Category Archives: Hillary Clinton

09/04/2012
2 Comments
Aretha Franklin, Chicago Teachers Union, Christianiry vs. Islam, General Motors, Hillary Clinton, Jerry Boyle, Joe Biden, NPR, Organics, Osama bin Laden, Peter LoPilato, Runskip, Ryder, Ryder Film Series, Stanford University, USDA Organic Program, Whole Foods Market

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“You want to know whether we’re better off? I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” — Vice President Joe Biden

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UNION

The day after Labor Day.

Up in Chicago, the city’s Daley Center Plaza was chock full of people showing support for the Chicago Teachers Union yesterday.

Here’s one picture of the scene from radical attorney Jerry Boyle:

Chicago’s Daley Center Plaza, Labor Day, 2012

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And I’ll bet you thought nobody cared about unions anymore.

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THE RYDER AND US

Peter LoPilato’s Ryder Film Series and magazine get wrapped up in a spanking new website today.

And your fave Bloomington events listings move to that address.

What used to be known as The Electron Pencil’s “GO!” now is a daily blog on The Ryder’s shiny internet home.

So get your mouse-clicking, touchpad mashing finger limbered up: From now on you can get Bloomington’s finest hot air here and then click over to The Ryder to help you make the day’s plans. Oh, and you can read about the movies Peter will be showing this coming weekend and you can peruse current and past editions of The Ryder mag online.

What more do you need in life?

[At the time this post was published, the Runskip bosses had not put the new Ryder site up yet. So be patient. I’ll get a link to you as soon as it’s released to me.]

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THERE IS NO MAGIC FOOD

Loved the NPR report this morning on organic foods.

A Stanford University study indicates that there is scant evidence organic foods have much added benefit. That is, if you’re an organic foodie, your health isn’t more likely to be better, you’re not getting more nutrients from what you eat, and your grub doesn’t necessarily taste better.

Worth It?

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Don’t get me wrong, I like eating food that’s free of chemical pesticides. And keep in mind I used to be part of the Whole Foods Market education department. It was my job to explain the federal organic program and WFM’s efforts to operate within that law.

So I had intimate knowledge of organics.

Knowing what I knew, I decided very early on that I needn’t waste my dough buying only organic fruits and vegetables or even potato chips. And yes, you can get organic junk food.

That was one of the things that turned me off organics. They are costly. Organics are privileged white people’s way of telling themselves they’re eating better the the rest of the sweaty crowd.

That’s the kind of attitude Right Wingers love to focus on and exaggerate when they’re trying to convince the public that liberals and progressives rank below peeping toms on the social scale.

I’ve long felt that the whole organics thing is the Left’s vestige of Puritanism. My food is holy and clean, the foodies seem to be saying.

I’m Gonna Live Forever!

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Me? I know the world is filthy and full of peril. I do my best to avoid risk, still keeping in mind that some microorganism, some parasite, some tornado or flood, or some wild eyed religious fundamentalist just might kick the crap out of me.

There is no guarantee of anything. And organics are no guarantee of better food.

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BIDEN BITIN’

A couple of things about today’s quote.

Generally, I avoid quoting current politicians spouting their partisan bull. But with the 2012 presidential campaign racing into the homestretch, I’ll be wearing my colors until the first Tuesday in November. It’s bull season.

The Political Season

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Now, about that pic of Joe Biden jamming a couple of ice cream cones down his throat: It comes from a Tumblr site entitled “500 Still Frames of Joe Biden Eating a Sandwich.”

Yup. No lie.

It’s one of the reasons I love the interwebs.

The site is dedicated to amassing pix of the Veep working as a trencherman.

Someone even sneaked in a shot of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton attacking a submarine. Here it is:

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Sure, it’s probably a campaign photo op but, still, ya gotta love a woman who’s not afraid to get her hands greasy.

I have a pal who’s been married for more than 30 years. He says he knew his future blushing bride was the one for him on their very first date: They went out to eat and she mopped up her plate in record time and then reached over to spear morsels from his dish.

“She was a champion eater,” he says proudly.

And the best part is, according to my pal, she’s as svelte now as she was when she was a callow 24-year-old.

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PHILOSOPHICAL DIFFERENCES?

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THINK

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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.

❏ Science Is Awesome (formerly I Fucking Love Science) — A Facebook community of science geeks.

Science Is Awesome

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❏ 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.

Click For Full Article

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❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.

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08/10/2012
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Allen Texas, Animal Planet, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Creationism, Finding Bigfoot, Football Concussions, Goldman Sachs, Hillary Clinton, Human Evolution, Human Growth Hormone, Lisa de Moraes, Lloyd Blankfein, Mermaid: The Body Found, Organized Crime, Performance Enhancing Drugs, Robert A. Heinlein, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Socialism, Steroids, Sub-prime Loans, Tears of a Clown, US Department of Justice, Washington Post, Welfare Reform

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.” — Robert A. Heinlein

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A NOTE TO MY READERS

If I seem a little cynical today (okay, a lot cynical) don’t blame me. I’m only the messenger.

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MEET YOUR BOSS

Make no mistake now. There is no longer any argument.

This holy land is not led by a president or a Senate or House. Nor is it run by Democrats or Republicans. Not even the combined forces of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines rival the most powerful entity in the United States today.

Kids Stuff

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These Great United States, Inc. are ruled by the investment banking firm and criminal enterprise known as Goldman Sachs.

And that would make the emperor of this nominal democratic republic an unindicted hoodlum by the name of Lloyd Blankfein.

Dear Leader

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The capo Blankfein and his underlings yesterday got a huge return on their investments in political bribery and economic blackmail when the Obama Justice Department announced it won’t be pursuing charges against them.

See, Goldman Sachs had been engaged in the selling of subprime mortgage securities for years, earnings ungodly amounts of money. Only Blankfein’s syndicate then went out and bet against the performance of those securities.

In other words, Goldman Sachs sold its clients — including retirement funds, states and municipalities, hospitals, and the like — a pile of shit and then went out and set up a sham insurance safety net protecting itself against the shit smears that would inevitably follow.

The original “Mob” used to have this scam down to an art. A couple of crooked-nosed Charlies would visit a restaurant owner and advise him he needed “insurance” should, god forbid, anything calamitous happen.

Aw, D’at’s Too Bad. Y’See What Can Happen?

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The only flaw in the Mob’s plan was its inability to hold off the dogs of justice indefinitely. By and by, some squeaky clean prosecutor would slap the bracelets on the big boys and their underbosses.

But Lloyd Blankfein won’t be a guest of the state any time soon. In fact. the state is now his guest.

This is, after all, his country. Lock, stock, and barrel.

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PROBLEM SOLVED

You know how Barack Obama is a socialist? And the Clintons before him?

Real red-underwear-wearing types, right?

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At least that’s what the Right would have us believe.

So why is it that the number of people receiving cash assistance from government social welfare programs has fallen a full two-thirds since Bill Clinton’s 1996 welfare reform? And the number of American families who get government subsidies for trivial things like food and heat has fallen by a half?

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The answer, if you believe the Right, is they’ve all gone from the lazy poor to the self-sufficient middle class. Because, after all, it was their own fault they were poor.

The great thing about living in these United States is the fact that we don’t need complicated solutions to baffling problems. The answers, my fellow citizens, are simple.

Oops. I mean simplistic.
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ANOTHER SIGN OF THE COMING APOCALYPSE

Everybody and anybody who had a hand in making this monstrosity a reality should have the living shit kicked out of them:

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This is the brand spankin’ new high school football stadium in Allen, Texas.

You read right: High-freaking-school.

The new home of the Allen Eagles cost $60M. It seats 18,000. It has a 75×45-foot video screen scoreboard.

The story about this crime against humanity in Time magazine’s online newsfeed quotes some little bastard defensive back as saying, “We just have to [be] blessed and humble and not take it for granted.”

Go Eagles!

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Yeah. Like the god that doesn’t exist gave it to you in lieu of doing anything about the flooding in India.

Texas, by the way, last year cut $5B from the state public schools budget..

Anyway, the best part of the story is the little teaser in red about halfway down: “MORE: Catastrophic Brian Injuries at All-Time High in High School Football.”

Nothin’ like seeing your boy’s cerebrum concussed into so much gray goo down on the field in a shiny new stadium, is there?

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LIFE LESSONS FROM FOOTBALL

Yep. Football’s back.

Remember when Ma & Pa America were all aflutter over teenaged athletes using steroids and human growth hormones to build muscle mass?

The Horror

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Heaven forbid our precious scions should risk the devastating side effects of performance enhancing drugs. Like acne.

No. It’s much better for them to suffer permanent disability due to head injuries suffered on the gridiron.

Oh, and thanks to our changing climate (which, I’d bet, plenty o’Texans think is the liberal bunk anyway) more and more high school football players are suffering serious injury and death from practicing in full pads through the August heat.

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SCIENCE TAKES ANOTHER HIT

We don’t have cable anymore at Chez Big Mike but if we did, Animal Planet would be on all the time. The Loved One digs critters and I’m partial to two or three species myself.

The bad news is, Animal Planet is slipping and sliding away from real animals this coming season and becoming more about, well, bullshit.

Two of the cable networks big shows will be “Finding Bigfoot” and “Mermaid — The Body Found.”

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According to the Washington Post’s TV columnist Lisa de Moraes, critics pounded Animal Planet reps when the network held its pre-season news conference. One asked if AP “had run out of real animals.”

When it comes to TV, though, no one can argue with the numbers. AP’s audiences love shows about creatures that don’t exist.

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THE POWER OF MYTH

Great. As if I’m not discouraged enough by the direction in which this nation is headed, this poll comes out:

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The site I Fucking Love Science opines: “Well, this is a little bit scary. Come on America, sort it out. You just landed on Mars!”

To borrow a term from the god-fetishists, Amen!

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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.

From I Love Charts

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❏ 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 and 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.

❏ 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.

Tiny, From The Daily Puppy

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

◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — Opening reception: “Articulture” by Marco Zehrung; 6-8pm

◗ Lake Monroe, Paynetown SRA — National S’mores Day celebration, recipe competition and other activities; 6-10pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Workshop: Depression and Buddhism, presented by Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet”; 7pm

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

◗ IU Cinema — Film: “To Rome with Love”; 7pm

◗ Bloomington Speedway — Sprint cars, UMP super stocks, UMP modifieds; 7pm

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

◗ Cafe Django — Sad Sam Blues Jam; 8-10pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Tim Wilson; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Polisse”; 8:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Chris Wilson & Planet Earth, Charlie & the Groove Factory; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — The Revivalists, Three Story Hill; 9pm

◗ Max’s Place — Phoenix Down; 9pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Amanda Webb; 9:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Head Bread; 10:30pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

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

◗ 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:

  • 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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08/04/2012
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al Qaeda, Antonin Scalia, Duck and Cover, Eugenics, Forced Sterilization, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, Indiana Farm Colony for Feeble Minded Youth, Iraq War, Michele Bachmann, Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Nixonland, Nuclear Weapons, Occupy Wall Street, Omar N. Bradley, PBS, Revolution, Richard M. Nixon, Rick Perlstein, Saddam Hussein, Tea Party, US Army, US Supreme Court, Watts Riots

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.” — Omar Bradley

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BOOM!

WFIU reports that the US Army is staging a two-week nuclear explosion response simulation through mid-August right here in South Central Indiana.

Some 10,000 soldiers and civilian responders are play-acting what they’ll do in the event that some mad brown people drop a nuke on, say, Bloomington or even Indy.

The big burlesque is happening at the Muscatatuck Urban training Center, about 75 miles east-southeast of Bloomington.

Muscatatuck Urban Training Center (Click to enlarge)

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MUTC covers a thousand acres and has more than a hundred training buildings including structures up to seven stories tall as well as good old split-level suburban type homes.

Now, I mention mad brown people because that’s who we’re really afraid is going to hurl the big one at us, no?

Didn’t George W. Bush whisper the words mushroom cloud and Saddam Hussein into our ears back in 2002 and 2003 to convince us to go along with him and his cronies on their war party? How much has changed regarding how we look at Arabs and Muslims since then?

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When Michele Bachmann can get media mileage and a sharp increase in campaign donations out of linking one of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s aides with al Qaeda even now, we haven’t moved an inch off that witless, brainless dime in ten years.

Anyway, MUTC is located, appropriately enough, on the former site of the Indiana Farm Colony for Feeble Minded Youth. Adding to the irony of it all, the IFCFMY is where several thousand forced sterilizations took place after Indiana became the first state in the union to allow that eugenic practice.

I wonder if the people who ran IFCFMY instructed the kids to duck and cover back in the ’50s.

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And how feeble-minded do we have to be to figure we’ll survive a nuclear blast if only we have enough ambulances and EMTs?

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WHAT’S THE ANTIDOTE FOR ANTONIN?

I’ve been taking my time reading Rick Perlstein’s fab book, “Nixonland,” this summer.

Perlstein posits that Dick Nixon was the first television era president to give voice to the bleatings and ramblings of the gleefully uneducated in this holy land.

Rick Perlstein

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Nixon’s was truly a grass roots campaign in 1968. He portrayed college-educated people as snobbish, superior, sex- and drug-crazed lunatics who were going to ram blacks, Jews, peace, welfare, and even a little bit of the Communist Manifesto down good people’s throats. Nixon was savvy enough to realize most Americans had a hard enough time getting out of high school.

He rode a wave of self-pity and manufactured paranoia into the White House.

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The divisions Nixon capitalized on in the United States at the time make today’s Tea Party/Occupy Wall Street tête-à-tête look like a pillow fight.

Perlstein suggests that this nation avoided an actual second civil war by a hair’s width. Bombings, murders, assassinations, mob actions, and the army on American streets were as common from 1965 through 1973 as texting while driving is today.

Watts, August 1965

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Anyway, during Nixon’s early years in the White House, PBS was coming into its own as a news operation to be reckoned with, especially since it didn’t have to answer to advertisers. PBS started nosing into some of the more unsavory aspects of the Nixon administration. The President directed the general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy to draw up a plan to defang PBS.

That general counsel wrote memos spelling out precisely how Nixon could bring PBS to heel. He wrote: “The best possibility for White House influence is through Presidential appointees to the Board of Directors.”

Once Nixon had stacked the board with his boys, they could then work on local PBS stations to play ball with the White House through the granting of moneys that were originally meant to go to the national network. The reason? The national network was top heavy with people from “the liberal Establishment of the Northeast.”

In other words, college-educated men. Bad guys who must be battled.

The author of that strategy was a fellow named Antonin Scalia, now the longest serving member of the US Supreme Court.

Antonin Scalia: Warrior Against Liberals

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Yeah, there was a revolution in the ’60s. Only the guys in power staged it — and won it.

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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 and 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.

❏ 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.

◗ Bloomington High School North — Yard sale to benefit the Color Guard; 7am-noon

◗ City Hall, Showers Plaza — Farmers Market; 8am-1pm

◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds — Day 8, 2012 Monroe County Fair, Veterans Program; 2pm — Dead Giveaway; 5pm — Demolition Derby; 7pm; Noon to 11pm

◗ IU Art Museum — Tour: Exploring German Expressionism with docent Yelena Polyanskaya; 2pm

◗ IU Art Museum — Talk: Focus on Hockney with curator Nan Brewer; 2:15pm

◗ IU Cinema — Film: “David Hockney: The Bigger Picture”; 3pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet; 7pm

◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Original musical, “Dreams & Nightmares”; 7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Jeb Brester; 7-9pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — “Disney’s Beauty and the Beast”; 7:30pm

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Cari Ray, The Not Too Bad Bluegrass Band;  7:30pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Polisse”; 8pm

◗ Cafe Django — Dave Gulyas & Dave Bruker; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Costaki Economopolous; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Oslo: August 31”; 8:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Jason Wilber, e.a. strother; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — Pam Thrash Retro; 9pm

◗ Max’s Place — Lexi Minich and the Strangers; 9pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Bonz; 9:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Otto Mobile; 10:30pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; opens Friday, August 3rd, through September 1st

◗ 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:

  • 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 — Exhibits:

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

♢

07/16/2012
Leave a comment
50 Shades of Grey, A Stolen Life, Bill Clinton, Cairo, Contras, GT3D, Hillary Clinton, Hsoni Mubarek, Iraq War, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Joshua Foer, Lady Gaga, Marie Curie, Mohammed Morsi, Monica Lewinsky, Moonwalking with Einstein, NCAA, Nicaragua, Oliver Sacks, Penn State University, Shah of Iran, The Mind's Eye, Vietnam War

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie

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CAIRO CREEPS

The world’s citizenry has plenty of reasons to be mad at the US.

In my lifetime alone there’ve been Vietnam, the Shah, the Contras, a couple of senseless wars with Iraq, and Lady Gaga.

Down With The USA!

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That’s enough to make anyone hurl a shoe at the Secretary of State’s motorcade.

Which is what a gang of Egyptians did yesterday when Hillary Clinton passed through Cairo. They threw tomatoes at her entourage as well.

Apparently, the protesters were hot because this holy land allegedly has taken sides in their presidential election charade. I wouldn’t doubt that we are, considering the US puts its big nose into everybody’s business. That’s what empires do.

But the protesters also shouted “Monica, Monica, Monica” at Hillary’s limo.

You remember Monica Lewinsky, the most famous fellator in human history, don’t you? Also, in case you’ve forgotten, she was a walking humidor.

Quite A Bouquet

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Anyway, I’d lay off the sexual references if I were the Egyptians. They didn’t exactly comport themselves well with women in the streets when they were in the process of overthrowing their tyrant leader, Hosni Mubarek.

An effort, by the way, the United States supported.

In fact, just the other week a crowd of Egyptians sexually assaulted a female British journalist covering the celebration for newly elected prez Mohammed Morsi.

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THUMBS DOWN

Some observers of the Penn State University situation have said the NCAA has no authority over the institution in criminal matters not related to athletics.

Their “logic” goes that Jerry Sandusky’s sex life with children and Joe Paterno’s winking consent of same are not violations of the rules of the sacred game of football. Nor did they give Penn State an edge over its rivals in the playing of games.

The Little Girl Wisely Leans Away From The Nittany Lion

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Maybe. Of course, if the NCAA’s lawyers find this to be true then we can only hope the National Collegiate Athletic Association shuts down its offices and goes out of business forever.

Me? I’m all for the NCAA giving Penn State the death penalty. Shutting down its football program for one or two years just might remind people in Happy Valley as well as in college towns around the nation that big time sports is not the reason universities exist.

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COOL

Scientists have developed a device that can allow people to use their computers simply by moving their eyes.

This will be a miraculous boon to quadriplegics and amputees, among others.

The device, called GT3D, reads the user’s eyeball movements and translates that information into instructions to move a screen cursor. Users can play games, write emails, and do most of the things people with two usable hands can.

Click on the image below to see the video of a guy playing Pong with his eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the vid.

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The technology may one day be extended to wheelchair users. The device would be able to read the chair-bound user’s eye movements and cause the chair to proceed accordingly.

Some two decades ago I predicted that within fifty years we’d have implantable personal video and audio recording devices. Those of us who could afford it would have micro-devices surgically placed in our eyes.

Imagine how that would affect the criminal justice system.

Science, my friends, is cool.

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SCIENCE CHICK

The above story reminds me of a woman I met last week at the Book Corner. Her name is Sarah and she was stocking up on science-y books for summer reading.

That’s right — rather than lull herself into a trance by reading, say, “50 Shades of Grey” or “A Stolen Life,” she opted to spend her time on good stuff like “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer and “The Mind’s Eye” by Oliver Sacks.

This Just In: Girls Have Minds, Too

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I got to chatting with Sarah and she revealed she is here in Bloomington working on her doctorate in chemistry.

She admitted there aren’t many other women in her chosen field. She said she fell in love with chemistry thanks to an inspiring high school chemistry teacher, who happened to be a man.

Sarah was funny, extremely sociable, and curious about many things. And, again, she’ll soon have a PhD in one of the hard sciences.

The only downer is there are so few young women like Sarah running around the Great United States, Inc. these days.

♢

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

◗ Monroe County Public Library — “It’s Your Money: Flapjacks & Greenbacks,” Learn to make pancake mix from scratch and other tips to save money; 7pm

Make Your Own

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◗ Cafe Django — Bloomington Short List, hosted by Marta Jasicki, variety show, ten acts, ten minutes each; 7pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Chamber music students college audition; 8pm

◗ The Bishop — Murals, The Natives, Chandelier Ballroom; 9pm

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◗ The Player’s Pub — Songwriter Showcase; 8pm

◗ IU HPER, room 107 — Free 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
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ 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:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th 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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