Category Archives: Elizabeth Warren

11/18/2014
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Credulity, Deepak Chopra, Elizabeth Gilbert, Elizabeth Warren, Kari Revolva, Malcolm Muggeridge, Oprah Winfrey, Paula (PJ) Chambers, Pope Francis, The Life You Want Weekend, Wealth & Privilege

Hot Air

The Rich: How They Get That Way

Kids, you have to read this smart — and smart-assed — work of art by a performance artist named Revolva (h/t to B-town’s hoop queen Paula Chambers for pointing it out.) Revolva has made tsunami-high waves on the interwebs for busting the heretofore beloved Oprah Winfrey’s chops.

Revolva

Revolva & Friend

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See, the world’s most caring, powerful, brilliant, spiritual, all-knowing woman was throwing a great big narcissists ball in San Jose, CA this past weekend, charging up to a grand a ducat, and had asked Revolva to perform for free at it.

The SJ event was part of what the Oprah Outfit calls The Life You Want Weekend. It featured scads of self-help snake-oil peddlers, phony-baloney mystics, and shrewd entrepreneurs telling huge arenas of goggle-eyed woman how they control everything that happens to themselves and how they can attract good things by thinking sweet thoughts. The audience was cooed at and cosseted by the likes of bullshit artist Deepak Chopra and literary self-exalter Elizabeth Gilbert. For this, I repeat, many of the attendees  shelled out a thou a ticket.

Kari Revolva writes in an open letter to Oprah (all sic):

The life I WANT does not involve mega tours netting unfathomable amounts of real, tangible money, while local artists are coached to accept all or most of their payment in the least stable form of currency: exposure. If the “trailblazing” I do today is being an upstream voice, then I’ll at least make a bold statement about the life I DO want:

I want a life in which people are not asked to work for free — by people who can totally afford to pay.

Kari Revolva is an Oakland, California-based comedian/actor/dancer/writer/hoop artist who apparently does circus-ey things with the Hula Hoop and throws in some fire while she’s at it. She got a call from one of Oprah’s Harpo Studios producers asking her to work an outside stage at the last stop on the Big O Life You Want tour. She was shocked when she was told there’d be no pay. Not only that, she’d have to pay her own way from one end of San Francisco Bay to the other. Oh, and whatever else she had planned for that particular day that might have made her a dollar or two would be out of the question as she raced to donate her services to Oprah’s money-printing machine.

From revolva.net

Revolva’s Math

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The Life You Want Weekend last month was skewered in a New York Times style section piece written by Jennifer Conlin.

Revolva continues:

In one day, your arena tour (capacity around 18,000, each ticket $99 to $999) is raking in more money than most people will make in a year. In ten years. In their entire lives. And yet, your side stage, featuring local acts, is paying in that old tap-dancing, phantom promise of “exposure.” As I was choking on my own tongue (stroke!), your producer also mentioned there was the added bonus of a ticket to the event. Unfortunately, her call coming just four days before your San Jose stop, I didn’t have the whole weekend free. I also texted my landlord, and it turns out he does not accept rent payment in Oprah Winfrey tickets. Gah!

I’ve long gagged over the genuflecting America did before Oprah, whose daily TV love fest (she retired from her show in 2011) regularly featured junk science, quack medicine, self-help bushwa, and the likes of fraudster Mehmet Oz. Today her magazine (which, by her own order, displays her sacred mug on every cover) features a column written by Herself entitled “What I Know for Sure,” which sounds just a tad presumptuous, no?

The sold-out arenas at which O put on her Weekends prove she’s still a huge draw. As Malcolm Muggeridge once observed:

One of the peculiar sins of the 20th Century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.

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Bad Thoughts

Now this might sound macabre, ghoulish, and even tinfoil-hat-ish but the question just occurred to me: Who’s going to get shot at first, Elizabeth Warren or Pope Francis?

Warren/Pope

Warren & Bergoglio

[E. Warren photo by Tim Pierce; for more visit Tim’s flickr page.]

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I also include in the realm of possibilities food poisoning, trumped-up sex scandal, or — gulp! — plane crash.

Go ahead, laugh at me. I hope I’m wrong as wrong can be. I hope to hell I’m making an ass out of myself.

This mad, mad, mad, mad world lets troublemakers rock the boat — but only to a point. I’m guessing Warren and the Pope long ago went way past that point.

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11/06/2014
2 Comments
2014 Election, Alycin Bektesh, bloomingOUT, Democratic Party, Elizabeth Warren, Liberals, WFHB

Hot Air

The Party’s Over

So, the Republicans now are the big boys, running the halls of Congress like they own it. The Democrats, meanwhile, are crying, moaning, copping pleas, and generally behaving like high school sophomores who failed geometry because they didn’t study.

I have no use for either gang at this point in history.

The Republicans give me the jitters because their party has been hijacked by loons. The Dems upset my stomach because they’re all afraid of their own shadows. What choice does a bright, intelligent, caring, charming citizen such as I have?

Ick. Just Ick.

BTW: Those BMOC Republicans who think they own Congress? They don’t. The Koch Boys and several other nefarious, archcriminal, ungodly wealthy sociopaths do. Not that it matters to the Republicans in Q. The money’s gonna flow into their campaign coffers for the foreseeable future and, really, that’s all that matters. The Dems? Money’s still flowing into their war chests, too — just not as obscenely much as that emanating from the checkbooks of Chucky and Davey et al.

Koch Industries

The Nation’s Capital

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For years I’ve been telling people we in the Dem party shouldn’t pin our hopes on peeps like Dennis Kucinich or Elizabeth Warren for possible White House runs. They’re too liberal, I’d say, pretending I’m some wise old political strategist. They need to be on the outside, shouting in, I’d pontificate. Mom and Pop Murrica won’t buy them. Apparently the Dem “brain” trust bought that argument as well, imposing upon us slate upon slate of milquetoasty, innocuous, borderline vacuous stuffed shirts. Oh no, they weren’t too liberal at all. They were, um, uh…, well, they were alive as far as the rest of us could tell. Barack Obama is alive. So is Hillary Clinton. Harry Reid. Alison Lundergan Grimes. Rahm Emanuel. Andrew Cuomo. John Kerry.

Ugh. I’m sick to death of all of them, every single middle-of-the-road, safe, non-threatening, “successful” Dem out there, and that’s a huge lot. (Admittedly, Obama’s brown skin and Hillary’s vagina threaten the bejesus out of tons o’folks in this holy land but no matter; those people are never going to vote Dem anyway.) The “safe” way has been so successful that the Dem party has pissed away control of the White House and both houses of Congress as late as 2010 to the point now where a certain revivified corpse pundit can ask, Is this the end of the Democratic era?

So, yeah, bring Elizabeth Warren on! And bring with her legislators like Judy Chu and Keith Ellison. Al Franken ought to get an invite. Donna Edwards, Sam Farr, Mike Honda, Jan Schakowsky, and Linda Sanchez too. Put out the call for Barbara Mikulski, Brian Schatz, Maria Cantwell, and Tammy Baldwin while you’re at it.

Warren

Bring Her On!

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They’re all too liberal, acc’d’g to conventional wisdom — which makes them just liberal enough for me.

Hell, sticking like glue with true believers worked out fabulously well for the Conservatives, resulting in the beatification of one Ronald Wilson Reagan. Old Dutch never once apologized for his views. He was, at one time, long, long ago, considered a political joke. Saint Ronald now sits in heaven at the right hand of god.

Give me E. Warren for Prez in 2016.

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Out Is Back

Drop what you’re doing and tune in tonight at 6pm. bloomingOUT! is back on the air.

South Central Indiana’s only LGBTQI-oriented radio talk show went silent for a few months after the retirements of producer Carol Fischer and her partner, host Helen Harrell, in August. Now, WFHB is airing the program again, starting immediately after the Daily Local News tonight.

“We have a big crew of volunteers from eclectic backgrounds coming together to produce bloomingOUT,” says WFHB New Dept. chief Alycin Bektesh. “We have a rotating cast of hosts, segment producers and engineers. Many IU students are involved as well as Indiana’s Marriage Equality Poster Boys Jeff Jewel and Jeff Polling.”

Jewel/Polling

Jeff Jewel & Jeff Polling Get Married (Photo: Chris Howell/Herald Times)

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04/29/2014
1 Comment
A Fighting Chance, Bill Maher, Donald Sterling, Elizabeth Warren, Joy Shayne Laughter, Mike Cagle, NRA, Racism, Sarah Palin, Wealth & Privilege

Hot Air

Fighter

How excited are you about that new politico-memoir, A Fighting Chance, written by Elizabeth Warren?

Warren’s the coolest human in politics these days. I’d love to live in world wherein she’d be the queen. OTOH: I don’t want to see her get within a mile of the Oval Office. People who have a fighting chance, to borrow a phrase, of becoming president must compromise themselves into a certain near-nothingness, witness one Barack H. O.

Warren

Tough Dame

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The Devil has in his safety deposit box the souls of some 43 presidents as well as all the real challengers they faced before becoming the boss of this holy land. And don’t correct me on the no. of presidents — Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms, ergo he’s counted as two of ’em.

Anyway, I want Warren on the outside, fighting the good fight. So far, she’s the best there is at that job.

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Pencil Logrolling

If you don’t read the Comments section of this communications colossus you might have missed this from yesterday:

Shameless Related Promotions Department: I’m working with my dear friend and doc-film collaborator Nadeem Uddin to get his lifelong project finished this year, the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak disaster. If you ever wondered what a major chemical attack would look like in a densely populated civilian area, this is it.

http://vimeo.com/88071322

We’re currently setting up an Indiegogo campaign to fund production of the second segment, which looks at how a child exposed to the gas in 1984 has passed on genetic defects to his children.

PS – Nadeem is coming to town for a visit in late May. Anyone interested in a screening of footage and some Q&A?

The comment is from Penicillista and great friend, Shayne Laughter. If she’s in on a project — or even if she merely gives it her blessing — you know it’s the real deal and worth your while.

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Mid-Life Adventure

One of our town’s most compelling figures, cartoonist Mike Cagle, is shipping off to Oregon this summer. He’ll begin the 2014-15 term as a student at Lewis & Clark Law School. He sez he just may want to practice public interest law.

How can you not love B-town when this burgh is populated by folks like Mike. Our loss is the world’s gain.

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Sterling Redux

I wiped the floor with Donald Sterling yesterday, natch. The only thing right-thinking folk might quibble with was my assertion that Sterling should not be officially punished for utterances in, presumably, his private home where he was being recorded without his knowledge. That, friends, is thought crime.

Now, don’t have a fit; I fully support a boycott of his Los Angeles Clippers games. He’s a bad man in so many ways I’ve run out of fingers and toes and facial hairs to count them. The sooner his evil soul departs his body, the better. But, again, human beings should not be persecuted or prosecuted by any authority for the hate in their hearts.

Or, as Bill Maher says, “Calm down. Being an asshole is still legal.”

Oh, BTW, Sterling is a Republican. Registered. Who’da thunk it?

And, to make this farce even more ridiculous, certain conservative groups and publications are trying to spread the lie that’s he’s a Dem! We live in a weird, weird country, kiddies.

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Large And In Charge

And, speaking of posterior orifices, our gal Sarah Palin bleated this past weekend before the assembled multitudes at the NRA’s annual fapfest, held this year in Indy.

And, again, just like yesterday when I took the bullet for you by listening to the Sterling tape, I did it again by listening to Palin’s speech. Babies, I am your freakin’ he-ro!

The gist of her shrieking could be summarized in the quote, “If I were in charge….”

No word yet if audience members began masturbating furiously in their seats upon hearing this most risible sentiment.

Palin

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We all have heard her marvy quote about waterboarding being the way “we baptize terrorists.” Nuts, right? But did you catch her statement that, again, if she were in charge, she’d be standin’ tall right there in the Ukraine and she’d have stopped Putin from making his land grabs?

Swear to god, this piece of work sees herself as something like that Chinese kid who stood before the line of tanks in Tiananmen Sq. back in 1989.

Okay, that’s my report on Palin. That’s plenty of heroism for this big boy for one weekend. I’ll be going off to check myself in for battle fatigue treatment now.

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10/02/2013
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Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls, Elizabeth Banks, Elizabeth Olsen, Elizabeth Smart, Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Warren, Tony Brewer

Hot, Hot, Hot Air

Hot & Cold

Books are flying out of Bloomington authors’ computers at a dizzying rate. For instance, prince of the city Tony Brewer, has just released a verse collection entitled Hot Type Cold Read.

Brewer

Renaissance Man

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It’s his second, following up Little Glove in a Big Hand.

Tony Brewer is a sound effects savant, golden-throated announcer (he’s one of the voices of the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls), screenwriter, e-typesetter, and, natch, poet extraordinaire. Is there anything this guy can’t do?

Pick up his book as soon as you can, otherwise you’ll be left in the dust.

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Sex Symbol

Alright, I’ll admit here and now before the assembled Pencillistas and the rest of the world.

Elizabeth Warren is hot.

She’s sexy.

Vanity Fair Image

Yes, Sexy.

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Honest.

If I weren’t madly in L with The Loved One already, I’d go for a dame like the junior senator from Mass.

BTW: How weird is Murrica? These are the top four autofills when a Google user types in the word Elizabeth:

  • Elizabeth Taylor
  • Elizabeth Smart
  • Elizabeth Olsen
  • Elizabeth Banks

Screenshot from Google

Proof

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FYI: E No. 1 is a long-dead film icon, No. 2 is a former kidnapping victim, No. 3 is the younger sister of the skeletal Olsen twins, and No. 4 is, I have learned, some blonde actress. Elizabeth Warren is not to be found. Sigh.

Anyway, my definition of hotness in a woman includes the traits plain spoken, caring, smart, strong, and dedicated. That’s E. Warren, no?

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07/17/2013
1 Comment
Abortion, Barack Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Every Goddamn Day, Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton, Iraq War, Joseph Scheidler, Neil Steinberg, Pro-Life Action League, Rush Limbaugh

Your Daily Hot Air

A No Vote For Warren

Now, don’t get me wrong here. I love Elizabeth Warren. Love her.

Lo-o-o-o-o-o-ove her. I wanna marry her. Don’t worry; so does The Loved One. Wants to marry her, that is. We’d have a three-way marriage. We have a spare bedroom at Chez Pencil and Lizzie (as we’d affectionately address her) could sleep and change her clothes there in privacy.

Warren/AP Photo

Swoon (AP)

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T-Lo and I would take turns making her breakfast. Then we’d sit there, just listening, our chins in our hands, as she, Lizzie, would expound on this or that problem or proposed law. Sigh.

So now I can say this without fear that someone would dare to think I don’t support everything she stands for:

Elizabeth Warren will never, ever, ever become the President of the United States of America.

There.

Not only that, Elizabeth Warren would make a horrifyingly bad president.

She’d be a one-termer. And, you think the Me Party wing of the GOP is dedicated to stifling the occupant of the White House now? Oh, babies, just wait until some dame who doesn’t genuflect before the banksters gets in there.

Again, I dig Lizzie the most. But she’s too smart, too eager to talk facts and figures rather than fairy tales and bedtime stories, and is too much of a hard-ass for the banksters and the Right to bear.

Anti-Warren Meme

They’re Starting Already

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Look what they’ve done to Hillary Clinton over the past couple of decades. And she, Hillary, is pretty much one of them.

Hillary, IIRC, is a commie, lesbo, man-hating, murderer. What slanders could they come up with for my Lizzie, who is so much not one of them that I’m surprised they all came from the same planet, which they probably didn’t.

Honestly, I’ve been sitting here for the last ten minutes trying to think of worse accusations the wingnut Right could make against my Lizzie. So far, I’ve drawn a blank. Then again, I’m not as creative as the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Here’s the thing: Elizabeth Warren (sigh) is the polar opposite of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The current Prez and the former Sec’y of State would say or do pretty much anything to maintain their respective toeholds in the game. Dig: Clinton voted for Georgey-boy Bush’s Iraq resolution. And Obama loaded up his administration with so many Goldman Sachs unindicted conspirators that the investment bank now holds its company picnic in the Rose Garden.

Much as I loathe those developments, that’s how people stay in the game if they want to become/remain POTUS.

Thus far, my sweet baby Lizzie appears to be incapable of such machinations.

If, by some weird turn of events, she became the boss of this holy land, she’d spend her entire four years fighting just to keep her head above water. That is, the muddy, sludgy, slimy liquid that passes for water in which Tories, crypto-racists, gun lust-ers, and rabid Christianists prefer to swim.

Polluted Water

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For all Elizabeth Warren’s fine and good intentions, she wouldn’t get a thing done. Nothing.

I like her better as a senator.

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Fetal Positions

You’re missing something if you haven’t read Neil Steinberg’s new blog Every Goddamn Day.

everygoddamnday

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In today’s post, he recounts bumping into Joe Scheidler, the national director of the Pro-Life Action League, on Madison Street in downtown Chicago late Monday afternoon. Scheidler was participating in the PLAL’s annual summer demo, during which they carry placards featuring huge enlargements of aborted fetuses.

I recall running into the PLAL-ers any number of times when I lived in Chi. One July day I was stopped at a red light on Wacker Drive next to the then-Sears Tower and an anti-abortion demonstrator standing on the center island put his fetal hamburger picket sign right in front of my windshield.

“Get that mtherfking thing out of my face,” I hollered as I reached out the window and tried to rip it out of his hand. He dangled it just out of my grasp as if he were toying with a cat.

“You’re a sick prick,” I yelled. I had been looking forward to eating lunch and the sign had pretty much taken my appetite away. Believe me, you don’t want to be the poor soul who messes with my lunch.

Chicago-Style Hot Dog

Never Mess With My Lunch

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The guy responded, “God bless you.”

“I didn’t sneeze, idiot,” I cleverly riposted.

Then I thought, damn it, I’m all bent out of shape and he’s still standing their with that religious zombie smirk on his face. The light changed and I peeled away. I never did eat lunch that day.

Anyway, here’s the exchange Steinberg had with Joe Scheidler (all sic):

“You have to admit, that being against abortion is a religious scruple,” I [Steinberg] said.

“I wouldn’t say, ‘scruple.'” he replied. “It’s in the Bible, part of the Ten Commandments: ‘Thou shall not kill.'”

“….a person,” I added.

“A baby is a person,” he said.

“A fetus isn’t a person,” I parried. “I wouldn’t want to take one to the movies.”

“The mom could go to the movies,” Joe countered.

Steinberg concludes his piece with a well-deserved indictment against the so-called pro-choice movement. If you’re “pro-choice” you’re not gonna like it. And you shouldn’t. And I hope it moves you to action.

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09/30/2012
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American Political Science Review, Barack Obama, BBC, Bryony Gordon, Center for Inquiry, Citicorp, Citigroup, Elizabeth Warren, Gerald R. Ford, Glass-Steagall, Great Recession, Harry Enfield, International Blasphemy Rights Day 2012, Republican Party, Robert Rubin, Roger Ebert, Sanford Weill, The Telegraph, Travelers Group

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The Republican vision is clear: ‘I’ve got mine, the rest of you are on your own.'” — Elizabeth Warren

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WOMEN, SPEAK UP!

From a Harry Enfield skit: “Yes, overeducation leads to ugliness, premature aging, and beard growth.”

The skit shows a stuffy dinner party where the men pontificate on the economy and the women sit there looking pretty. That is, until one women decides to offer her opinion. Here’s a vid of the skit:

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Harry Enfield is a British comedian who has appeared on the BBC since the late 80s. The skit comes to The Pencil in a roundabout way, originally cited by The Telegraph essayist Bryony Gordon and brought to these shores by Roger Ebert.

Gordon uses the skit to illustrate a surprising finding in a recent study. You might think, she writes, that women today are considered just as intelligent as men and capable of contributing to a discussion at any time and on any subject. How quaint Enfield’s little dinner party faux pas looks now.

Asks Gordon: “Right?”

Sez Gordon: “Wrong!”

Gordon

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She quotes from the study published in American Political Science Review that indicates women keep their lips zipped still, even in these more enlightened times, when in the company of men.

Gordon says, “Women, this must stop! We must pipe up when we feel like piping down, and not presume that it will make us ‘frightening’ and ‘intimidating’ to men.”

As Ebert says, “Well, it’s true.”

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SELF-CENSORSHIP

Funny thing is, a number of comments following Ebert’s posting of the Gordon essay were from women who said, in essence, Dear me, those brutish men we work with rarely let us cut in and when we do they say nasty things about us.

I’ll Never Speak Up Again!

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To which I reply, So what?

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BUILDING BULLSHIT

You know how the Republicans have been standing on their heads to make hay of Barack Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment?

“It” Being The Billionaires’ Economy

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Of course, the only way they could make their hay is by quoting it so far out of context he may as well have said, “I invented the Internet.”

Anyway, the whole We Built That meme goes all the way back to the last century. It’s long been the kill cry of corporate pirates, bloated plutocrats, and outright capital-sociopaths.

Take, for instance, the bleating of former uber-investment bank capo Sanford Weill. See, Citicorp in 1998 merged with Travelers Group. Only problem was, federal law at the time prohibited firms from being both investment banks and insurance companies. It all had to do with risk, securities, speculation, “creative” financial instruments — you know, the very things that crashed the world economy in 2007-08.

Sanford Weill

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But the bosses of the new outfit figured, “What do we care for the law?”

They paid off a former president and a then-Treasury Secretary among many others to grease the merger through what was at the time sniggeringly referred to as the “regulatory process.”

So Citicorp and Travelers thumbed their corporate noses at the law of the land as well as the health of the economy for the rest of us and created the Frankenstein monster called Citigroup.

In other words, they created wealth through the cronyism, bribery, trickery, and criminal acts.

Yet when a very few dared question the machinations that created that merger monster, Sanford Weill, who became the chief boa constrictor in charge of the shiny new Citigroup toy, would balance his limbless body on a soapbox and cry out, “We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built!”

The Gang’s Hideout

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Just like the leader of a home invasion burglary ring tells his gang that they’re, well, ambitious men who don’t let trivialities like the law stand in their way.

Keep beating the “We built that” meme into the ground, Republicans. You’re in great company.

[Just a reminder: After Citigroup lost its clients’ shirts in the big crash (for which it was partially responsible), it demanded and got some $45 billion in federal welfare. Yep, they built that.]

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BE A BLASPHEMER

Today.

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Awfully timely, no?

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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

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Sunday, September 30th, 2012

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

FAIR ◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds, Commercial Building West — 29th Annual American Red Cross Book Fair, +100,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, games, maps, sheet music, etc.; 9am-7pm, through October 2nd

WORKSHOP ◗ Dagom Gaden Tensungling Monastery — Free introductory course on Buddhism; 10-11am

SEMINAR ◗ Various venues — The Combine, 3rd annual display of talent , innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit, featuring speakers, workshops, idea pitches, and mixers; through Sunday, September 30th, today’s events:

❏ The Sprout Box — Finish Day, participants complete their tech projects; Noon-10pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier women’s soccer vs. Northwestern; 1pm

OPEN HOUSE ◗ White Violet Farm, Sisters of Providence Center in Saint Mary-of-the-Woods — Celebrating National Alpaca Farm Days, see 53 alpacas and their caretakers; 1-4pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Baroque Orchestra with director Stanley Ritchie, performing Fux & Handel; 2pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Sleepwalk with Me”; 3pm

MUSIC ◗ Oliver Winery — Aged to Perfection: Voces Novae chamber choir performs Bruckner, Elgar, Sullivan, & Verdi; 3pm

MUSIC ◗ Trinity Episcopal Church — Choral Evensong, performed by choristers from Trinity & the IU Jacobs School, works by Walmisley & Hurford; 5:30pm

COMPETITION & BENEFIT ◗ Buskirk Chumley Theater — 6th Annual Bloomington Chef’s Challenge; 6pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — Penrose Trio; 6pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages,” documentary producer Susan Seizer will appear; 6:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Bear’s Place — Ryder Film Series; “Neighboring Sounds”; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ St. David’s Episcopal Church, Bean Blossom — Concert for dedication of new church organ; 7pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Neil Hamburger; 8pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “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
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “What It Means to Be Human,” by Michele Heather Pollock; through September 29th
  • “Land and Water,” by Ruth Kelly; through September 29th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibits opening September 28th:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits:

  • “¡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 Library — Exhibit:

  • “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 On — Exhibit:

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

ART ◗ Boxcar Books — Exhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Papercuts by Ned Powell; through September

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions“

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The Electron Pencil. Go there. Read. Like. Share.

08/23/2012
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Chaz Bono, Cunnilingus, David Lacks, Donna Summer, Elizabeth Warren, Fellatio, Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Karl Rove, Planned Parenthood, Rape, Republican Party, Robert Gibbs, Sodomy Laws, Todd Akin, Werner Herzog

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The agenda of the Republican Party is to limit access to health care services. It’s to deny women equal pay for equal work. It’s to cut funding for Planned Parenthood. And it’s to select as a vice presidential nominee someone who co-sponsored legislation with Representative [Todd] Akin to redefine ‘rape’.” — Elizabeth Warren

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KEEP TALKING, WOMAN!

Quite frankly, I haven’t had enough of Elizabeth Warren, candidate for the US Senate from Massachusetts. So here’s more:

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FREE SPEECH

Here are some of the guests speakers at IU this fall, straight from the Themester announcement page:

  • Werner Herzog, filmmaker — Friday, September 14th
  • Chaz Bono, LGBTQ activist — Wednesday October 4th
  • Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary, & Karl Rove, Republican political strategist — Thursday, October 16th
  • David Lacks, son of the subject of the bestseller, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” — Wednesday, November 14th

Rove

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All are open to the public.

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ORAL ARGUMENTS

Have you checked your state’s statutes recently?

If not, you may find that you broke the law last night. Or this morning. Or even as you read this.

That’s because as many as 18 of these great United States have laws on the books banning the catch-all “sodomy,” which includes the giving and receiving of fellatio and cunnilingus.

So the next time you hear the phrase, “Pitchers and catchers report,” it might not mean baseball spring training is about to begin. It may mean you’d better start packing your toothbrush for an extended stay in your state’s correctional inn.

Enjoy Your Stay!

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Teehee — I’ll bet there’s a mad dash of Pencillistas doing Google searches right now.

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LOVE TO LOVE YOU, BABY

Something for you to listen to while you flout the laws of this holy land.

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Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

❏ I Love Charts — Life as seen through charts.

❏ XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.

❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.

❏ I Fucking Love Science — A Facebook community of science geeks.

❏ Present/&/Correct — Fun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.

❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.

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

Thursday, August 23, 2012

◗ Bear’s Place — Al Cobine Big Band; 5:30pm

◗ Malibu Grill — Steve Johnson Trio; 6-9pm

◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Rick Hornyak; 7pm

◗ IU Cinema — Film: “Silver Bullets”; 7pm

◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Auditions Soul Revue; 7pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Open mic, hosted my Martina Samm; 8pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “The Avengers”; 8pm

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

◗ The Bluebird — Three Story Hill; 9pm

◗ Max’s Place — Stuttering Ducks; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Psychic Twin, Brownie Mountain; 9:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — 220 Breakers; 10pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “The Avengers”; 11pm

◗ Max’s Place — Fifth on the Floor; 11pm

ONGOING

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; through September 1st

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “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:

  • Coming — Media Life; August 24th through September 15th

  • Coming — Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture; August 24th through September 15th

◗ 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, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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