"The blog has made Glab into a hip town crier, commenting on everything from local politics and cultural happenings to national and international events, all rendered in a colorful, intelligent, working-class vernacular that owes some of its style to Glab’s Chicago-hometown heroes Studs Terkel and Mike Royko." — David Brent Johnson in Bloom Magazine
The image above is the view from the back door of Chez Big Mike (also known as Casa della Persona Amata and the world headquarters of this communications colossus, The Electron Pencil. Natch, our server farm and all our satellite transmission technology are located in the modest-appearing shed. Don’t be fooled:
A Peek Inside The Shed
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Anyway, it’s a good bet we won’t suffer through any more frosts or snowfalls for the next seven or so months. I’m hoping at least.
Spring is that season of hope and rebirth — unless, of course, you’re a Cubs fan.
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Democracy
The people of India today begin their third week of voting in that’s nation’s 2014 general elections. This year, Indians will be able to vote for a total of five weeks, the longest such period in the country’s history. Indian election authorities and politicians, apparently, believe the more time they give voters, the more they — the voters — will vote.
Imagine that. Here, of course, state after state is shortening voting periods. Probably because American election authorities and politicians believe the more time they give voters, the more they — the voters — will vote.
Back to India. It’s expected that some 810,000,000 people will vote. Let me type that again: More than eight hundred million people. Okay, sure, India has a pop. of more than 1.21 billion. Still, that’s 66.9 percent of the entire population.
In this holy land’s last presidential beauty contest, only 57.5 percent of eligible voters bothered to cast a ballot. That translates to a paltry 40 percent of the population.
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Acc’d’ng to our advertisements, America is the greatest democracy on the face of the Earth. And whenever we stick our noses into other countries’ business, we claim to be doing so in order to bring them democracy.
“My father was a statesman, I am a political woman. My father was a saint. I am not.” — Indira Gandhi
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POL IN CHIEF
Natch, I’m heavy on liberals and progressives in my Facebook friends list. They were all abuzz over Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention last night. Here it is, in case you missed it:
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Hindsight is 20/200 (yes, 20/200 — no typo there), of course, but even while it was happening I knew Al Gore was blowing the 2000 election by not having Clinton campaign for him. Damn you Al Gore — we could have avoided eight years of the Bush League!
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HOW MANY WAYS CAN THEY SAY THEY HATE HIM?
Barack Obama has never been tempted to run and hide from Clinton simply because old Bill suffers from his peculiar form of priapism.
Guess What I Have Under This Desk
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In fact, the Prez frustrates the bejesus out of the Right because he, apparently, has no sex skeletons in his closet. Oh, how the GOP and its mouthpieces would love to tear down Barry with some juicy sexual misconduct charges.
Can you imagine the barely-coded racial messages we’d be getting if Obama couldn’t keep Little B under wraps in his Fruit of the Looms?
You know how newspapers have obituaries pre-written for celebrities while they’re still alive? Guaranteed, the Fox News squealers and other pathological snarlers have headlines pre-written for the Obama sex scandal of their wet dreams.
Once you go Barack, you never go back.
or
Barack the Buck
Yeesh. And if his correspondent party or parties would be white, female? Heavens, pasty men would be roaming the streets carrying assault rifles.
Fear Of A Black Presidential Penis
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Oh wait, they already do.
Anyway, nothing seems to satisfy the anti-Obama crowd. If Obama was a nail-biter, they’d figure a way to condemn him for it. As it is, that deep thinker Hank Williams, Jr. recently upped his topple-the-Nazi-dictator rhetoric by proclaiming his conviction that Obama hates cowboys and cowgirls.
This latest episode of Right Wing projectile verbal vomiting proves Jon Stewart’s point that “There is a President Obama that only Republicans can see.” It’s been many years, Hank, since any fraction of the population could write Cowboy or Cowgirl on the Occupation line of the their tax forms.
Perhaps Hank has inside info that Obama is not partial to secretaries and plumbers by day wearing cowboy drag at night. And isn’t even that a dated demographic? Urban Cowboy is now a +30-year-old meme.
I Thought This Movie Was Made Before The Invention Of Cameras
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And line dancing went out soon after the Zoot Suit, didn’t it?
Even soldier boys can’t seem to resist getting a jab in on the CinC.
Among the spate of new Obama-is-the-antichrist books being released this late summer, is the tale of the Osama bin Laden raid writen by a Navy SEAL team member who participated in the operation. The book, “No Easy Day,” is bylined by someone named Mark Owens, who doesn’t exist. That’s the nom de plume of one Mark Bissonette, who swears he’s doing nothing wrong by blabbing the raid’s secrets even though he thought it wise to assume an alias.
Bissonette writes that neither he nor the rest of his SEAL confrereshas ever liked Obama. Joe Biden, either. Which must be important to his narrative — just don’t ask me how.
How weird is that? I mean, can you imagine the boys in that famous Iwo Jima photo telling reporters, “Yeah, taking the island was a tough job but we did it. And by the way, none of us likes that FDR. He’s a socialist and a jerk. And Truman? He’s like someone’s drunken uncle at Christmas dinner.”
Down With The President!
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WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO?
If you’re having withdrawal pains for The Pencil’s GO! events listings, just keep your shirt on.
I’m told now that the rollout for the Ryder magazine’s new website — which will carry the EP’s events listings — may come as early as today. Which probably means sometime next week.
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.
