"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
So, I’m on the alert for lightning bolts directed at me right now because I hereby present one Penn Gillette, one of my fave people on Earth, rating the presidential candidates on their friendliness toward — cringe! — atheists.
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I’m not really trying to cause trouble here (oh, alright, yes I am) but a little balance is in order, no?
The Fox News rightists had apoplexy a week and a half ago when President Obama neglected to mention the all-powerful sugar daddy during his annual Thanksgiving message to the nation. Those campaigning to become president and those fortunate — or unfortunate — enough to become one rarely miss an opportunity to thank their sky-dwelling BFF.
Anybody who hopes to become president has to believe in god, still, today, some 300 years after the Age of Enlightenment and nearly 130 years after Neitzsche pronounced, “Gott ist tot” (god is dead.)
Me? I’m looking for the first prez aspirant who, well, doesn’t believe.
I’d imagine the number of local residents paying the slightest bit of attention to last night’s debate between Republican candidates for president hovered somewhere around, oh, zero.
This is, after all, Bloomington, Indiana, the capital-in-exile of the former Soviet Union and geographical magnet for this holy land’s unscrubbed beatniks, bomb-throwers, abortionists, and other Democrats.
So, The Pencil will do y’all a favor and point out the most eye-opening statement made by one of the fine and decorated statesmen and women who gathered to verbally spar in that other locus of undesirables, Washington, DC.
Minnesota Congressbeing Michele Bachmann dug deep into her her pocket thesaurus and threw a sophisticated two-syllable pejorative at Texas Gov. Rick Perry.
Bachmann: “Fingers crossed — Someone Has Less Of A Clue Than I Do.”
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The issue was Pakistan and Perry had just pronounced all future financial aid to that nuclear armed Stone Age nation a no-go as long as its leaders wouldn’t keep “America’s best interests in mind.”
Y’know, the way every other nation on this spinning globe keeps the well-being of the land of Donald Trump, Lindsay Lohan, and Black Friday in the forefront of all its deliberations.
Well, our plucky gal Michele found Perry’s logic rather lacking. Bachmann is a member of the House Intelligence Committee which, if nothing else, proves our elected representatives possess a sense of humor. She reminded Perry and the world that this country gains a lot of inside dope on the doings of the wild-eyed gun-toters who populate much of Pakistan’s desolate countryside. Our dough, Bachmann insisted, also insures that the borderline lunatics who run the place aren’t overthrown by certified lunatics.
Kudos to Bachmann on grasping the fact that the syllables of a word needn’t be separated by consonants.
Now, imagine how discouraged the cowboy governor is this morning to realize that Michele Bachmann — Michele Bachmann — considers him naive.
The election, folks, is a mere 49 weeks away.
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“KILL URSELF”
I have a Twitter account, I’ll admit it. On the other hand, I haven’t touched it in more than a year.
Twitter is the 140-character preserve of semi-literate pro athletes, pathologically self-involved Hollywood stars, and that portion of the populace that was born, sadly, with the condition known as anencephaly.
Take the recent Twit (screw “Tweet” — I’m going with Twit) from Washington Redskins pass catcher Jabar Gaffney.
Poor Jabar was in a funk after his team lost to the rival Dallas Cowboys Sunday. Some Cowboys fan sent him a Twit ridiculing him and his Redskins mates. (By the way, I was under the impression that this was the year 2011. And still there’s a pro team called the Redskins? The Redskins?!)
Anyway, Gaffney promptly advised the Twit-sender to, um, commit suicide.
Yup. Gaffney thumbed these proto-words into his connection to the civilized world: “… I’m just proud I ain’t you get a life or kill urself.” The line is close enough to the human language known as English that I needn’t translate it for you.
Naturally, the NFL and representatives of the sane population of America had apoplexy. Hell, if people can blame Judas Priest, whose song obliquely referred to the ultimate form of self-determination, for a couple of teens’ deaths in 1985, then Gaffney’s unmistakable advisement is fraught with peril.
Gaffney then quoted another Twit-person who agreed with his original broadside. Gaffney thumbed: “I do want that man to kill himself..one less cowboys fan…”
Existential Advice
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Sheesh. Now we know there are at least two people in this nation who don’t know ellipsis is indicated by three dots, not two. America is indeed going to hell.
Cooler heads got to Gaffney and he apologized — the way many celebrities, politicians, and corporations apologize these days, which is not at all.
Gaffney Twitted a third time, “They say I can’t tell people to kill themselves didn’t know freedom of speech had limitations so I’ll just say #uknowwhattodo #HTTR better?”
In case this puzzling series of electronic grunts is indecipherable to you, I’ll help. Gaffney is saying: “My heavens, despite the landmark US Supreme Court decision wherein the noted jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. opined that shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater is a practical violation of common sense, civility, and the spirit of the original 1st Amendment, I was under the impression that the concept of Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct. I will therefore alter my original pronouncement by saying, ‘Sir, do you recall that action I advised you to take which, apparently, I am not at liberty to utter in a public setting? If so, please take it.'”
Big time sports and the reprobates who perform in it and operate it are becoming less and less attractive by the week.
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DON’T CRY FOR ME HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY
The Loved One was incensed that First Lady Michele Obama caught the raspberry Sunday at a NASCAR race in Miami.
Obama: “I Can’t Hear You Because I Have These Big Things On My Head.”
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Many in the crowd of some 80,000 booed the president’s wife lustily when she was introduced prior to shouting “Start your engines” into a microphone.
Aside from the fact that the speedway was filled with people who find deafeningly loud cars continually turning left at life threatening speeds entertaining, the race, it must be said, was held in Florida. That double-whammy indicates the crowd probably was lacking in thinkers who grasp the subtleties and nuances of today’s domestic and geopolitical debate.
Who was the last Nobel Prize winner to hail from the Sunshine State?
No matter, I actually tried to defend the crowd, which caused my lovely bride to eye me through narrowed lids.
I said, “The fact that people feel free to boo the wife of the boss of the most powerful nation on Earth is a good thing.”
The Loved One shook her head almost imperceptibly. And, I have to admit, I’m not thrilled with my argument either.
Generally when The Loved One drives me to Soma on a Saturday morning the most we offer to each other in the realm of conversation are grunts. We understand each other enough to know that human verbal intercourse is not biologically possible before we have our caffeine.
Today is different.
This Penn State thing has been on everybody’s mind this week. Even The Loved One, who doesn’t know a Nittany Lion from the Nattily Attired, has followed the story.
What In The Hell Is A Nittany Lion Anyway?
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And she’s come to a conclusion.
“Here’s what I think,” she began as she negotiated the construction zone at 3rd Street and the Bypass.
My first instinct was to grunt. I reached down deep into my reserves of civility and said, “Yes, my precious angel?”
“Every man, except you and some other men I know, is a child molester,” she said.
I sat up straight. I surely wasn’t going to grunt at this pronouncement.
“Huh?”
“That’s what I believe. There are just too many incidents. It happens far too much. The only thing I can say is that the only man who’s not a child molester is a dead man.”
Wow. Normally I feel somewhat itchy about carrying the XY chromosome, what with fellow males like Rush Limbaugh, Gene Simmons, and the Rev. Fred Phelps running around loose. (Then again, the Double-X set can claim Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann, so there!) Anyway, I suddenly felt awash in guilt by association.
If Rush Is A Guy, I Don’t Want To Be One
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“But darling,” I protested, “Methinks you’re hyperbolizing. Yes, we hear about child molestation but that’s because it’s news and news usually is the unusual.”
The Loved One shook her head. “It happens everywhere. And what about the way men look at teenaged girls?”
“Well,” I said, “you have to consider this. Wouldn’t it be natural for men to look at a female just as soon as she reaches sexual maturity? I mean, a fourteen-year-old can be alluring because she’s already grown all the necessary appurtenances. But laws and mores forbid us from acting on those instincts so most men don’t.”
“That’s just what I’m getting at,” she countered. “Women see things differently than men. Women feel that if you’re thinking about it, it’s just as bad as doing it. Take ‘Lolita.’ The men who saw it probably thought, ‘Oh, it’s just a movie.’ But it deeply affected a lot of women who saw it.”
At this moment I thought I’d hit upon the coup de grace. “If what you say is true, ” I said triumphantly, “why do you exclude me and these unnamed other men you know. Aren’t we, then, child molesters, too?”
I waited for The Loved One to relent and say, “Yeah, you’re right. I exaggerated.”
And waited. And waited.
By the time we reached Indiana Avenue, I’d shrunk into a corner of the car seat. If the Prius had an ashtray, I’d have jumped in.
She pulled up in front of Soma, we kissed each other goodbye, and I watched her drive off. My wife. MY love. The woman who posits that I’m a child molester.
Marriage is a fascinating experiment.
Remind me to tell you about the time The Loved One called me gay because I knew all the words to “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” from “South Pacific.”
Yup. Ninety percent of the enlightened, educated, broad-minded populace of Bloomington, Indiana and surrounding environs chose to give the finger to democracy.
Oh, sure, the election was pretty much a joke. After all, Mayor Mark Kruzan and City Clerk Regina Moore ran unopposed. And every single Republican who lives in this blessed county ran in the election (that would be three GOP-ers overall.)
And The Winner, In A Unanimous Decision, Is…
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But there was a semblance of a race for the three at-large seats in the Bloomington Common Council. Chris Sturbaum faced a nominal challenge in the 1st council district as well.
The Me Party-ists won so many of last November’s Congressional contests in large part because voters who actually possess cerebellums stayed home.
Maybe we’re not so smart after all.
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THE SECRET
So far, the Indy Colts are the worst team in the National Football League. Their record stands at 0-6.
It’s a civic embarrassment. The combined record of the Colts and the Indiana Hoosiers would be an execrable 1-15. Yech.
Clearly these are not glorious days for professional and collegiate bone snappers and ligament rippers in the great state o’Indiana.
Sad Sundays
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Something had to be done so the Colts’ Jeff Saturday, a mountain of gristle and muscle who plays center, called a team meeting this week. Apparently, he roared at his mates and then revealed to them the secret to winning which he, a 13-year veteran of the human carnage that is NFL football, has learned.
He spoke about his revelation later in a press conference. “…[I]t needed to be said and I said it,” Saturday explained.
The secret? Saturday told his fellow Colts they must “play better.”
Oh.
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LESS IS MORE
Speaking of sports, who do you think will have the better basketball season — the Pacers or the Hoosiers?
Laid my mitts on a couple of local publications I’d never seen before this week. One is put out by high school aged kids, the other by college students.
“The Antagonist” is a monthly publication of Brad Wilhelm‘s Rhino’s Youth Center. Rhino’s caters to kids from the ages of 13 through 18. The fall issue of “The Antagonist” is devoted to horror, natch.
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You’ll find some fairly fascinating stuff within its semi-glossy pages. James Pfister lists some of the haunted sites in and around Bloomington. The IU Career Center, so the story goes, is ghost-infested because abortions were performed in the place many years ago. Who knew?
A kid named Ricky pens a fairy tale with a moral and the aforementioned Pfister rates local buildings in their efficacy as safe havens in the event of a zombie invasion. The fourth cover features a colored pencil drawing of Puffy the Vampire Bear.
Nice work.
“The Black Sheep” bills itself as “A college newspaper that’s actually about college,” which I suppose is a jab at the IDS for running stories about silly things like local news and world events.
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The tabloid provides a guide to lying to loved ones when the college student returns home for Thanksgiving. There’s plenty of value in that. Hell, I’m 55 and I still fudge things when I report back to the clan for the holidays.
An attached photo also endorses alcohol as a therapeutic bracer against the onslaught of kin. Count me in again. Man, I’ve contemplated dosing myself with morphine when forced to rub shoulders with my blood relations.
On the other hand, “The Black Sheep” descends into over-weening snarkiness at times. Here’s an example. In a piece about IU being an alcohol-free campus, the writer types, “… it is supposed to be dryer than Mother Theresa’s (sic) corpse’s vag.”
So “The Antagonist” is refreshing and creative while “The Black Sheep” is world-weary and shock-jock-y. That can describe the difference between many 14-year-olds and 19-year-olds.
