Category Archives: Contraception

07/10/2015
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City of Literature, Contraception, I Fell Building, Ledge Mule Press, Marijuana, NFL, UNESCO

Hot Air

City Of Lit

Keep your eyes and ears open for a new designation for the city of Bloomington (fingers crossed).

There’s a movement afoot to get this teeming megalopolis tabbed a City of Literature by the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known to us acronym-o-philes (made-up word; you’re welcome) as UNESCO. The UN agency pushes eggheaded pursuits around the globe so that all nations can live like sisters and brothers and not nuke the bejesus out of each other. Good luck with that.

Parker

Writer Dorothy Parker, Sharpening Her Tongue*

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Ennyway, Caveat Emptor‘s John McGuigan has pitched the idea to Mayor Mark Kruzan who, in turn, has made City Council mistress of civics Susan Sandberg the point person on it.

Other Cities of Literature so far include include Iowa City, home of the world-renowned Iowa Writers Workshop, right here in Murrica as well as these international outposts:

  • Edinburgh, (Scotland) UK
  • Melbourne, Australia
  • Norwich, (England) UK
  • Dublin, Ireland
  • Reykjavik, Iceland
  • Krakow, Poland
  • Heidelberg, Germany
  • Dunedin, New Zealand
  • Prague, Czech Republic
  • Granada, (Andalusia) Spain

So, hey, why not us? Acc’d’g to Sandberg, the 2015 deadline for applying for designation is mere weeks away so B-ton will aim for the 2016 window. The C. of L. is part of UNESCO’s Creative Cities dealio that recognizes “Creative Hubs” and “Socio-cultural Clusters” which:

  1. Strengthen the creation, production, distribution, and enjoyment of cultural goods and service at the local level;
  2. Promote creativity and creative expression especially among vulnerable groups, including women and youth;
  3. Enhance access to and participation in cultural life as well as enjoyment of cultural goods;
  4. Integrate cultural and creative industries into local development plans.

That’s us, right? So, pen-pushers, keyboard clackers, and other ink-stained wretches, contact our mistress of civics if you wanna suggest, support, or otherwise stuff the ballot box for our application.

[ * — Dorothy Parker has nothing to do with Bloomington; I just like her.]

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Friday At The Fell

Speaking of B-ton’s creative types, the Ledge Mule Press‘s Dave Torneo — a crackerjack poet and letter-writer — will host tonight’s I Fell Building exhibit, Four Views.

Artists Erik Woodworth, Laurel Leonetti, David Long, and Sean Pendergast will trot their stuff out, mainly dealing w/ “unique representations of the subjective, images abstract and emergent.” (Artists, right?)

Woodworth

Erik Woodworth

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Oh, and put aside next Friday eve for another installment of the Ledge Mule poetry reading series. Stayed tuned for more info.

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Baked Bruisers

You can believe it or not but one former National Football League player says at least 60 percent of active players smoke marijuana regularly. This player, former star running back Jamal Anderson of the Atlanta Falcons, believes NFL players toke up not just for the high but because it helps them bear the pain incurred through daily hard-hitting practices as well as the body-blasting three hours of every weekly game.

NFL

Oh, Wow.

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Here are the reasons advanced by players for smoking pot:

  • As mentioned, it serves as an effective pain reliever
  • It helps ameliorate concussion symptoms
  • This generation of players grew up in an era when marijuana carried almost no negative stigma
  • The league tests for banned substances, including marijuana, at a specific time of the year, allowing players to clean out their systems at that time then return to regular use thereafter
  • The league and the players association may have a secret deal wherein marijuana users are not chased with any vigor because, according to one player, “we wouldn’t be able to field a league.”

And the inexorable march toward the end of marijuana prohibition continues unabated.

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Just Say No

All we can do is ask why.

The Colorado program that provides low-income women with free contraceptive devices is in danger of ending. See, a private funding organization pitched few mill at Colorado health officials so they could give free long-lasting birth control to women in the state. It was sort of a test — if women, especially poor ones, got intrauterine devices, for example, would that reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, teen pregnancies, and abortions?

IUD

The IUD — A Fairly Expensive Little Gadget

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The answer? It sure as hell would. All three totals in CO not only dropped over the period of the program, they dropped precipitously. As in better than 40 percent. Poor women flocked to get the devices implanted. They flocked less and less to welfare offices and abortion clinics.

Huzzah, right?

Wrong. The private funding has run out and this past spring Colorado lawmakers refused to allocate dough for the program. I guess they just like the idea of single mothers on welfare, high school dropouts having babies, and abortion clinics sweeping out wombs by the score.

I mean, why else wouldn’t you fund such a bang-up good program?

Hey, wait a minute, I remember now: the Religious Right hates the idea of females having sex even worse than they hate welfare and abortion.

Okay, never mind.

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02/03/2015
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2016 Presidential Race, Anti-intellectualism, Austerity, Carl Djerassi, Contraception, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Pioneer Girl, Scott Walker, The Pill, Women's Movement

Hot Air

Learnin’ — Who Needs It?

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is back on the slicing and dicing trail. This time he wields his machete against the state’s university system that serves 180,000 students and employs 39,000..

Walker, of course, is an early, early, early front runner in the Republican beauty pageant for the 2016 presidential nomination. He came out on top in a Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll of GOPers yesterday, edging out even Jeb Bush in popularity among likely Repub. voters. That’s the way things stand — this minute at least.

Walker

This Minute’s It Guy

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Anyway, Walker’s big news of late has been his desire to slash the state’s financing of the University of Wisconsin by a cool one-third in his next budget. As of now, Wisconsin spends about $1 billion a year on its university system. Walker proposes cutting $300 million from that total.

Criss-crossing the state and even appearing on the nationally televised Sunday morning gasbag programs, Walker adds that professors and other U. teachers just might have to start thinking about teaching more classes and working longer hours. The Guv is falling back on the old Republican canard wherein teachers are sitting around smoking pipes, reading the Socialist Worker, and planning their next wife-swapping get-together.

Scads o’ Republicans these days think all a college teacher has to do is spout some facts and figures for 45 minutes and then go back to plotting the overthrow of god. In addition to the grueling hours major university instructors put in preparing classes, actually teaching, meeting with students, grading papers and trying to keep up with advances in educational theory, many also engage in research in whatever field they’re in. The U. of WI demands that its teachers do research. This is how our breadth of knowledge is expanded. Seems inarguable, right? Wrong. In fact, one of Walker’s coat-holders, speaker of the Wisconsin assembly Robin Voss says, “Of course I want research but I want to have research that focuses on a way of growing our economy, not on ancient mating habits of whatever.”

Cute, huh?

Reminds me of Sarah Palin’s old line — back when she was inexplicably relevant — about university researchers spending our good, hard-earned tax dollars on studying fruit flies. Fruit flies! Imagine that. How inane! Her GOP audiences ate that stuff up. Only the fruit fly studies she was talking about were agriculturally significant in terms of invasive species knowledge, but also were being done by genetics researchers. They use fruit flies because the little buggers’ life span is so short; scientists can learn about numerous generations of mutations within a few weeks. Gregor Mendel would be proud.

It’s one thing for a dingbat like Palin to spout nonsense but when a presidential contender’s loyal lieutenant starts talking like a baboon, things suddenly begin looking a little grim for this holy land.

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The Bestseller That Nobody Has

One of the hottest books out right now is Pioneer Girl, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s recently released memoir, complete with annotations. Well, let me amend that: the book is out, but not out. Wait, what? Yeah, PG was released back in November and quickly sold out. Its publisher the South Dakota Historical Society Press isn’t used to dealing in blockbusters. Not when its catalog includes such page turners as County Capitals: The Courthouses of South Dakota and The Mystery of the Pheasants.

One of the big publishing houses would have rushed second, third, and fourth printings off before impatient book buyers could stomp their feet twice. As of this moment, SDHSP has issued no statements about when Pioneer Girl will be available again.

Book Cover

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We had a couple of copies at the Book Corner back at the end of last year. They passed through our hands so quickly I didn’t even have a chance to thumb through them. So, if you’re a fan of the creator of the Little House on the Prairie series, you’ll just have to cool your heels.

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Magic Pill

Let’s recognize the passing of the scientist who helped women achieve whatever modicum of equality they enjoy today.

The Pill — no other identifier is needed — was created in large part by one Carl Djerassi, chemist, novelist, and playwright. Back in 1951 he and two research partners (there’s that old bugaboo again, research) figured out how to make the synthetic steroid hormone, norethisterone, usable in a tablet taken orally. The hormone effectively prevented ovulation in women taking The Pill daily during their fertile weeks of the month. (The Pill regimen usually includes placebos to be taken during those days when the women is not fertile.)

The Pill

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Good ol’ Doc Djerassi — who, coincidentally enough, earned his PhD form the University of Wisconsin — died Friday. He was 91. Like many scientists of his generation, Djerassi escaped from Nazi occupied territory back in the 1930s.

The Pill just may have been the single most important scientific or technological advancement aiding the cause of women’s rights. It allowed women to enjoy sex without worrying about conceiving. It was approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1960. Next thing anybody knew, women were agitating for things like equal pay, workplace advancement, progressive rape laws, and others. Because The Pill was the first birth control method that women exclusively control every day, their newfound self-dominion inspired a greater desire for autonomy in many other areas.

Djerassi

Dr. Carl Djerassi

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Its benefit has extended well beyond women. I know for a fact that The Pill has aided me in my desire never to reproduce. For that alone, the world should give thanks to Carl Djerassi.

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07/19/2014
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Al Jazeera America, Alliance Defending Freedom, Armchair Homesteader, Chickens, Clarence Thomas, Contraception, Flat Earth Society, Hobby Lobby, ISIS, Jana Wilson, Misogyny, New Yorker, Samuel Alito, Sara Hellwege, Sharia Law, Susan Orlean, Tampa Family Health Centers, The Islamic State, US Supreme Court, Wonkette

Hot Air

Chicken Checkin’

One of our town’s most talented copywriters spends her time outside the corporate cubicle raising chickens. Jana Wilson lives with her family on a nice 20-acre spread nearby. She writes about Gallus gallus domesticus husbandry in her blog, The Armchair Homesteader.

Tons o’folks these days are growing the birds, mainly to be able to eat fresh eggs and even for the fresh meat to liven up their cacciatore. (Hey, wait a minute: Do peeps eat alla cacciatore around here?) Anyway, the City of Bloomington, for instance, allows residents to raise chicken flocks, although said flocks can’t number more than five birds and none may be roosters. Apparently, that crowing rooster next door might cause some little friction in the n’hood. That and chicken coops often stink.

The chickens-in-the-city trend got a huge jump start about five years ago when author Susan Orlean wrote about it in the pages of The New Yorker. “[R]ight now,” she wrote, “across the country and beyond, there’s a surging passion for raising the birds.”

Chicken

“A Surging Passion”

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When my grandmother, Anna Lazzara, lived in Chi., she was quite put out because the city wouldn’t allow her to keep chickens in the backyard. But back in the 1930’s people could still turn fresh chickens into dinner that night by buying the birds live at the butcher shop. Anna would tell my mother, Sue, to go get a chicken on a given weekday, a chore Ma loathed. She’d have to squeeze the bird between her arm and her chest in order to prevent it from fleeing, the critter pecking and clawing at her all the way home. Then Anna would grab the chicken from my mother, wrap her two fists around its neck and yank. Within minutes, the chicken’d lie still and be ready for plucking, singeing, and washing.

Ma always said those weekly walks from the butcher shop produced in her a phobia of all birds.

Yesterday, Wilson wrote about the problem of newbie chicken-raisers who purchase a passel of chicks and soon discover that one of the purported hens is actually a guy. She writes:

You anticipate these adorable little chicks growing into egg-producing hens and the speed at which they grow is just amazing.  They’re growing more feathers every day, their little combs beginning to develop, their legs lengthening. It’s all very fun and exciting. Fun until the day when little Sue emits the strangest sound. It sounds like a strangled screech. Could it be… oh no, surely not. But yes, its a crow!

Oh dear, little Sue is really little Stan.

Remember, cities that allow residents to keep chickens usually frown on or outright ban the keeping of males. “And for good reason: they are quite noisy and don’t crow just at daybreak,” Wilson writes. “Trust me on this one… they can crow just about any time of the day or night.”

In any case, check out Jana’s blog. You’ll even learn what a Sicilian Buttercup is. (And, no, it’s not me.)

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Après Ce, Le Déluge

It turns out those who’ve been wringing their hands over the Supreme Court’s recent Hobby Lobby decision, predicting that all manner of Christianists would start suing to get out of certain laws and responsibilities because their “sincerely-held beliefs” preclude them from doing so, really aren’t just being Chicken Littles. Any number of “sincere believers” have made moves to get out of things like not firing employees because they’re gay and other expressions of deep spirituality.

It would be hard to top this one, though: Pro-life activist attorneys in Florida have filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of a nurse who applied for a job with the Tampa Family Health Centers. The attorneys claim the medical center refused to consider her for employment because she is Christian.

How horrible, right? What’s this crazy land coming to?

Christians/Lion

Persecution?

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Natch, the case isn’t that simple. The nurse made a point to tell the clinic’s HR director that her Christian beliefs forbid her from prescribing certain contraceptives, which just happens to be one of the primary tasks of the place. I suppose it’d be be rather like a newly graduated cartographer applying for a job at the local globe factory and saying he would not be able to draw maps on the co.’s product because he’s a member of the Flat Earth Society. The wags at Wonkette explain the impasse thusly:

Let’s play a game. It is sort of a choose-your-own-adventure make-believe game. Costumes optional.

You are about to graduate from Thing-Doing School and apply for a job as a professional Thing-Doer, as one does after attending Thing-Doing School. You inform your potential employer that you are interested in the Thing-Doing job but will be unable to perform Thing-Doing duties because of your religious beliefs. Your potential employer tells you, “LOL, that’s hilarious, but we are actually looking for a real Thing-Doer who is willing to perform Thing-Doing duties, because that is the job. Thanks but no thanks.”

For this, nurse Sara Hellwege and her handlers, the Alliance Defending Freedom, will be taking up time and space on the federal district court’s docket to right what they see as a horrible wrong — although the sane among us see it as pretty much a cheap stunt.

Thanks Justice Alito and the rest of the straight, male, white, Catholic majority of SCOTUS. (And don’t write to correct me that Clarence Thomas is not white; he’s whiter than an albino wearing a lab coat in a snowstorm.)

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Stoned, Again

Speaking of regressive fundamentalist extremists, Al Jazeera tells the tale of The Islamic State‘s latest contribution to civilization. The erstwhile ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), fresh off its successful campaign to capture and control a significant swath of Iraq and bits of Syria, is now turning its attention to the behavior of women, AKA sluts.

The Izzy State is bringing back that fave from yesteryear, public stoning for women who dig sex. Acc’d’g to AJ’s report, members of the gang that scares even al Qaeda stoned a woman to death in the public square in the town of Tabaqa, in Syria, because she’d committed adultery.

R. Crumb

Flashback

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An important corollary to the story is the fact that the man with whom she sullied all of Islam was charged with no crime at all because, well…, because he’s a man, you dope.

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07/03/2014
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Contraception, Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex, Hobby Lobby, Lauren Steiner, Louise Lasser, Woody Allen

Hot Air

Revolution For The Fun Of It

Who says all protest movements have to entail hardship, confrontation, possible arrest, and clunks on the head from cops’ billyclubs?

Chicago 1968

Ouch!

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This coming Monday folks who object to the recent US Supreme Court decision to allow corporations to take a cafeteria approach to their responsibilities — Ooh, no, thank you, I don’t want to obey that law, I’ll have the other one over there — had planned to gather at the grand opening of the Hobby Lobby store in Burbank, California to, well, fk.

Now there’s a protest participants could really enjoy.

A noted Southern California political activist named Lauren Steiner scheduled the protest, originally called “Let’s Fuck Inside Hobby Lobby,” which, I imagine, didn’t sit well with the hall monitors of the various social media she was flogging (sorry) it on. Steiner and friends had talked of grandiose plans to have couples copulating here and there among the sock monkey fixin’s and Santa Claus figurines. Once finished with their statements of protest the couples were advised to, um, “leave a deposit” in the aisles of the heretofore shiny new store.

Steiner

Steiner

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Such civil disobedience, apparently, was too much for Twitter and Facebook, etc. and perhaps even for the local constabulary. Next thing you know, Steiner has renamed the event “Let’s Condom… er, Condemn Hobby Lobby at Their Burbank Grand Opening.”

Steiner describes herself thusly on her Twitter account: “I am a activist fighting to protect people and the planet from the greed of billionaires and transnational corporations.” Fair enough. She also, it appears, possesses a wicked sense of humor. Too bad she’s not going all in with the demonstration. Now, the event has been vanilla-fied to this:

To protest the recent Supreme Court decision which now gives privately held corporations the right to withhold four forms of contraception from its female employees based on the owners’ religious opposition to abortion, we will be doing a creative flash mob at the grand opening of the Burbank Hobby Lobby. To celebrate the beautiful sexual autonomy which people (but especially women) posses, people should feel free to simulate “sexual relations,” to use former President Clinton’s term, or dress up like giant condom or whatever the spirit moves you to do. Since male employees of Hobby Lobby are still entitled to insurance covered Viagra and vasectomies, please bring unused, unopened, viable condoms as presents for the male employees.

Please bring signs expressing your displeasure with this decision. “Boycott Hobby Lobby” “Impeach the Supreme Court” “What Happened to Separation of Church and State?” “Corporations Are Not People & They Don’t Have Religious Rights” etc.

Simulated sex? Bah. The people who run Hobby Lobby prob. figure that’s the way sex ought to be.

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The Thought Was There

This would have been the perfect spot to embed the scene from Woody Allen’s Everything You Wanted to Know about Sex* But Were Afraid to Ask where Allen and Louise Lasser, playing a bored Italian couple, spice up their love life by engaging in public sex. The scene shows them sneaking behind a hutch in a furniture store and proceeding to rattle it as if an earthquake is rolling through.

From "Everything..."

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But, try as I might, I couldn’t find a clip of the scene. It seems every other scene is clipped on YouTube and elsewhere, but not that one. Bummer.

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Me, Lazy?

In flogging yesterday’s post on Facebook, as I generally do, I wrote:

Facebook

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Turns out I was selling myself short. I wasn’t so much lazy as flu-ridden. Yuck. What a revolting development in the middle of summer!

Anyway, that’s why today’s post is short as well.

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07/01/2014
3 Comments
Abortion, Affordable Care Act, Contraception, GMO, Green Revolution, Hobby Lobby, Labor Unions, Mike Adams, Natural News, Sara Benincasa, US Supreme Court

Hot Air

A Law Supreme

I’m very, very lucky I didn’t have internet access yesterday.

If I had, it’s a sure bet I would have written something that would have gotten me into the hottest of water with the FBI, the Secret Service, the NSA, Academi (nee Blackwater), Control, Sgt. Friday, TJ Hooker, Dirty Harry and any other law enforcement cartoon characters you can imagine. I’m hot. And if you’re not, well then, you and I have wildly divergent views on what this free society should look like.

The US Supreme Court Monday not only ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby refusing to pay for slut pills, it also further chipped away at organized labor in this holy land. Some thoughts:

  • Not only are corporations people, acc’d’g to this Court, but they are religious.
  • Justice Antonin Scalia has positioned himself as a strict constructionist ever since he came on the national scene. He’s not; he is a theocrat.
  • The five justices who voted in favor of Hobby Lobby are, natch, white men. They also were nominated by Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Anybody, therefore, who bleats that there’s no diff. between the Democrats and the Republicans is an idiot.

Conservative Justices

Boys Club

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  • Clearly, the five Republican-nominated justices cherish the right to believe in a mythical creation figure who has issued a laundry list of dos and don’ts for humanity over the right of women to control their uteri. Kids, that’s just bizarre.
  • Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the dissent for the minority. She is becoming a superstar on the interwebs now, with people posting pull quotes from her angry denunciation of the decision all over social media.
  • The Supreme Court also ruled that gov’t employees who don’t want to be members of unions don’t have to pay dues. That means those workers can benefit from collective bargaining w/o sharing the cost. And the Republicans say they’re four-square against freeloaders!
  • Justice Samuel Alito wrote that public employee unions are “lobbyists.” These Reagan/Bush/Bush dudes, my friends, are awfully confused.

In other Supreme Court news last week, the Nine ruled unanimously that municipalities cannot bar anti-abortion protestors from verbally assaulting or otherwise violating the personal space of abortion clinic clients on public sidewalks. As you know, any number of cities had instituted buffer zones to keep “pro-life” zealots away from women trying to enter the clinics. (Read Sara Benincasa’s remembrance of being so assaulted when she went to an abortion clinic some years ago.) I get the reasoning behind the decision, even if I don’t like it. So I was wondering, can atheists now stand outside churches and temples and shout “Suckers!” at worshipers trying to enter therein?

Overall, the importance of the November mid-term elections cannot be overstated. If the Senate goes GOP, we’re going to move even further toward the Radical Right than we have already..

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Choose Your Friends Carefully

In other news of late, the influx of undocumented Central American kids in this holy land has resulted in heart-wrenching pix of and stories about the young ‘uns being warehoused in cold, dirty, concrete-floor holding centers. But the self-idolators and tinfoil cap wearers who run the crunchy, conspiracy-theory laden website Natural News have gleaned an even more insidious bit of fallout from this sad state of affairs.

Mike Adams, who’s the “brain” behind Nat. News, wrote that all these dirty immigrant kids are going to pollute our population with all their yucky germs.

Here’s Adams’ headline:

Unloading disease-carrying immigrants in large US cities a ‘perfect storm’ for pandemic disease outbreak

In the body of the piece, Adams writes that one of the reasons we should fear the kids is that they haven’t been vaccinated. A practice, BTW, that Natural News has opinionated time and again is horribly dangerous to our Aryan American citizenry.

I’ve always felt the zealot natural food and anti-chemical crowd has a bit of a Perfect Race streak in it. As in, sure, the Green Revolution has fed hundreds of millions of starving souls in Africa and Asia but, golly gee, are all those saved lives worth it if we get a trace of synthetic fertilizer in our organic cookies? There are trade-offs in every decision, as any adult would acknowledge, but the hyper-natural gang is convinced that American food must be pure, pure, pure even at the cost of a potential mass starvation in India.

Immigrant Detention

Not Perfect

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Adams adds:

If infectious disease isn’t bad enough, this immigration wave also consists of “sex offenders, murder suspects and gang members….”

Old Joey Goebbels would have been proud.

BTW: Adams feels the Obama Admin. is way cool with this wave of undesirables because, “[a]fter all, these are future Democratic voters!”

Lots of natural food, sustainable agriculture, anti-Monsanto-ites seem to dig Mike Adams — who calls himself the “Health Ranger” — because, well, he and his peeps are four-square against GMOs and such.

That’s scant reason to hitch one’s wagon to a bunch of crypto-Nazis. It’d be like the vegetarians of America plastering bumper stickers of A. Hitler on their cars simply because he, too, refused to eat meat.

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07/17/2012
1 Comment
Catcher in the Rye, Contraception, Don McHan, Honky Tonk Girl, JD Salinger, Lorene Allen, Loretta Lynn, Phyllis Diller, TD Bayless, The Pill, Woody Allen

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Raised by two mothers? Wow, most of us barely survive one.” — Woody Allen

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BEAUTY

Happy birthday, Phyllis Diller. She’s 95 today.

♢

IT HASN’T CAUGHT ME YET

Today’s also the 61st anniversary of the release of the iconic book, “The Catcher in the Rye” by the reclusive JD Salinger.

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And you know what? I’ve never read it.

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LIFE’S A MOTHER

A guy was browsing through the music section at the Book Corner yesterday and came upon the Loretta Lynn book, “Honky Tonk Girl: My Life in Lyrics.”

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The words of one of her songs hit the guy so squarely between the eyes that he felt compelled to read them to me, in toto.

I’ll share them with you in a moment. First, though, it’s important to consider that Loretta Lynn gave birth to six children before she decided to hit the road as a country singer. And get this: she had four kids by the age of 19. Jesus holy Christ!

Anyway, in 1972 she recorded a song written by Lorene Allen, Don McHan, and TD Bayless that pretty much summed up her pre-career young adult life. Lynn, of course, was just about the biggest thing in country music at the time. The big boys at her record company wanted no part of the record, though. They were petrified that the pious citizenry of this holy land would string them up if they released it.

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It wasn’t until 1975 that “The Pill” was released. And the record company executives were right. So many radio stations refused to play it that the song didn’t hit the top three in the country charts as every other Loretta Lynn release did in those days.

The Book Corner browser and I thoroughly enjoyed the lyrics. For a brief few moments, the store became the site of a poetry slam. Try to picture it as you read these lyrics:

You wined me and dined me when I was your girl

Promised if I’d be your wife you’d show me the world

But all I’ve seen of this old world is a bed and a doctor bill

I’m tearing down your brooder house ’cause now I’ve got the Pill

♡

All these years I’ve stayed at home while you’ve had all your fun

And every year that’s gone by another baby’s come

There’s gonna be some changes made right here on Nursery Hill

You’ve set this chicken your last time ’cause now I’ve got the Pill

♡

This old maternity dress I’ve got is going in the garbage

The clothes I’m wearing from now on won’t take up so much yardage

Miniskirts, hotpants, and a a few little fancy frills

Yeah, I’m making up for all those years since I’ve got the Pill

♡

I’m tired of all your crwoing about how you and your hens play

While holding a couple in my arms, another’s on the way

This chicken’s done tore up her nest and I;m ready to make a deal

And you can’t afford to turn it down ’cause you know I’ve go the Pill

♡

This incubator is overused because you’ve kept it filled

The feeling good comes easy now since I’ve got the Pill

It’s getting dark it’s roosting time, tonight’s too good to be real

Aw, but Daddy don’t you worry none ’cause Mama’s got the Pill

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Can you imagine what a revelation the song was to the backwoods women of America? And the guardians of our morals again were right to be worried about the affects of something so seemingly silly as a popular song. Country doctors reported a dramatic increase in the number of women asking for birth control prescriptions after the song hit the charts.

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The worst had happened in the minds of the sacrosanct — women now felt they could control their wombs.

♢

THE PILL

Aw, hell, let’s just hear the song.

♢

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

◗ Butler Park — Messy Mania, gooey art activities for pre-schoolers, aged 2-6 with parent; 11am

◗ People’s Park — Lunch Concert Series: Pan USA, steel drum music; 11:30am

◗ KRC Catering — PoliSci Professor Marjorie Hershey speaks to the monthly meeting of the Monroe County Democrats Club; 11:45am

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Lecture, Dr. Cătălin Pavel presents “Homer’s Trojan War and the Archeological Remains of Troy”; noon-1pm

◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — “The Art of the Switchyard Park,” by Mick Renneisen; 5:30pm

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

◗ Jake’s Nightclub — Karaoke, final round; 6pm

◗ Boxcar Books — Cartoonist Steve Lafler’s Bughouse Book Tour; 7-9pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 7:30pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Blues Jam hosted by Cliff & the Guardrails; 8pm

◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — Team trivia; 8pm

◗ The Bluebird — Bloomington’s Got Talent, hosted by Leo Cook; 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

♢

04/27/2012
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Alice Roosevelt Longworth, Andrew Luck, Barack Obama, Bloomington Playwrights Project, Book Corner, Cam Newton, Chicago Cubs, Contraception, Emil Verban Society, Fox News, George Will, Homophobia, Indianapolis Colts, Ivy Tech, Leo Tolstoy, Lesbian, Mark Kruzan, Mitt Romney, Monica Crowley, NFL, O'Bannon Institute for Community Service, Pat Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Rush Limbaugh, Sam Bradford, Sandra Fluke, Soma Coffee, Susan Jones, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.” — Alice Roosevelt Longworth

♢

LUCK OF THE DRAW

This Andrew Luck fellow, who became an instant multi-millionaire in last night’s NFL draft, just might be able to run for King of Indiana in a few years if he has any kind of success at all on the football field.

He’s well-spoken and self-effacing, he has a dazzling smile, and it seems as though he’s got his feet on the ground. Hopefully, he’ll retain his positive character traits once he signs his obligatory obscenely lucrative contract with the Indianapolis Colts. Last year’s number one pick in the NFL draft, quarterback Cam Newton, inked a four-year, $22M deal with the Carolina Panthers.

The number one pick in 2010, the St Louis Rams’ Sam Bradford, scored a six-year, $78M contract but, of course, he’s white, as is Luck.

Luck-y

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Luck is 22 years old. Sure, he may seem mature beyond his years but scads of dough can tend to change any human being. I know that if I suddenly happened into tens of millions of dollars when I was 22, I probably would have become one of the world’s most unbearable people.

♢

WILL●HE●IS

One of the Boys of Soma, pistol-packin’ Pat Murphy, reports that George Will‘s appearance last night at the Ivy Tech Bloomington’s O’Bannon Institute for Community Service was eye-opening.

“He’s a smart guy,” Murphy, a dyed in the wool Dem allowed about the Republican darling. “He had some really perceptive things to say last night.”

Will

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Among other things, Will pointed out how difficult it will be for Mitt Romney to unseat Barack Obama in this fall’s presidential beauty contest. It’s a demographic thing, what with Romney expected to strike out big time with women, Latinos, and blacks.

Murphy added that Mayor Mark Kruzan asked Will if the Chicago Cubs will ever win the World Series. Will is a noted member of the Emil Verban Society, a boys club of Washington-insider Cubs fans (Ronald Reagan also was a member).

Will wouldn’t hazard a guess but did remind the crowd that the last time the Cubs won it all was two years before the death of Leo Tolstoy.

19th Century Man

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THE FOX PIGSTY

How about that blonde, Barbie Doll manqué from Fox News who tweeted the insult yesterday about the right wing’s current fave whipping girl, Sandra Fluke?

Crowley: News? Analyst?

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Fluke testified before a House Democrats caucus about the need for health insurers to cover contraception. Immediately, the anencephalics of this holy land jumped on her with both feet. Leading the bullying was Rush Limbaugh, who called her a “slut” and a “prostitute” on his nationally-broadcast radio upchuck fest.

Apparently, Fluke has announced she’s getting married. Fox News “analyst” Monica Crowley responded thusly in the Tweet-iverse:

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Knowing what we know about Fox News and the pan-troglodytes who watch it, implying that Fluke was thought to be a lesbian has to be an insult.

Problem is, Monica baby, Fluke testified about her own need for contraception. Lesbian sex does not result in pregnancy. Are we clear on that now?

♢

COLLINS WAS HUNGRY ONCE

Susan Jones, ex of the IU Enrollment Service operation, is working on a history of the Bloomington Playwrights Project.

Jones discovered recently that one of America’s hottest writers today wrote a couple of plays for the BPP back in the 1980s.

That’s right — Suzanne Collins, whose “Hunger Games” trilogy is de rigeur for literate teens (and even a lot of adults who sheepishly buy the books at the Book Corner), once was an aspiring scribe here. She earned a double major in Drama and Telecommunications from IU in 1985 and hung around town for a few years afterward.

Collins

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Sounds like a good reason to take in some BPP productions this year. Who knows which future superstar’s work you’ll be seeing?

♢

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

Friday, April 27, 2012

◗ 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, 9am-4:30pm

◗ IU Grunwald (SOFA) Gallery — MFA & BFA Thesis 3 exhibitions; through May 5th

◗ Kinsey Institute Gallery — Art exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; 1:30-5pm

◗ IU HPER — Lecture, Jonathan Jarvis, director of the National Park Service; 3:30pm

◗ Thrive Health & Well-Being Center — Opening reception, Donna Headrick Moore scanner and pinhole photo exhibit; 5-8pm

◗ Madame Walker Theatre Center — Jazz on the Avenue; 6pm

◗ The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts — Reception for Dawn Adams exhibit, “The Art of Healing”; 6pm

◗ IU Grunwald (SOFA) Gallery — Reception, MFA & BFA 3 participants; 6pm

◗ IU Cinema — “Water and Power” by Pat O’Neill; 6:30pm

◗ Patricia’s Wellness Arts Cafe & Quilter’s Comfort Teas — Poetry, “Readings for Our Earth” & open mic; 7-9pm

◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Park Jefferson, Marital Roles, The Greater Good; 7:30pm

◗ Cafe Django — Svetla Vladeva and the Eastern European Ensemble; 7:30-10pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Dicky James and the Blue Flames; 8pm

◗ IU Auditorium — Musical, “Young Frankenstein”; 8pm

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◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — Film, “The Artist”; 8 & 11pm

◗ Comedy Attic — Kumail Nanjiani; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Documentary film, “Color Me Obsessed,” on the Replacements; 8pm

◗ Max’s Place — Louis; 8pm

◗ The Bluebird — Andy Holinden; 8pm

◗ The Palace Theatre — “Songs: The Musical”; 8pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Zach Dubois; 9pm

◗ Max’s Place — Soul Kinks; 9pm

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

◗ The Bishop — Dave Walter Karaoke; 11pm

♢

03/23/2012
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American Atheists, Atheists' Woodstock, Contraception, Imagine, John Lennon, Lenny Bruce, Letters from the Earth, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, Mark Twain, Murray v. Curlett, Pope Benedict XVI, Reason Rally, Religion, Roman Catholic Church, Stand Up for Religious Freedom, US Supreme Court

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses.” — Lenny Bruce

♢

MAN WAS HIS PET, AFTER THE HOUSEFLY*

In this holy land it’s a lot easier to believe in god than it is not to.

America’s biggest holiday is Christmas.

Our coins read “In God We Trust.”

Every candidate for president must declare what a pious soul he or she is.

We say “… one nation under god…” we we pledge allegiance.

✍

Both houses of Congress begin each day’s proceedings with a benediction delivered by a professional believer.

When someone sneezes we say, “God bless you.”

When we’re annoyed we say, “For Christ’s sake!” When we’re really mad we say, “God damn it.”

When we go to war, we ask god to help us blow the brains out of enemy soldiers’ heads.

✍

In America, god is everywhere.

This weekend the putative creator of the universe will be the object of dozens, perhaps hundreds, of special assemblies.

There will be, for instance, a series of “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rallies in cities around the country. These folks believe their BFF in the sky doesn’t like sex and is miffed because employer health care plans will soon be forced to cover contraceptives.

One Way To Get Under God’s Skin

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Unindicted co-conspirator Pope Benedict XVI travels this weekend to Mexico. Monday he hops over to Cuba. He’ll draw huge throngs in both countries.

And Saturday, atheists will crowd the Mall in Washington, DC to proclaim that they have no invisible friends or protectors. Organizers hope the Reason Rally, also dubbed Woodstock for atheists, will attract some 30,000 godless souls.

When I was a kid, a woman named Madalyn Murray O’Hair made a big splash. She was America’s most well-known atheist in the 1960s. It seems her son Bill was compelled to participate in Bible readings while a student in the Baltimore City Public Schools. So she filed suit, which eventually made its way to the US Supreme Court as part of a broader case.

I was a nominal Roman Catholic at the time. My parents (Ma, mostly) still went to church and dragged me along. Ma and Dad wouldn’t drop out for another five or so years. I couldn’t drop out of the faith because I’d never had it.

However, I had some clubbish loyalty to the faithful and so felt that Madeline Murray O’Hair, who soon would found American Atheists, was a villain. She was called “America’s most hated woman.” It didn’t help that O’Hair was pretty much a lunatic.

The Most Hated Woman In America

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So even though I had no particular allegiance to any god, I was on the side of those who did. But I was a kid.

By the age of 12, I’d given up childish things — like blind loyalty — and started thinking for myself. The nuns at St. Giles school had told me god was love. They’d said I must love him.

Man, I had a tough time with that one. How do I love god? I mean, he’s this big, powerful guy who doesn’t say much and is always aggravated. In fact, he’s just like my father.

So I imagined kissing god’s cheeks profusely. See, Ma always made me kiss Dad goodnight. He’d sit there in his recliner, purportedly watching TV but actually dozing noisily. I’d have to stretch and strain to plant my tender little lips on his sandpaper face. He wouldn’t budge an inch.

“Wait’ll I Get My Hands on You!”

✍

I figured that’s the way it would be with god. I’d imagine myself up in heaven, standing on a chair on my tiptoes, raining smooches on god’s abrasive cheek. He, too, would remain impassive while I gushed over him.

By 12, that fever dream didn’t cut it anymore. I never did figure out how to love god.

I’m not going to Washington for the Atheists’ Woodstock. I’ve long believed atheism is about not being part of a team.

Christians’ll have an easier time of it at their rallies here in America, as well as in Mexico and Cuba. They can all pat each other on the back and say how great it is to be the apple of god’s eye.

✍

What are the atheists going to do? You can’t really celebrate the non-existence of something, can you?

Actually, I don’t even like the term atheist. There is, of course, the association with Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s weirdness. Then there’s the matter of identifying myself by what I’m not.

It’s like joining a club for people who’ve never murdered anyone. After introducing yourself and proclaiming you’ve never taken a life, there isn’t much else to do.

A better term might be Other — as in the only box I can honestly check on an application that asks me my religion.

I’m a devout Other.

(* Quote from Mark Twain’s “Letters from the Earth.”)

♢

IMAGINE

My second favorite Beatle.

02/23/2012
1 Comment
Andrea Balt, Bertrand Russell, Contraception, Elephant Journal, IDS, Indiana University, Joan Jett, Joy Shayne Laughter, Lita Ford, Mike Cagle, Quantum Mechanics, Richard Feynman, Soma Coffee, The Runaways, Woody Allen

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Those who, in principle, oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favor of war, pestilence, and famine as permanent features of human life.” — Bertrand Russell

♢

KINKY STUDENTS

Student academic fraud is on the upswing, according to a piece in the IDS this morning.

We’re talking cheating on a test or hiring a ringer to write a paper, that sort of thing. Some 366 cases of such enhanced achievement misconduct were adjudicated last year. This year the number of cheaters already is approaching that total, according to the article, even though the spring semester isn’t even half over.

Giraffing

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Using last year’s figure, let’s just assume the actual number of cheaters was three times the official number. That gives us a shade under 1100 future Wall Street icons…, er…, I mean, cheaters. That’s a pretty heartening number, no?

When you consider that some 95,000 aspiring scholars attended classes at the seven Indiana University campuses, you realize that only .0038 percent of students are kinky, to use an old alley cop term for lawbreakers.

“So, Cheating On Your Semester Finals, Eh?”

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Not bad, eh? The pressure on college students to succeed, especially in this Great Recession era, is enormous. When only one in approximately 261 students spits on the academic code, in my hypothetical scenario, I think we can safely say IU crammers by and large are honest souls.

The whole subject reminds me of that great Woody Allen line: “I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me.”

♢

PRIVATES PARTY

Miles Craig, Crystal Johnson, and Mike Cagle all posted this funny pic on their Facebook pages.

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If the GOP anti-sex league wasn’t so scary, it’d be funny.

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WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS WOMAN

Bloomington author Joy Shayne Laughter paid her respects at Soma Coffee‘s unofficial Big Mike Table this morning when she came in for her daily IV drip. Joy was all agog over an essay she read by a writer named Andrea Balt on the web journal Elephant.

Balt tries to explain women. Don’t get me wrong, I love Joy to pieces, but now, after reading the essay, I’m more confused than ever about those folks who possess different plumbing than I do.

Then again, perhaps my confusion means I really get it now.

Women are like quantum mechanics. As Richard Feynman reportedly said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics.”

Particle Paths Illustrating Quantum Mechanics Probabilities

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SCHOOL DAYS

Was there ever a cooler girl group than the Runaways?

Joan Jett and Lita Ford are underappreciated among rock ‘n roll experts only because they carried the wrong set of chromosomes in their cells.

And, by the way, doesn’t it look as though Joan Jett is chewing gum in this video? Maybe it’s my imagination, but if she is, it’s the perfect touch.

♢

02/14/2012
3 Comments
Alfred Lawson, Apple, BuzzFeed, China, College of Lawsonomy, Contraception, Crossword Puzzles, Elliot Spitzer, Facebook, iPad, Louis CK, Love, Mary Richards, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Rick Warren, Rita Rudner, Stephen Breyer, Ted Baxter, The Big Think, Valentine's Day

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Before I met my husband, I’d never fallen in love. I’d stepped in it a few times.” — Rita Rudner

♢

FUNNY HOW?

Funny world, isn’t it?

Funny as in Louis CK winning a Grammy award for his “Hilarious” album/DVD/thing.

Funny as in Rick Warren promising to go to jail over the Obama administration’s new health care/contraception ruling.

Jailbird?

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Funny as in me pasting about a hundred and sixty seven Facebook posts in yesterday’s Pencil, congratulating FB-ers on their brilliant thoughts and then scrolling through the social medium today and seeing that everybody’s back to being boring again.

Funny as in US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and his wife being robbed at machete-point while on vacation in Nevis.

Funny as in Apple possibly being legally estopped from using its iPad brand in China because some little company had trademarked the name there more than a decade ago.

Estop It!

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Funny that I used a form of the word estop in the above item — proof that my crossword puzzle addiction has taken over my life.

Funny as in this stupid winter coming back to South Central Indiana.

Funny as in disgraced former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer defining love for Valentine’s Day on the Big Think.

Can This Be Love?

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Funny as in Alfred Lawson (the founder of the College of Lawsonomy) describing his own birth as “the most momentous occurrence since the birth of mankind.”

Funny as in the dearth of imagination in Hollywood, illustrated by the fact that at least 50 film sequels or remakes are being planned at this moment — they include:

  • A “Wizard of Oz” prequel
  • A third “Iron Man”
  • A sixth “The Fast and the Furious”
  • Another “Superman”
  • “Zoolander” again
  • “Dirty Dancing” redux
  • More “Smurfs”
  • The hundredth “Austin Powers”
  • The thousandth “Pirates of the Caribbean”
  • The millionth “Godzilla”
  • The billionth “Scarface”
  • The trillionth “Terminator”

They give out awards for this stuff?

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LOVE IS ALL AROUND

Valentine’s Day. Being a professional contrarian, I’m morally obligated to sneer at the whole deal.

The Loved One reminded me yesterday that the first VD we spent together (we’d been seeing each other for some five and a half months at the time), I made no mention of the February 14th shebang but instead had flowers sent to her office on the 15th.

She found the off-day gesture charming. Sort of. I think.

Anyway, we’re being flooded with VD images today so I thought I’d get into the mood, just to be a sport.

BuzzFeed lists eleven trees that look like hearts.

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And getting into the more pragmatic spirit of the day, BuzzFeed also lists seven trees that look like vaginas.

Pierced

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Like I said; funny world, no?

♢

LOVE IS ALL AROUND II

I mean, honestly, which American fictional figure represents Valentine’s Day more than Mary Richards?

You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you were dating her and ignored Valentine’s Day, you would soon be, well, not dating her.

The opening of the “Mary Tyler Moore Show” is a piece of cultural iconography. From her big, floppy bellbottoms to her accidentally crushing Ted Baxter‘s hat, Mary Richards represents those first, tentative, sometimes stumbling steps of women into the workplace in the early 1970s.

And when Mary tosses her tam into the air on a crowded downtown Minneapolis street corner as an old-fashioned babushka’d lady looks on in probable disapproval, you know you’re seeing America change right before your eyes.

♢

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