Herald Times | The Electron Pencil

12/21/2015

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Barack Obama, Bob Zaltsberg, Herald Times, ISIS, NPR Morning Edition, Steve Inskeep, Ted Cruz, Winter Solstice

Let There Be Light

Hallelujah!

Winter solstice zips in tonight at 11:49pm in the Eastern Time Zone of the United States.

Winter Solstice Sequence

[Image: Danilo Pivato]

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The days, after that moment, will become longer, brighter, and more amenable to my overall mental health.

Yay.

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Talking Headless

It is important not just to shoot, but to aim.

That’s the advice Barack Obama would give his successor regarding how to kick the crap out of ISIS. He was talking with NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep in the public radio network’s annual end-of-the-year chat with the boss of this holy land.

It’s vintage Obama — measured, considered, sober, calm.

As opposed to, say Sen Ted Cruz, the foreign-born pretender to the throne who not long ago told the same interviewer that Murrica oughtta “carpet bomb” ISIS.

Screen Shot 2015-12-21 at 11.22.51 AM

Carpet Bomber Cruz

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That’s something your idiot, uninformed brother-in-law would say in the midst of a holiday meal pontification. What’s scary, natch, is the fact that Cruz is a valid contender for the 2016 Republican nomination for president.

Cruz tried to justify his remark by saying this country has dropped more and bigger bombs many a time before so why in the world aren’t we doing so now?

Do we really have to answer that? Okay, let’s say we must. The reason we dropped more and bigger bombs in other wars was because we were trying to destroy an enemy’s war-making capabilities, its factories, its railroads, its air bases, its military installations and key infrastructure sites. None of which ISIS really possesses. What Cruz doesn’t grasp is, ISIS is a marauding band of lunatics invading semi-urbanized, semi-permanent outposts, terrorizing frightened tribal groups, and imposing its will mainly through the use of scimitars and other medieval tools of war. Obama said earlier in his interview, “Well, who is it you are going to bomb? Where is it that you are going to bomb?”

But what Obama doesn’t understand is Cruz’s blatherings resonate more with the American people than his own rational utterances. The vast majority of citizens herein want the bold, decisive, action-oriented palaver of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump more than the aforementioned measured, considered, sober, calm reasonings of Obama.

I don’t suggest that Obama start word-vomiting à la Cruz, Trump et al. I do insist he begin talking more to the limbic brain of the American electorate. Be more of a cheerleader, Barack. Tell us you’re gonna stand on your head to beat ISIS. Reassure us that we’re the biggest, strongest, baddest-assed nation on Earth. We want to hear it. It doesn’t matter if it’s all bullshit. We want the bullshit.

We have no interest in wonk-think. Obama can continue to be the policy wonk behind closed doors. He should be. He must be. But when he’s addressing Murrica, he’s got to be more Ronald Reagan than the University of Chicago senior lecturer he once was.

You’ll pardon me while I go drink my depression away now.

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Vox Pop

So, Bob Zaltsberg and the brain trust over at the Herald Times have decided to suspend public comment on stories during the holiday season.

Screen Shot 2015-12-21 at 11.12.08 AM

H-T Chief Zaltsberg

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Hmm.

I can’t figure out why readers’ sensibilities might be more fragile during this two-week period than any other. Zaltsberg writes that he and other gatekeepers have had to delete a few dozen comments in recent weeks because the commenters violated the paper’s civility policy.

Me, I’d leave even the most egregious, insulting, offensive stuff in — with the proviso that everybody who comments use their real names. I like the idea of knowing who the haters and flamboyant ignoramuses are in our town.

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Cosmic Comedy

The contestants from Uranus, the Andromeda Galaxy, and Kepler 452b protest.

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07/31/2014

2 Comments

Crowe Horvath LLC, Donna Slater, GMO, Herald Times, Mark Kruzan, Mother Jones Magazine, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Sue West, Taxes, Walgreen's

Hot Air

Help Wanted

So, the city’s hiring a bean counter to handle the 2015 upcoming budget. Acc’d’g to today’s Herald Times [paywall], Mayor Mark Kruzan et al have tabbed the Crowe Horvath accounting firm to slap a quick dough doc together in time for the City Council to review it in August.

Just to bring you abreast of the situ., City Controller Sue West took a powder in June after only a year and and half on the job. The Mayor characterized her leaving as a “life decision.” He said at the time that her absence wouldn’t affect the ongoing budget process because Deputy Controller Donna Slater, a CPA, was on hand and, per the M., “she doesn’t have that much less experience with budget preparation. We’re very fortunate to have Donna.”

Slater less than a week later threw her hands in the air and resigned as well. Eek.

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Now Crowe Horvath senior manager Angie Steeno will draw up the draft budget. Slater (who’s staying on the job through Aug.) and city staffers already have been hard at work on it but the remaining work entails more than just dotting the i‘s. Crowe Horvath is a well-respected accounting firm with offices in 26 cities around the country. The outfit was started in 1942 by biz math geeks Fred P. Crowe Sr. and Cletus F. Chizek. By 1995, Crowe’d become one of the top 10 accounting firms, in terms of billing, in the US. After the usual series of mergers and buyouts, Crowe Chizek became Crowe Horvath in 2008.

Steeno has previous experience with Bloomington: she handled some capital development issues for the Utilities Dept. back in 2011.

I dunno if it’s me, but ever since I arrived in this town in 2009, people entrusted with both the city and county’s cash have been dropping like flies. After learning about Amy Gertstein and Rhonda Foster’s alleged misuse of county credit cards and Justin Wykoff allegedly cutting himself sweetheart deals with Public Works contractors, I get the feeling local governmental finances are no more safe than if all B-town and Monroe County cash was simply parked on shelves in some photocopier room.

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What with the potential for criminal charges, firings, and unexpected resignations, landing a job as a local pecuniary official might not be cause for celebration of late.

The mayor and the County Council promise us things are getting better. We’ll see.

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Tyson Talks Tough

So, I’ve been saying this for years but who wants to listen to me? Tons o’folks listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson, though, especially those usually on my side of the fence who believe in climate science and evolution etc. Mother Jones has published a vid wherein the King of All Science tells the anti-GMO crowd, essentially, to take a Xanax. He explains:

I’m amazed how much rejection genetically modified foods are receiving from the public. It smacks of the fear factor that exists at every new, emergent science…. What most people don’t know — and they should — is that practically every food you buy in a store for consumption by humans is genetically modified food. There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There’s no wild cows…. You list all the fruit, and all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If there is, it’s not as large, it’s not as sweet, it’s not as juicy, and it has way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the foods, the vegetables and animals, that we have eaten ever since we cultivated them. It’s called artificial selection. That’s how we genetically modify things. So now we can do it in a lab, all of a sudden you’re gonna complain? …We are creating and modifying the biology of the world to serve our needs. I don’t have a problem with that because we’ve been doing that for tens of thousands of years. So chill out.

Fallen Idol?

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Sorry, NdGT, there won’t be any chillin‘; the foodies who’ve seen this vid are having nervous breakdowns at this very moment trying to figure out what to think about you now.

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Cuban Wisdom

Indiana University alum and billionaire Mark Cuban doesn’t like the way corporations are trying to get out of paying US taxes now. Big outfits like Walgreen’s are moving their HQs to foreign countries these days so’s they can dodge their responsibilities to help keep this holy land running. Cuban sez:

If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons, I’m selling your stock.

When companies move offshore to save on taxes, you and I make up the tax shortfall elsewhere.

Looks like he learned a thing or two at the Kelley School.

Cuban

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06/14/2014

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Big Talk, Bill Moyers, Bill Nye, Charlotte Zietlow, Climate Change Denial, Daily Beast, Earth System Science Center, Herald Times, Indiana University, Michael Mann, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Penn State University, The Ryder, WFHB

Hot Air

Scientists: Come Out Of The Closet!

Hey, kids, I realize we live in the most informed, brilliant, and sensitive burgh this side of Berkeley, California, but still some of us might come up against a simian thinker who, say, doesn’t believe all this socialist, bike-riding propaganda about climate change.

What Do All Those Scientists Know?

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You know, it’s all a plot to destroy America and so on.

So you might have a need to destroy his ignorance and put him in his proper place (A zoo cage? A mental institution?) should you run into him bleating his views in a bar or at your coffeehouse headquarters.

Many of us emerge from such a tête-à-tête ruing our inability to deliver just the right bon mot that would send him scurrying out of the place, humiliated to the point of wondering whether he should just end it all. (Imagine, too, using pretentious Gallicisms to finish him off — pure bliss, no?)

Anyway, Bill Moyers this morning offers us a good guide to winning these “arguments” via Penn State U. climatologist Michael Mann. He runs PSU’s Earth System Science Center. He thinks climatologists and other scientists ought to get out into the arena more and fight the good fight for knowledge and investigation.

Which I agree with. These days, we have what I’d call science’s designated hitters: Bill Nye and Neil de Grasse Tyson. Their Q-ratings nearly approach those of fictional brains such as Frank-n-Furter, Dr. Strangelove, and Professor X.

Scientists

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Don’t get me wrong, I dig NdGT and Nye the most. Still, to the gen. pub., they’re pretty much the alpha and omega of smart guys. OTOH, we get all sorts of un-scientists spewing their mouth refuse about things scientific. People like Sen. James Inhofe, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, and Rush Limbaugh — and there are dozens more where they come from. Corporate news purveyors find these chuckleheads by the score whenever there’s a climate debate or an evolution debate or even a flat-Earth debate.

Guys like Michael Mann toil in anonymity in their labs and classrooms, discovering things, learning things, and being, well, all scientific while the populace of this holy land learns about the physical world from Steve Doocy and Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

So, go, go. go, M. Mann et al. As for you, loyal Pencillista, read his piece on climate change and go into your next argument on that topic armed with the best info.

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The Old Pro

My complete interview with Charlotte Zietlow is now up on The Ryder website. It’s a long one but it’s a good one. Take some time and read it — and feel better about politicians for a brief moment, armed with the knowledge that that vocation’s roster has included decent souls like CZ.

Charlotte Zietlow

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If you’re pressed for time, catch my eight-minute mini-interview with the Dem doyenne that ran on WFHB’s Daily Local News a couple of weeks ago.

End of commercial.

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All The News That’s Old

Now we learn that 40 percent of the Indiana University student pop. is from out of state. This thanks to the Daily Beast‘s ranking of the decade’s “hottest” schools (via the Herald Times).

IU, acc’d’g to the D. Beast‘s rankers, is the third most thermal institution of higher education in Murrica, after USC and Vanderbilt.

Good journalist that I am, I googled “hottest schools decade IU daily beast,” just to verify the story and, perhaps, to provide a link to the Beast’s piece (which the H-T hadn’t).

Lo and behold, I found that the DB‘s list of hot colleges was done in 2009. It ran December 13 that year, which makes sense, considering it was an “of the decade list.” Such things aren’t done in the middle of a ten-annum.

Didja Hear The News?!

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So thanks, Herald Times, for the five-year-old news. If I’d paid the $8.95 the paper wants every month for an online subscription, I’d be steaming about now. Luckily, I’ve figured out a way to get it free, which is what it’s worth.

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05/18/2014

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Big Talk, Charlotte Zietlow, Democratic Women's Caucus of Monroe County, Herald Times, Indianapolis Star, Joani Crean, Regina Moore, Republican Party, Susan Sandberg, The Ryder, Voter Suppression, WFHB

Hot Air

Blue Skies Ahead

Just wondering: Can it be any more perfect in Bloomington this morning?

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The sky is a rich, deep blue and cloudless. The high should be near 70. The next two days should be clear and mild as well.

This is what we wait all winter for.

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From Ho-hum To Wow!

Do I need to point out the difference between, say, the Herald Times of Bloomington and this communications colossus?

I mean, one very well-respected member of our community has told me that he’d much rather read about a pressing local issue here in The Pencil than in B-town’s daily newspaper. The Pencil’s take, he sez, is always more interesting and provocative.

Far be it from me to brag. In fact, I’ll point out that The Pencil hardly scrapes the surface of Bloomington and South Central Indiana’s news because, hell, I’m only one guy and I have a day job, too. I hammer on local issues only when they strike me. Plus, I have an irresistible need to pontificate on national and world happenings as well as pop culture, art and science, all of which eat up space here.

The day the Bloomington City Council counts among its members someone as entertaining as Michelle Bachmann, I’ll begin fixating on that person. Although Steve Volan is trying in his own inimitable way. And Susan Sandberg does wield a fiery ukulele.

Anyway, back to the Herald Times. The paper’s lead feature this gorgeous Sunday is a profile of the wife of IU basketball coach Tom Crean (paywall). I’m not going to reveal any details of the piece, mainly because I haven’t read anything more of it than the first paragraph. Why? Because I don’t care.

Do You Care?

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All I know is, the new Big Talk interview series continues Friday with an eight-minute feature on WFHB’s Daily Local News at 5:30pm and the release of this month’s Ryder magazine, which will carry the full-version of my hour-long chat with Bloomington’s political doyenne, Charlotte Zietlow.

I have my doubts that Coach Crean’s wife can tell me about living under tyrannical rule in Czechoslovakia or upending a decades-long political order here in Bloomington in 1971. Charlotte can.

Big Talk is a joint production of The Electron Pencil, WFHB, and The Ryder. We tie together this town’s cutting edge media outlets. And unless an IU coach’s wife discovers a remedy for global warming, you won’t have to worry about us profiling her herein.

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On The Other Hand

The H-T today does carry an excellent piece (again, paywall) on the Democratic Women’s Caucus here in Monroe County. The article points out that back only a decade ago, in the 2003 election, our town could boast only two female candidates for public office: Regina Moore and Uke-baby Sandberg.

City Clerk Regina Moore (right)

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The article quotes one political scientist who claims that voters seem to prefer women candidates for office but the problem is females are not as eager to run as men are. Women, this expert suggests, need to be dragged into the political arena. Read the piece.

Susan Sandberg (right) And The UkeTones

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BTW: You know who’s a big deal in the Dem Women’s Caucus? That’s right, Charlotte Zietlow. Just sayin’.

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It’s On Us

Speaking of politics, we can wail, moan, and gnash our teeth all we want over the Republican strategy to reduce voter turnout around the nation, but really we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

The Indy Star today offers a piece explaining that embarrassingly low turnouts in many counties and precincts for the May 6th primary were due to, well, folks being too gosh darned busy.

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Which is bullshit of the highest order. The article quotes no-show potential voters as saying things like traffic was too bad and they had to, presumably, do housework. The least thing a citizen can do in a democracy is to vote. And if you can’t find a half hour to vote every two years, then you don’t deserve democracy.

You can wring your hands all you’d like at Republican effort to suppress voter turnout but the GOP has far too many aiders and abettors in their efforts. To mangle a quote: We have met the enemy and they are us.

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05/13/2014

3 Comments

CNN Money, Dow Jones Industrial Average, George H.W. Bush, Herald Times, Movoto, Ronald Reagan, Standard & Poors 500, Trickle Down Theory, Voodoo Economics

Hot Air

We’re Rich!

So, the Dow and the S&P 500 yesterday both closed with the highest numbers in their separate histories. The Dow hit 16,695.47 and the S&P topped out at 1896.65.

CNN Money offers this explanation: “Investors poured money into the perceived safety of blue chip companies and seem to believe the economy is improving….”

Well, isn’t that dandy? So goddamned what.

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Here’s my alternative to the smoke-and-mirrors financial and economic reportage offered by our esteemed corporate media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, Fox, the Wall Street Journal and all the rest of those shit shovelers. Let’s establish a brand new pair of indexes, call them the How? and the Wretched & Poors. They’ll be designed to give us a picture of the economy, not as it affects big shot moneybags investors but you and me.

The How? (as in, how can we afford…?) will be comprised of 30 families who can reasonably be described as Middle Class. They will come from all corners of this holy land and be selected to represent as many family set-ups as possible, including two-parent families, those with no kids, single parent units, gay parents, blacks, whites, reds, yellows and browns, immigrant families, and even single-person households.

A Blue Chip Investment

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This new financial and economic index will measure those families in terms of their daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly economic buying power. If, say, one of the wage-earners in the family loses her job, that would profoundly negatively affect its standing within the index. Conversely, whenever that family finishes any measuring period, say a week, with a few bucks left over after paying all its bills, why they’ll be hailed as great successes, the hot stock family.

The Wretched & Poors index would be populated by 500 families and individuals who live below a given poverty line, all of whom are as demographically diverse as those in the How? and measured the same way their Middle Class counterparts are.

Member, Wretched & Poors 500 (Photo/Mary Ellen Marks)

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See, the 30 corporate giants followed by the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the 500 common stock companies of the S&P supposedly give us a picture of our nation’s economic health. Problem is, even if, say, McDonald’s is doing fabulously well, its employees just might not be so flush. Wait, let me amend that: they positively won’t be so flush.

Saint Ronald Reagan told us a rising tide raises all boats back some 35 years ago. That’s a pretty image, but it’s inherently full of horseshit. It depends, first off, on the wealthy of America sprinkling their dollars all around the country so that the rest of us thirsty for them can lap the cash up. I know I’m not at all happy about a miniscule elite controlling America’s dough and bestowing it upon me in whatever drips and drops they wish. Second off, those drips and drops, by the time they get to the poorest of us, have pretty much been collected by other wealthy folk, because that’s who the wealthy do business with.

When George H. W. Bush ran against Reagan for the presidency in 1980, he called Dutch’s money plans “voodoo economics.” That’s a nice start. I’d go with “fuck you economics.” As in, we’ve got all the money and we’ll give the rest of you what we want, if you’re lucky and if we make piles and piles of it more than the obscene amounts we already have, and if you don’t like it, fuck you.

In fact, let’s call the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Standard & Poors 500 the Fuck You indices. My proposed How? and Wretched & Poors indices would be the real economic barometers of America.

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Rank

The great city o’Bloomington has been ranked the 15th best burgh in Indiana in which to live by some outfit called Movoto.

Movoto sez a bunch of Indianapolis suburbs as well as Columbus and West Lafayette are better places to live than our town.

The Herald Times ran an editorial on the rankings today. It was a hand-wringing, dear-us screed that asked “How in the world could a ranking of the 10 best cities of Indiana not include Bloomington?”

Not The Best?

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How indeed? How about a city whose newspaper howls about the tragic unfairness of not recognizing Bloomington as heaven on Earth but neglects even to mention who did the ranking, when it was done, or why.

Yes, your Electron Pencil had to do the digging to find out about Movoto. It’s an online real estate listing service that also runs a blog offering a humorous take on real estate news and trends (wow ⎼ talk about setting a near-impossible goal for yourself!) It’s the blog that did the ranking that so insulted the H-T editorialists. The Movoto blog’s tagline is “The lighter side of real estate.”

The Herald Times brain trust, presumably, was so miffed about the slight that they won’t even mention Movoto’s name.

I’m willing to bet West Lafayette’s paper did, though, and most likely added what a fine and sophisticated bunch of arbiters Movoto employs.

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09/16/2012

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Backstreet Mission, Dalai Lama, Danny DeVito, Ellen Marks, Herald Times, Judge Kenneth Todd, Nuclear Weapons, Parking Meters, Pendleton State Correctional Center, Robert Lee

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Of course I’ve got lawyers. They are like nuclear weapons. I’ve got ’em because everyone else has. But as soon as you use them, they screw everything up.” — Danny DeVito

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UNFORGIVEN?

How long should a man who commits a random dismemberment murder be locked away from society?

Robert Lee will be coming back to town this week, according to a story today in the Herald Times.

Lee in 1986 killed a young woman named Ellie Marks in her home, cut her up, and stuffed the body parts into Hefty bags, which he buried in soil mere yards away. Lee, who had a lengthy police record, kept a notebook in his home with instructions on how to kill, dismember, and dispose of a young woman.

The Shanty Where Ellen Marks Lived And Was Murdered

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Judge Kenneth Todd sentenced Lee to 60 years (the max non-death penalty sentence for the crime at the time) after a two-week trial. The crime was described as “barbaric.” At Lee’s sentencing hearing Todd said, “Atrocities were committed.”

Go here for more information on the crime. It’s a video done up in a Hallowe’en motif, so it takes away from the gravity of the whole thing, but it’s informative nonetheless.

Lee behaved well in prison and earned some college degrees, both of which merited sentence reduction. After 25 years in stir, Lee will be sprung from Pendleton Thursday. He’ll live for a while at the Backstreet Mission until he finds a permanent home.

He’ll be walking the streets by this time next weekend.

Can we ever forget? Can he?

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TO METER OR NOT TO METER

Bloomingtom, like every other municipality in this holy land — big, small, and in-between, needs dough. One way to rake in some of the quarters city budgeteers crave is to install parking meters, which our town is considering for the entire downtown area.

A Few Tens Of Millions Of These Ought To Do It

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Here’s a precis of the situation, sent to the Electron Pencil by a city official familiar with the proposal.

“The current system is a 2-hour limit on free parking that is monitored (and ticketed) by City parking enforcement staff. The new proposal is to place meters everywhere to replace the two-hour free parking spots, allegedly to solve the problems of the “two-hour shuffle” when downtown employees have to move their cars every two hours or be ticketed.

“Patron/customer turnover is needed for vibrant downtown commerce, and so they (city staff) want to incentivize more use of the downtown parking garages, which they claim are underutilized.

Coming Soon To A Parking Spot Near You?

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“They also want to de-incentivize car usage in the downtown encouraging more to walk, bike and take public transportation. Noble goals, but not always practical for folks with physical limitations and creaky bones…, families with children, and people who need to shop conveniently and/or transport goods. I’m fine with the current two-hour limit on parking as it also prevents long term parking — [e.g.] students in the downtown rentals who are looking for spots to warehouse their cars at the expense of the downtown turnover.

“I believe the downtown merchants have not been properly informed or surveyed about what their needs actually are in improving the foot traffic and patron support for their businesses. I also am mindful of all residents who come downtown to transact business at the Courthouse and Justice Building, not all are of independent means. Also, downtown employees in low-paying service jobs will be negatively impacted with fewer choices for free or reasonably priced parking options.

Courthouse Square Eateries May Be Affected

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“These meters could also extend into the evening hours, having an impact on the arts district and dining establishments. Those in Public Works currently supporting the idea say it isn’t about generating revenue, but about ‘changing behaviors.'”

Big Mike’s Wisdom alert: City big shots and drones always claim the installation of parking meters has nothing to do with the generation of revenue. It’s like the country that throws huge amounts of resources into its nuclear “research” program. Oh, god forbid, it protests, we have no intention of building a nuclear weapon.

And the next thing you know, seismographs all over the planet are recording that country’s initial nuclear test.

Aw, We Just Had Some Enriched Uranium Lying Around….

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TEMPUS, MY FRIENDS, FUGIT

From Indexed:

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HERE’S A RELIGIOUS LEADER I CAN LIKE

From I Fucking Love Science

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07/30/2012

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Beth Baker, Book Corner, Curly Howard, Herald Times, Iggy Pop, Indianapolis Star, Moe Howard, Ms. Magazine, New York Times, Opie Taylor's, Republican War on Women, Rod Riggs, Sex Toys, The Stooges, The Three Stooges, Tiara Likes, USA Today, Wall Street Journal

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Toys of fate; it’s kismet!” — Curly Howard

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THIS OLD, ELECTRON-STAINED WRETCH

How long do you think it’ll be before local papers like the Indy Star and the Herald Times cease coming out, well, on paper?

My guess is the Herald Times has five years left. Maybe fewer.

The Star? Five years as well. Seven max.

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By 2020, the only paper newspapers remaining will be big-time, national publications like the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and one or two others.

The rest? Done.

The Indianapolis Star today runs a FAQ column on its new online subscription policy. The reality is “you get it on your iPad, on your Android phone, on your desktop, in print, on social media or countless other platforms.”

Newsprint is nothing more than another “platform.”

At the Book Corner, only one person under the age of 60 or so buys newspapers. That’s some guy who works for Opie Taylor’s; he’s about 35. I have no recollection of anyone in her or his 20s ever plopping down the 75 cents for an H-T — or any other paper, for that matter.

Wanna know a secret? I get all my news online. And remember, I’m a 30-year veteran of writing for newspapers and magazines.

I won’t cry over the death of the papers.

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BAD NEWS, BOYS

Ya gotta love it when our elected officeholders display a sense of humor. Especially, when the humor verges on truth.

For instance, after the Me Party-ists and right wingers, who took over the universe in the 2010 elections, decided to roll back women’s access to abortions and contraception to pre-11th Century levels, a few female pols shot back.

Writer Beth Baker penned a sidebar to her main article “Fighting the War Against Women” in the Spring/Summer edition of Ms. magazine. Entitled “What’s Good for the Goose,” the sidebar lists four tongue-in-cheek actions either proposed or approved recently.

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Here they are:

The “spilled semen” amendment — Introduced by Oklahoma State Senator Constance Johnson, it calls for any semen deposited outside a woman’s vagina to be considered “an action against an unborn child.”
Egg and sperm personhood — Passed by the Wilmington, Delaware, city council, it declares all human ova and spermatazoa “eggs persons” and “sperm persons.” They will be protected against “abuse, neglect, or abandonment by the parent or guardian.”

Emily (L), Meet Zach (Leading, R)

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Erectile dysfunction treatment testing and counseling — Introduced by Ohio State Senator Nina Turner, it would call for mandatory psychological testing, a cardiac stress test, and sexual counseling for any man who wishes to get a prescription for Viagra, Cialis, or other branded boner pills. Additionally, such patients would be required to show the doctor a signed agreement from his sex partner. He then would be directed toward celibacy counseling.
Mandatory priapism video — Introduced by Illinois State Representative Kelly Cassidy, this bill would require men seeking boner pill scrips to watch a video on priapism, the most common side effect of such meds, and its treatment, which is awfully gory. (Boys, cover your eyes — it involves a scalpel.)

AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

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Funny? Sure. But none of these laws or declarations is any more ridiculous than the roadblocks to reproductive freedom the right loves to throw in front of women.

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NO FUN

You can’t have missed this. Is nothing sacred?

A woman in Galesburg, Illinois told police last week that her home had been burglarized and a collection of her most precious possessions had been snatched.

An unknown intruder or intruders, the woman reported, had taken a pink bag filled with $1000-worth of sex toys.

Industry!

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Her sex toys.

Man. That’s really hitting below the belt.

The beauty of the story is the reaction of Galesburg Police Captain Rod Riggs (okay, now I’m beginning to think this whole thing is a gag — Rod? Riggs?)

Anyway, Riggs told reporters, “There are a lot of odd ducks out there.”

Knowing cops as I do, it’s an even bet as to whether he’s referring to the criminal or the victim.

Or might he be talking about some of the contents of the pink bag?

And Why Not?

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DEDICATED TO TIARA LIKES

Yep. That’s the name of the poor woman who had her sex toys swiped. Come on, Tiara Likes? Rod Riggs? Odd ducks?

Iggy Pop would have to love this story. “No Fun” was released on the Stooges’ eponymous first album in 1969.

According to legend, Iggy called Moe Howard of the Three Stooges to ask the great man for permission to borrow from the slapstick trio’s name. The legend has it that Moe indicated he didn’t care one way or the other. There is no evidence he finger-poked Iggy in the eyes through the phone.

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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.

Indexed: Note To Hoteliers

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

❏ Present and Correct — (New Listing) 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.

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❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ 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.

◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds — Day 3, 2012 Monroe County Fair, Carnival begins at 4pm, Music: JackLegg, Sheila Stephen and the Rodeo Monkeys; Noon to 11pm

◗ City Hall, City Council Chambers — Bloomington Food Policy Council quarterly meeting, open to the public; 5:30-7pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Songwriter Showcase: The McKibben Bros., Chris Little, Terry Turley, Tom Marshalek; 8pm

◗ The Bishop — DJ Mikey Kapinus; 8pm

◗ IU HPER, room 107 — Ballroom dance lessons; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — Dave Walters karaoke; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This @#!%”; through July 30th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
“A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
“Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
“French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits: Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; through August 3rd

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

“What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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07/28/2012

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Andy Graham, Atomism, Big Ten, Book Corner, Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower, Democritus, Herald Times, Joe Paterno, Liza Pavelich, Penn State University, Perseids Meteor Shower, Yummy Mommy Makeover

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.” — Democritus.

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THE BIG 10’S BIG STORY

Herald Times sportswriter Andy Graham stopped in to the Book Corner earlier this week to pick up a Big 10 football preview magazine.

It was his last stop in town before setting off for Chicago, where he’s covering this week’s Big 10 Media Days dog and pony show.

You think anybody’ll be talking about anything other than Penn State?

A Prison Of His Own Design

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Check out Graham’s piece on the scandal that ran in Friday’s edition.

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… AND LO-OVE WILL STEER THE STARS…

It’ll be a great night for a meteor shower.

The Delta Aquarids shoot through the eastern sky late tonight. Seemingly emanating from the Aquarius constellation, they’ll be a teaser for the year’s biggest shooting star show, the Perseids, in fifteen days.

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Tonight’s display will be special, though, because the moon won’t interfere with it. The moon is waxing gibbous in the west in the early evenings these days.

Best viewing hours for the Aquarids are midnight through dawn.

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NEWLY ATTRACTIVE PREDATORS

Liza Pavelich of Bloomington says she was on the receiving end of a Facebook ad for something called Yummy Mommy Makeover.

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The ad features a testimonial from a now-scrumptious mother. It reads, according to LP: “It’s great. Now I get hit on by teenaged boys all the time!”

Which Liza characterizes, rightly, as “gross.”

She also points out that her memory of teenaged boys was such that any sane human being would shun their advances, considering how virtually sub-human they are.

Then again, it’s hard to imagine that anyone who spends the $300 to become a “yummy mommy” is actually, you know, sane.

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❏ I Love Charts — Life as seen through charts.