel. And I promise to continue to put out fastidious pieces of writing.
▼
Dig Deep
Cleveland Dietz II, WFHB CinC, has announced the hiring of a development director for the community radio operation.
Dorothy Granger will now be tasked with digging up enough dough to pay the multi-million-dollar salaries of luminaries such as Music Director Jim Manion and News Director Alycin Bektesh. WFHB’s revenues have been flat the last couple of years. Volunteers and staffers have stood on their heads to keep the take from the last few annual fundraisers at a steady level.
Dorothy Granger
■
Granger, meanwhile has been raising cash for a variety of orgs. and assns. She also serves on the City Council, representing Bloomington’s District II. Here’s her official city bio:
Dorothy Granger has worn many hats over the years — researcher, educator, higher education administrator, director of non-profit agencies, fundraiser, quilter. She is the mother of a teenager and active in her attempts to encourage and support citizen participation. She was most recently the Director of Development for Planned Parenthood of Indiana and previous to that, the Executive Director of Girls Incorporated of Monroe County. While “new” to the Bloomington political scene, she was actively engaged in her younger days, rallying and fighting for the ERA.
Now, all she has to do is get some of our town’s big wheels to fork over some real green for community radio.
▼
That Tears It
So, a former Muncie woman yesterday was convicted, essentially, of trying to tear her on-again, off-again boyfriend’s balls off.
Christina Reber was found guilty of battery resulting in serious bodily injury. She faces four years in the Indiana state joint now.
Reber has never denied trying to rip her 59-y-o consort’s jewels from their pouch. Acc’d’g to this morning’s Indy Star, Reber grabbed the man’s wrinkle purse and proceeded to pull hard enough to rip the skin and flesh so badly the man had to undergo reconstructive plastic surgery. The Star quoted the man — who was unnamed in the story — as saying, “It was excruciating. I was close to blacking out. I felt tearing.”
[At this point, all males reading this are gasping for breath and trying to get their body hair to lay flat again.]
Don’t Mess With Chris
■
This is all well and good but Reber has maintained all along she tried to give the love of her life a shorthair cut because he’d become violent himself during an argument. Apparently, he’d recently broken off with her and she marched over to his house to tell him precisely what she thought about his decision.
Not much, I guess.
[Take a good look at her mugshot, above. Tell me she doesn’t look like someone who’d say, “You keep that up and I’ll tear your balls right off. I mean it.”]
Some kind of struggle ensued. He says Reber grabbed his trouser boys for no good reason at all. Reber says he was bullying her so she resorted to the attempted involuntary neutering.
Natch, he sez-she sez is a risky game to play. Most sane souls choose to keep clear of such contretemps. Judge Marianne Vorhees, OTOH, is required by law to pick sides and she went with the party with the ripped scrotum. He’s the one with the surgical scar, after all, while Reber sports no mementos of their tiff.
I suppose I can’t blame the judge but four years seems awfully harsh. I just wonder if, say, the man had busted Reber’s jaw he would get four years room and board. For that matter would any man who busts the jaw of his ever-loving’ best gal in the Hoosier state earn himself a four-spot?
I certainly hope so.
▲