Category Archives: Domestic Violence

02/20/2014
2 Comments
Anti-intellectualism, Arbutus Cunningham, Confederate Flag, Corporal Punishment, Cossacks, Domestic Violence, Evolution, Flat Earth Diary, HJR-3, Homophobia, Krista Detor, Labor Unions, Lynching, Pussy Riot, The Breeze Bends the Grass

Hot Air

And The Answer Is…

Time for a quiz.

In what year did the following events and actions occur?

● Cossacks horse-whipped women.

Kazaki

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● Citizens reacted to news of FDR’s death.

● At least four state legislatures considered bills to restrict the teaching of evolution and biology in schools.

● Fully one quarter of the nation’s population was unaware that the Earth revolves around the Sun.

● Another state legislature worked diligently on a law to deny certain people the right to marry.

● Lawmakers working hand-in-hand with wealthy donors succeeded in defeating a labor movement.

Plutocrats

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● A man running for Attorney General of a large state told victims of domestic violence they should stop complaining and be thankful they have men.

● A learned, accomplished black man was characterized as a “subhuman mongrel” and a “chimpanzee” by a celebrity spokesbeing for a Right Wing political organization.

● A southern state OK’d a Confederate flag display.

● Yet another white man was exonerated for killing a black man whose actions mildly disturbed him.

Lynching

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● Athletic team officials worried that a homosexual man may taint their locker rooms.

● A state legislature voted to permit teachers to spank students (so long as they don’t leave any marks).

Choose One:

  • 1907
  • 6 BCE
  • 1892
  • 1066
  • 2014

Salem

1692?

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Hurry now and make your selection: Time flies!

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Shop Local

Krista Detor’s brand spanking new CD and accompanying book are on sale now at the Book Corner. And she’ll be peddling both the Flat Earth Diary and Notes from the Bridge when she dashes off to Europe for a live tour this spring. She’ll hit Germany, Holland, England, and Scotland.

Flat Earth Diary

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Tons o’B-towners dig Detor the most, but it’s a good bet not too many will stage-door-Johnny her all the way across the Atlantic Ocean just to get their mitts on her stuff. So buy it here in So Cen Ind. Whaddya waiting for?

Detor

Detor

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BTW: KD and Arbutus Cunningham have tinkered with their sweet musical, The Breeze Bends the Grass, and, in fact, have come up with a whole new shebang of it. The re-designed and re-imagined four-act theater production will debut at the Brown County Playhouse in Nashville on June 6th.

Oh yeah, that Detor gal is a juggler.

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12/17/2011
2 Comments
Alexandra Horwitz, Barnard College, bloomingOUT, Bloomington LGBTQ Film Festival, Buskirk-Chumley Theater, Carol Fischer, Cats, Coprophagia, Dogs, Domestic Violence, Ellen Degeneres, Helen Harrell, Inside of a Dog, Lesbian, Middle Way House, Nina Simone, Oscar Levant, Portia de Rossi, PRIDE 2012, Shani Robbins, Vegan, Vegetarian

The Pencil Today:

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REALITY SHOW

“Beyond the phony tinsel of Hollywood lies the real tinsel.” — Oscar Levant.

♢

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT?

So, Ellen Degeneres and her lovely bride, Amanda Rogers — oops, I mean Portia de Rossi — have become business moguls, peddling vegetarian foods to the rest of us who haven’t changed our names for professional purposes.

In fact, the two have gone so far as to be considering introducing a line of vegan grub for your pet dogs and cats.

I bet Steve the Dog doesn’t know he shouldn’t me eating meat or, for that matter, anything that has animal products in it. I hesitate to tell him so because he might go into a funk. He’s a rather sensitive pooch and he doesn’t like to disappoint people.

“Aw, Man, I didn’t Know.”

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Funny thing is, he seems to be reasonably healthy despite eating food processed in concentration camps and including hunks of pig, bovine, horse, and other brothers and sisters of ours.

Also, he loves to eat…, well, brace yourself — and if you’re lunching don’t read any further — he loves to eat deer shit. And the fewmets of quiet a few other critters. He even sometimes dines on his own day-old bombs.

Steve the Dog is not unusual in this regard. Alexandra Horowitz, animal cognition professor at Barnard College and author of the very cool book “Inside of a Dog,” says all dogs are coprophages (shit-eaters.) She suggests they do this because they’re so desperate to sniff things and their olfactory mechanism is so constructed that eating things brings their aroma that much closer to home.

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Degeneres has been quoted as saying, “… [I]f you love your animal, then you should feed them something that’s not dangerous for them. There’s a lot of poisonous stuff that they’re putting in [pet] food, those by-products.”

Now I’m no animal cognition expert. Nor am I terribly well-versed on vegetarianism and veganism. But I do know this: any creature that eats shit doesn’t, well, give a shit about whether or not he’s eating a trace amount of preservatives.

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LESBIAN VIOLENCE

When people think domestic violence, they generally flash to the image of a man walloping a woman.

That’s the usual scenario but host Helen Harrell and producer Carol Fischer presented another side of the problem during this week’s bloomingOUT on WFHB.

Fischer & Harrell

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Harrell and co-host Abigail Sewell interviewed Shani Robbins of Middle Way House about physical abuse in lesbian relationships.

One great thing about bloomingOUT is it doesn’t try to run and hide from unflattering topics within the queer community.

BTW: Helen and Abigail remind us that PRIDE 2012, the Bloomington LGBTQ film festival is coming up in January. Some 10 features and numerous shorts will run at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater from the 18th through the 29th with countless related events also scheduled.

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O-O-H CHILD

Nina Simone died in 2003 but her voice is forever. The disc, “Nina Simone Remixed & Reimagined,” illustrates how timeless her stylings were and are. Listen:

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