Category Archives: Dick Cheney

Hot Air

A Perfect Corporate World — Without People

Here’s a little something I heard on American Public Media’s Marketplace program yesterday evening that burned my generously-proportioned derriere.

Halliburton, the Dick Cheney-affiliated oil services and war profiteering outfit, has lost scads of dough of late. I don’t know precisely why — nor do I care. Perhaps Satan has been too busy elsewhere (Ukraine? Northeast Nigeria? Chicago’s secret Black Site?) and has been lax in manipulating earthly events to his fave multi-national corp.’s advantage.

Satan

Too Busy For Halliburton?

Anyway, Helliburt…, er, Halliburton lost a half a billion bucks in its most recent fiscal quarter. Yeesh! Half a bill, babies! Think of the things actual human beings could do with scratch like that. Of course, you’d think investors would be scared off by this news. After all, isn’t it the job of investors to, y’know, make money?

Mirabile dictu, as Kai Ryssdal reported, shares of H. were up yesterday. Up! They went from 46.80 at the opening bell to 48.87 a little over an hour later. What in the hell ever that means. I only know enough to understand that share prices going up causes tumescence in all those ADHD trader characters.

Ryssdal sez a significant reason H-burton’s shares have gone up is that the co. laid off some 9,000 human beings this past quarter.

Methinks we’re entering a bizarro world here. Taking a cue from Right Wingers whose hatred of one Barack Hussein Obama trumps all other considerations, big-money guys seem to be flocking around a single knee-jerk issue to the exclusion of any previously predominant heeds. The Greed Set used to be singularly focused on making dough. Now, their loathing of labor has forced money-making to take a back seat. It’s more important to slice jobs than to see their bread grow. And, if you hate labor, aren’t you really hating humanity?

No Humans

As if we needed any more proof that Free Marketeers and unfettered capitalists despise people.

Alyce’s Animals

Alyce Miller teaches creative writing at Indiana University. She’s also a Flannery O’Connor Award-winning fiction writer.

Her novel and short stories are about people, natch, but I get the feeling she’s as sweet on critters as she is on her species-mates. She’s an outspoken critic of Bloomington’s deer kill plan. She’s big on veganism as well.

To that end, she highly recommends the documentary Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret.

Cowspiracy

“Veganism is still a bad word,” Miller says, “even here in ‘progressive’ Bloomington, but if more people ate a broad-based vegan diet, or at least reduced their meat and dairy consumption, we’d do the planet a huge favor.”

Fair enough. I agree, in large part, because the beef industry in this holy land has done everything it could to convince us that an exclusive diet of steaks and roasts is the greatest thing since sliced bread (and, BTW, hold that bread and munch instead on a hamburger patty). Not only that but it takes some 21 pounds of grain to produce a single pound of cattle protein. In other words, that Big Mac you’re eating came about largely through clear-cutting enough land to grow the corn to feed the cow to allow McDonald’s to pay its employees a substandard living wage.

Our beef (and other meats) addiction means the livestock industry has pretty much taken over the planet. Acc’d’g to the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, livestock grazing takes up 26 percent of the globe’s surface. A third of the world’s agricultural land is given over to producing livestock feed. In Brazil, where Amazon rainforest destruction has reached crisis proportions, some 70 percent of the cleared jungle is now grazing land with the vast majority of the rest devoted to growing feed for the animals.

Amazon Deforestation

Amazon Deforestation

[Photo: Alberto César/Greenpeace]

I’m not now nor do I plan ever to become a vegetarian. I love my homemade Italian meatballs too much. And a day without cheese is wasted as far as I’m concerned. Still, I’ve drastically cut my meat intake since becoming an adult. My mother served meat almost every single day of the year, save Fridays (we were Catholics) and those odd days when we had chicken or pork. At the time, eating scads of red meat was seen as the key to health — a conceit propagated by the red meat racket.

We know better now. We’re omnivores so the idea that eating meat is somehow “not right” doesn’t wash but to paraphrase a line from Groucho Marx, I like my bottom round roast but I take it out of my mouth once in a while.

Cowspiracy will be shown tonight, 6:30pm, at the Monroe County Public Library. To be sure, the auditorium will be filled with vegetarians and vegans. That choir doesn’t need to be preached to. But we meat-eaters can gain a lot from viewing the doc.

Homan In A Truck

Allison Homan had a dream. Any day now she’ll wake up and find that’s it’s come true.

She’s building a home in a truck. It’s a fairly new hot thing these days. It’s called box-trucking. The 29-year-old singer/barista/social mutineer who grew up in New Albany, Indiana, just across the Ohio River from Louisville, revels in her non-compliance with expectations.

Homan

Allison Homan

And few things on this mad planet are more non-compliant that wanting to live in an old work truck for a laminated top company. But that’s what Homan wants and with drips and drabs of help, she’s building her palace in just such a vehicle. With her own hands. And lots of borrowed power tools.

Homan, who lives in Bloomington now, publishes a blog on which she has documented the arduous process of turning a truck into a home. Here’s a taste from a video she made last fall:

These dames, man, they can do anything!

Your Daily Hot Air

Just Asking For It

Let’s start with some fun. Here’s yesterday’s headline in the Daily Beast on Anthony Weiner’s decision not to withdraw from the New York City mayoral race:

Daily Beast

I mean, honestly, what do you expect a headline writer to do?

Wilde, Man

Here’s a timely quote from Oscar Wilde:

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

Wilde

O. Wilde

Dick’s Boys Will Be Boys

Did it slip past you that Halliburton, former Veep Dick Cheney’s personal ATM, admitted to destroying evidence relating to the Gulf Oil Spill?

Probably.

Deepwater Horizon Explosion

Deepwater Horizon Burning

That’s because the corporate media was too busy making dick jokes at Anthony Weiner’s expense while simultaneously going gaga over that little brat who was born in England this week.

Halliburton was the cement contractor for the Macondo Prospect well, operated by Brit oil giant BP. The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig positioned over the well exploded and sank in April, 2010, killing 11 workers and flooding the Gulf of Mexico with some 210 million gallons of crude oil.

Halliburton and BP have been blaming each other for the spill for the past three years. One of the charges Halliburton has made against BP is that the oil company did not follow the contractor’s safety recommendations.

Gulf Oil Spill

Gulf Water?

This gets a little sticky, so follow me here. Halliburton had recommended that BP use 21 metal stabilizer rings to secure the hole in the ground the company had drilled. BP decided to use only six. In the weeks after the explosion. Halliburton ran a couple of 3-D computer simulations using models for both the 21- and the six-ring set-ups. The simulations found that the extra stabilizer rings likely wouldn’t have prevented the disaster.

Uh-oh for Halliburton. IF BP’s decision to go with six rather than 21 rings didn’t make any difference in the outcome, that means Halliburton might be open to some other liability in the mishap.

Now, if you or I destroy evidence in a civil or criminal trial, say your husband stole a loaf of bread and you flush the wrapper down the toilet before the SWAT team arrives, you’re gonna be spending some serious slammer time for your efforts.

The US Department of Justice, which is handling the Gulf Spill case, issued a press release Thursday crowing about how it got Halliburton to admit to doing the nasty and adding, solemnly, that Cheney’s cash cow is about to get its ass whupped.

Cheney

“Oh, Uh, I ‘Quit’ Halliburton Long Ago.”

So, how’s Halliburton going to suffer for being such a brazen evidence destroyer? The DoJ is fining the company a grand total of $200,000.

Two hundred Gs. Jeez.

According to the US Census Bureau, the average home in this holy land in the year of Our Lord, 2010, was worth $272,900. That means all Halliburton has to do is fork over the deed to some modest ranch house in a so-so neighborhood and by doing so, its debt to society will be paid in full.

Huzzah.

Either that or Dick Cheney and a couple of other Halliburton capos can look for loose change under the sofa cushions in their offices and come up with the fine.

You think Halliburton is weeping and gnashing its teeth over this? Hah! Halliburton flacks Kelly Youngblood and Beverly Blohm can hardly stop themselves from nominating their overlords for the Nobel Peace Prize. They write in the company’s official press release on the agreement: “The Department of Justice acknowledged the company’s significant and valuable cooperation during the course of the investigation….”

Man, I hope Halliburton is paying those PR-meisters some good coin, the better to make up for the eternity in hell to which they’ve condemned themselves.

As for the former Vice President of the United States, it pays to be a Dick.

Bombs Bursting In Air

This is a banner day in the history of warfare. If blood and guts is your thing, you’re likely waving your flag and inviting all the neighbors over for a cookout.

On this day in the 20th Century alone, a number of big cheeses ordered their little curds to go out and blow the brains out of the enemy before the good old vice versa. Dig:

July 28, 1914: Austria-Hungary, bummed because its archduke was whacked a month before in the streets of Sarajevo, declared war on Serbia. See, Serbia wasn’t sufficiently apologetic for one of its wild-eyed Black-Handers gunning down the Aus-Hun big shot so all the nations of Europe decided to fight each other. Makes sense, no? Total killed: 16 million; wounded: 20 million.

WWI

“Apologize, You Bastards!”

July 28, 1942: Soviet strongman Joseph Stalin issued orders that commanders who retreat or soldiers who leave their positions are to be shot. He played this tough guy card because Hitler’s war machine was rolling through Mother Russia. Total killed in the German/Russian theater: approximately 34 million soldiers and civilians.

July 28, 1943: The biggest night of bombing in the British and American air forces’ Operation Gomorrah, designed to destroy shipyards, U-boat pens, oil refineries, and a major dynamite factory in and around Hamburg, Germany. The planners did not anticipate that concentrated bombing combined with hot, dry conditions in the city that summer would create a something called a firestorm. A virtual tornado of fire, estimated to be 1500 feet high, destroyed the city. Total killed: 42,600; total injured: 37,000. All casualties were civilian.

Hamburg

Hamburg Hell

July 28, 1965: President Lyndon B. Johnson nearly doubles the number of ground soldiers in Vietnam as the American involvement in Southeast Asia becomes serious. Total killed in Vietnam during the American involvement there: approximately 600,000 soldiers and civilians; total wounded 1.2 million.

I’ve said this before and it bears repeating: We are a fascinating species.

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.

Roswell Headline

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.)

Roswell

Joyrider

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/JFK

LBJ And The Man He Whacked

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 Kennedy

Jackie And The Pink Suit

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.

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.

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Sunday II

THE QUOTE

“Never follow the crowd.” — Bernard Baruch

Baruch

DIG THE NIGHT SKY IN 2013

This, from the Science Lama:

13 Must See Stargazing Events for 2013

[EP ED: Events and explanations reproduced verbatim unless otherwise noted.]

1) January 21 — Very Close Moon/Jupiter Conjunction

A waxing gibbous moon (78% illuminated) will pass within less than a degree to the south of Jupiter high in the evening sky. Your closed fist held out at arms length covers 10 degrees. These two won’t get that close again until 2026.

2) February 2-23 — Best Evening View of Mercury

The planet Mercury will be far enough away from the glare of the Sun to be visible in the Western sky after sunset. It will be at its brightest on the 16th and dim quickly afterwards. On the 8th it will skim by the much dimmer planet Mars by about 0.4 degrees.

3) March 10-24 — Comet PANSTARRS at its best

First discovered in 2011, this comet should be coming back around for about 2 weeks. It will be visible low in the northwest sky after sunset. Here are some sources predicting what the comets may look like in the sky.

Image through Faulkes Telescope South

Comet PANSTARRS, Observed August 9, 2012

4) April 25 — Partial Lunar Eclipse

[Not visible here in the Midwest, so forget it.]

5) May 9 — Annular Eclipse of the Sun (“Ring of Fire” Eclipse)

[See above.]

6) May 24-30 — Dance of the Planets

Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will seemingly dance between each other in the twilight sky just after sunset as they will change their positions from one evening to the next. Venus will be the brightest of all, six times brighter than Jupiter.

7) June 23 — Biggest Full Moon of 2013

It will be the biggest full moon because the moon will be the closest to the Earth at this time making it a ‘supermoon’ and the tides will be affected as well creating exceptionally high and low tides for the next few days.

"Supermoon," March 19, 2011

The Supermoon Will Eat The Earth!

8) August 12 — Perseid Meteor Shower

One of the best and most reliable meteor showers of the year producing upwards of 90 meteors per hour provided the sky is dark. This year the moon won’t be in the way as much as it will set during the evening leaving the rest of the night dark. Here is a useful dark-sky finder tool. – http://bit.ly/UdcDUY

9) October 18 — Penumbral Eclipse of the Moon

[See comments for items 4 & 5.]

10) November 3 — Hybrid Eclipse of the Sun

[See above.]

11) Mid-November through December — Comet ISON

The second comet this year, ISON, could potentially be visible in broad daylight as it reaches its closest point to the Sun. It will reach that point on November 28 and it is close enough to the Sun to be categorized as a ‘Sungrazer’. Afterwards it will travel towards Earth (passing by within 40 million miles) a month later.

12) All of December — Dazzling Venus

The brightest planet of them all will shine a few hours after sundown in the Southwestern sky and for about 1.5 hours approaching New Years Eve. Around December 5th, a crescent moon will pass above the planet and the next night Venus will be at its brightest and won’t be again until 2021.

Moon & Venus

The Crescent Moon & Venus

13) December 13-14 — Geminid Meteor Shower

This is another great (if not the best) annual meteor shower. This year put on a show at about 120 meteors per hour and in 2013 it won’t be much different so expect another fantastic show. However, the moon – as it is a few days before full phase – will be in the way for most of the night obscuring some of the fainter meteors. You might have to stay up in the early morning hours (4am) to catch the all the meteors it has to offer.

SCIENCE VS. FEAR

I’m gonna make enemies here again.

No, no, I don’t mean the right-wing-nuts whom I skewer on a regular basis. As far as I know, none of them visit this communications colossus anyway. (BTW: That doesn’t mean there are no Republicans among our loyal readership — there’s a world of diff between good, solid GOP-ers and the too numerous loons who have been trying to hijack the party in the last half century.)

Scene from "Hogan's Heroes"

“We Must Take Over The Party.”

I suppose I mean — Gulp! Dare I say it? — the left-wing-nuts.

Yes, I admit it, there are those among my brethren and sisteren who are just as paranoiac, just as reactionary, and just as full of crap as those on the dark side of the political spectrum.

Matt Taibbi has a great account of the lunacies on both sides of the aisle in his 2008 book, “The Great Derangement.” In it, he compares and contrasts the right-wing whack-jobs of the evangelical/charismatic Rev. John Hagee’s ovine congregation and the left-wing subculture of 9/11 “Truthers” who live on the interwebs and in their own delusional world.

One group staunchly believes, in the face of virtually all expert, scientific evidence, that someone — probably Dick Cheney in overalls and a disguise — somehow planted bombs within the various buildings that collapsed following the 9/11 attacks.

The other group — again, at odds with the scientific community — is certain that climate change is a worldwide hoax.

Taibbi concludes that there’s next to nothing to distinguish between the two, save for their haircuts, god-loyalties, and eating habits.

Now, I’ve harped on this before and here I am, at it again. But a certain phenomenon seems to be growing bigger by the day. The anti-GMO movement, especially here in Bloomington, one of the capitals of Foodfetishstan, is gaining currency and popularity.

To hear some folks talk about it, one might think even looking at a food product containing a genetically modified organism is more dangerous than having a ton of Tarot cards fall on your head.

At first glance, their argument is seductive. Monsanto Company is the acknowledged worldwide leader in GMO research and development. Nobody’s ever mistaken Monsanto for for a corporate teddy bear. The company has attempted to corner patents on common livestock breeding techniques. It has persecuted farmers for seed-saving. It exploits the legal justice system to bully critics and competitors.

Pig

Monsanto Wants You To Know: It Invented The Pig

It is the bête noire of the agribusiness universe.

Ergo, if Monsanto does it, it is by definition vile.

Which sounds to me like the commonest logical fallacy employed by the right.

I’ve argued in these precincts in the past that the preponderance of expert, scientific opinion holds that there is little evidence that GMOs are dangerous. This is not to say we might discover some unintended consequences of the proliferation of the little mutants in years to come.

Hell, who in 1910 would have foreseen that the automobile would actually change the planet’s weather?

If we outlaw everything that just might be problematic at some time in the fuzzy future, the only legal option left would be for us to sit cross-legged in a field and hope nutrients enter our bodies through the pores in our skin.

Every invention poses risk. In the 1930s and ’40s, the technogeeks of the day saw television as the greatest tool for mass education ever conceived. Who knew TV would have given us the Kardashians? But even before TV became a fixture in every living room, people like George Orwell imagined it as a hammer in the fists of tyrants.

And, I suppose, some modern-day novelist might pen a bestseller entitled “Twenty Eighty Four” in which GMO monsters seize the White House.

That doesn’t mean it’ll actually happen.

That said, all we can go on is the consensus opinion of scientists. I mean, that’s the criterion we’re using to try to convince the ostriches of the right that Homo Sapiens sapiens has caused climate change, isn’t it?

That’s why a recent speech by one of Europe’s top anti-GMO activists, Mark Lynas, is big news.

As far back as the mid-1990s, Lynas was leading the charge against test-tube agriculture and Frankenfoods. Many European nations are in the vanguard of the GMO=disaster school of thought, some banning their use in food outright, thanks in large part to Lynas’ efforts.

Lynas spoke at the Oxford Farming Conference three days ago and made a starling admission.

“As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely,” he said.

He had been, he says, dead wrong about GMOs.

He explained to the conference how this metamorphosis took place. “…[T]he answer is very simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.”

Lynas admitted to having sabotaged clinical trials of experimental GMO crops. He confessed, “… I had done no academic research on the topic, and had a pretty limited understanding. I don’t think I ever read a peer-reviewed paper on biotechnology or plant science….”

Now, Lynas says, the growth of the Earth’s population makes it imperative we utilize biotechnology to produce more food. He believes the current rage for “natural” agriculture and micro-farms, if unchecked, could lead to starvation for millions.

In other words, he had been a member of  a crowd that some two decades ago began to convince itself that GMOs are evil. And now he is quitting.

There’s a madness, Scottish journalist and author Charles Mackay once opined, in crowds.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in.” — George McGovern

THE LOSER WINS

Today may well be George McGovern’s last on Earth.

McGovern did a lot of things in his long public and political life, but the one thing he’ll be remembered for is getting whomped in 1972 by the only president in US history to resign in disgrace.

The senator from South Dakota lost to the unindicted co-conspirator by a margin of 60.7 percent to 37.5 percent.

Richard M. Nixon garnered 18 million more votes than McGovern that sad November day. The incumbent president carried 49 of the 50 states. McGovern couldn’t even carry his own state. He did beat Nixon in Massachusetts but, then as now, everybody knew that Massachusetts is not really, y’know, American.

Nixon Triumphant

Nixon’s two biggest promises to the American electorate the year he ran for his first term were to bring a divided nation together and end the War in Vietnam. He failed to accomplish either goal by the ’72 election.

Yet the thoughtful residents of this holy land were determined to let him keep his job.

But Nixon was a troubled man. A man who battled inner demons night and day. A man whose damaged psyche impelled him to lie, cheat, steal, slander, sabotage, and otherwise toy with the political process in a way the country had never seen, nor has it seen since.

Here’s the definitive Nixon: After triumphing in the third greatest landslide in American history, he sent a memo to his adviser, speechwriter, and pet rat, Pat Buchanan. It read:

The opposition line will be:

1. McGovern’s mistakes lost it and not his views and not RN’s strength.

2. The low vote proves no one liked either candidate.

3. RN let down his party.

We’re In Real Trouble Now, Pat — We Won Big

A man who’d lost so dramatically to such an undiagnosed paranoiac might be forgiven for feeling sorry for himself. McGovern and his wife Eleanor were devastated by the campaign and the loss. They mulled moving to England. He admitted to harboring feelings of bitterness and self-pity.

He bounced back emotionally, though, and started giving self deprecating speeches about the ’72 election. At one he said, “For many years, I wanted to run for the presidency in the worst possible way. And last year I sure did.”

McGovern even considered running for president again in 1976 but Democratic party big shots sat him down and told him not to waste his time or theirs. It wasn’t until the Reagan Revolution swept America in 1980 that McGovern was finally ousted from his Senate seat.

In his later years, McGovern worked tirelessly to battle world hunger. He even ran his own bookstore for a couple of years. When George W. Bush was beating the drums for war with Iraq, McGovern called for peace. After the war started, he called for a pullout. After five years of war, he called for Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney to be impeached.

\

McGovern Being Awarded The Presidential Medal Of Freedom

Sadly, the loss to Nixon wasn’t the greatest tragedy of McGovern’s life. His daughter Terry was an alcoholic and homeless. She died of hypothermia after passing out in a snow bank in 1994. His son Steven also died of alcoholism just three months ago.

McGovern became a laughingstock in this nation that reveres winners. Yet he dedicated much of his life to helping tens of millions  of people around the globe eat.

He is a loser?

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

Thursday, October 18th, 2012

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

STUDIO TOUR ◗ Brown County, various locationsThe Backroads of Brown County Studio Tour, free, self-guided tour of 16 local artists’ & craftspersons’ studios; 10am-5pm, through October

LECTURE ◗ IU Lilly Library — “The Destruction and Preservation of Medieval Documents: A Set of Catalan Examples,” Presented by Paul H. Freeman of Yale University; 4-6pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Poynter Center — “Balancing Ethics and Access: Over-the-Counter HIV Testing,” Presented by Beth Meyerson; 4pm

ART & LECTURE ◗ IU Woodburn HallE.M. Saniga talks about his works in the “Small Is Big” exhibit; 5pm

BENEFIT ◗ Upland Brewing Company5th Annual Local Grower’s Guild Harvest Dinner; 6pm

MUSIC ◗ Malibu GrillSteve Johnson Trio; 6-9pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s PubBuilt for Comfort; 6:30pm

DEBATE ◗ IU AuditoriumRobert Gibbs & Karl Rove; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford HallOctubafest, Daniel Perantoni, director; 7pm

DISCUSSION ◗ IU Latino Cultural Center — “¿Queer y que?: Questions for Queer Latinidad,” Presented by Jeannette Johnson-Licón; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, NashvilleShelf Life; 7-9pm

OPERA ◗ IU Musical Arts Center — “The Merry Widow“; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s PlaceTilford Sellers & The Wagon Burners; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford HallClarinet Studio Recital; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Musical Arts Center, Recital HallArtist Diploma Recital, Hyung You on piano; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ The BluebirdPhunk Nasty; 9pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bishop3rd Eye Visionaries, L-ion, Louis Logic, Ceschi; 9:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s PlaceAdam Lee & Dead Horse Sound Company; 10pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • Threads of Love: Baby Carriers from China’s Minority Nationalities“; through December 23rd
  • Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st
  • Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • Ab-Fab — Extreme Quilting,” by Sandy Hill; October 5th through October 27th
  • Street View — Bloomington Scenes,” by Tom Rhea; October 5th through October 27th
  • From the Heartwoods,” by James Alexander Thom; October 5th through October 27th
  • The Spaces in Between,” by Ellen Starr Lyon; October 5th through October 27th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald GalleryExhibit:

  • Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf; through November 16th
  • Small Is Big; Through November 16th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibits:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits:

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

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly LibraryExhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s OnExhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibits:

  • Doctors & Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical Professions
  • What Is Your Quilting Story?
  • Garden Glamour: Floral Fashion Frenzy
  • Bloomington Then & Now
  • World War II Uniforms
  • Limestone Industry in Monroe County

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“I can’t understand looking forward to seeing a commercial.” — Paula Poundstone

A NATION OF AD PIMPS

A word of explanation about the quote above. Poundstone on this morning’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” was talking about how a grocery checkout clerk was shocked that she had neither watched the Super Bowl nor cared a bit about the telecast. “Not even the commercials?” the clerk gasped.

Poundstone later concluded, “No wonder we’re going downhill.”

Guess what — she’s freakin’ right!

LAND OF THE FREE(-ISH)

Like many Americans, I complain a lot about many things.

Admittedly, there’s much to complain about and I needn’t run down that list here for the three thousandth time. If you’ve been reading these screeds, you know where I stand on everything from “Two and a Half Men” to the corporatization of this holy land.

The Golden Arches-Spangled Banner

We’re a complaining bunch, we Americans. Louis CK does a terrific bit about how impatient and demanding we are. He talks about a guy saying he hates — hates — Verizon because a couple of his calls had been dropped. He refers to a woman saying she was once forced to sit in an airplane on a runway for 40 minutes before it took off, and described it as the worst day of her life.

Louis points out, correctly, that both cell phone technology and human flight are virtual miracles that we should be amazed to partake of. He challenges the person who hates Verizon to create his own cell phone network and see how close he can come to perfection in its operation. Then he riffs on the woman, saying the airplane, of course, did take off and she was sitting in a chair in the sky like the Greek gods did, moving from New York to Los Angeles in a matter of hours, a trip that at one time took years.

High Above Omaha

We do forget what a special time we live in, especially in this very, very privileged nation.

Even in the wake of the Great Recession, we have plenty to eat, we have cars, we have warm homes, we have cable, and, yes, we have cell phones.

The latest estimate by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization holds that in 2010, 925 million people were hungry in the world. That’s a shade below one of every seven human beings alive.

Even in these hard times, we’re doing pretty well here.

So, I figured I’d say something positive today.

I woke up in the middle of the night Wednesday. I couldn’t get back to sleep and yet I was too tired to read, so I clicked on Netflix to watch a movie. I selected something called “Death of a President,” a pseudo-documentary that was made in 2006.

The movie deals with a trip of then-President George W. Bush to Chicago to deliver a speech to a gathering of big shot business leaders. As he walks out of the Sheraton Hotel after the speech, he is shot twice in the chest by an unknown gunman. He is rushed to the hospital where he dies after several hours of surgery.

The FBI and the Chicago police beat the bushes to to find the shooter and after a couple of weeks settle on a Syrian-born, nationalized American citizen.

This fellow, Jamal Abu Zikri, once traveled back to the Middle East to study Islam at an ill-defined camp which turned out to be an al Qaeda training center. He was threatened with death if he attempted to leave the camp but eventually found a way to escape and returned to his home and wife in Chicago.

In the hysteria following the assassination, authorities cobble together some iffy evidence and, depending mainly on Zikri’s supposed connection to al Qaeda, get him convicted of the crime. In the meantime, new President Dick Cheney pushes through a third Patriot Act that allows the government even greater latitude in spying on and detaining suspected terrorists. Cheney also pushes the CIA hard to find connections between the Syrian government and the assassination.

I’m not telegraphing the ending by saying doubt is cast on everybody’s motives.

The movie is more about emotionalism, fear, rage, prejudice, xenophobia, vengeance, jingoism, radical hyperbole, and, essentially, every destructive trait that exists today in these Great United States, Inc. than the actual act of killing the president.

These destructive traits threaten to grow exponentially until they suffocate us.

“Death of a President” is not flattering to us. The US Chamber of Congress did not push it for an Oscar.

Still it ran in theaters here. And it’s a standard offering on such an innocuous service as Netflix.

That says a lot about America — maybe as much as “Two and a Half Men” and the corporatization of this holy land do.

I refer back to Louis CK who cracks that people in certain other nations wake up some mornings and say “Uh oh, today’s the day we get our heads cut off.”

Can you imagine movies depicting the killings of Hu Jintao, Manmohan Singh, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Dilma Rousseff, Yousaf Gillani, Vladimir Putin, Sheikh Hasina, and Yoshihiko Noda?

“Nyet.”

They are the bosses of the ten most populated nations on Earth, minus the United States. The people they boss constitute fully 53 percent of the people on this planet.

These 3.7 billion people, I suspect, would not be permitted to view a movie of such an uncomplimentary nature, much less one that allows the possibility that any of those nine dear leaders could be offed.

And keep in mind I haven’t included several billion other souls who live under a rogue’s gallery of minor despots, tyrants, and sadists.

I don’t like where we’re headed in these United States. I also know we still have a hell of a lot of freedom and latitude.

It’s worth remembering that now and then.

THE ART OF THE MICROSCOPE

Brain scientist Alex Straiker’s microscopy-based artwork will be on display in March at Finch’s Brasserie here in Bloomington. He’ll share the stage (or, more accurately, the easel) with award-winning botanical microscopist Jessica Lucas.

Straiker studies the effects of cannabinoids on the brain at Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Lucas is a researcher and outreach educator in the Shaw Lab at IU’s Biology Department.

Jessica Lucas’s Image Of A Fast-Growing Seedling

Alex and his lab-mates treat mice to mega-doses of THC and then check their brain structures to determine, among other things, why they crave White Castle sliders for hours afterward.

Straiker’s striking images have appeared on this site several times already in our short history. Watch this space to find out the date of the opening reception for his show.

JAZZ TIMES

Tune in to WFIU Monday afternoon for David Brent Johnson‘s “Just You and Me” daily jazz show.

DBJ And His Special Gal

DBJ tells me he plans to feature the jazz Grammy award winners Monday. The Grammy awards will be presented Sunday night in New York.

“Just You and Me” begins at 3:30 and runs for an hour and a half. It’s a good bet DBJ will be spinning loads of Roseanna Vitro and Kurt Elling.

The Pencil Today:

SHRIEKS AND GROANS

“I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot, nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded, who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell.” — William Tecumseh Sherman, US Army general.

THE END OF… SOMETHING

The United States of America is now, officially, no longer engaged in hostilities in Iraq.

It would have been nice to say the war is over.

But Congress had never declared our little affair in Iraq to be a war.

So I don’t know what it was. Nor do I as yet know why this holy land invaded that country.

Something happened for some reason. Whatever it was — and why it was — resulted in these scenes shot by Carolyn Cole for the Los Angeles Times.

It is my duty as a writer, journalist, and essayist to inform the living people in the photos above that what they’ve experienced was not war.

I suspect they’d say it was hell.

OBAMA AND CHENEY FIND COMMON GROUND, WILL WORK TOGETHER

Scrolling through Facebook yesterday I learned that both President Barack Obama and former Vice President Dick Cheney are Nazis.

Apparently, the party of Hitler has become very broadminded.

Working Together: Blacks And Whites, Democrats And Republicans

It also must espouse something all right-thinking Americans want — a good productive bipartisan sense of cooperation among our nationally elected officials.

Just goes to show that redemption is possible no matter how heinous a person or group has been in the past. Who knows? Maybe, say, Donald Trump will experience an epiphany and begin to work tirelessly on behalf of the poor and the sick.

“I Want To Help All My Less Fortunate Brothers And Sisters!”

Or North Korean strongman Kim Jong-il may call for world peace.

Anything can happen if both Obama and Cheney have been welcomed into the ranks of the Nazis.

Either that or the respective Facebook posters are full of horseshit.

THE MORE TRUTHS, THE MERRIER

Adolf Hitler lives on as a cherished symbol — not of brutality, racism, genocide, and tyranny, but as the poster boy for whoever you happen to disagree with.

You see, breathless exaggeration is the semi-official national language of the 21st Century.

Here’s an example. Millworkers, stonecutters, and machinists have been on strike against Indiana Limestone Company in Oolitic for a month tomorrow. Early in the morning on December 2, a non-striking employee driving a pickup truck drove into the picket line at the entrance to the facility.

WTIU Report

Upon first hearing sketchy details of the incident, a reasonable soul might wonder, Had a hired thug been ordered to mow down strikers with his pickup truck? Was he trying only to intimidate them? Or had it even been an honest accident?

And how about this? The pavement outside Indiana Limestone was either littered with crushed bodies of victims or one or two guys got bruised up a bit.

Let’s go to two different information sources to learn the truth.

The incident was reported shortly after noon Friday on the WISH-TV website. “A picketer was struck by a vehicle…,” the report began. It went on to say, “The incident happened around 6:30 am Friday and sent the picketer via ambulance to IU Health Bedford Hospital. He was treated and released.”

Phew! That was a close one. Thank heavens it was no tragedy.

Right?

No so fast.

Here’s the scoop from a press release issued by Millworkers Local 8093 Tuesday: “… Union members… were peacefully picketing… when company thugs savagely attacked them, swerving a truck into their picket lines at a high rate of speed, hitting several of the strikers and sending one… to the hospital…. [The picketer] is still undergoing medical treatment and it is not known if he will fully recover from the injuries he sustained in the attack.”

Yeesh.

Labor Violence

Somebody’s lying here. Not spinning. Not obfuscating. Flat out lying. It could just as easily be a corporate media outlet as it is an overexcited press release writer.

If the gap between labor and management is half as great as that between the two accounts of the incident, the strike may go on for years.

Too bad the two sides can’t learn to work together the way two prominent new members of the Nazi party do now.

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