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THE QUOTE

“In science, ‘fact’ can only mean ‘confirmed to such a degree that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.’ I suppose that means apples might start to rise tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in physics classrooms.” — Stephen Jay Gould

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COSTELLO’S WORLD

Soma Coffee may not be the next Starbuck’s but owner Bob Costello has opened up his second location in Bloomington this week.

Soma World Headquarters

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Throwing the doors open Monday, the new Soma at 3rd and Jordan looks to draw students who’ll walk across the street from the IU campus. Just don’t try parking there.

Costello’s empire now includes the original Soma and the Laughing Planet Cafe at Kirkwood and Grant and the Village Deli just around the corner.

Speaking of Soma, some habitués have begun to play euchre there every Saturday morning. Steve Llewellyn has dubbed them the Euchre-ists.

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THEY’LL BLIND US WITH SCIENCE

After a fit and a start or two, Bloomington’s Science Cafe returns to life Wednesday, September 12th.

Alex Straiker and his colleague at IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Jim Wager-Miller, have at last got the ball rolling for the weekly series of lectures and discussions open to the public on any and all areas of science.

Our town’s original Science Cafe was started by Erika Biga Lee but she found herself too busy to run the show after a while. Straiker worked under her while the Cafe’s first incarnation was still up and running.

Rachael’s Cafe will be the home of the new version, every Wednesday evening at 6:30.

BTW: Straiker points out another big science event on campus this fall. The son of Henrietta Lacks will visit IU November 14th to talk about the part of his mother, who died more than 60 years ago, that’s still alive.

Henrietta Lacks

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Lacks died of cervical cancer in 1951. Cells from the growth were cultured to produce the HeLa Cell Line which has been used by scientists for research since then. In fact, Straiker says his gang over at the IU brain lab have used some of those cells in their own work. Lacks’ story got plenty of pub when the book, “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” became a New York Times best seller. The book was published two years ago but still ranks No. 2 on the NYT paperback nonfiction list.

Details are still being worked out for David Lacks’ appearance here. Stay tuned to the IUB Themester Facebook page for more info.

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AILUROPHOBIA

My fave part of the Pussy Riot story?

Pussy Riot

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Imagining the mental gymnastics previously staid radio and TV newscasters have to go through to say the words Pussy Riot without falling to pieces.

They redeem their decorum by stating the girl band has been found guilty of hooliganism. I bet they want to repeat the word hooliganism over and over again, just to wash the taste of Pussy Riot out of their mouths.

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IN THE NOT-TOO DISTANT FUTURE…

The theme song from one of my fave TV shows of all time, Mystery Science Theater 3000.

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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.

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❏ 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.

❏ The Universe — A Facebook community of astrophysics and astronomy geeks.

❏ 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.

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

Friday, August 17, 2012

◗ Ivy Tech-Bloomington — Centerstone Breakfast Learning Series: Social worker Marsha Carr leads a workshop on Youth with Sexually Maladaptive Behaviors; 8am

◗ Brown County Art Guild, Nashville — Author James Capshew remembers Herman B. Wells; 6-8pm

◗ The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts — Opening reception: “The Art of the Horse” by Della Wood; 6pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Ani Choekye leads a workshop on Goals and How to Avoid Them; 6:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “The Well Digger’s Daughter”; 6:45pm

◗ IU Cinema — Film: “Beasts of the Southern Wild”; 7pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Drama, “Solana”; 7:30pm

◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier women’s soccer vs. Arkansas State; 7:30pm

◗ Oliver Winery — Tunes on the Terrace: Tad Robinson; 7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Whiskey Mystic; 7-9pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theater — Ryder Film Series, “The Pigeoneers”; 8pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Colonel Angus; 8pm

◗ Cafe Django — Nate Johnson & the Keepers CD release party; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Nick Griffin; 8pm

◗ Bryan Park — Ryder Film Series, Movies in the Park: “The Wizard of Oz”; 8pm

◗ Max’s Place — The Hot Karls; 8-10pm

◗ IU Memorial Union — UB Films: “The Hunger Games”; 8pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Polisse”; 8:45pm

◗ The Bluebird — Corey Smith; 9pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Kade Puckett; 9:30-11:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Moor and the Northmen; 10pm

◗ The Bishop — Guardian Alien, You’re a Liar; 10pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Nick Griffin; 10:30pm

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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THE QUOTE

“True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.” — Kurt Vonnegut

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THE RETURN OF THE SCIENCE CAFE

Yep, the Bloomington Science Cafe is back. The shebang petered out when its home at the time, Borders, closed down here a couple of years ago.

Now it’s got new digs: Rachael’s Cafe.

Cerebellum tinkerer Alex Straiker of the IU Psychological and Brain Sciences Department is the driving force behind the local Cafe’s resurrection.

Straiker

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Science cafes, Straiker explains, exist all over the world in big cities and college towns. They bring researchers and scientists together with less cranially endowed folk. Typically, they’re at coffeehouses and bookstores.

He’d hoped to start a Science Cafe when he arrived in town some five years ago but found one already underway. Graduate School Communications Director Erika Biga Lee was the mad scientist behind that incarnation. She’d started the thing in September, 2006, and welcomed Straiker aboard.

Biga Lee

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Erika Biga Lee’s baby was sponsored in part by Borders until the bookstore chain sputtered to its demise. “It sort of went down with the ship,” Straiker says.

While Science Cafe I was up and running, the general public could stop by and listen to lectures on the science of marijuana, say, or the geology of Mars. One night, peak oil was the topic.

“Typically, 30 or 40 people would come,” Straiker says, “but attendance could range from 25 to 65.”

Erika Biga Lee is too busy these days to direct the get-togethers so Straiker and his lab colleague, Jim Wager-Miller, will run the show. They’re looking to present talks on the science of coffee, addictions, and dark matter within the first few weeks.

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Straiker says he comes up with the topics, based mostly on ideas that intrigue him. Then he and Wager-Miller go around the IU campus looking for experts in those fields who’d like to make presentations.

“There’s an emphasis on openness and participation,” Straiker says. “We welcome questions. It’s meant to be a bridge between scientists and people.”

Straiker is hoping the first Bloomington Science Cafe II session will be either Wednesday, March 21st or 28th, 2012. Admission is free and open to the public. Rachael’s is at 300 E. 3rd St. Phone: 812.330.1882. Science Cafe sessions will be every Wednesday from 6:30-8pm.

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CERTIFIED ORGANIC POISON

Interesting little piece on NPR this morning. Dartmouth College researchers have found high levels of arsenic in rice around the world.

Killer Weed

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The horror. Surely our local food faddists will be up in arms about this. Just another example of the fascist-corporate agri-business tyrants poisoning us for fun and profit, no?

No.

“It turns out that arsenic is naturally occurring in soil and water and rice plants seem to have this special ability to soak up more arsenic from the environment than other plants,” says reporter Nancy Shute.

Brown rice actually contains more arsenic than white rice because it hasn’t been stripped of its constituent substances. And, no, buying organic rice won’t make any difference because, well, arsenic is there, folks, right in the holy dirt we plant our crops in.

Mother Earth is a killer.

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THE SANTORUM SCHOOL

Now we know Rick Santorum and his wife have homeschooled their seven children.

I imagine they didn’t want the young’uns to be tainted by too many things like facts and knowledge. Man, I shudder to think what, for instance, the daily math lesson must have been like in the Santorum boot camp.

Mrs. Santorum: “Children, god created all the numbers. Let us remember that six times two equals twelve. We know this because that’s how many apostles Jesus had. Who can name all the apostles?”

Young Patrick Santorum: “Peter, James the Greater, James the Lesser, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, Thaddeus, Simon, and Judas.”

Math, Santorum-Style

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Mrs. Santorum: “Very good. And which apostle betrayed our lord and savior, Jesus Christ?”

Peter Santorum: “Judas.”

Mrs. Santorum: “Now, Peter. Pronounce his name correctly.”

Peter: “Um…, uh….”

Mrs. Santorum: “Say it like this: JEW-diss.”

Peter: “JEW-diss.”

Mrs. Santorum: “Very good. How much did Judas sell out our lord and savior for?”

Sarah Maria Santorum: “Ooh, ooh, ooh!”

Mrs. Santorum: “Yes, Sarah.”

Sarah: “Thirty pieces of silver.”

Judas Loved Money, Had a Sharp Nose, And Was Sneaky — You Do The Math

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Mrs. Santorum: “Very good. And did the apostles accept food stamps?”

Daniel Santorum: “No.”

Mrs. Santorum: “So should Americans accept food stamps?”

All (in unsion): “No, ma’am.”

And so on. Math.

I’m still of two minds regarding the question of homeschooling. I subscribe wholeheartedly to Mark Twain’s line, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

Meaning, among other things, that making kids sit in a classroom all day is about as ridiculous a way to impart knowledge to hungry young minds as can be conjured by the most cruel sadist.

I’ve met so many homeschooled kids who speak remarkably well and can relate to adults confidently. Most of the school-schooled kids I know are pretty much rotten little bastards who I’ll be happy to spend time with only after they reach the age of 30.

“Do Me A Favor, Kids — Go Away For A Few Years, OK?”

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I know of homeschooled kids who devour books on the Moomins and Tintin and then graduate to Neil Gaiman. Again, most of the school-schooled kids I meet have never once in their lives heard the sound of a vocalist that wasn’t Auto-Tuned and pitch-corrected. I mean, they actually believe Katy Perry sounds that way.

One of the things that concern me about homeschooling is the desire on the part of parents to isolate their kids from the world. Of course, when you take the aforementioned contrasts into account, isolating the kids from the world doesn’t sound like the worst thing you could do to them.

But if you’re hoping to isolate your kids from liberals, agnostics, Muslims, Hallowe’en witches, Harry Potter, “In the Night Kitchen,” and M&Ms, homeschooling seems more a sentence than a choice.

Perhaps worst of all, Rick and his wife, Karen, compelled their children to spend the vast majority of their days with, well, them. The poor kids.

But there is a bright side to all this. At least neighborhood schoolkids were isolated from Santorum-think.

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TOO BUSY THINKIN’ ‘BOUT MY BABY

Marvin Gaye didn’t have time for school — he had girls on his mind.

He became one of this holy land’s most beloved recording artists. Later, he tumbled into substance addiction and then his old man pumped him full of lead, snuffing his life out at the age of 44.

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The Electron Pencil

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