Category Archives: Huffington Post

01/27/2015
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Anti-vaxxers, Bloomington Science Cafe, Ernie Banks, Gay Pride, Huffington Post, Laura Ricketts, Russell Lyons, Sherri Tenpenny

Hot Air

Sci-(Non)-Fi

The Bloomington Science Cafe gang will gather once again tomorrow eve at Finch’s Brasserie to hash over another hot topic. This time, Dr. Russell Lyons of Indiana University’s Math Dept. will talk about how we use statistics and numbers to fool each other.

xkcd

From xkcd

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Lyons is a big-time debunker, and you all know how I love debunking nonsense. He’ll use a specific case study — a highly-flawed research paper asserting that obesity is contagious — to illustrate how even supposedly respected scientists can flim-flam their way to notoriety through the use of sloppy statistical practices and outright numerical falsehoods. The paper in Q. actually contained the line: “You may not know him personally, but your friend’s husband’s co-worker can make you fat.”

The argument — and the whole paper, for that matter — was wrong and later discredited. Lyons decided that not only the general public but mass media reporters as well as reputable scientific journal editors needed refresher courses on good statistical methods. “Top journals,” Lyons says, “do not serve as the rigorous judges of quality that the public often assumes.”

Lyons

Lyons

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The idea being we should all look at studies, papers, news stories about science, and the like with a critical, analytical eye. But before we can do that, we have to know what makes a set of numbers right or true.

Lyons’ll speak at 6:30pm in Finch’s upstairs events room. Questions will follow. Admission, natch, is free and open to the public. Such a deal: You get smarter while simultaneously eating and drinking. Sounds like heaven to me.

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Civil Rights Slugger

You may think I’m getting all Ernie Banks-fixated but I ask you to try to understand how important Mr. Cub was to millions of native Chi-towners like me.

Anyway, WGN radio’s Patti Vazquez points out that Ernie persuaded the Cubs five years ago to sponsor a float in Chicago’s Gay Pride Parade held every June in the Boys Town n-hood. Thanks to Ern, the Cubs did indeed participate and, in fact, Mr. Cub himself rode on the float.

Gay Pride 2010

The Chicago Cubs Float Before The 2010 Pride Parade

(Photo: Cheryl Adams)

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(Of course, it helped that the Cubs’ Laura Ricketts is herself the first openly lesbian major pro sports team owner in this holy land.)

The Cubs thereby became the first major American sports franchise to participate in a Pride Parade.

Can Ernie Banks’ rep get any more golden?

[h/t to Rick Perlstein]

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Woo? Boo!

Thanks to our friends over at Wonkette, we learn that one of the Huffington Post‘s “medical” contributors who calls herself a “doctor” is really no doctor at all.

Lots o’folks on my side of the fence love, love, love HuffPo even though founder Arianna Huffington was able to rake in $315 MM selling the Left-leaning online news service after utilizing brilliant business practices like not paying her writers. HuffPo also panders to the soft-skull wing of the White Liberal Party by running scads of articles and opinion pieces touting woo medicines and diets.

F’rinstance, “Dr.” Sherri Tenpenny — the non-medico in question, has penned a couple of HuffPo articles on how childhood vaccinations are the bunk. That and a piece on Novartis, the uber-pharma outfit that she uses to frame her argument that prescription drugs and vaccines are poisons worse than all the Big Macs and Drano in the world put together.

Tenpenny

Tenpenny

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In the fallout from the Disneyland measles outbreak, Tenpenny has found all her speaking engagements cancelled these days. She blames “the extremists” who are insisting that kids get innoculated against catastrophic diseases. Wonkette‘s Fare la Volpe writes:

Those extremists are quite difficult, what with their unreasonable demands that children not catch polio in the 21st Century. It was good enough for FDR, wasn’t it?

Just another little reminder that anencephaly does not only strike Fox News hosts and those on the Right.

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03/17/2014
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B-Line Trail, Bloomington Certified High Tech Park, Climate Change Denial, Goddard Space Flight Center, Great Recession, Guardian UK, Habitat for Humanity, Huffington Post, Jamie Dimon, Jim Hightower, JP Morgan Chase, NASA, Overpopulation, Ralph Nader, Soma Coffee

Hot Air

The Mob

Ralph Nader quotes Jim Hightower in Saturday’s Huffington Post:

Assume you ran a business that was found guilty of bribery, forgery, defrauding homeowners, fleecing investors, swindling consumers, cheating credit card holders, violating US trade laws, and bilking American soldiers. Can you even imagine the punishments you’d get? Howe about zero? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. No jail time. Not even a fine. Plus, you get to stay on as boss, you get to keep all the loot you gained from the crime spree, and you even get an $8.5 million pay raise!

The hoodlum H-tower speaks of would  be the big boss of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, a man whom, Nader reminds us, proclaims for all the world to hear that he is “so damn proud of this company.”

Dimon

“Proud”

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We keep forgetting that reprobates like Dimon were responsible for crashing the entire world’s economy back in the mid-aughts. It wasn’t socialism, or communism, or same-sex marriage, or legalized pot, or a Manchurian Candidate president from Kenya, or even god’s will that millions more Americans now live below the poverty line, millions are unemployed, municipalities are going broke, school budgets are being slashed, libraries are closing, and…, and…, oh, it’s all too depressing.

All those ills were brought to us courtesy of the Liar’s Poker, casino-mentality, degenerate gamblers in fancy Wall Street offices (and their coat-holders in Congress).

They all are the very definition of mobsters.

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Trade Rumors

Here’s an idea regarding the development of some land along the B-Line Trail that cuts through central Bloomington. Habitat for Humanity wants to develop a little strip of woods along the Trail, just northwest of downtown B-town. So the city’s angling for a zoning variance to allow HforH to build a couple of dozen homes for the needy there.

Habitat/B-Line

Habitat’s B-Line Neighborhood Is Next Door To…

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And, according to folks who don’t think much of the idea, the city’s positioning the question as an either-or: either you want to help Habitat do its good works or you don’t. The problem acc’d’g to some, is that Habitat’s property is the last lush green space near downtown. That, and it is apparently going to be difficult to develop.

Instead, say a group of petitioners, the city and Habitat should swap land. The city-owned Certified Tech Park butts up against the Woods parcel. The CTP already is zoned for high-density residential development, the argument goes, and much of the land is cleared.

Bloomington CTP

…Bloomington’s Certified Tech Park

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The simple solution? Let HforH build its homes on the Tech Park site and let the city take over the Woods and transform that land into a Parks & Rec facility.

If you buy this argument, slap your sig. on the petition calling for the land swap.

Then again, if you think the city’s gonna let low-income folks live in its shiny new neighborhood, you must believe you live in a liberal college town.

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A Dickens Of A Tale

Overheard at Soma the other day, a barista talking to a customer:

My parents told me my actual last name was Nintendo. When I was about six, they said I was the heir to the Nintendo family fortune but that my original parents disowned me because they didn’t like the way I looked. So I was adopted.

Does too much coffee do that to people?

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The End Is Near — Maybe

And finally, it took a foreign newspaper to report on disturbing study by this holy land’s own NASA. Our Murrican space geeks have sponsored some alarming research with the help of scads of scientists from a variety of disciplines that show humanity’s present rate of consumption and excretion could potentially topple our whole house of cards within a few decades.

Fin

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We’re using so much stuff and belching so much of our wastes into the air, the water, and the soil that our civilization itself could collapse of its own weight. Don’t laugh — countless civilizations before us have gone all to hell for a screwing up what they knew of the world a lot less than we are.

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has submitted the study to the peer-reviewed journal of the International Society for the Journal of Ecological Economics. That gang contemplates stuff like this; you know, how much it costs us as a species to make sure everybody’s got all the latest hand-held devices and to keep our petro-plutocracy in charge of, well, everything.

Natch, Murrican newspapers and TV news outlets haven’t touched this thing yet because it has nothing to do with Justin Beiber or a white man shooting an unarmed black kid. Those, of course, are the only topics of import in this mad, mad, world.

Anyway, the study doesn’t come right out and say we’re doomed, only that we could be. There’s a chance, see? Except folks who think scientists are a political party would pooh-pooh the report out of hand, if only they had the intellect to understand it.

Inhofe Book Cover

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And here’s a conclusion the study makes that’s sure to make Ma & Pa Kettle bristle: We ought to stop having so many kids. Yup, overpopulation is strangling us, the study sez. There ain’t enough raw stuff on this planet to manufacture the products needed to satisfy all 7B of us. The conclusion is, those of us who have need to make sure that the rest of us have not; otherwise, we lucky few won’t have as much as we want.

Yeesh. So, when’s the last time you read the word overpopulation in your morning newspaper? Or heard the word uttered by a blonde, lacquered anchor lady?

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03/06/2014
1 Comment
Adolf Hitler, Barack Obama, Dolphins, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Huffington Post, Russia, Sarah Palin, Sodomy, The Crimea, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin

Hot Air

Bogeywoman

Okay, why are we being inundated on the interwebs with stupid Sarah Palin quotes again?

Why, why, why, why?

It’s not as though we don’t already know that the con artist, almost-beauty queen, shirker of duty is as batty as a cave in Southern Indiana, is it?

Palin

Palin Porn

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Can it be that my lib brethren and sisteren are quivering under the covers with petrification that Palin is somehow going to rise Phoenix-like over the American political scene again? Ask me, that’s got about as much chance of happening as my beloved Chicago Cubs winning the 2014 World Series.

And if Palin does somehow become a political figure with whom to reckon once again, this holy land would be de facto dead in the water anyway, so why worry?

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Another Sorry Dem

Hillary Clinton got herself in hot water this week by likening Vlad Putin’s swoop into the Crimea to the actions of a certain Right Wing dictator who wore a funny mustache.

Now, HRC is being forced to backtrack and explain herself because, as we know, the use of Hitler analogies is ever so unfair.

Only it’s those on the Right who are wringing their hands and rolling their eyes over the analogy. An analogy, BTW, that way, way, way too many of them use to describe a certain dark-skinned man who pushes pencils around the Oval Office.

As always, The Pencil is here to clear up any confusions.

Clinton

Nothing To Apologize For

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Barack Obama is not Hitler. Neither are Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or any others who don’t quite believe that Sarah Palin is a thoughtful, serious observer of the world condition.

OTOH, what Putin has done in the Crimea is absolutely, positively, very much like what Hitler did throughout the late 1930s. That is, ID a hot spot where the existing gov’t is about to topple and which contains a significant number of citizens who share said tryrant’s language and ethnicity, go in under the guise of rescuing the poor, downtrodden ethnic group, and then, voila!, take the joint over.

Yeah, that’s Hitler (and Putin) all the way. Stop apologizing Hillary!

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Dorm Hijinks

The house organ for the weak-kneed liberal sect of the American body politic, the Huffington Post, ran this headline in its right-hand-column teasers last night:

From Huffington Post

No Link Necessary

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And, no, I don’t need to explain what HuffPo‘s tittery euphemism is referring to. I suspect a child of 11 could catch the drift.

My question: Is this a drift anyone with a working cerebrum would want to catch?

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Mammal Mobsters

And, finally, scientists are coming to the conclusion that dolphins have homicidal tendencies.

Dolphin Kills Porpoise

Sharks & Jets? No, Dolphin & Porpoise

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Those who view the “natural” world as a Bambi cartoon have long asserted that critters don’t kill for fun, only humans do.

Not true. Dolphins time and again have been observed whacking other animals and even members of their own tribe just for the hell of it. And so have chimps.

Funny isn’t it? Perhaps the more intelligence a being has, the more likely it’ll be to bump off another being for sport, pleasure, or just because it’s bored.

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03/02/2014
2 Comments
Advertising, Aging, Cadillac, Huffington Post, Junk Science, Peter Nygard, Picture of Dorian Gray, Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik, Stem Cell Research

Your (Almost) Daily Hot Air

Truth In Advertising

The Huffington Post ran a little think piece on the latest Cadillac commercial. The author, Carolyn Gregoire, savaged it. Watch:

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Well, guess what — I’m going to praise it. Yep. It’s the first honest commercial I’ve seen in years. Maybe ever.

What Cadillac is saying here is if you’re a soulless, amoral, stone-hearted, vapid, vacuous, pathologically acquisitive mass of testosterone-infused human tissue, our overly-big, overly-showy, over-priced, gas guzzling road hog is for you.

Credit, babies, where credit is due.

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Money Mania

Let’s stick with eating the rich. We’re at the point now where some of the richest of the rich are pretty much losing their minds because, well, they’re too rich.

Apparel titan Peter Nygård is an almost-billionaire. Acc’d’ng to most estimates, he’s worth more than $800 million USD. His failure to attain that exalted B- status must weigh heavily upon him. So much so, apparently, that he craves more years upon this planet than the normal mortal is allotted. He needs time, you see, to make the final $200 mill that’ll elevate him to plutocracy heaven.

And, guess what — he’s convinced he’s bought that time! Yes sirs and ma’ams.

Nygård sez “…I have actually been reversing my aging and getting younger.”

Nygard

Forever Young?

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In an earlier day, we might have suspected there’s a painting of him hanging in a closet, one that shows him becoming more decrepit and frightful by the day. Now, though, evidence of his visual comeuppance prob. will be found on some image board or photo sharer. Shutterfly, say, or Snapfish, under the URL http://www.sickfreakinghubris.whatever.com.

This Wilde-ian character in human form swears to high heaven that stem cells have been reversing his arrow of time. The Bahamas Tribune has the scoop: Nygård lives there and Freeport was the site recently of a big stem cell research conference, which the younging (opposite of aging?) fashionista attended, I suppose, to show everybody how smooth his skin was and how sparkly his eyes were becoming once again.

Sane people are expressing skepticism about Nygård’s claim. The Bahamas’ frantic effort to become a global stem cell research center, too, is causing people there to welcome any and all claimants about that particular biotechnology, no matter how off the wall they are.

Painting by Ivan Albright

Painting By Numbers

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Great, now not only are the rich insensitive to the needs of people and the planet, they’re becoming deranged. Happy 21st Century, everybody!

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Okay Old

Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik is my oldest friend. That is, she’s been my friend for longer than anyone else. One day, though, she may be my oldest friend in the strict, years-on-this-planet sense.

She’s aging. And she isn’t hiding it. See, she’s an artist of many disciplines, sort of a Renaissance dame. She’s fiddling with her camera these days, shooting herself in what most of America would consider the most unflattering way possible.

While people innumerable stand on their heads to make the general public think they’re 10, 20, hell, even 30 years younger than they actually are, SAW is busy pointing out her own wrinkles, sags, stretches, and splotches. If you don’t see the beauty in these “flaws,” well then, the advertising agencies and the health and beauty industry have about a million tips for you.

Let’s look at a couple of her pix from her Middle Aged Skin collection:

Photo by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

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Photo by Sophia Anastasiou-Wasik

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Age, the old adage goes, before beauty.

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12/28/2013
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Clay Farris Naff, Gay Marriage, Homophobia, Huffington Post, Indiana Family Institute, Indiana HJR-6, Lobbyists, Marriage Amendment, Non-profit Organizations, Tax-Exempt, Theo Epstein, War on Christmas

Post-war On Christmas Hot Air

Peace Is At Hand

Huzzah, the war is over! Who won?

Santa & Guns

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God’s Lobbyists

The Indiana Family Institute is headquartered, appropriately enough, in Zionsville.

Makes sense, considering the outfit is awfully Jesus-y.

The IFI calls itself a “non-partisan public education and research organization.” Which, right off the bat, is a lie. Its charter, focus, blogs, and and other efforts are directed almost exclusively toward leaning on congresscritters to vote along Jesus-y lines.

In 2013, we learned how scads of similar organizations, in order to avoid paying taxes, say they’re serving the public weal and don’t ever even think about trying to sway public opinion from the pulpit.

Case in point, this morning I read this blog headline on the IFI website splash page:

Screenshot from IFI website

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Politics, baby, pure and simple.

Nothing would please me more at this moment than for the IRS to order outfits like the IFI to whip out their checkbooks and start scribbling.

The IFI, according to science and religion writer Clay Farris Naff in the Huffington Post, is one of the prime movers behind HJR-6, the pending Indiana statehouse resolution that would call for the flamboyantly straight majority in this great state to piss all over the idea of gay marriage.

Politics, pure and simple.

See, the resolution is the first official step in the process to add an amendment to the Indiana state constitution that Right Wingers, holy rollers, and closeted elected officials hope will quash the idea of officially recognized homosexual love once and for all. Because that, my friends, is the biggest threat to our liberty, our civilization, and our carefully crafted collective hetero facade.

It’s voting, dig? First the statehouse votes to put the proposed amendment before the people. Then the people vote, up or down, on the amendment.

Voting. Politics. Any questions?

The IFI focuses on three main issues:

Or, to put it all in more straightforward language, making sure religions can discriminate against anyone they desire, making sure gays don’t infect the rest of us, and stopping sluts from getting preggers.

“The IFI Network,” its website crows, “is making the difference in Indiana, and you can be part of this important work.”

Screenshot from IFI website

Politics In The IFI Blog

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Clearly, one of the most effective ways of “making a difference” is pressuring legislators to push forward on anti-gay action.

Politics.

The single initiative the IFI trumpets is its Hoosier Congressional Policy Leadership Series. It’s a monthly class for ‘interested professionals” looking to learn how to play footsie with “top policy leaders.”

In other words, how to be a lobbyist.

Politics.

“The program’s mission is to advance conservative policy and faith-based servant leadership principles with community leaders…,” the website reveals.

It’s bad enough I have to share air I breathe with people who are convinced the mythical creator of the Universe has been whispering in their ears, but making me foot a sliver of their bill for foisting their cocksure morality and biblically-rationalized hatreds and fears on the rest of us is too much.

Folks, we have to make these plaster saints pay their own freight. Make them pay taxes.

Then I’ll ask them to keep their fever dreams and religious hallucinations to themselves. I don’t ask them to believe in my crazy fantasies, do I? When’s the last time you heard me calling for the general populace to revere the word of my lord and savior, Theo Epstein?

Epstein

Our Father, Who Art In The Front Office….

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12/16/2013
1 Comment
Bishop James Ussher, Creation Museum, Doubtful News, Family Guy, Huffington Post, Raw Story, Robo-calls, Universe As A Hologram

Geeky, Science-y Hot Air

Danger, Will Robinson

You gotta hear this:

I’m lucky; I don’t get robot calls on my flip phone. Maybe that’s an unintended benefit of refusing to get a smartphone. In any case, I do get robot calls at the Book Corner. I know immediately I’m getting a robot call because I interrupt and the caller doesn’t fumble for a moment trying to figure out what the heck I’m saying, as a human would. Invariably I hang up, often with a two-word send-off.

Scene from "Sleeper"

Stop Calling Me!

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Robot calls (or robo-calls) come in a range of high-tech-iness. The most basic robo-calls come from schools or police departments, standardized messages warning receivers of some impending news, like a weather emergency. A more advanced robo-call utilizes something called personalized audio messaging, which is what you’re hearing in the above track.

Why, for pity’s sake, anybody would listen to a robo-call that isn’t about a tornado or a mass jail break is beyond me. It’s as senseless as reading an entire email sent from somebody whose niece is a wealthy princess and is being held captive in some central African hellhole.

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Oh, Wow!

I don’t know if you caught this but last week headlines screamed that scientists have concluded that the universe may be nothing more than a hologram. In fact, some news outlets went way beyond “may be” and simply trumpeted the “fact” that everything is, in reality, a geeky picture.

Scene from "Star Wars"

OMG! George Lucas Was Right!

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It all sounds so scientific and far out. Funny thing is, mostly left-leaning media seem to have glommed onto the “story.” (The links above are from Huffington Post and Raw Story.) I suppose that’s because left-leaning readers and viewers have a little bit of scientific knowledge. They know, for instance, what a hologram is and are somewhat aware that cutting edge cosmology concerns itself with incredibly counter-intuitive hypotheses. Not even the most imaginative science fiction author could have conjured string theory or an infinite number of universes.

Right-leaning readers seem stuck trying to figure out if the world is six- or seven-thousand years old and if humans rode dinosaurs.

Telling them all of existence is merely a mathematical representation encoded on a boundary of space would be like trying to tell a bandicoot all about modern advances in neurosurgery.

Bandicoot

… The Color Of The Laser Beam Must Be Adjusted To….

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In this case, those who are planning a summer visit to the Creation Museum are just a tad better off than those who proudly display the Stephen Hawking book, A Brief History of Time, on their coffee tables (albeit unread). A little bit of knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Add to that the fact that headline writers are notorious drama queens and next thing you know, everybody who’s anybody “knows” the universe is a hologram.

There not only is no proof that existence is a picture, there’s no actual evidence of it either. The mathematicians who released the paper that started all the hubbub essentially were just playing around with numbers. This piece in Doubtful News dumps a bucket of cold water on the idea.

The author of the debunking piece, Nathan Miller, concludes, “It’s this sort of result-hyping that leads to a disillusioned public.”

Just a little something to think about when you think you know all you need about GMOs or childhood vaccinations.

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…With Some Black Guys And Some Blow!

With a mere nine days left until the birthday of he who died for our right to bear arms, it’s time for The Pencil’s annual rip-off of The Family Guy‘s vid, “All I Really Want for Christmas.

Yellowcake and a ball, indeed!

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That’s all for today. Peace, love and soul.

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11/30/2012
2 Comments
Craig's List, Huffington Post, IDS, John Mellencamp, Lucas Oil Stadium, Marilyn Monroe, Meg Ryan, Motel 6 Bloomington, Orgasm, Orgy, Super Bowl XLVI, Twilight Saga, When Harry Met Sally

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Friday

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THE QUOTE

“Hollywood is a place where they’ll pay you a thousand dollars for a kiss and fifty cents for your soul.” — Marilyn Monroe

Monroe

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A CAST OF THOUSANDS

Dig this: Yesterday, the Electron Pencil attracted its 75,000th hit. Honest!

We’ve been online for almost a year and already we’ve outdrawn Super Bowl XLVI, held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis last February.

Super Bowl XLVI

70,000, Hah!

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And believe you me, we have yet to ask the State of Indiana and the City of Indy for the +$666 million that the NFL Colts did for their home, although The Loved One and I are putting together a request for $666 so we can paint our garage, in which the world headquarters of this communications colossus is located.

So, whoever Ms. or Mr. 75,000 was, thanks. The rest of you must now work doubly hard to become acknowledged as the 100,000th happy EP reader.

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O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL

Surfing through senseless interwebs flotsam and jetsam, I came across a rumination on truth and obfuscation on Huffington Post.

Headlined “12 Things You Should Never Lie About,” the piece tells us the average schmo lies three times a day, which makes me — as usual — an outlier. I’m not going to say which side of the average I come down on; that’s your problem.

EWTN Nun

“Never Lie, You Little Bastards.”

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Anyway, number one on the list is never lie about having an orgasm. I’ll proudly state that I’ve never lied about having an orgasm, which I’m certain will be warm comfort to the multitudes of citizens with whom I’ve shared a sheet.

I noticed, though, that the list is meant to be a verisimilitude template for women. Okay.

Quite frankly, I’ve never suspected that any women has ever lied to me about the Big O. This is not meant to be a boast that my technique should warrant a chapter all its own in the latest sex manuals. The roster of females I’ve flexed my muscles in front of haven’t felt a need to stroke my ego, either because the state of my ego wasn’t of great concern to them or, more likely, they weren’t the type who felt a need to playact in their lives.

Which brings us to the obligatory reference in the list: The fake orgasm scene in the deli in the movie, “When Harry Met Sally.”

Scene from "When Harry Met Sally"

You Know, This Scene

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I’ve never thought Meg Ryan’s “orgasm” in WHMS was all that realistic. It was, in fact, the orgasm of an actress pretending to have an orgasm.

Lovemaking in general on the screen bears as much similarity to reality as fistfights, gun battles, and, well, everything else that Hollywood spends hundreds of millions of dollars on trying to convince you is the real deal.

Ask yourself this: Have you ever kissed anyone the way, say, Bella and that goofball she costars with in the “Twilight” family of TV shows and movies do?

Bella and the Goofball

Screen Kiss

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Has anyone ever kissed you the way Angelina Jolie has kissed Antonio Banderas?

Try as I might to have been a Herculean lover in my day, no woman I was ever with raised such a racket as Meg Ryan did in that deli scene. In fact, if any woman had, I probably would have had second thoughts about a second helping. I mean, I’ve never had the desire to be faked to or lied to.

After all, I’m not a Republican.

Now, this: After that iconic scene, how can anyone who exposes his underwear to Meg Ryan ever trust her when she does have an orgasm?

No matter how fab the romp has been, no matter the toys, positions, incantations, substances, and prayers employed, whenever Meg Ryan hoots and hollers with the lights out could her lover ever be certain she wasn’t doing a Sally on him?

I hope John Mellencamp doesn’t read this. I’d hate to ruin things for him.

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THE BEST LAID PLANS….

Speaking of sex, The IDS today reports that an orgy went screwy in a room at the Motel 6 on North Walnut Street.

It seems a randy fellow from Alabama came to Bloomington for the festivities after being recruited through a Craig’s List ad. Apparently, the man and his special gal made the trip here so that the woman could, well, explore bisexual themes with the special gal of another man. The men, per agreement, were only to serve as an audience as the sizzling scene took place.

Motel 6, Bloomingon

Field Of Screams

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Problems arose when the local man couldn’t restrain himself and, shall we say, ran onto the field of play. The Alabama man’s standards of fair play were violated, it is presumed, and he attempted to convey his displeasure by beating the hell out of the other man as well as his own special gal who, it must be noted, is his fiancé.

Bloomington cops slapped the bracelets on the Alabama man after guests in neighboring rooms phoned to report sounds of the scuffle. The local man and his special gal had hot-footed it out of the motel before the cops arrived.

The Alabama man is expected to be charged with domestic assault and strangulation. His fiancé told the cops he’d tried to strangle her and she sported a swollen face and scrapes. She has since recanted her story and now says she suffered her injuries in an accident.

The story did not include details about the gift registry for the upcoming nuptials.

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10/15/2012
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Charles Manson, Dark Carnival Film Festival, Eben Alexander, Emmylou Harris, Exorcism, Fox News, Gawker, Huffington Post, Indigo Girls, Jimi Hendrix, John Hughes, Newsweek, Psychedelic Furs, Richard Thompson, The Daily Beast, The God Delusion

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Craziness is like heaven.” — Jimi Hendrix

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GOD’S BACK

Alright, things are starting to get a little wacky around here now.

The Herald Times yesterday ran a story (paywall) on a “real life exorcist.” Okay, it’s Hallowe’en season and all that but I don’t see this city’s daily paper running a piece on a real life vampire who rises from the dead at night. Nor have I seen even a small feature on a wolfman or Frankenstein’s monster.

What gives?

This is on top of Newsweek mag bannering “Heaven Is Real” on its cover last week.

✍

A neurosurgeon named Dr. Eben Alexander writes in the newsweekly that he fell into a coma and went to heaven. The mag and its sister online pub, The Daily Beast, are treating his assertion as, well, gospel. The Huffington Post is all gaga over Eben as well. Fox News, natch, is slobbering all over itself covering this “news.”

Now Alexander says he’s going to devote the rest of his life to the study of the afterlife.

Gawker calls it “possibly the most embarrassing cover story Newsweek has ever run.”

One question: Why do all these near-death afterlife experiencers go to heaven? Don’t sinners have near-death experiences?

What if Charles Manson came out of a coma and swore up and down he’d seen Beelzebub? And since Manson’s an unrepentant mortal sinner, might he then say, “Hey man, I dig hell. I can’t wait to go back permanently.” How would Newsweek and The Daily Beast cover that?

What About Hell?

✍

What if…, aw, hell with it. I’m gonna go pop open “The God Delusion.”

▲

SCARY STUFF

Get ready to have the bejesus scared out of you this coming weekend.

The Dark Carnival Film Festival will haunt Bear’s Place Friday night, the 19th, and the Buskirk Chumley Theater, Saturday and Sunday.

Here’s the lineup for the fest:

Friday at Bear’s Place

  • 8pm: “Found,” directed by Scott Schirmer, plus Bear’s Annual Costume Contest

Saturday at the Buskirk Chumley

  • 2pm: Festival Introduction
  • 2:05pm: 4 films — “Dummy,” “The Keeper,” “Vadim,” & “Zero Killed”
  • 4:50pm: Lacore Valmon Circus, Live aerial performance
  • 5pm: 6 films — “Other,” “Once Upon a Liver,” “Seamstress,” “Transmission,” “Attack of the Brainsuckers,” & “Nailbiter”
  • 8pm: Lacore Valmon Circus, Live sideshow performance
  • 8:20: 6 films — “All Men Are Called Robert,” “Bariku Light,” “The Last Day of Harold Fishman,” “Sandwich Crazy,” “Hell’s Belles,” & Video Diary of a Lost Girl”

Sunday at the Buskirk Chumley

  • 1:30pm: 5 films — “Mother Died,” “Chompers,” “Shine,” “Roman’s Ark,” & Harsh Light of Day”
  • 3:45pm: 4 films — “Lovebug,” “Weight of Emptyness,” Firelight,” Feature TBA

▲

ESTRO-FEST

Speaking of the Buskirk Chumley, you’ve only got two weeks left to get tix for the Indigo Girls, who ought to draw just as a rabid a crowd as Richard Thompson did last month. The IGs will hit the stage on Friday, November 2nd.

You’ve got two and a half months get purchase ducats for Emmylou Harris. She’ll be here Monday, January 2, 2013.

Did I just type 2013? Sheesh!

BTW: Emmylou Harris is 65 freaking years old and she’s still hot as a pistol. What’s she eating for breakfast and can I get some of it?

Harris — Hot

▲

HEAVEN

Yep, one of the late John Hughes‘ fave bands.

▲

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

✍

Monday, October 15th, 2012

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

STUDIO TOUR ◗ Brown County, various locations — The Backroads of Brown County Studio Tour, free, self-guided tour of 16 local artists’ & craftspersons’ studios; 10am-5pm, through October

LECTURE ◗ IU Memorial Union, State Room East — Branigan Lectures Series: “Detroit: Then & Now,” Presented by Tiya Miles; 4pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital, Douglas Olenik on tuba; 5pm

POLITICS ◗ City Hall, Showers Building — Monroe County Schools Corporation board candidates forum, Presented by Indiana Coalition for Public Education; 7-9pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Martha Herr, soprano; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital, Nina Zhou on piano; 8pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Musical Arts Center, Room 454 — David Baker; 8:30pm

CLASS ◗ Monroe County Public Library — IU Lifelong Learning Series: “On the Brink of Destruction: The Cuban Missile Crisis 50 Years Out“; 7-8:30pm

READINGS ◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Nancy Shoenberger & Sam Kashner, Presented by the Writers Guild at Bloomington; 7pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Boys Don’t Cry“; 7pm

VARIETY ◗ Cafe Django — Bloomington Short List, Ten-minute acts, Hosted by Marta Jasicki; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Barbara McGuire; 7-9pm

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

✍

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists; through October 14th
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st
  • “Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • “Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “Ab-Fab — Extreme Quilting,” by Sandy Hill; October 5th through October 27th
  • “Street View — Bloomington Scenes,” by Tom Rhea; October 5th through October 27th
  • “From the Heartwoods,” by James Alexander Thom; October 5th through October 27th
  • “The Spaces in Between,” by Ellen Starr Lyon; October 5th through October 27th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

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

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibits:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits:

  • “¡Cuba Si! Posters from the Revolution: 1960s and 1970s”
  • “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
  • “Thoughts, Things, and Theories… What Is Culture?”
  • “Picturing Archaeology”
  • “Personal Accents: Accessories from Around the World”
  • “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”
  • “The Day in Its Color: A Hoosier Photographer’s Journey through Mid-century America”
  • “TOYing with Ideas”
  • “Living Heritage: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia”
  • “On a Wing and a Prayer”

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit:

  • “Outsiders and Others:Arkham House, Weird Fiction, and the Legacy of HP Lovecraft;” through November 1st
  • “A World of Puzzles,” selections form the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s On — Exhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

09/28/2012
Leave a comment
Andrew Beacham, Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, CNN, Great Depression, Great Recession, Huffington Post, Isaac Newton, Joe Donnelly, John Gregg, Mark Kruzan, Mike Pence, Planned Parenthood, Poverty, Republican Party, Richard Mourdock, US Census Bureau, Vi Simpson

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” — Isaac Newton

▲

MONEY WELL SPENT?

Bloomington’s big name Democrats will gather in Nick’s English Hut to raise dough for the party’s gubernatorial ticket tonight.

John Gregg and his ace in the hole, Vi Simpson, will press the flesh at the fabled old place starting at five. Mayor Mark Kruzan will host.

The Simpson Bump Won’t Be Enough

✍

With the roll that Barack Obama is on leading up to the general election in November, Gregg’s got to be hoping he can ride the president’s coattails into a victory that six months ago seemed impossible.

The truth is a Gregg win still would be a jaw-dropper. The Huffington Post’s Election Dashboard has Pence up by anywhere from 13 to 18 points in its compilation of polls.

If you’ve got a limited amount of cash to toss at a political campaign, it might be better spent on the US Senate race between Dem Joe Donnelly and Tea Party sweetheart Richard Mourdock, which HuffPo rates a toss-up.

Donnelly Can Win

▲

HARD TIMES, STILL

Conventional wisdom has it that when people are suffering economically, the sitting president’s going to be in hot water.

But like the Great Depression, this Great Recession has not been a conventional time. The electorate sees these bad money times as a result more of systemic failures than simply any single president’s policies.

And don’t let anybody fool you — we’re still in a big time slump. Take Indiana. More than a million Hoosiers now live in poverty, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s a nearly five percent increase from last year. Speaking of percentages, 16 percent of this state’s residents fall below the poverty line now.

Then Or Now?

✍

Perhaps if the Republican Party wasn’t in the clutches of whacked-out ideologues and, simultaneously, hadn’t nominated a wishy-washy boob as its standard bearer this year, Obama would be looking at a monumental poll deficit.

With enemies like the GOP, the Dems have all the friends they need.

▲

BATTY

Okay, let’s just say it and get on with our lives, Ann Coulter is mentally unbalanced.

HELP!

✍

The Harridan of the Right told George Stephanopoulis on ABC’s “This Week” wagfest that gays and women and immigrants and, well, anybody else who’s not Ann Coulter don’t have civil rights. And, no, I didn’t mistype there. You might try to get technical and say, “Hey, wait a minute. Ann Coulter’s a woman!”

That would be true were she not a nightmarish product of the TV industry’s evil brain.

▲

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD PARTY

No, wait, let me amend that: the whole Republican Party is deranged.

A Tea Party candidate for Congress from Kentucky’s 2nd District has produced a campaign ad linking Barack Obama to serial killer Ted Bundy as well as Al Capone, Adolph Hitler, and the Muslim Brotherhood because he supports Planned Parenthood and has not expressed a desire to nuke the capitals of the Muslim world as yet.

Peas In A Pod: Adolph & Barack

✍

A word of warning: the vid shows images of aborted fetuses and murdered adults.

▲

THE MADNESS IS CONTAGIOUS

Wait, wait, wait! It’s CNN that’s psychotic! Dig these headlines from its online version the other night:

  • Decapitated woman lives to tell tale
  • Half-ton aunt too fat to be real killer
  • Fecal transplant saves woman’s life
  • Alcohol-enema case ‘shocks’ UT officials

That’s right — fecal transplant. I don’t even want to know.

A New Media Colossus?

▲

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

✍

Friday, September 28th, 2012

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

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

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center, outside WFHB Studios — Participate in the construction of “The Messenger,” recycled metal sculpture to be installed at B-Line Trail; 9am-5pm

CONFERENCE ◗ IU Memorial Union, Walnut Room — “Where’s the ‘World’ in Popular Music?” Interdisciplinary presented by the Colloege of Liberal Arts & Sciences, click link for schedule of events, free and open to the public; 9am-5:30pm

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

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Workshops; 9am

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Verge Power Pitch Session; 4pm

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Tech Cocktail, mixer; 7pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — “Maria, Put the Tea Kettle on! We’ll All Have some Tea”; Anthropologist April Sievert discusses artifacts found at the Munson House at Spring Mill State Park in Lawrence County; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Art Museum — Noon Talk series: “Weston, Callahan, and Cameron,” presented by Garrett Hansen, guest curator of the Kinsey Institute’s exhibit, “A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners“; Noon

POLITICS ◗ Nick’s English Hut — Fundraiser for Indiana Democratic gubernatorial ticket John Gregg & Vi Simpson; 5pm

ART ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Opening reception for lobby exhibit, Stone Belt Art; 5:30-8pm

TEENS ◗ WonderLab — Teen Night, 5:30-8:30pm

DANCING ◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Salsa Under the Stars, part of National Hispanic Heritage Month; 6pm

OKTOBERFEST ◗ KRC Banquets — Music, dancing, & food, featring the Hungry Five German Band, the Bloomington Bones, & the Bloomington Brass Band; 6pm

ART ◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — Opening reception for the exhibit, The Art of Fenella Finn; 6pm

RETREAT ◗ Bradford Woods — One Diva Weekend, for gay/bisexual men; Begins at 6pm, through Sunday at 1pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — Derek Jarman Super 8 Films; 6:30pm

WORKSHOP ◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Buddhism in Everyday Life Series: “What Is the One Most Important Thing on the Buddhist Path?” Presented by Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Meet the Fokkens“; 7pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Gymnasium — Hoosier volleyball vs. Illinois; 7pm

OPEN HOUSE ◗ IU Radio-TV Services Building — WFIU Annual Listeners Reception; 7-9pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Joe Sanford; 7-9pm

NATURE ◗ Twin Lakes Sports Park — Bats in the Park, learn about bats, presented by the Center for North American Bat Research & Conservation; 7pm

MUSIC & POETRY ◗ Sweet Claire Bakery — Jacqueline Jones LaMon, poet, & Erol Ozsever, classical guitarist; 7-8:30pm

STAGE ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Comedy, “RX,” by Kate Fodor; 7:30pm

STAGE ◗ IU Halls Theatre — Drama, “When the Rain Stops Falling;” 7:30pm

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU SoFA McCalla School — Group exhibit, “Aufheben,” photographers presented by curators Zachary Norman & Aaron Hergert; 7:30pm

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

FILM ◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theatre — Ryder Film Series: “Neighboring Sounds“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Matt MacDougall Quartet; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 8pm

BALLET ◗ IU Musical Arts Center — “Light and Shade,” Presented by IU Ballet Theater; 8pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — The Reacharounds; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s Place — Grandview Junction; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts — Ryder Film Series: “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Wakefield; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Live Turkish music, Istanbul Breeze; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bluebird — Thomas Rhett; 9pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Blue“; 9:30pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 10:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 11pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Fleshpot on 42nd Street“; Midnight

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

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

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

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

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

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits:

  • “¡Cuba Si! Posters from the Revolution: 1960s and 1970s”
  • “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
  • “Thoughts, Things, and Theories… What Is Culture?”
  • “Picturing Archaeology”
  • “Personal Accents: Accessories from Around the World”
  • “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”
  • “The Day in Its Color: A Hoosier Photographer’s Journey through Mid-century America”
  • “TOYing with Ideas”
  • “Living Heritage: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia”
  • “On a Wing and a Prayer”

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit:

  • “Outsiders and Others:Arkham House, Weird Fiction, and the Legacy of HP Lovecraft;” through November 1st
  • “A World of Puzzles,” selections form the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s On — Exhibit:

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

ART ◗ Boxcar Books — Exhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

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

▼

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

08/15/2012
Leave a comment
Anal Tattoos, Antibacterial Agents, Huffington Post, IKEA, Indiana University, Jezebel, Leon Lederman, Lindy West, Oprah Winfrey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Triclosan

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Physics isn’t a religion. If it were, we’d have a much easier time raising money.” — Leon Lederman

▲

THEY’RE BA-A-A-A-A-ACK!

Yup.

The students start moving in today. And you thought the construction traffic tie-ups were miserable this summer.

Within the next week, tens of thousands of kids and freshly minted adults will be lugging their used sofas up to dorm rooms and rental apartments.

Oh, and hundreds of pampered 19-year-olds will be careening around corners in oversized SUVs for the next nine months.

The Last Thing Many Of Us Will Ever See

✍

Bloomington — ya gotta love it.

▲

THE SMÖRBOLL SUITES?

IKEA is going to build a bunch of budget hotels in Europe.

✍

It won’t be too long before the Swedish company opens up its hotels here in America.

Yeah, you’ll save money but you’ll have to assemble your room with your own screwdriver.

▲

UGH! COOTIES!

I Couldn’t Have Said it Better Myself:

“Let me just put this right up front, for all the die-hard disinfectors out there: REGULAR SOAP WILL DO. For almost everything. Really. Not every surface in everyone’s life has to be wiped with antibacterial agents, not every child needs to be autoclaved on the daily, not every sneeze needs to be medicated with antibiotics, and regular soap works just fine. Unless you are some sort of domestic mom-surgeon making sandwiches out of immuno-suppressed bologna, you do not need to scrub up just to live your life. You’ll be fine — and, most likely, better — without this antibacterial obsession.”

That’s from Jezebel’s Lindy West.

From Jezebel

✍

I’m telling you, few things bug the bejesus out of me more than those ubiquitous antibacterial sheets certain Moms — and it’s always Moms, make no mistake — scour down shopping carts with at the grocery.

Honestly, after Oprah hypnotized every Middle American Mom to tremble in terror at the very thought of s-e-x lest they immediately develop AIDS, the entirety of the Earth must be wiped clean every 13 seconds or so now.

You’d think our planet was nothing more than a gargantuan Petri dish of HIV, ebola, e-coli, gonorrhea, listeria, and every other bad boy microbe in existence. Which it is, actually, but that’s OK because we have immune systems which afford us a modicum of protection.

And those immune systems are going all to pot, thanks to our mania for rubbing down everything we see with disinfectant wipes. I shudder to think what some Moms might be wiping down when Daddy-o starts getting a little frisky.

Apparently, West reports, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has found that triclosan, an alarmingly common antibacterial substance, can actually stop your heart.

Read West’s piece, or if you’re really into arcana, peruse the study itself.

And relax, Moms, wouldya?

▲

YEEEEE-OWWWWWWWW!

The Huffington Post reports that people are getting anal tattoos now.

Star Stuck

✍

Here’s a suggestion for anybody thinking of getting one of these: I Am An Asshole.

▲

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.”

“What If?” From XKCD

✍

❏ 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.

Sunset On Mars From The Universe (Facebook)

✍

❏ 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.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2012

◗ Brown County Art Guild — 125th birthday celebration for Marie Goth; 5-7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Bonz; 6-8:30pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Workshop: Remorse & Guilt, presented by Ani Choekyi; 6:30pm

◗ Unity Church — Bloomington Peace Choir invites new members; 7-8:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Post Modern Jazz Quartet; 8pm

◗ The Bluebird — The Personnel; 8pm

◗ Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington — Contra dancing; 8pm

◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Open house, public viewing through the main telescope; 9:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Woody Pines, Busman’s Holiday; 9:30pm

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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