Bittersweet Music
Do not fail to listen to an NPR Morning Edition piece on the late musician Jason Molina, who died just over a year ago.
As a relative newbie to this great burgh, I never knew much about Molina until now. I wish I was in on his nearly heart-breakingly beautiful songs while he was alive.
Molina
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By good luck, though, there’s a new tribute album, Farewell Transmission: The Songs of Jason Molina, plus there are his own discs, issued under the fabulous Secretly Canadian label, another of our local treasures.
Again, take a few minutes and cop an ear on the piece sometime today.
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I Told You So
How many times have I said this? The Wingnut Right is going to start really digging Vladimir Putin.
That is, if they haven’t already developed a tyrant-crush on him yet. Come to think of it, I guarantee Sarah Palin soaks her drawers thinking about the bare-chested beast.
O-o-o-oh, Vlad!
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Anyway, along comes one of god’s PR men on Earth, Franklin Graham, son of the Rev. Billy Graham. Billy boy was the Christianist go-to guy for presidents from Eisenhower to Bush I. As Neil Steinberg wrote yesterday, Graham pere “sat out literally every important moral issue of his day…. while groveling before power and babbling about the End of the World.” Little Frankie runs the family’s dog and pony show now, apparently, and he just wrote a fap piece about Vlad-who-impales-only-women-because-gays-are-criminals.
Check this quote from Frankie on the Graham clan website re: Putin and gays:
Isn’t it sad, though, that America’s own morality has fallen so far that on this issue — protecting children from any homosexual agenda or propaganda — Russia’s standard is higher than our own?
In my opinion, Putin is right on these issues. Obviously, he may be wrong about many things, but he has taken a stand to protect his nation’s children from the damaging effects of any gay and lesbian agenda.
Our president and his attorney general have turned their backs on God and His standards, and many in the Congress are following the administration’s lead. This is shameful.
Then, on Easter Sunday, the fertility holiday the Christianists swiped from the pagans, Frankie appeared on George Stephanopoulos’s gabfest where he was queried about whether or not he supported Putin as a leader. Here’s his reply:
No, I think — I think Putin is going to do what’s right for Russia. And not what’s right for America, but for Russia. We used to have a president in this country that did what’s right for this country. But we don’t seem to have that right now.
Putin is going to make these decisions that he thinks is best for the Russian people and he thinks taking advantage of children, exploiting children is wrong for any group.
See? These loons love the man-gravy out of Vlad Putin.
I knew it all along and said so. That’s why you have to read the Pencil every day, even when I don’t post — just re-read the old stuff for the hell of it.
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The Science Of Prejudice
We know about how relatively few women there are in the hard science fields. It’s a national disgrace.
But let’s not forget that blacks, too, are woefully underrepresented in areas like physics, mathematics, biochemistry, and other disciplines that probe and define reality.
Rock star astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson once was asked why so few Double-Xers get into the sciences. He answered by comparing the plight of aspiring girl scientists to that of little black future scientists, no matter their gender.
Smart Guy
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Teachers and other authority figures literally push girls and blacks away from the sciences.They may not even realize it, but they do. For instance, when young NdGT told his teachers he wanted to be an astrophysicist, more than one of them advised him that maybe, just maybe, he’d be better off dreaming of becoming an athlete.
Wouldn’t You Rather Collect Welfare Checks?
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Yow.
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There She Goes….
I’m not even going to write about that high school in Pennsylvania suspending a kid for asking Miss America to his prom. You know, the reigning M.A. was visiting the H.S. for whatever reason beauty queens visit schools and, during the assembly, some kid got up, gave her a flower and asked her to go to the prom w/ him.
Big deal, no?
Well, yeah it was a big deal to the petit tyrants who run that kid’s correctional facili…, er, high school. They suspended him for three days for causing a disturbance.
Oh hell, I lied. I am going to write about it. Here goes.
1) All of high school is hell, but assemblies are particularly hellish. At least the kid tried to make this assembly entertaining and fun for the rest of the kids.
2) Miss America wins her crown by being voted the most hot babe among 49 other contestants (or is it 50 or 51 other contestants? IDK: Does DC send a Miss? Any of the territories?) Anyway, the kid showed real spunk by asking the consensus hottest dame in his school to his prom. I say give him the Most Likely to Succeed award right now.
3) Schools still suspend kids? As if a day or two or three off is a punishment? And don’t the kids miss out on trivial little things like their lessons when they’re suspended?
4) Miss America, it has been revealed, visited the school “to discuss the importance of science, technology, and math studies.” Wait, what? What in the holy hell was she doing talking to them about that? Where was Neil de Grasse Tyson?
Nina Davuluri, Your New Science Career Adviser
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5) I want the school’s principal to be suspended immediately. No, wait, fired. And booted in the ass as he leaves.
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