Category Archives: Kelley School of Business

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“Biggest ‘Brown-Noser’: Paul Ryan” — From the Joseph A. Craig (Janesville, Wisconsin) High School 1988 yearbook

LOOK TO THE SKIES

Lake Monroe was the place to be last night at midnight.

The middle of Lake Monroe to be a bit more precise.

The Loved One and I lolled on a pontoon boat with friends, all of us craning our necks, watching nature’s spectacular light show, the Perseids meteor shower.

The Perseids

We were not at all disappointed.

We sat around in a circle, covering a 360-degree visual range, and let the streaks and flashes evoke involuntary oohs and aahs from us. It was 47 times better than a fireworks show.

At one point a massive meteor lit up the sky in the southeast, behind me. I couldn’t see the meteor’s arc myself but I saw the faces of the people facing me illuminated by its glow. Fantastic, I tell you.

Just to show you I’m not a complete religious bigot, I can understand why some might conclude after watching such a display that there must an uber-mighty fellow who put this whole shebang together just for our pleasure.

Many thanks to Hondo Thompson and his saintly bride Les for the invite. And listen to Hondo every Friday afternoon on WFHB from 1 to 3.

DAN SMITH HAS A GREEN THUMB

IU Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith is back in town after traipsing around the country this summer.

DAN SMITH

He’s only going to be the big man at Kelley for another couple of months. He’s been named the new prez of the Indiana University Foundation.

He raised plenty of dough for the Kelley so the U figured, hell, let’s let him raise cash for everybody.

THE PARTY OF GOD

Paul Ryan is a Roman Catholic.

Not This Jesus — The White One!

Willard’s moment of praise for his new bottom: “A faithful Catholic, Paul believes in the worth and dignity of every human life.”

What that’s code for: Ryan’s anti-abortion.

NOT LAUREN

That skull found in the White River in Indy a month ago?

It’s not Lauren Speirer’s.

And the wait goes on for her mother.

In related news, some chucklehead was found in the public parking garage across Walnut Street from Kilroy’s Sports Bar where the missing IU student partied the night she disappeared. The guy was carrying two loaded semi-automatic pistols and had a loaded shotgun in the trunk of his car. He also carried a digital rangefinder, according to the IDS.

America

So the cops hauled him in and questioned him about Lauren Spierer. Turns out he met her once. When the cops determined he had nothing new to add to the missing person investigation, they turned him over to the psych ward at Bloomington Hospital.

The shrinks there gave him a clean bill of mental health and turned him loose within hours.

Great.

Carrying all that artillery is no crime in this state.

People, we are fked up.

HUMAN ALGEBRA

How do you feel about the earthquakes that hit Iran, killing some 250 and injuring more than 2000?

And be honest with yourself.

How many American deaths in a weather-related event or some other natural catastrophe equal 250 dead Iranians?

Two? Maybe three.

Iranian People

That’s the way we think.

That’s the way people all over the world think.

SCARY

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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 ChartsLife as seen through charts.

I Love Charts

XKCD — “A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.”

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

I Fucking Love ScienceA Facebook community of science geeks.

Present & CorrectFun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

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Caps Off PleaseComics & fun.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

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

Max’s PlaceKid Kazooey, children-friendly tunes; 3-5pm

Bryan ParkYoung Professionals of Bloomington mac n’cheese bakeoff, free tasting; 4-6pm

Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Creek Dogs; 5-7pm

Bryan ParkKrista Detor outdoor concert; 6:30pm

Bear’s PlaceRyder Film Series: “The Pigeoneers”; 7pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

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

◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • 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 GalleryExhibits:

  • 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 LibraryExhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesClosed for semester break, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

Monroe County History CenterPhoto exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“Television is democracy at its ugliest.” — Paddy Chayevsky

THIS IS THE OPERATIVE STATEMENT — THE OTHERS ARE INOPERATIVE

How can you not love politics?

“He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.”

That was Rick Santorum six weeks ago describing Mitt Romney — a man whom he endorsed yesterday.

Best Friends Forever

Now, if you’re a Dem or you loathe the GOP, don’t start getting huffy and righteous and say something foolish like, Oh, those Republicans — they can’t be trusted. They’ll say anything to get elected.

Let’s go back four short years ago. Hillary Clinton spent a lot of time wagging her finger at Barack Obama during the Dem primaries. Some of her supporters threatened to — gulp! — go Republican if Obama won the nomination. That’s how deep the animus had grown between the two camps. Next thing you knew, both sides had come together to defeat the McCain/Palin ticket that, by all accounts, induced no Clintonistas to switch parties.

See, that’s why I could never be a politician. First, I have no interest in having the skeletons in my closet bared. Second, I know that at some point in time, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from blurting out, “Jeez, can you believe how full of shit I am?”

BTW: recognize the headline at the top of this entry? That was Dick Nixon’s Squealer, Ron Ziegler, speaking to reporters on April 17th, 1973. Operative statements, in Ziegler’s bizarre argot, were simply today’s lies; inoperative statements were yesterday’s.

Animal Farm

THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA IS BUSINESS

Let’s stick with a theme here: How can you not love business?

According to the IDS, a few enterprising students tried to sell ducats online for a c-note apiece to the IU Kelley School of Business commencement ceremony Saturday

An IU spokesbeing issued a statement tut-tutting the scalping deal.

Free Market?

Making money in a free market is the aim of getting a degree from the Kelley school — except, apparently, when you’re trying to make money selling tickets to a celebration of spending four years of your life learning how to make money in a free market.

HILLARY AT THE SUMMIT

Back to Hillary Clinton. It turns out losing the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 just might have been the best thing ever to happen to her.

You may recall that Hillary was perhaps the most despised human being in this holy land before Barack Obama came along to wrest the title from her.

WWN Wasn’t Half As Hard On Hil As Fox News

Remember when Bill Clinton told voters he and the missus were a “package deal”? That she was going to be, in essence, a co-president? Middle America had apoplexy — Hillary was going destroy this sacred society by upending our traditional view of what a First Lady should be.

She even had to stop using her preferred hyphenated moniker, Hillary Rodham Clinton, because too many voters figured a woman who keeps her maiden name is most likely a Nazi abortionist.

And then she came out with that famous quote about not being interested in sitting at home and baking cookies. Millions of Americans became convinced at that very moment that she was a also lesbian communist.

I never felt particularly warm about Hil. Oh sure, I voted for Bill (and her — I bought into the co-presidency idea) but she always struck me as a privileged white person, no matter how quasi-progressive she claimed her politics to be.

I always suspected she was incapable of dropping a gratuitous F-bomb or wouldn’t know how to drink a shot of tequila.

Park Ridge, Illinois, the Chicago suburb in which Hil was raised, was chock full of prim, holier-than-thou folks — even those, like HRC, who entertained near-liberal ideas.

Still, I’ve always had great respect for her. She’s tough enough in her own way to scare the bejesus out of her serial-philandering husband. Plus, she’s smart as a whip and ambitious to boot.

Barack Obama saw these same qualities and selected her as his Secretary of State. Oh sure, he wanted to keep her occupied for four years as well, just in case she wanted to challenge him again in 2012. Still, he recognized her strengths.

Anyway, she’s done a fantastic job as a globe-trotting SoS. She’s juggling a potentially nuclear Iran, an uppity China, a schizo Pakistan, a mobbed-up Russia, a broke European Union, Myanmar, India, the nagging Isreal/Palestine issue, the Arab Spring, and too many other hot spots to mention. Somehow, the world hasn’t blown itself apart just yet.

She may not be tough enough to suck down a ounce of Tarantula Plata without gagging but I doubt there’s a male national leader on this Earth who has the cagliones to cross her.

Why, just yesterday she told the Bangladesh government in no uncertain terms to lay off the Grameen Bank, the innovative microlender founded by Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed Yunus that helps women in south Asia develop small businesses and escape poverty. A while ago, Bangladesh had given the axe to Yunus as boss of the bank. Hil’s now staring that government down, saying don’t mess with Grameen.

Trust me, she’s writing her own entry in American history books.

But had she become president, she would have been savaged for her imagined sins nearly as much as Obama has for his. Who knows what form her “Birther” opposition might have taken. Most likely, there’d have been a constant flow of Hillary’s-gonna-force-our-daughters-into-dykedom “revelations” coming from right wing bloviators and Me Party-ists.

She might have had to spend her precious time denying that she leads a satanic sex cult in the White House basement.

It’s better being Secretary of State.

INDIANA DEMS HAD BETTER BE RIGHT ABOUT MOURDOCK

Finally, speaking of Me Party-ists, their latest darling in Indiana, Richard Mourdock (“End the EPA!”), looks like a lock to unseat long-time US Senator Richard Lugar in the Republican primary today.

Now we’ll see if the state’s Democratic party theory that Mourdock is a preferable foe for their nominee Joe Donnelly in November holds any water.

Donnelly’d better win. Mourdock has been endorsed by none other than Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann.

She’s Back!

I know, I know — you’d finally swept that name clear out of your consciousness and now I remind you that she’s still around. Hey, politics is a rough game.

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

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits, “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”; through July 1st — “Esse Quam Videri (To Be, Rather than To Be Seen): Muslim Self Portraits; through June 17th — “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”; through July 1st

IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Arts Center Exhibits at various galleries: Angela Hendrix-Petry, Benjamin Pines, Nate Johnson, and Yang Chen; all through May 29th

Trinity Episcopal ChurchArt exhibit, “Creation,” collaborative mosaic tile project; through May 31st

Monroe County Public LibraryArt exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st

Monroe County History CenterPhoto exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

People’s ParkLunch Concert Series, Starkraven; 11:30am

The Venue Fine Arts & GiftsGuitarist Erol Ozserver; 5:30-7:30pm

IU Woodburn Hall, Room 101 — Secular Alliance Movie Night; 6-8pm

Jake’s NightclubKaraoke; 6pm

Deer Park ManorSteppings Stones’ annual volunteer awards & recognition ceremony; 6:30-8pm

Monroe County History CenterCivil War round table, “The Truth about the Confederate Flag”; 7-8pm

The Player’s PubBlue jam, King Bee and the Stingers; 8pm

The BishopEP release party, New terrors with Prayer Breakfast & The New Heaven and the New Earth; 9pm

The BluebirdCoheed and Cambria; 9pm

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“I think this is an issue of integrity regardless of which end of the political spectrum that I stand on. I was raised in a family to know right from wrong and politics, whether or not you fall in the middle, the left or the right, it’s an issue of integrity, no matter what you’re opinion is, and I say that with the utmost conviction.” — Miss Arizona USA 2009, Alicia-Monique Blanco, responding to the question, Should the US have universal health care?

TAKE A LOOK AT SHELLI

Looks like we’re finally getting some action in the Dem race to unseat first-term congressboy Todd Young. Bloomington City Clerk Regina Moore is touting Kelley School of Business operative Shelli Yoder for the Democratic primary in May.

Yoder is one of five candidates for the Dem spot and the only woman.

Moore says of the political neophyte: “Take a look at Shelli — she could change the way those boys in Congress are doing things. Seriously.”

Unfortunate choice of words: Take a look at Shelli. Yoder’s big claim to fame is having won the Miss Indiana beauty pageant back in 1992. In the bigger Miss America catfight she wowed the judges enough in the swimsuit competition to earn herself Second Runner-up laurels.

The Newly-Crowned Miss Indiana 1992 With Her Parents

Loyal readers of this space know my thoughts on beauty pageants. Looking hot while half naked, while not in and of itself a detestable asset, is scant background for elective office. And all this time I thought only Republicans went gaga over MILF-y candidates.

Perhaps Yoder has something more on the ball than looking good in FM pumps and a swatch of fabric over her privates. I’d like to trust Regina Moore’s judgement.

The problem is there is no record of where Yoder stands on anything of import. Oh sure, she’s four-square against anorexia (as Executive Director of the Eating Disorders Coalition of Tennessee, she lays out a list of symptoms in the link.) That, I suppose, is good. I hope she’s against violent weather and stick-up men as well.

But what’s her take on the Obama Administration’s new healthcare/contraception rules? Would she give the president a green light to fight a war with Iran? What does she think of the Patriot Act?

We also know she’s hot on Christianity, which makes me itchy.

I’m willing to give Shelli an ear, thanks to my respect for Moore. Yoder will meet and greet at the Fountain Square Ballroom tomorrow night. I’ll be there — listening, not looking.

I’M FEELING DIZZY

If you pay any attention at all to news reports, here’s what you know about the two most important issues facing this holy land in the year 2012:

The Race For the Presidency

  • Mitt Romney is the front runner for the Republican nomination for president
  • Nobody else has a chance

  • That was true until New Gingrich became the front runner
  • Nobody else had a chance

  • Oh wait, Ron Paul came on strong
  • Romney and Gingrich were running scared

  • Rick Santorum was running too, the foolish man
  • He had no chance
  • Wait, Rick Santorum was the front runner

  • Newt Gingrich had no chance
  • Mitt Romney was on life-support
  • Could Rick Santorum count on support from the entire party?
  • Um — hold on! — Rick Santorum’s lead over Mitt Romney is shrinking!

  • Oh, sweet Jesus! Santorum peaked too soon!
  • Romney’s turning away from attack ads and now he’s going positive
  • Newt Gingrich still has no chance.

So, it looks like Gingrich will be the Republican nominee. Should be an interesting debate between him and Barack Obama.

POTUS?

The Economy

  • Unemployment figures stubbornly refused to drop below 8 Percent
  • The recovery if it existed at all, was slow
  • People spent money at Christmastime!
  • Phew — we were recovering, and fast
  • The nation’s credit rating was downgraded by Standard & Poors
  • What recovery?
  • The nation gained a few more jobs at the start of the year
  • What a recovery!
  • Iran threatens to close the Straight of Hormuz
  • The world economy will collapse

Our corporate news media squawkers are a bunch of drama queens, no?

HOPING TREY HAS AN UNEVENTFUL CAREER

The Indiana University Police Department now has a bomb-sniffing dog.

Chris Collins & Trey (Fox 59 photo)

The pooch is a 75-pound German Shepherd named Trey. IU cop Chris Collins will be the dog’s boss, according to the Herald Times/Fox 59.

Let’s hope Trey never has to do the job for which it’s been trained.

The Pencil Today:

TODAY’S QUOTE

“Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (But who will guard the guards themselves?)” — Juvenal

GERSTMAN’S GOTTA GO

So now Monroe County Auditor Amy Gerstman is facing another charge: She hasn’t been taking minutes at county meetings, as she’s required to do by state law.

This, of course, is on top of the charges that she used credit cards issued to her office for personal expenses like groceries, gifts, and even her kids’ private school tuitions. The county board voted to censure Gerstman yesterday.

The Soon-To-Be Ex-County Auditor?

Board members say Gerstman has been notably absent from board and committee meetings even though it’s her duty to record their proceedings. For her part Gerstman says she’s entitled to send a proxy to do that grunt work.

That would be fine if, say, Gerstman came down with the flu on the date of a meeting. But, if county board members are to be believed, this “flu” has lasted a long, long time.

I suppose we can’t blame Gerstman for not wanting to show her face at public meetings, considering the silly and embarrassing things she’s been doing with county dough. Admittedly, she has paid it all back but, as I cracked earlier, the bank robber who tries to return the sack of cash he took at gunpoint still is a bank robber.

Gerstman didn’t show up to work yesterday, indicating she may be contemplating doing the right thing. That’s resigning.

I mean, honestly, the woman is the auditor, for pity’s sake. Her job is to make sure the county’s money is being spent correctly. The Gerstman saga is the equivalent of learning that Sheriff Jim Kennedy runs a local crime syndicate.

And, BTW, Gerstman hasn’t been the only official who feels the county’s credit cards are really hers. Human Resources Director Rhonda Foster quit her post abruptly last week after it was learned she, too, had played fast and loose with county plastic. If not the flu, then something‘s going around the Showers Building.

The Ex-HR Chief

A regular county commissioners meeting is scheduled for tomorrow at City Hall at 9:00am. The smart move is for Gerstman to submit her resignation at the meeting and, perhaps, issue a heartfelt public apology at the same time.

We’re forgiving folks around here. We’re happy she’s paid back the money that she used for personal expenses. We hope she’s learned her lesson and will go on to thrive in the private business world.

But we know this: We don’t want Amy Gertsman watching our public funds anymore.

MONEY FOR SOMETHIN’

Yes, I realize I may be run out of town for this statement, but I’m glad somebody’s giving Indiana University a pile of cash for something other than a sports cathedral.

Kelley School of Business Dean Dan Smith and IU President Michael McRobbie are patting each other on the back for scoring a $33M grant from the Lilly Endowment for an expansion and renovation project. Kelley’s undergrad factory will gain an additional 71,000 square feet and will be decked out with all the latest hi-tech gadgets by 2015.

Excessively Straight-Backed Biz Students Watch Vid Screens In Their New Digs

That thirty-three large will be thrown in with some $27M already collected from alumni and other donors to round out the planned $60M job. The Lilly grant is the largest the Kelley has ever received as well as one of the biggest in the university’s history.

Smith says: “The new facilities will allow the school to more fully execute an experiential learning approach to business education.” I think he means the new plant will make Kelley students smarter.

Which I’ve always thought was the aim of a major university. Or even a minor one, for that matter.

See, I only arrived on the scene a couple of years ago. Native Bloomingtonians may be used to it, but I was shocked at the size and scope of IU’s sports facilities. And the area’s deep-pocketed usual suspects, like the late Bill Cook and the still-kicking John Mellencamp, seem always to be donating bread for another towering, sprawling gym or shower room.

How clean do our “student-athletes” need to be after a workout?

SMART COOKIE, PROUD PAPA

WFHB Music Director Jim Manion dropped by the Book Corner yesterday. He’s still crowing about his daughter Riley’s nomination to the Phi Beta Kappa Society in December.

They say pride is one of the deadly sins but when a guy is walking on air because his daughter has been named to one of the most prestigious academic societies on the planet, well, that ain’t no sin, baby.

Riley (l) And Jim Manion

The Pencil extends its warmest congrats to Riley and Jim.

MONEY (THAT’S WHAT I WANT)

Barrett Strong‘s “Money…” can be considered the granddaddy of all Motown hits. Start-up record impresario Berry Gordy, Jr. released the 45 in 1959 under his Tamla label and it became a hit in early 1960. Its success spurred Gordy to incorporate under the Motown banner that spring.

The Pencil Today:

LOVE IS CRUEL

So, Anne Hathaway’s getting married. I guess The Loved One can rest easy from now on.

Big Mike Must Face Facts: She Loves Another

MAKE IT EASIER TO VOTE? I DUNNO, IS THAT WISE?

The Monroe County election board will vote Thursday on voting centers. The board’s only Republican, Judith Smith-Ille, has opposed a 2012 start-up for the centers. County Clerk Linda Robbins, a Democratic board member, wants them for next year’s election.

Butting Heads: Smith-Ille & Robbins (IDS photo)

The idea is the county will do away with its 90 precinct polling places and replace them with strategically located sites in which any registered voter from anywhere in the county can cast a ballot.

Everyone agrees the vote centers will make it easier for citizens to do their duty. So why are Smith-Ille and other Republicans fighting the 2012 roll-out?

Search me. But is it my imagination or do Republicans as a rule start to get itchy whenever talk turns to increased voter turnout?

IF YOU DO THE CRIME YOU MUST DO THE TIME

Jails in a few cities and towns of this holy land hosted hundreds of Occupy protesters last night. Los Angeles cops busted up the encampment in that city with a couple of hundred earning their plastic wrist-ties. Philadelphia police applied the strong-arm as well, taking 40 into custody.

LA Bust Last Night

And whaddya know? Even Bloomington, the Solar System’s center of liberalism, progressivism, and intellectualism, saw its cops wade into a mass of protesters. Officers nabbed five of them and shipped them off to…, let’s see now, Guantanamo? No. The Gulag Archipelago? Uh uh.

No. The kids were taken to the county lockup and were promptly bailed out.

Apparently, the protesters were not affiliated with the local Occupy gang although they claimed to be “in solidarity” with the campers at People’s Park.

And forgive me for judging this book by its cover, but yesterday’s protesters at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business didn’t appear to be used to such rude treatment. The protesters were blocking the door to a room in which capos from JP Morgan Chase were to recruit new soldiers for their mob.

Civil Disobedience

See, when you do civil disobedience, you should expect to be jailed. And when you’re jailed in those circumstances, you should take it with dignity. After all, in an unjust society, the only place for a just human being is in jail.

Am I nitpicking here? You tell me.

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