"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
For all our own mental and emotional well-being, I urge each and every one of you to thoroughly enjoy the lowest gas prices in four years. Acc’d’g to those who monitor such things, a gallon of gas costs, on average, $3.00 in these thirsty United States.
The link, BTW, updates itself weekly so if you go there in, say, a month, it may read something else. Here’s s screenshot of today’s reading:
US Energy Information Administration Report, October 31st, 2014
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Now, allow me to dump of a bucket of ice water over our collected heads: Just think how gas prices are going to rebound over the next few weeks. Does four skins a gal. sound crazy? I’m no expert in how the energy racketeers strategize the systematic emptying of our wallets but based on the utterly unscientific and fairly undependable evidence of my memory, big dips in motion lotion prices generally are followed by even bigger soars.
So save those pennies, kids.
Oh, and today’s relatively cheap gas reminds me of something else. The Republican Party is clearly the superior of the two major political cliques in our holy land when it comes to self-congratulations. This is no bad rap: I respect and envy the ability of GOP-ers to scream to the world Hey, look what I did for you!
Had the Republicans been fully in charge of Congress today and had they somehow been able to wrest the White House from that notorious Muslim plant from Kenya in 2012, they’d have been singing hosannas to themselves for the low gas prices. And scads o’folks across the land would be telling each other how fabulous the Repubs. are for getting that gallon down to three bucks. Hell, you’d think Prez Mitt Romney himself had barged in to the CEO offices of the world’s oil giants to demand they drop gas prices.
The Democrats? Well, y’know.
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Political Science
Dems in 2014 could have run in this mid-term election on the three-pronged platform of health care, unemployment, and gas prices. They could have shouted from the mountain tops that millions and millions more of our fellow citizens now have health insurance under Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act. They could have robo-called the populace about how unemployment has dipped below six percent a mere six years after the greatest global economic trauma since the Great Depression. And, natch, they could have simply given stump speeches underneath gas station signs.
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Nary a one of these things has been done. The dopes.
Instead, acc’d’g to political hall monitors, Dem candidates from sea to sea are too busy pretending they’ve never heard of this chap Barack Obama.
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Fighting By The Rules
Some Democrats here in and around Bloomington are aghast that local Republicans are planting yard signs where they shouldn’t be! The horror.
Party precinct captain Pam Davidson was busted the other day by a Monroe County Sheriff’s deputy for swiping Republican yard signs that she swears were planted illegally on public lands. The Richland Township precinct 3 party operative was allegedly witnessed pulling out a sign and tossing it in her trunk at the intersection of Curry Pike and SR 46.
The sheriff’s deputy took her into custody. No word yet on whether or not he slapped the bracelets on her.
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Here’s my question: Why wasn’t Davidson planting her own yard signs — ones that say something simple like 5.9% Unemployment? You’re Welcome! or Obamacare, Like America, Works — right in front of those Republican signs?
You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight. The Dems, it seems — both nationally and locally — have forgotten that simple rule of street fighting.
Monroe County Dems gathered together yesterday eve at the Convention Center to pat themselves on the back and to cheer each other on toward the fall elections. Politics, y’know?
The whole gang of Democratic elected officials in this town and county (almost all elected officials herein, truth be told) made the scene. Even B-town’s notoriously stealthy mayor, Mark Kruzan, showed his face. He contributed to the pep rally as befitting the star of the team but he did not say whether he’s running for a fourth term in 2015, as some have already whispered he may not.
Party chair Trent Deckard read off a seemingly endless list of candidates for the May 6th Democratic primary. When he finished, he told the throng he’d prob. be eligible for Social Security now. Fitting, because it was Franklin D. Roosevelt, after whom the annual bash is named, who signed SS into law.
FDR Signs The Social Security Act Into Law, 1935
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The honored guest of the confab was former US Congress dude Lee Hamilton. The Party presented Hamilton, now a distinguished scholar at Indiana University’s School of Global and International Studies, a certificate of gratitude for being a decent guy who could win an election or two. Hamilton said he tried to follow the path of Roosevelt, who looked upon any potential piece of legislation for what it did to benefit the average person. Sounds like county Dems have themselves a talking point for the 2014 elections.
And speaking of the upcoming beauty contest, the following Dem primary candidates were on hand yesterday:
Monroe County Republicans currently are looking for an old phone booth to reserve for their pow-wow.
[h/t to MC Dem Party sec’y Efrat Feferman for help with the abovementioned names.]
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Like Father, Like Son?
For the benefit of those whose historical perspective reaches back, oh, say, 15 minutes, one Willard Mitt Romney once, very long ago, wanted to be president of these here Yew-nited States of Murrica.
He lost to a commie, socialist, sub-human mongrel, abortionist, non-Murrican citizen born in Kenya and our holy land has crashed into a sea of shit ever since.
Well, that’s the narrative of the audience Willard Mitt Romney played to back in those paleozoic days of 2012.
Now, anyone who could figure out a way to lose an election to such a blatant example of bold, bald evil, you would think, might consider it better to keep his trap shut in ensuing years. But Ol’ Mitt is traipsing around the country these days, campaigning for Republican candidates for US Congress and various statehouses. Politics, y’know?
Anyway, Candidate Mitt repped a zeitgeist that posited if you’re rich, you have worked hard and are wonderfully fabulous and whatever you did to get that way was good and pure, and by contrast if you were in need, well then, you deserve it and you’d better get the hell out of my face.
Many of Mitt’s supporters considered themselves members of something called the Tea Party. That’s an almost-perfect name for them. They were only off by two letters. More properly, they should call themselves the Me Party.
Murrica, the Romney gang sang, was made great by gun-owning, god-fearing individuals who excelled despite the onerous burden of gov’t regulations and tyrannical things like labor laws and consumer protections. The rest of this sanctified land was populated by takers — those too lazy, unmotivated, or dark-skinned to amass piles of cash.
Mitt (Center) And The Bain Boys: Good & Pure
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Now, how could a man construct such a worldview? Romney himself might answer that by saying a man’s character is formed, in large part, by the most important male role model in his life — his daddy-o.
Mitt Romney’s old man was George Romney, auto company CEO, guv of Michigan from 1963 through 1969, and himself a candidate for prez in ’68. Romney pere is a relic of a long-gone age, a liberal Republican, if you can believe such a thing ever existed. In the 1960s, it did.
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The old boy spoke about poverty and civil rights and Americans helping Americans and he even became a dove after visiting Vietnam, saying that our little excellent adventure there was a “tragic” blunder.
George Romney had this to say about the American slant on economics, something we’ve liked to refer to as “rugged individualism”:
It’s nothing but a political banner to cover up greed.
Wow. Imagine if the Kenyan Manchurian Prez had said that! Oh, the Me Party-ists, the GOP, and Romney fils would scream to high heaven that it was the preamble to a Soviet invasion.
In reality, Romney the Younger didn’t give a good goddamn about the lessons his pop tried to teach him.
So, why am I bringing this up? I’m getting this strange feeling that Ol’ Mitt is fixin’ to run for president again in 2016. I’m no more an idolator of Hillary Clinton than I was of Barack Obama, but I sure as hell will vote for her over a man who doesn’t have the good sense to listen when his father tries to teach him to be a decent human being.
This just in: Nothing happened in Great Britain yesterday.
Communique From The UK
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That is, nothing that came within a light year of interesting me. I have scanned all the news sites. I watched the BBC newscast last night. I monitored the radio this morning.
Again I say, not one single thing that could possibly be of use to me in understanding this world occurred in the paleo-empire upon which, the old saw holds, the sun never sets.
I just thought you’d like to know.
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No Vagina In The White House
The CNN Political Ticker blog tells me a “Stop Hillary” gang is coming together with the sole and sacred purpose of, natch, preventing the former Secretary of State and serial forgiver of her philandering husband from becoming POTUS.
Now, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a formal organization being establishing more than two years in advance of an election to preemptively halt one of the expected several dozen presidential aspirants from getting anywhere. Not even the putative presidency of Barack Obama so scared the poo out of people in 2005 that they began huddling to stop him.
See How Hideous A Woman President Would Look?
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Then again, Obama hadn’t declared that far in advance but even if he had, it’s doubtful anyone would have taken him so seriously as to form an anti-O club. Even after he’d declared in February 2007, no one cared enough to organize against him. Bet they’re kicking themselves, eh?
Anyways, this Stop Hillary PAC is led by a bunch of conservatives, Republican operatives, lobbyists, and other gadflies. Some guy named Garrett Marquis, who worked on John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign appears to be the spokesman for the group. He says, “We’re supporting anything that is the opposite of Hillary.”
Considering the fact that Hillary Clinton is so centrist she makes Barack Obama look like a bandanna-masked anarchist, it seems odd that a group of guys would be so spooked by her.
Ah, wait a minute! There’s the key, no? Group of guys.
Hard as it may be to believe, the existence of a president who doesn’t carry between her legs that god-given symbol of power and righteousness, the penis, is even more terrifying than the thought of a brown Commander in Chief.
The Terror
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I mean, honestly, should Hillary Clinton be elected Prez, the collective phalluses of America would turtle so severely that, by golly, the real men of this holy land would finally have to take up arms. No more of this Next time, we’ll have our shootin’ irons namby-pamby jaw-juice. The moment Hillary takes the oath of office is next time.
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Open fire, boys, our very potency is at stake!
Bet you didn’t know this isn’t the only organization formed to make certain Hillary Clinton never, ever, ever becomes our boss. Mitt Romney’s campaign manager in 2012, Matt Rhoades, started one up even before Stop Hillary came together. That group is called America Rising.
“Never loan a book to someone if you expect to get it back. Loaning books is the same as giving them away.” — Douglas Coupland
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GENERAL AVERSION
This Petraeus scandal is another one of those affairs wherein everybody involved is a flat out jerk.
Honestly, who would want to be involved with any of these chowderheads?
Consider this laundry list of reprobates and their peccadillos:
An aging general who leaves his plain, matronly wife parked at home while he bonks a hot babe
Petraeus & Broadwell: Puffing Their Chests Out With Pride
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A “reporter” who gives her subject both literary and literal blowjobs and who threatens her perceived romantic rival via email
Social climbers who throw Champagne-and-caviar bashes for Army brass but also run up huge debts, who weasel their way into a 28-motorcycle police escort just to make a splashy arrival at a Hallowe’en party, who brag about a phoney-baloney diplomatic title, who use that phoney-baloney diplomatic title to attempt to squeeze millions of dollars out of a Korean businessperson, who purchased a ritzy mansion but haven’t made payments on it for years. who set up a questionable charity and then used proceeds to purchase lavish dinners
High military officials writing letters of reference in the custody battle of a parent who has been determined by a judge to be lacking in honesty and integrity and who tried to trump up a physical abuse charge against her ex-husband by inducing her 3-year-old son to lie to authorities
An FBI agent who sends beefcake pix of himself to a woman the agency will eventually investigate
Ick.
It reminds me of the OJ Simpson murder trial. Every single person connected with that case was a dope or a social climber or a sociopath or the sire of the Kardashian beings. I couldn’t stand any of those people.
Well, except one. Kato.
Can I Testify?
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Kato Kaelin was the only un-detestable soul in the bunch. I mean, he never pretended to be anything more than what he was — a dingbat, celebrity-junkie, coat-holder who had the bad luck to be at home when he heard a thump on his bedroom wall.
I wonder if there’ll be a Kato in the Petraeus case.
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PASSING IN SCIENCE
Okay, Indiana, you voted for Mitt Romney and elected a Republican governor. And the statehouse is still firmly in the control of the GOP.
What more do you want?
Oh, this: Republican state senator Dennis Cruse will introduce legislation that, in the words of the National Center for Science Education, will be a “permission slip for teachers to bring creationism, climate-change denial, and other non-science into science classrooms.”
A middle-aged couple walked into the Book Corner yesterday, appearing as if they’d been transported suddenly to another planet.
I tried to make eye contact but they both averted their gazes. They didn’t seem to be potential shoplifters but one can never tell so I kept an eye on them.
Plenty of folks who’d never been in a bookstore in their lives wander into the Book Corner. We’re across the street from the Monroe County Courthouse, where folks who live in such far-flung locales as Bean Blossom township come to pay their property taxes.
They consider a voyage into downtown Bloomington to be akin to visiting Rome. They step into the bookstore tentatively as if concerned that some questionable books sold therein might contaminate them. Within moments they relax, after being assured they won’t be assaulted by members of the Red Brigade.
They Hang Out In Bookstores, Don’t They?
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Anyway, this particular couple did the tentative two-step as well. By and by, they felt emboldened to separate, he to thumb through outdoor sportsmen’s magazines and she to search for something.
Eventually, she approached me, presumably after convincing herself I wouldn’t snatch her and do a Patty Hearst job on her. She asked for a Becca Fitzpatrick book in the Hush, Hush Saga teen romance series. I figured she was hoping to buy it for a 12-year-old daughter. I was wrong.
A Hush, Hush Saga Book
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“I love these books,” she said. “There’s a whole bunch of ’em. It’s like a series or somethin’,”
“Well, that’s good,” I said, trying my damnedest not to let myself think snarky thoughts.
You make snap judgements about people when you work in a bookstore. Some buy books with titles like “Applied Concepts in Differential Equations.” You immediately come to a conclusion about the entirety of their lives. Same with those who buy Stephen Colbert books or that new biography of Peter Criss, the drummer from Kiss.
Reading Material?
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So, noble soul that I am, I labored not to conclude that the woman was a dummy. Lucky for me I did.
“I’m just learnin’ how to read,” she volunteered.
I was speechless.
“Can you believe it? I’m 44 years old and I never learned how to read.” She said this almost matter-of-factly.
“Well, that’s fantastic,” I said.
“Uh huh. My husband’s teachin’ me how to read. He said we’re gonna do this no matter how hard it is. He said, ‘You better learn how to read. It’s time.'” There wasn’t a hint of embarrassment in her tone — if anything, only pride.
She explained that she’d be back in about a month, after she and her husband got their next check. Then she could buy some of those teen romances.
Sometimes when people want to buy junk books like “How to Read the Tarot,” I console myself about the transaction by thinking, Well, at least they’re reading. Plus, they’re buying from us so we’ll stay in business that much longer.
This woman wasn’t the first 40-something to buy a teen romance for herself. And normally I need to console myself when taking an adult’s money for this kind of kid lit. But the next time the woman comes in, I’ll be proud to sell her a couple of Becca Fitzpatrick novels.
Meeting her was the best thing that happened to me all day yesterday.
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Thursday, November 15th, 2012
MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital: Elena Paradies on organ; 5pm
MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Doctoral Recital: Yoon Won Shin on piano; 5pm
MUSIC ◗ IU Sweeney Hall — Performer Diploma Recital: Michael Miragliotta on trombone; 5pm
MUSIC ◗ Bear’s Place — The Matt MacDougall Quartet; 5:30pm
LECTURE ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — “What Are Friends For?: The Adaptive Power of Social Bonds, Presented by primatologist Joan Silk of Arizona State University; 5:30pm
“Racism is a much more clandestine, much more hidden kind of phenomenon, but at the same time it’s perhaps far more terrible than it’s ever been.” — Angela Davis
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THE KEYS TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Have you seen this map yet?
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Weird, huh?
It’s the electoral map from Tuesday’s presidential election with all the women’s and blacks’ votes discounted. In other words had the female suffragists never been successful, nor had the 15th Amendment giving free blacks the right to vote been ratified, this is what we’d have been left with — one of the greatest electoral college landslides in the history of the United States.
For Willard “Mitt” Romney.
White men simply did not vote for Barack Obama. And for the last 223 years, white men have chosen the president.
No more.
Is it any wonder why they’re scared to death?
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SO WHO AM I?
Now here’s my own existential question: Why do I refer to white men as “they”?
A Young Mitt Romney And His (White) Pals
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Again, is it any wonder?
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SNITCHES
Jezebel, as you probably know, is part of the Gawker Media group of websites. As its name indicates, it’s directed at women. But I read it because, well, as indicated in the preceding entry, I’m not thrilled to be a part of the white male gang.
Speaking of whiteness, Jezebel has embarked on a campaign to blow the whistle on high school kids who’ve Tweeted racist and often threatening comments about the reelection of Barack Obama Tuesday.
Far too many of these little bastards are calling Obama a “nigger” and a “monkey” and some even express longing for the day he gets picked off by an assassin.
Now, I’ll refrain from revealing what I’d like to do to these brats only because it entails my shoe and their asses and, as I understand it, kicking the crap out of kids is frowned upon these days.
That said, I’m made a little uncomfortable by Jezebel’s tactics. See, the website is contacting the schools these racist kids attend and letting their principals know what they’re saying on the social site.
Not only that but Jezebel is publicizing the kids’ names as well as their schools on the site which is seen by perhaps 100,000 people a day (the latest figures show the combined daily hit total for Gawker’s sites is about a quarter of a million, so I’m estimating here.)
Anyway, I don’t like it. Kids are stupid. I know this because I was a kid once. Kids say stupid things. I remember once telling my mother that I was a communist. Communism, after all, seemed a very attractive alternative to me at the age of 17, what with the Vietnam War and racism and the Nixon White House defining this holy land at the time.
Should I have been called out in a national media outlet for saying so? IIRC, my flirtation with communism lasted all of a few weeks. Then I read about old Joe Stalin and his purges and idiosyncrasies. I also read that even though Stalinism had been declared old hat in the USSR, the new generation of leaders there were only slightly less, shall we say, stern than Stalin.
And here’s another thing. I’ve called some people “nigger” in my day. That’s the word we used in my neighborhood to describe black people. I wasn’t terribly comfortable using that terminology and I never used it as liberally as the vast majority of my peers. In fact, even during those few-and-far-between moments when I did drop an N, I knew I wouldn’t be saying the word once I freed myself from the neighborhood I grew up in.
Still, I felt an almost irresistible pressure to speak in the language of my environs. I did my best to resist, but sometimes I couldn’t. I was, after all, a kid. And kids not only are stupid, they’re apt to fall in line awfully easily.
I was overheard saying the word once by a black guy named Chris, whom I liked. I’ll never forget the look on Chris’s face: a combination of hurt and anger that I’d never seen before. I swore at that moment I’d never use the word as a descriptor again.
Nevertheless, I ran into the guy and his sister several years later on Michigan Avenue. Apparently, he’d never told his sister about what he’d heard me say. She greeted me like a long lost brother. All the while, the guy stood at a remove, eying me as one would a rat.
I wanted to say to him, “Chris, I’ve never used that word again,” but I knew it wouldn’t make his hurt and anger go away. It would only make me feel better to say so.
Speaking of rats, Katy Waldman wrote on Slate.com Friday that Jezebel is “ratting out” the kids. She, too, riffs on the stupidity of kids. She also posits that Jezebel’s campaign just might make the Tweeters in question bitter, which could very well preclude any magical reversal of their racist feelings.
For its part, Jezebel says it’s calling out these Tweeters and dropping the hammer on them via their principals in an effort to get them to see the error of their ways.
Perhaps. I still don’t care for the paternalistic (or should I say maternalistic) attitude Jezebel’s taking here. It reeks of Joe Friday on “Dragnet” preaching against hippies and LSD and extolling the values of hard work and sacrifice.
As kids, we all laughed at Joe Friday. The mere fact that he was anti-LSD to a large extent drove us toward it. He was the authority, someone to be resisted at all costs.
With its campaign, Jezebel’s putting itself in the role of authority. How hip is the term “nigger” going to become now?
Unless a kid has it in his heart to see black people as human beings who can experience hurt and anger, he’ll never stop dropping the N-bomb no matter how many people call him out on it.
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Monday, November 12th, 2012
LECTURE ◗ IU Maurer School of Law, Room 335 — A Case Study of China’s Administrative Law Crisis: The Unlawful Enforcement of Insider Trading Prohibition,” Presented by Nicholas Howson, professor of law at the University of Michigan; Noon
MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Master’s Recital: Adam Walton, bass-baritone; 5pm
MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital: Matthew Middleton on organ; 5pm
The Loved One sent me the link last night and, to say the least, it takes my breath away. Couple that with conservative guru Richard Viguerie saying Mitt Romney lost because he didn’t hammer it home that Barack Obama is a “radical” who is out to destroy our holy land and you get the gist of the angst Tuesday’s election caused much of the nation.
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I wrote on Facebook the other day, “Personal to Republicans like Karl Rove & Glenn Beck and everybody who thinks the nation is gonna collapse now that Obama’s been reelected: Get hold of yourselves, people!”
It does seem on first blush that many Republicans and Me Party-ists and Libertarians have become opera singers and drama queens about an event that occurs every four years.
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While driving The Loved One to work this morning, I said something on the order of, These people are lunatics. She had a flash of equanimity, though, and pointed out that we’d be singing a very similar tune, only with different lyrics, had Romney won.
She’s right.
Then again, I thought of George W. Bush “winning” the 2000 election. I could have consoled myself by saying, “Well, it’s only four years, we’ll get ‘im next time.” The problem was Bush bollixed the Afghan War and then tricked the nation into the Iraq War. Whatever my worst fears were about Bush at the time of his “victory,” those misdeeds far exceeded them.
I don’t expect Obama to manufacture evidence to whip up war hysteria. The thing that petrifies the Right is his willingness to spend dough on social services.
Even if he bollixes that agenda big time — say he creates some useless, bloated federal authority overseeing the health care system — it still won’t come close to comparing with a couple of wars that have thus far cost hundreds of thousands of civilian and military lives.
So, on third thought, yeah, the people wailing and gnashing their teeth and predicting apocalypse — literally — over another four years of Obama are pretty much lunatics.
By the way, Sagan’s signature line, “billions and billions”? He never said it. He revealed that tidbit in his book entitled — what else? — “Billions and Billions.”
Sagan’s early passing was a great loss, especially in this era of anti-intellectualism and distrust of science. On the other hand, we’re not totally adrift — the big boss at the Hayden Planetarium, Neil de Grasse Tyson, is a worthy successor. He only needs a signature line — that he never said.
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FIRE
Now the news comes that a half dozen Tibetans have set themselves on fire in recent days to dramatize their unhappiness with the Chinese, whose Communist Party has been convening in Beijing.
That makes a total of some 60 Tibetans who’ve lit themselves ablaze in the last two years.
Buddhist Nun Palden Choetso Immolates Herself Earlier This Year
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Make no mistake, The Chinese are a bunch of bullies when it comes to Tibet. For that matter, they’re bullies in just about every issue, foreign and domestic, they address.
Is it my Western mindset that causes me to think it’d make more tactical sense to, I don’t know, set fire to the enemy rather than yourself?
Is suicide ever called for in a political dispute?
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2000 LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME
Psychedelia, baby!
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Friday, November 9th, 2012
LECTURE ◗ IU Maurer School of Law — “The Transnistria Conflict: Not Frozen,” Presented by Matt Rojansky, deputy director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment; Noon
LECTURE ◗ IU Ballantine Hall — “Latin America and China: Primary Goods, Populism, and Political leverage,” Presented by Andrae Marak of Governors State University; 12:30pm
LECTURE ◗ IU SoFA — “Artists’ Books: When the Goblet Becomes the Wine,” Presnted by Bill and Vicky Stewart of Vamp & Tramp Booksellers; 4:30pm
“As people do better, they start voting like Republicans — unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing.” — Karl Rove
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LAST TWO DAYS
You can vote this morning at The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St. from 8am-noon.
Tomorrow is Election Day. Vote at The Curry Building or your local polling place.
Oh, and do me a big favor — vote for Barack Obama, okay?
I’ve bet a C-note with the radical Chicago lawyer Jerry Boyle on the outcome. He’s certain Willard’s going to take the prize tomorrow and I’ve never wavered in my certainty that Barack Obama will be reelected. If Jerry’s guy wins, I cut a check to the ACLU. If Barack Obama wins — I mean, when Barack Obama wins — Jerry Boyle throws his wallet open.
Book it, if you think the ACLU is a danger to this holy land, you and I disagree profoundly about the meaning of freedom.
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THE END OF AN ERA
Tomorrow will mark the end of national elections as we’ve known them since Dick Nixon foisted the Southern Strategy upon us in 1968.
That’s right, it’s been 44 years since Nixon and his gang of furry little mammals realized that the segregationist Democrats of the South and the blue-collar whites of the North could constitute a mighty, dependable bloc of voters for the GOP.
Nixon & His Southern Point Man, Strom Thurmond
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Nixon was a clever man. He realized that the southern Democrats had no interest in being Democrats anymore. He also realized that even though many northern whites were nauseated by Bull Connor and his fire hoses and snarling dogs, they had zero interest in living next door to black families. More important, Nixon knew northern white daddy-os, by and large, were terrified by the prospect of their daughters sitting next to black teenaged boys in high school civics classes.
Sickening — From A Distance
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Playing on these visceral racial fears, Nixon enticed millions of whites in this nation to vote for the man who, they were certain, would protect them from black people.
At the time, white people constituted nearly 80 percent of the electorate.
Since then, fear of a a black planet has been perhaps the single most important underpinning of Republican strategy in every national election. Willie Horton, anybody?
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Even the hysterical aversion of certain pan-troglodytes within the GOP to the idea of a Barack Obama presidency in 2008 indicated that Nixon’s simple formula was falling apart. That year, it was not enough to simply point out that Obama was brown. No, the operative canard used against him was that he was a secret Muslim, an Ay-rab, a mole who’d give his terrorist brethren the high sign that they could now fly airplanes into every skyscraper in every big city in the United States.
…And He’s An Ayatollah!
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Unfortunately for the antediluvian GOP, there are no longer enough southern segregationists and northern racists to swing an election. How many white families can you name that don’t include a brown member by marriage or birth?
Sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner with a brown niece or a black brother-in-law tends to change one’s outlook on things.
The terror is dissipating.
The numbers are working against that old guard Republicanism.
That 80 percent is no more. Soon, it’ll be less than half.
If the Republican Party is to survive, it’ll not only drop the fear appeal but it’ll have to draw blacks and browns into its ranks. That’ll be a good thing.
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YOU DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ VOTE
Meanwhile, the old GOP dogs are trying desperately to hold on.
Realizing the numbers are working against them, Republican strategists have been trying to quash the vote.
Take Florida, where the Republican-dominated state legislature last year reduced the number of early voting days by nearly half. Again, the GOP is being clever. They know that most early voters are Dems and minorities.
It must frustrate the GOP that many Floridians are lining up for six to eight hours at a time to cast their ballots.
Miami Voters On Saturday
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Monday, November 5th, 2012
VOTE ◗ The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St.; 8am-Noon
MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital: Adam Karfeld on viola; 5pm
CLASS ◗ Sweet Claire Gourmet Bakery — Bread for the Holidays, Learn to make rosca de reyes, stollen, sweet breads, etc.; 6-8pm
VARIETY ◗ Cafe Django — Bloomington Short List, 10-minute acts, Hosted by Taylor McNeeley; 7-9pm
MUSIC ◗ IU Musical Arts Center, Recital Hall — Doctoral Recital: Miji Chae on violin; 7pm
“I am leaving soon. and you will forgive me if I speak bluntly.
“The universe grows smaller every day, and the threat of aggression by any group, anywhere, can no longer be tolerated. There must be security for all, or no one is secure.
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“Now, this does not mean giving up any freedom, except the freedom to act irresponsibly. Your ancestors knew this when they made laws to govern themselves and hired policemen to enforce them.
“We of the other planets have long accepted this principle. We have an organization for the mutual protection of all the planets and for the complete elimination of aggression.
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“The test of any such higher authority is, of course, the police force that supports it. For our policemen, we created a race of robots. Their function is to patrol the planets in spaceships like this one and preserve the peace. In matters of aggression, we have given them absolute power over us. This power cannot be revoked.
“At the first sign of violence, they act automatically against the aggressor. The penalty for provoking their action is too terrible to risk.
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“The result is, we live in peace, without arms or armies, secure in the knowledge that we are free from aggression and war. Free to pursue more profitable enterprises.
“Now, we do not pretend to have achieved perfection, but we do have a system, and it works.
“I came here to give you these facts. It is no concern of ours how you run your own planet, but if you threaten to extend your violence, this Earth of yours will be reduced to a burned-out cinder.
“Your choice is simple: Join us and live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration.
Here’s where, today: The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St.; 8am-6pm
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A HALLOWE’EN MESSAGE
Oh, baby, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” remains to this day one of my top ten fave movies of all time.
Michael Rennie was so cool and suave as Klaatu, the emissary from another planet. And Gort, the robot! Good heavens, he scared the bejesus out of me when the movie would air on TV on a Friday night. As a kid, I’d run out of the room when Gort would appear. That huge, faceless head! That massive body! The laser that shot out from his visor!
But I couldn’t bear to miss a single second of the movie so I’d tiptoe back into the living room and peek around the corner to see if Gort was still on the screen.
Gort
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The thrills of childhood are so visceral and immediate.
It wasn’t until many years later that I realized Klaatu had a message for humanity. And later I read that the whole movie, adapted from a short story by Harry Bates entitled, “Farewell to the Master,” was a modern-day allegory for the arrival of a messiah.
Both Klaatu and Jesus brought a message of peace to humankind. Klaatu, while he roamed the streets of Washington, DC, took on the name Carpenter — Jesus was a carpenter. Klaatu was killed by the 1951 version of the Roman centurions and he was brought back to life so he could deliver his word.
“Carpenter”
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Who knew?
Anyway, I was irked when the remake was announced a little more than five years ago. The original version, directed by Robert Wise, was still good enough for me. And then when I heard that the insufferable Keanu Reaves would play the lead, I vowed I’d never watch the remake. I’ve kept that vow.
And, you know, Gort was played by a real man named Lock Martin. In one scene, Gort carries the female lead, Helen Benson, played by Patricia Neal, into the spaceship. The problem was Martin, himself a breathtakingly tall individual, was oddly weak and so unable to carry Neal. The crew had to rig a system of wires to support Neal while Martin pretended to carry her.
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“The Day the Earth Stood Still” was scored by the brilliant Bernard Herrmann, who also handled music for “Citizen Kane,” “Psycho,” and “Taxi Driver.” Herrmann employed sophisticated (for his time) overdubbing and used odd and even bizarre instruments including two theremins, vibraphones, glockenspiels, and a celesta, among others.
The Theremin & Its Inventor, Lev Termen
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The effect was an aural weirdness that was perfect for the film.
Oddly, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” was shut out of Oscar nominations for pictures made in 1951, not even gaining a technical nod. But there’s no shame in that: Red Buttons once won an Oscar but Cary Grant never did.
One more thing. Klaatu was shot in the opening sequence of the movie. He’s taken to Walter Reed Army Hospital for treatment where the doctors are stunned that he’s healed himself using a salve he’d brought from his home planet. While the doctors discuss Klaatu’s advanced pharmacology, they light up — right in the hospital! Such simpler times.
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Now, which movie do you think I’m going to pop into my DVD player tonight?
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THE SCARY THEREMIN
How cool is this?
I dug up some audio of the two paleo-technogeek musicians playing separate theremins in a recording session for the score for “The Day the Earth Stood Still.” Their names were Dr. Samuel Hoffman (he was a foot doctor by day) and Paul Shure.
The theremin was played without actually touching the instrument. The player would wave his or her hands in front of a couple of antennae. With no frets, keys, or any other material devices to control pitch, volume, and duration, the theremin was extremely difficult to master.
The Rolling Stones’ musical adventurer, Brian Jones, played the theremin on “Their Satanic Majesties Request.”
Let’s listen to Hoffman and Shure lay down tracks during post-production for the movie.
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Wednesday, October 31st, 2012
VOTE ◗ The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St.; 8am-6pm
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 — “The Future of Urban Education in the US: Where Is It Going?”, Presented by Eugene White, superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools, and David Harrs CEO of The Mind Trust; 2pm
MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Regal Rhythm Halloween Show, Plus costume contest; 7pm
“Rage is the only quality which has kept me, or anybody I have ever studied, writing columns for newspapers.” — Jimmy Breslin
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GOD’S PISSED, AS USUAL
You had to know this was coming: Some whacked-out preacher says Big Sandy is God’s way of saying FU to America.
No, he didn’t actually drop the F-bomb. I wish he would have; I would have had more respect for the dumb bastard if he had.
O, Heavenly Father, Please Count To Ten
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I’m not going to link to the story or reveal the preacher’s name. He doesn’t need me to pimp for him. And no one other than his deluded flock has heard of him before this. Now, of course, his name has gone national.
I’ll only say it’s his fervent belief that the god he prays to on his knees each and every night has thrown the gargantuan storm at the Eastern Seaboard because this land is full of lesbians, gays, and other miscreants. Not only that but President Obama is as thick as thieves with the Muslim Brotherhood and together they aim to destroy this holy land.
Which is weird because I thought he’d just finished saying god was in the process of doing that very thing. So, wouldn’t he figure that Obama and the Muslim boys are doing god’s work?
Oh, and somehow Mitt Romney has teed off the creator of the universe big time, too, only I didn’t quite catch how.
Take That, Queers And Arabs!
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You know, this god needs to have a nice glass of wine or go for a massage. He’s constantly suffering from the red ass.
Maybe the prayers of the faithful should go something like, “Chill, Big Guy. It’ll all be cool. Take a breath.”
Funny how things like the Holocaust or Joseph Stalin’s purges or this nation wiping out the Amerinds failed to elicit a peep from the almighty daddy-o but a couple of guys making out makes him insane. I think he’s repressing something.
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REAL REPORTERS
I just subscribed to a muckraking website that was recommended to me by a loyal Book Corner customer. FairWarning describes itself as a purveyor of “news of safety, health, and corporate conduct.” Which means it ought to be in business for at least the rest of this millennium.
Myron Levin: A Reporter, Not A Movie Star
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Here’s a sample of headlines it has run recently:
Oil companies Rarely Punished for North Sea Spills
Senate Report Points to Medtronic’s Manipulation of “Independent” Medical Research
Young Blacks Awash in Alcohol Ads, Study Says
Commentary: A Strange Indifference to Highway Carnage
Libertarian Group Prepares Bogus “Addendum” to Undermine Federal Climate Science Report
Founder Myron Levin founded the site after working as an investigative reporter for the Los Angeles Times for 20 years. Photos of his staff portray a gang that’s decidedly seriously and flamboyantly non-glamorous. That’s cool by me — of the several billion brain cells I possess I’ve assigned perhaps six to the maniacal grin of Katie Couric and the rest of her colleagues in the corporate media “news” industry.
Please Stop It, Katie
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In any case Levin and company are less polemic than the likes of Democracy Now! and far less precious than NPR. They are pure journalists, and isn’t that refreshing?
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NIGHTMARE, NOW
Here’s today’s CNN online headline:
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Let’s get serious about things now. This is the nightmare we’ve been dreading ever since the two words “climate” and “change” were first put together by scientists.
You wonder why I’m so dismissive of corporate media news? This is the prime case in point. They insist on presenting the faux arguments of climate change deniers in the interest of some weird view of journalistic balance. It’d be like Walter Cronkite interviewing a representative of the Flat Earth Society while the Gemini astronauts circled the globe.
That Curved Surface Is Merely An Illusion, Walter
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IT’S RAINING MEN
In honor of Sandy and dedicated to the loon preacher mentioned above, here are The Weathergirls, AKA Two Tons of Fun, with the biggest gay anthem of all time.
My club pals and I would go to the cavernous boy dance bars after hours back when we were young, trim, and loathe to ever go to sleep. The DJs would boost the bass and volume on this track to the point that I’m surprised the foundations and masonry of nearby structures didn’t crack. The joint would smell of leather, sweat, poppers, and Clinique. And we’d dance ourselves into delirium.
Don’t ask me how we survived it all.
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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.
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Tuesday, October 30th, 2012
VOTE ◗ Two locations for early voting in Monroe County today:
The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St.; 8am-6pm
Indiana University Assembly Hall, South Lobby, 1001 E. 17th St.; 10am-6pm
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
MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Doctoral Recital: Ji Hyun Kim on piano; 5pm
MIXER ◗ Coaches Bar & Grill — Young Professionals of Blooomington, monthly event; 5:30-8:30pm
SCIENCE ◗ Lake Monroe, Paynetown SRA Activity Center — Citizen Scientist Quarterly Meeting, Help collect data to track animal populations and monitor habitats; 6-8pm
MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Jazz Jam, Featuring Bloomington’s young artists; 7pm
FILM & DISCUSSION ◗ IUCinema — “The Healthcare Movie,” Followed by discussion led by Rob Stone, MD, Director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan, Kosali Simon, PhD, & Beth Cate, JD; 7-9pm
COMMUNITY MEETING ◗ Monroe County Public Library — After Incarceration: Employment Matters, Presented by Decarcerate Monroe County; 7pm
MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — Blues Jam, Hosted by Bottom Road Blues Band; 8pm
GAMES ◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — Team trivia; 8pm
MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Hot Tuesdays: Jazz Combos, Wataru Niimori Group & Chris Knight Group; 8:30pm
The debate format will be a town hall meeting wherein the candidates will field questions from the crowd.
And that crowd at Hofstra University, by the way, will be comprised entirely of people who haven’t made up their minds about the election.
Similar, But Different
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In other words, they will be people who haven’t yet gleaned the differences between Barack Obama and Willard Romney, despite such glaring divergences on things like abortion, contraception, federal support for education, the separation of church and state, the environment, how to deal with Iran, gay marriage, bailing out the domestic auto industry, providing the American people with a $800BB stimulus package in February 2009, and even the fate of PBS.
In other other words, Obama and Romney will face a hall full of idiots.
Come to think of it, that just might be a perfect cross-section of this holy land.
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BULLETIN: HE’S A POL, NOT A BUSBOY!
Before we all get our shorts in a bunch over that photo op of Paul Ryan scrubbing a pot that was already clean in a soup kitchen, let’s remember one true thing.
Every single thing a major party candidate for president does, says, and for all we know, thinks in the weeks leading up to the election is theater.
GASP! RYAN’S NOT REALLY WASHING DISHES!
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Don’t start fantasizing that Barack Obama would go into the same soup kitchen and ladle the broth out for four or five hours because he loves his less fortunate brothers and sisters. He’d be there for six and a half minutes, long enough for photogs to click pix of him telling those less fortunate brothers and sisters how much he loves them.
Ryan did what he had to do — that is, get his picture taken while pretending to be a regular guy. He isn’t. Nor are Mitt Romney, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden.
Especially Mitt Romney.
Why are both Democrats and Republicans shocked — shocked! — when they learn the opposition candidate is not just like a guy that scrubs pots in a restaurant kitchen?
For the most part, we elect actors to be our leaders. Mitt pretends he’s s statesman. Ryan acts spreadsheet-wonky. Obama acts like Urkel, and Joe Biden plays Barney Fife.
Don’t vote for the role. Don’t throw yourself at the image. Just remember who wants to restrict women’s access to contraceptives and abortions. Remember who represents chuckleheads who think climate change is a hoax. And keep in mind that one of the presidential candidates made his fortune by leveraging debt, streamlining companies by putting employees out of work, and leaving management with a crushing bill once he and his mob hightailed it out of town.
All four guys are as full of shit as so many infomercial pitchmen. If you’re just discovering this now, you haven’t been paying attention.
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THE ONLY CHRISTIAN IN ALL OF NASHVILLE
Wow.
That’s all I have to say about this one. Wow.
Louisville’s premier trivia maestro, Andy Wallingford, sent us a link to a story about a religious intellectual who’d graduated from the right-wing Liberty University (BTW: did you catch the two contradictions in that phrase?) and who virtually lived a gay lifestyle for an entire year, just so he could “walk in the shoes” of a homosexual.
Tim Kurek
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Timothy Kurek did everything a gay man might do for the duration of his odyssey. He “came out” to friends, co-workers, and even his mother. He hung out at gay bars. He had a “boyfriend.” He played on a gay softball team, for pity’s sake!
And, to make matters even more shocking, he did all this in that bastion of openness and cosmopolitanism, Nashville, Tennessee.
The only gay thing he didn’t do is have sex with a man. We’ll have to take his word on that.
Anyway, he lost friends and family. He was called “faggot.” His mother wrote in her journal: “I’d rather have found out from a doctor that I had terminal cancer than I have a gay son.”
Cancer Is Better?
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Sheesh.
Kurek got the idea for the project after a fellow Christian woman told him her family had disowned her when she’d told them she was gay.
Kurek, apparently, is one of those exceedingly rare god-ists who believe the creator bestowed upon them big lumps of gray matter in their crania and, therefore, they should use them. Oh, I know a few thinking Christians — some of them the most intelligent people I know — but I had to look far and wide to find them.
Rather than shun gays, Kurek decided to “become” one.
He’s written a book entitled “The Cross in the Closet” detailing his yearlong adventure. I can’t wait to read it.
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
ARTS & CRAFTS ◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — Amber Zaragoza of Anatomy Vinatge & April Williams of Cake Love talk about how to turn hobbies into revenue using tech & social media; 5:30pm
LECTURE ◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Primatologist Michael Huffman of Kyoto Primate Research Institute will talk about medicinal; plant use in apes & humans; 6pm
