Category Archives: Oprah Winfrey

11/18/2014
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Credulity, Deepak Chopra, Elizabeth Gilbert, Elizabeth Warren, Kari Revolva, Malcolm Muggeridge, Oprah Winfrey, Paula (PJ) Chambers, Pope Francis, The Life You Want Weekend, Wealth & Privilege

Hot Air

The Rich: How They Get That Way

Kids, you have to read this smart — and smart-assed — work of art by a performance artist named Revolva (h/t to B-town’s hoop queen Paula Chambers for pointing it out.) Revolva has made tsunami-high waves on the interwebs for busting the heretofore beloved Oprah Winfrey’s chops.

Revolva

Revolva & Friend

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See, the world’s most caring, powerful, brilliant, spiritual, all-knowing woman was throwing a great big narcissists ball in San Jose, CA this past weekend, charging up to a grand a ducat, and had asked Revolva to perform for free at it.

The SJ event was part of what the Oprah Outfit calls The Life You Want Weekend. It featured scads of self-help snake-oil peddlers, phony-baloney mystics, and shrewd entrepreneurs telling huge arenas of goggle-eyed woman how they control everything that happens to themselves and how they can attract good things by thinking sweet thoughts. The audience was cooed at and cosseted by the likes of bullshit artist Deepak Chopra and literary self-exalter Elizabeth Gilbert. For this, I repeat, many of the attendees  shelled out a thou a ticket.

Kari Revolva writes in an open letter to Oprah (all sic):

The life I WANT does not involve mega tours netting unfathomable amounts of real, tangible money, while local artists are coached to accept all or most of their payment in the least stable form of currency: exposure. If the “trailblazing” I do today is being an upstream voice, then I’ll at least make a bold statement about the life I DO want:

I want a life in which people are not asked to work for free — by people who can totally afford to pay.

Kari Revolva is an Oakland, California-based comedian/actor/dancer/writer/hoop artist who apparently does circus-ey things with the Hula Hoop and throws in some fire while she’s at it. She got a call from one of Oprah’s Harpo Studios producers asking her to work an outside stage at the last stop on the Big O Life You Want tour. She was shocked when she was told there’d be no pay. Not only that, she’d have to pay her own way from one end of San Francisco Bay to the other. Oh, and whatever else she had planned for that particular day that might have made her a dollar or two would be out of the question as she raced to donate her services to Oprah’s money-printing machine.

From revolva.net

Revolva’s Math

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The Life You Want Weekend last month was skewered in a New York Times style section piece written by Jennifer Conlin.

Revolva continues:

In one day, your arena tour (capacity around 18,000, each ticket $99 to $999) is raking in more money than most people will make in a year. In ten years. In their entire lives. And yet, your side stage, featuring local acts, is paying in that old tap-dancing, phantom promise of “exposure.” As I was choking on my own tongue (stroke!), your producer also mentioned there was the added bonus of a ticket to the event. Unfortunately, her call coming just four days before your San Jose stop, I didn’t have the whole weekend free. I also texted my landlord, and it turns out he does not accept rent payment in Oprah Winfrey tickets. Gah!

I’ve long gagged over the genuflecting America did before Oprah, whose daily TV love fest (she retired from her show in 2011) regularly featured junk science, quack medicine, self-help bushwa, and the likes of fraudster Mehmet Oz. Today her magazine (which, by her own order, displays her sacred mug on every cover) features a column written by Herself entitled “What I Know for Sure,” which sounds just a tad presumptuous, no?

The sold-out arenas at which O put on her Weekends prove she’s still a huge draw. As Malcolm Muggeridge once observed:

One of the peculiar sins of the 20th Century which we’ve developed to a very high level is the sin of credulity. It has been said that when human beings stop believing in God they believe in nothing. The truth is much worse: they believe in anything.

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Bad Thoughts

Now this might sound macabre, ghoulish, and even tinfoil-hat-ish but the question just occurred to me: Who’s going to get shot at first, Elizabeth Warren or Pope Francis?

Warren/Pope

Warren & Bergoglio

[E. Warren photo by Tim Pierce; for more visit Tim’s flickr page.]

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I also include in the realm of possibilities food poisoning, trumped-up sex scandal, or — gulp! — plane crash.

Go ahead, laugh at me. I hope I’m wrong as wrong can be. I hope to hell I’m making an ass out of myself.

This mad, mad, mad, mad world lets troublemakers rock the boat — but only to a point. I’m guessing Warren and the Pope long ago went way past that point.

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10/09/2012
4 Comments
Aurora Colorado Mass Shooting, Awl, Barack Obama, Beatles, Book Corner, Columbine, Fangirls, Hybristophilia, John Wayne Gacy, Larry Flynt, Mitt Romney, Morton Downey Jr., Oprah Winfrey, Rachel Monroe, Roger Ebert, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sue Terry, Unemployment

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.” — Larry Flynt

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HERESY

I ruffled a lot of feathers Saturday when I wrote that I hadn’t swallowed the September unemployment figures like a good boy taking his cough medicine.

Responders called me both cynical and a conspiracy theorist.

I prefer the term skeptic.

Search Me

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The outrage, naturally, came from Barack Obama supporters. All of them who voiced displeasure with that post know I am as eager as they are to see the president be reelected in four weeks. Nevertheless, they viewed me, at least for the moment, as if I’d stepped in dog shit.

Just to show that I’ve cleaned my shoe off and am ready to be accepted back into polite society, I’m going to voice doubt for a set of stats once again.

This time Willard Romney on the receiving end of my sharp pen. I heard this morning that Romney’s lead over Obama in one poll suddenly is 4 points. Not even a week ago, Obama led Romney by four points. So, that’s an eight point swing, attributable only to Obama performing in the first debate as if his high school girlfriend had just dumped him.

I don’t buy it.

Margaret, who owns the Book Corner, asked me yesterday if I was getting tired of the presidential campaign.

Man, am I!

And it’s still inconceivable to me that a significant number of people haven’t decided at this late date whom they’re going to vote for.

If opinion polling is a science, it’s the softest of the soft sciences. And that includes such alchemies as economics and psychology.

Early voting in Monroe County begins today in the Curry Building, 214 W. 7th St. The polling place is open most days from 8am to 6pm. Click here for more Monroe County voting info. Also, click here to find out who your elected officials are.

The Curry Building

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I’m going to vote today. Here are my choices (I live in Monroe County, Perry Township, Precinct 22):

  • President & Vice President: Barack Obama & Joe Biden
  • Senator: Joe Donnelly
  • Governor & Lieutenant Governor: John Gregg & Vi Simpson
  • 9th District Representative in US Congress: Shelli Yoder
  • Indiana Attorney General: Kay Fleming
  • Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction: Glenda Ritz
  • State Senator, District 40: Mark Stoops
  • State Representative, District 60: Peggy Welch
  • County Commissioner, District 2: Julie Thomas
  • County Commissioner, District 3: Iris Kiesling
  • County Council At Large: Geoff McKim & Cheryl Munson

I’ll leave about a dozen offices blank either because I don’t know enough about the candidates or the opponents are both full of crap.

Now, here are my winners:

  • Obama/Biden
  • Stoops
  • Welch
  • Julie Thomas
  • Kiesling
  • Geoff McKim & Cheryl Munson

Just Win, Baby!

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The GOP statewide will make a clean sweep. Indiana also will go for Romney/Ryan but the President will be reelected nonetheless. And, as always, the People’s Republic of Bloomington will go solidly Democratic.

It’s a real mixed bag for me this year but as long as Obama makes it in for a second term, I’ll be happy. What with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hanging on to life by her fingernails, I shudder to think what this holy land will become under another president in hock to the right wing theocrats of America. A Romney administration would be salivating for Ginsberg to at last turn in her lunch bucket and nominate a jurist who thinks corporations are people and the Earth is only 6000 years old.

In any case, go vote. If you don’t you’re a jerk.

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CRAZY IN LOVE

The woman’s haircut was a cross between Moe Howard’s, an Afro, and a mullet. Swear to god.

Plus, she had vacant eyes, which was fitting because, well, once you hear why she was on the talk show, you’ll understand that her cranium was as empty as a Republican’s promises to the Middle Class.

I don’t remember which talk show the woman was on. It could well have been Oprah. I did a tiny bit of research and found that she’d also appeared on Morton Downey, Jr.’s show. And if you remember him, you ought to dash out and get an emergency lobotomy because your brain is tainted.

Her name was Sue Terry and she made the rounds on national television to proclaim to the world that she was in love with John Wayne Gacy.

Sue Terry: The Most Whacked-Out Fangirl Of All Time?

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That’s the John Wayne Gacy who was found in 1978 to have buried the corpses of at least 33 young boys and men in the crawlspace beneath his Northwest Side Chicago home.

Gacy was one of the maddest hatters this holy land has ever produced. His defense attorney probably considered it a monumental triumph that he convinced judge, jury, press gallery, and gawkers not to string up his client immediately after the prosecution’s opening statement.

Nevertheless, the woman with the improbable hairdo pledged her undying love to Gacy years after he’d been locked up and was awaiting execution. If memory serves me correctly, when pressed as to why she’d feel so strongly about a man who murdered more frequently than other men clean out the garage, she replied, “Well, he never done nothin’ bad to me.”

Which, come to think of it, is as Tea Party-ish a thought as has ever been uttered.

Anyway, I was reminded of this woman in an article I read about the fearsome nature of girl crushes. The author, Rachel Monroe of the Awl website, begins the story by laying out the crush roster she and her teen pals had: Monroe was smitten with Gavin Rossdale, friend Mary was into Leonardo DiCaprio, and Emily was all about Paul McCartney.

She Loves Him, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

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The three made their respective idols the absolute centers of their lives, which is not so terribly fearsome. But the extent that other young girls go to vis a vis the likes of, say, Justin Bieber often is. And then there are those who carry their crushes into adulthood — yick — or whose idols are less than savory characters — even more yicky.

For instance, Monroe reveals, there’s a whole interwebs community of girls who, still to this day, are head over heels for the boys who committed the Columbine shootings. And, natch, there’s now a population of teen girls who are gaga for the loon that shot up the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year.

Monroe explores the frightful nature of these and less extreme examples of girl crushes. She writes, “A girl with a crush is also capable of crushing.”

She cites the worries that authorities had about the Beatles when that rage was at its hottest. There was real fear that the Fab Four might eventually be injured or killed by the mobs of shrieking girls that followed them.

Beatlemaniacs surely were not psychotic and if they had harmed the boys, it wouldn’t be because they had malice in their hearts. But those who, like Sue Terry or the Columbine fangirls, are mad for vicious murderers even have a psychiatric handle, hybristophilics.

Can This Be Love?

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The piece gets into sexual repression, expression, and double standards. Check it out and explore the hairline border between love and violence.

[h/t to Roger Ebert for the original link to the story.]

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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

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Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

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

WORKSHOP ◗ Ivy Tech-Bloomington — Solving the Credit Mystery: Credit Counseling Expert Panel, experts from Fifth Third Bank, IU Credit Union, & Regions Bank offer info and advice on credit scores, credit cards, etc.; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Latino Cultural Center — “Dancing to Fidel’s Tune: Revolutionary Cuba through Alma Guillermoprieto’s Memoir ‘La Habana en un Espejo’,” Presented by Latino Studies Dissertation Fellow, Silvia Roca-Martinez; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Woodburn Hall — “From Food to Fracking: Human Health and the Environment,” Presented by ecologist & author Sandra Steingraber; 4-5pm

MUSIC ◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — The Art of the Harpsichord, Presented by Beth Garfinkel; 5:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “The Lives of Others”; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Student Recital: Clarinet Studio Concerto Competition; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Richard Groner; 7-9pm

WORKSHOP ◗ BloomingLabs — Intro to Arduino Programming, Arduinos on hand but guest must bring own laptops; 7-9pm

DISCUSSION ◗ Monroe County History Center — Civil War Roundtable: “Hoosiers in the Mexican War Who Became Leaders in the Civil War“; 7-9pm

POLITICS & DISCUSSION ◗ First United Methodist Church — “Health Care Reform and Medicare: Are You Confused?” Bob Zaltsberg of the Herald-Times moderates, 9th District Congressional candidate Shelli Yoder and numerous experts expected to attend; 7-8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Jeff Isaac Trio; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Contemporary Vocal Ensemble, Dominick DiOrio, conductor, performing Chen Yi, Sandström, Muhly, Cage, Tormis, & DiOrio; 8pm

GAMES ◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — Team trivia; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bishop — Ringo Deathstarr, Secret Colours; 9pm

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ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists; through October 14th
  • “Paragons of Filial Piety,” by Utagawa Kuniyoshi; through December 31st
  • “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers,” by Julia Margaret, Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century;” through December 31st
  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Pop-art by Joe Tilson; through December 31st
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st
  • “Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • “Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “Ab-Fab — Extreme Quilting,” by Sandy Hill; October 5th through October 27th
  • “Street View — Bloomington Scenes,” by Tom Rhea; October 5th through October 27th
  • “From the Heartwoods,” by James Alexander Thom; October 5th through October 27th
  • “The Spaces in Between,” by Ellen Starr Lyon; October 5th through October 27th

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibits opening September 28th:

  • “A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • “Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits:

  • “¡Cuba Si! Posters from the Revolution: 1960s and 1970s”
  • “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”
  • “Thoughts, Things, and Theories… What Is Culture?”
  • “Picturing Archaeology”
  • “Personal Accents: Accessories from Around the World”
  • “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”
  • “The Day in Its Color: A Hoosier Photographer’s Journey through Mid-century America”
  • “TOYing with Ideas”
  • “Living Heritage: Performing Arts of Southeast Asia”
  • “On a Wing and a Prayer”

BOOKS ◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit:

  • “Outsiders and Others:Arkham House, Weird Fiction, and the Legacy of HP Lovecraft;” through November 1st
  • “A World of Puzzles,” selections form the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s On — Exhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Culture: “CUBAmistad photos; through October

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

  • “Bloomington: Then and Now,” presented by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions“

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The Electron Pencil. Go there. Read. Like. Share.

08/15/2012
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Anal Tattoos, Antibacterial Agents, Huffington Post, IKEA, Indiana University, Jezebel, Leon Lederman, Lindy West, Oprah Winfrey, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, Triclosan

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Physics isn’t a religion. If it were, we’d have a much easier time raising money.” — Leon Lederman

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THEY’RE BA-A-A-A-A-ACK!

Yup.

The students start moving in today. And you thought the construction traffic tie-ups were miserable this summer.

Within the next week, tens of thousands of kids and freshly minted adults will be lugging their used sofas up to dorm rooms and rental apartments.

Oh, and hundreds of pampered 19-year-olds will be careening around corners in oversized SUVs for the next nine months.

The Last Thing Many Of Us Will Ever See

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Bloomington — ya gotta love it.

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THE SMÖRBOLL SUITES?

IKEA is going to build a bunch of budget hotels in Europe.

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It won’t be too long before the Swedish company opens up its hotels here in America.

Yeah, you’ll save money but you’ll have to assemble your room with your own screwdriver.

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UGH! COOTIES!

I Couldn’t Have Said it Better Myself:

“Let me just put this right up front, for all the die-hard disinfectors out there: REGULAR SOAP WILL DO. For almost everything. Really. Not every surface in everyone’s life has to be wiped with antibacterial agents, not every child needs to be autoclaved on the daily, not every sneeze needs to be medicated with antibiotics, and regular soap works just fine. Unless you are some sort of domestic mom-surgeon making sandwiches out of immuno-suppressed bologna, you do not need to scrub up just to live your life. You’ll be fine — and, most likely, better — without this antibacterial obsession.”

That’s from Jezebel’s Lindy West.

From Jezebel

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I’m telling you, few things bug the bejesus out of me more than those ubiquitous antibacterial sheets certain Moms — and it’s always Moms, make no mistake — scour down shopping carts with at the grocery.

Honestly, after Oprah hypnotized every Middle American Mom to tremble in terror at the very thought of s-e-x lest they immediately develop AIDS, the entirety of the Earth must be wiped clean every 13 seconds or so now.

You’d think our planet was nothing more than a gargantuan Petri dish of HIV, ebola, e-coli, gonorrhea, listeria, and every other bad boy microbe in existence. Which it is, actually, but that’s OK because we have immune systems which afford us a modicum of protection.

And those immune systems are going all to pot, thanks to our mania for rubbing down everything we see with disinfectant wipes. I shudder to think what some Moms might be wiping down when Daddy-o starts getting a little frisky.

Apparently, West reports, a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has found that triclosan, an alarmingly common antibacterial substance, can actually stop your heart.

Read West’s piece, or if you’re really into arcana, peruse the study itself.

And relax, Moms, wouldya?

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YEEEEE-OWWWWWWWW!

The Huffington Post reports that people are getting anal tattoos now.

Star Stuck

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Here’s a suggestion for anybody thinking of getting one of these: I Am An Asshole.

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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 Charts — Life as seen through charts.

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

“What If?” From XKCD

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❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.

❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.

❏ I Fucking Love Science — A Facebook community of science geeks.

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

❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ The Universe — A Facebook community of astrophysics and astronomy geeks.

Sunset On Mars From The Universe (Facebook)

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❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.

❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.

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

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15, 2012

◗ Brown County Art Guild — 125th birthday celebration for Marie Goth; 5-7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Bonz; 6-8:30pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Workshop: Remorse & Guilt, presented by Ani Choekyi; 6:30pm

◗ Unity Church — Bloomington Peace Choir invites new members; 7-8:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Post Modern Jazz Quartet; 8pm

◗ The Bluebird — The Personnel; 8pm

◗ Boys & Girls Clubs of Bloomington — Contra dancing; 8pm

◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Open house, public viewing through the main telescope; 9:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Woody Pines, Busman’s Holiday; 9:30pm

ONGOING:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

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

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “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 Gallery — Exhibits:

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

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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05/26/2012
2 Comments
Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, Book Corner, Donald Trump, Dr. Joseph Mackey, Ernest Hemingway, Eye Center of Southern Indiana, Jamie Dimon, Lady Gaga, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Sleep, Steve Wozniak, Tea Party, The Godfather Part II

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” — Ernest Hemingway

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Scary? Scary How?

Just a tidbit from Bill Maher’s latest spew:

“If Obama were as radical as they claim, here’s what he already would have done: pulled the troops out of Afghanistan, given us Medicare for all, ended the drug war, cut the defense budget in half, and turned Dick Chaney over to The Hague. Here’s what Obama actually did: he cut taxes and spending…, he didn’t go on a spending spree, he didn’t break up the ‘too big to fail’ banks — they’ve only gotten bigger and fail-y-er. That’s not what liberals wanted; that’s what conservatives wanted…. [U]nder Obama, there’s more drilling than ever. That’s not what environmentalists wanted; that’s what conservatives wanted. Obama spent most of last year conceding the Republican premise that government needed cutting. That’s not what progressives wanted; that’s what the Tea Party wanted. The Dow was at 7949 when he took office, now it’s at 12,000 and over. Corporates profits are at their highest ever. If he’s a socialist, he’s a lousy one. He could not be less threatening if he was walking home with iced tea and Skittles.”

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I DUNNO. WHADDA YOU WANNA DO?

Don’t do a single thing today until you visit the Pencil’s GO! Events Listings.

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SLEEPLESS IN SUCCESSVILLE

I am a world champion napper. Napping is one of humankind’s finest pursuits. A day spent without a nap is a day wasted.

I’ve been partial to naps ever since I emerged from the womb and yawned.

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Imagine how thrilled I was when my cardiologist told me that due to my congenitally malformed heart, I ought to take a nap whenever I feel the need for one. (Almost as giddy as when he told me drinking a glass of wine and eating a piece of chocolate a day would be of great benefit to me — I nearly kissed him.)

Now, I love working at the Book Corner save for one terrible drawback — Margaret, the owner of the place, won’t let me take a nap while I’m on the clock. The tyrant.

Apparently, much of the world seems to be able to get by without naps. Poor souls.

And, if I can believe what I read, there are those who have energy to burn, who are on the go, go, go, all day long, who can get by with only three or four hours of sleep in a night.

Crazy, no?

Do I Have To Do This?

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Bill Clinton is one of those people. I suppose any number of presidents and aspirants to that sleepless office have less than the average bear’s need for slumber.

I’ve met dozens of people who are great successes in business and entertainment, many of whom view sleeping at night as a kind of annoyance. They can’t get anything done when they’re asleep, they complain. They’re aghast at the idea of taking a nap.

Man.

It seems as though the real hard-chargers in this mixed-up world, people like Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Wozniak, Jamie Dimon and any Mexican drug cartel boss worth his salt rarely go to sleep.

Who Has Time To Sleep?

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Maybe that’s the key to their fabulous success. Maybe that’s why Donald Trump and Lady Gaga are who they are. They’re blazing trails while the rest of us are laying on the sofa.

Oh, sure, they have piles of dough. Big deal. I’ve got my naps.

I was thinking about all this yesterday when I went to go see young Dr. Joe Mackey at the Eye Center. I went in for my one-week follow up exam after eye surgery. The verdict: All is well. That’s pretty much all Mackey said to me.

As always, he was in a mad rush.

I’ll bet he’s one of the people who don’t sleep much. The guy darts from room to room like a crystal meth fiend. He once told me that on his day for surgery he performs 14 or so procedures. Sheesh! The other days of the week he’s peering into and jiggering with the eyes of dozens and dozens of people each day.

If I tried to keep up his pace for fifteen minutes I’d have to take a nap. A good long one — 45 minutes, maybe, or an hour.

What An Exhausting Day!

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On the bell curve of human sleep needs, he and I occupy the opposite flanges.

Guys like Mackey, big time sports stars, Hollywood actors and actresses, corporate CEOs, big city mayors — all sorts of high achievers seem to be racing every minute of the day. And their days last from before dawn often until after midnight.

Mackey could have elected to live a nice, relaxed lifestyle. He could have opened his own opthalmology practice in some far off locale where he’d see a couple of patients a day. That’s what I would have done. He could do one eye surgery a week. Maybe one every couple of weeks.

Then he could take a nap.

You’re My Third Patient This Month!

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But he chose to go to work for a multi-million-dollar eyeball factory. The Eye Center has dozens of employees, its own surgery center in the basement, enough high-tech, high-buck machines to fill a medium-sized warehouse, and most likely a huge debt load. If you work for old man Grossman and his partners, you’d better be ready to hustle from room to room, checking patients out and sending them home, calling for the next one, chop chop, saying only what you need to say, generating revenue.

This, said Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone in ” The Godfather Part II,” is the business we’ve chosen.

✍

We talk a lot about doctors needing a comforting bedside manner these days. We need the doc to hold our hands while she tells us to lay off the pie and the french fries. That’s fine for a general practitioner. They have to lay the oil on us if only to get us to open up and tell them about the ache in our knees or the funny mole on our back.

But specialists like Mackey don’t need to cajole information out of us. They’ve got special skills and devices that can tell them a hundred times more about us than we ever could. Then, when it’s time to act, they wield other devices like Jedi knights, they flutter their fingers over our most fragile organs with a deftness that borders on magic.

Has The Patient Been Prepped?

✍

Mackey shined some tiny beacons into my eyes and muttered notes to an assistant who transcribed his impressions at the keyboard. “Terrific,” he said. “Excellent.” “Very good.” “Healing well.” “Vision better than can be expected.”

I felt flattered, as if somehow I had a hand in the whole procedure. “Yeah,” I said, “I feel great. No complaints.”

Dr. Mackey recoiled slightly from his machine, as if he were surprised I was there. And you know what? He probably was.

He’d been commenting on his own handiwork. He’s a borderline magician and he knows it.

Voila — You Can See!

✍

And the truth is, without that confidence, without that arrogance, he wouldn’t be one-tenth as good as he is.

How big does your ego have to be to carve up another person’s eyeball and hope not only that you don’t blind the poor sap but can actually make him see better?

Answer: Huge.

Mackey pulled his diagnostic machine away and wished me a pleasant weekend. And like that he was out the door. He moved so fast I thought there’d be a sonic boom.

Dr. Joe Mackey is of a different breed than I am. Maybe even a different species. But that’s what makes him so spectacularly good.

Me? I’m gonna take a nap.

♢

04/28/2012
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Albert Einstein, Bloomington High School South, IDS, Jill Bolte Taylor, Joe LaMantia, Jon Hecker, My Stroke of Insight, Oprah Winfrey, Patricia Hecker, Public Art, Ron Howard, TED, The Brain Extravaganza!

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.” — Albert Einstein

♢

THE BRAIN

A woman I know was thumbing through the Indiana Daily Student yesterday when suddenly she stopped, jerked the paper closed, and shuddered.

“Ugh. Not for me,” she said.

“What is it?” I had to ask, because clearly she wanted me to.

She reopened the paper and showed me a story about the big new public art exhibition that’ll be taking place in our bustling metrop through the fall.

That is, Jill Bolte Taylor‘s brainchild (sorry), “The Brain Extravaganza!” It features 22 five-feet tall fiberglass brains, parked here and there around town. The hunks of gray matter were designed by her and sculptor Joe LaMantia.

Jill Bolte Taylor Loves Brains

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Artists have adopted the brains and gussied them up to their creative hearts’ desire. People will be able to buy the oversized organs, thus raising dough for the Jill Bolte Taylor Brains non-profit org that, in her words, supports “brain awareness, appreciation, exploration, education, injury prevention, neurological recovery, and the value of movement on mental and physical health.”

Phew.

Brain In A Jar

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(Note for our Bloomington readers: The following three paragraphs are written for the benefit of non-Bloomingtonians who aren’t as intimately familiar with JBT’s story as we are.)

Bolte Taylor, of course, is a world-renowned brain on two legs. She was already a respected neuroanatomist when, at the tender age of 37, she woke up one morning and found her thinking and motor processes bizarrely jumbled. Thanks to her brain expertise, she knew she was suffering a stroke.

She eventually had a golfball-sized blood clot removed from her brain. Her language center, among other structures, were profoundly affected. Her recover continues to this day.

She gave a hugely compelling TED talk about her experience, the response to which inspired her to write a book, called “My Stroke of Insight.” It became a New York Times Bestseller and Bolte Taylor went on to be fawned over by Oprah Winfrey. Her story is now the basis for a planned Ron Howard film.

Jill Bolte Taylor’s TED Talk

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Anyway, Bolte Taylor and LaMantia’s fiberglass brains will be dedicated today. Here’s Bolte Taylor describing them: “Big beautiful anatomically correct brains with 12 pairs of cranial nerves and all the gyri and sulci a girl could want on a brain.”

Surely, such visual exactitude is what caused my friend’s stomach to churn yesterday morning. For the less squeamish among us, they’ll be objects of celebration.

Local husband and wife artists Patricia and Jon Hecker have done a brain. See a series of pictures of their work-in-progress on Patricia’s Facebook page.

Brains In The Brawn Room At BHSS

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Get on over to the Bloomington High School South gym for a launch party today, noon to 2:00pm. Bolte Taylor and LaMantia will be there as will all 22 artist-decorated brains. It’s the only chance you’ll have to see them all in one place. The brains will be carted off to their display sites after the party.

I can’t think of a better organ to celebrate in these benighted days than the brain.

♢

✍

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

Saturday, April 28, 2012

◗ City Hall, Showers Plaza — Farmer’s Market; 8am-1pm

◗ Razors Image Barbershop — Free blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, HIV, BMI screenings & nutrition counseling; 9am-6pm

◗ IU Gladstein Fieldhouse, Indoor Track Facility — Redsteppers dance unit auditions; 10am

◗ Upland Brewing Company — Maifest, “Rock Out with Your Bock Out”; 11a-1a

◗ Trained Eye Arts Center — Women Exposed 7; Noon

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◗ Story Inn, Brown County — Indiana Wine Fair; Noon-7pm

◗ IU Grunwald (SOFA) Gallery — BFA & MFA Thesis 3 Exhibitions; Noon-4pm, through May 5th

◗ Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibit, “Picturing Archeology”; 1-5pm, through July 1st

◗ IU Cinema — Film, Orson Welles’ “Chimes at Midnight”; 3pm

Welles

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◗ AmVets Post 2000 — Benefit dinner & silent auction for Special Olympics Indiana; 5pm

◗ Twin Lakes Recreation Center — Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls vs. Brew City Bruisers; 6pm

◗ Bloomington High School North Auditorium — Bloomington Symphony Orchestra, “Finale Fantastique”; 7:30-10pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — Film, “The Artist”; 8 & 11pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — IU Soul Revue; 8pm

◗ IU Auditorium — IU Straight No Chaser; 8pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Sheila Stephen; 8pm

◗ The Palace Theatre — Cowboy Sweethearts; 8pm

◗ Comedy Attic — Jeremy Essig; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Glenn Furr Agency; 9pm — Perfunctory This Band; 11pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Cooked Books, Crys, Kam Kama; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — The Reverend Peyton’s Big Damn Band; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Soul in the Hole with the Vallures; 10pm

♢

04/12/2012
Leave a comment
Anna Heche, Cavalry Trilogy, Christine Marinoni, Climate Change, Curve Magazine, Cynthia Nixon, DL, DSM-IV-TR, DSM-V, Ellen Degeneres, Global Warming, Global Weirding, James Inhofe, John Ford, John Wayne, Johnny Depp, Kathy Griffin, Kokomo Indiana, Kurt Cobain, New York Times, NOAA, O: The Oprah Magazine, Oprah Winfrey, Portia de Rossi, RuPaul, Sarah Palin, Sex and the City, The Flamingos, Victor McLaglen

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“I started being really proud of the fact that I was gay even though I wasn’t.” — Kurt Cobain

♢

NIXON’S THE ONE

Cynthia Nixon became a sorta-star appearing in that late 90s-early 00s paean to heterosexuality, “Sex and the City.” Thus it was ironic that at the very end of the show’s fabulously successful six year run on HBO, Nixon’s romantic involvement with Christine Marinoni became known.

Christine Marinoni And Cynthia Nixon

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I don’t know the precise chronology of Nixon’s affair with Marinoni and how it meshed with the producers’ plans for the show, but a suspicious soul might conclude that her lesbian side only “coincidentally” came into view when it was learned S&TC would end its run in 2004.

It just wouldn’t do for one of the leads in a program that celebrates blatant, flamboyant straightness to be identified as homosexual. I mean, would the great John Ford cavalry triology of the 40s and 50s have become so iconic had it been revealed John Wayne was in love with Victor McLaglen?

Hmm….

✍

Since the ending of S&TC and Nixon’s coming out party, she’s been busy acting on the Broadway stage and making appearances here and there on network TV dramas. The disclosure of her current sexual preference clearly has not destroyed her career.

On the other hand, her sig-oth is not someone who could charitably be described as a lipstick lesbian. When, for instance, Ellen Degeneres fell publicly head over heels in love, it was with a couple of stunning actresses, Anne Heche and Portia de Rossi. Ergo, Middle America could deal with her alternative lifestyle.

Mom & Pop Approved

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Nixon, though, gazes dreamily into the eyes of a woman who pretty much reinforces the frat boy stereotype of a lesbian. It’d be like Johnny Depp falling in love with RuPaul — it wouldn’t play in Kokomo.

Now, That’s Going Too Far!

✍

Anyway, Nixon doesn’t give a good god damn what Kokomo thinks and that’s cool. Here’s something she told the New York Times not long ago (via Curve magazine):

“I gave a speech recently, an empowerment speech to a gay audience, and it included the line ‘I’ve been straight and I’ve been gay and gay is better.’ And they tried to get me to change it, because they said it implies that homosexuality can be choice. I understand that for many people it’s not, but for me it’s a choice, and you don’t get to define my gayness for me.”

That’s the most refreshing thing I’ve heard in years on the subject of gayness. For far too long the gay community has been pandering in a way to the closeted Republicans and the pious celibates of this holy land.

Gays & Lesbians Want To Justify Themselves To These Simians?

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First it was the ten-percent thing, with gay rights activists trumpeting that highly-iffy figure in order to show there are millions and millions of their brothers and sisters, as if there’s safety in numbers.

The first problem is the ten-percent number is about as unscientific as Sen. James Inhofe’s outlook on climate change. Does the figure represent all the DL guys with wives and kids in suburban Indianapolis? How about all the guys who loiter around interstate truck stops and then dash back to the bar to tell their pals they were trolling for chicks? For that matter, did every 22-year-old boy who allowed himself to be seduced by another guy after a keg party own up to his sexuality?

Then there was the medical-psychological argument. Activists showed slides of brain tissue taken from gays and straights and pointed to some missing or extra microscopic structures, proving that homosexuality is an innate trait, much like skin color or the ability to laugh at Kathy Griffin‘s “jokes.”

Like Hemophilia Or Crohn’s Disease

✍

All of it seemed a desperate attempt to prove to the headmasters and nannies of the world that really, honestly, gays and lesbians aren’t bad boys and girls.

There was almost a sense that they couldn’t help being what they were, that they were victims of biology and fate.

Nixon throws a huge F.U. at all that.

For my money, I don’t care if there’s only one gay man or lesbian in these Great United States, Inc. That one human being deserves all the rights, privileges, and respect all the other 300 million or so American folks do.

And another thing. If incontrovertible evidence was found that every single gay man and lesbian merely decided at some point to sleep with someone of the same sex, that wouldn’t change my feelings about same-sex adoptions and gay marriages one little bit.

You Tell ‘Em!

✍

So, go on Cynthia, tell the world you wanted to be a lesbian. And to hell with what the people in Kokomo say.

♢

ISN’T CONSERVATIVE SUPPOSED TO MEAN CAUTIOUS?

Alright, climate change deniers: this past March was the warmest on record. By far.

Now, it may have been random chance. There has to be one month that’s the warmest on record; there’s no reason why can’t it be this month or last.

Still, wouldn’t you want to at least make sure it isn’t 200 years of burning fossil fuels that’s messing up our weather?

That’s all I’m saying.

Could It Be?

♢

YOU’RE THE ONE THAT I LONG TO KISS

We all agree that Oprah Winfrey, although admirable in a lot of ways, has a remarkably high opinion of the woman in the mirror, no?

Her initial-ly eponymous magazine features a huge picture of her on its cover every single issue. And, when she was still running her TV talk show, if she happened to, say, get herself a good foot massage, bang — she’d have three experts on the next day advising half the population of America that they must have daily foot rubs or else they’d risk sudden death.

Oprah is arguably the most powerful woman in America, which probably frustrates her because the issue is still in question.

Anyway, take a look at her latest magazine cover and try to convince me Oprah hasn’t really gone off the deep end. The woman is crazy in love — with herself.

✍

Yikes!

Now just one Oprah isn’t good enough for the cover. This Photoshopped May-December romance probably has every psychologist and psychiatrist in the nation running for a copy of the DSM-IV.

Perhaps the soon-to-be-released DSM-V will have its own section on Oprah’s auto-mania.

Here’s a thought: would anyone be surprised if Oprah Winfrey took a run at the presidency in 2016? And how about this fever dream: not only does Oprah run for the Dem nom, Sarah Palin seeks the GOP tab? And they both make it!

I don’t care how madly in love with herself Oprah falls, I’d still vote for her.

♢

I ONLY HAVE EYES FOR YOU

Dedicated by you-know-who to you-know-who.

♢

02/15/2012
3 Comments
Adele, Anna Wintour, Baby Got Back, Eating Disorders, IDS, Liberals, Mitt Romney, Oprah Winfrey, Rick Santorum, Sir Mix-A-Lot, The Daily Beast, Vogue, Yogi Berra

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Half the lies they tell about me aren’t true.” — Yogi Berra

♢

SANTORUM, THE LIBERAL

Okay, the Republican presidential primary race has officially turned psychotic.

Apparently, the closeted candidate, Rick Santorum, has passed the mannequin candidate, Mitt Romney, as the frontrunner for the nomination.

That’s scary enough in and of itself. What makes this shift in standings even more petrifying is the Romney camp’s reaction to it. According to political reporter Ben Jacobs in The Daily Beast, the Romney brain trust will now go all out in attacking Santorum and one of the biggest guns in its arsenal will be — oh, my aching head! — Santorum’s liberal voting record in Congress.

Liberal voting record!

Are these people out of their freaking minds?

I mean, I understand that Romney’s trying to prove he can be just as antediluvian as the next Republican but saying the words liberal and Santorum in the same sentence is about as ludicrous as pairing the terms Trump and decent human being.

Romney’s gang can’t be expected to fry Santorum over his twin preoccupations with homosexuals and women who insist that they have the right to enjoy sex. That is, not if he wants to have a prayer of gaining even one vote from a certain GOP base that sits around in its own flatulence from morning till night grumbling about fags and strumpets.

And he really can’t challenge Santorum on his other stances, which include building a wall on the US-Mexican border, privatization of Social Security, denial of climate change, his “drill everywhere” energy policy, his view that there is no right to privacy, and his embrace of “intelligent design.”

No, Romney can’t hit Santorum with those clubs because they are the weapons the Republicans have used successfully to bludgeon the sane among the electorate for a good 35 years now.

So Romney has to concoct a different kind of evil Santorum — and what’s more satanic than a liberal?

Commie

✍

I don’t know how the Romney boys are going to do it. Perhaps they’ll accuse Santorum of being soft on teenaged masturbation. They may even charge Santorum’s wife with buying a loaf of organic bread once.

I suppose this new strategy may work, though. Just uttering the word liberal in a roomful of Republicans makes them all break out in hives.

Still, it’ll be a tough sell. For pity’s sake, Santorum himself once even wrote that liberalism was to blame for the Catholic priest sex scandals.

♢

TOO THIN, TOO FAT, TOO SOMETHING

The IDS carries a compelling piece this morning on the pressures ballet students face to remain whisper-thin.

It’s been well-documented that many teenaged aspiring ballerinas fall victim to eating disorders.

Women have started to rebel against unrealistic body images imposed on them by fashion mavens, dance teachers, gymnastics coaches, and panting frat boys. But the blowback apparently hasn’t reached all corners of the distaff population as yet.

Still, it heartens me to see women like Adele make it big on world stage.

She is, after all, considered, well, large.

✍

Imagine that.

How dare she try to entertain us when she can’t even hide the fact that she doesn’t try to throw up every spoonful of yogurt she’s ever put in her mouth?

Now, the truth is Adele was a rather chubby young girl and even after she became a star she remained curvy. But of late, she seems to have slimmed down considerably, no doubt thanks to the constant harping of jerk record executives and verminous PR people.

But she’s no scarecrow as of yet so the tastemakers still cluck their tongues over her mass. Honest, even the seemingly almighty Oprah Winfrey was bullied into shedding excess padding by Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

“Stop Eating; That’s An Order.”

✍

I’ve got a bit of advice for my female friends. Whenever people criticize your form, tell them what I tell people who are idiotic, insulting, and insensitive: “Kiss my fat ass!”

♢

BABY GOT BACK

Generally, I’d prefer to hear a corrupt judge sentence me to the electric chair than any hip-hop music but this 1992 hit by Sir Mix-A-Lot fits perfectly here.

After this, I promise I’ll never post another rap, hip-hop, or house song again.

♢

02/03/2012
8 Comments
"Right-to-Work", AFL-CIO, Breast Cancer, Butter Believer, Donald Trump, Football, Garfield Goose and Friends, Lucas Oil Stadium, Oprah Winfrey, Planned Parenthood, Super Bowl, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, Susie Bright, Thomas Merton, Union-busting, WRTV

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.” — Thomas Merton

♢

THE FUTURE KING OF THE UNITED STATES SPEAKS

I played hooky from these precincts yesterday. It felt deliciously bad to be irresponsible.

On the other hand, it wasn’t as though I lolled on a beach. The Loved One had invited a pal over to watch movies last night and had asked me to clean the house. So I had a perfect excuse for not posting.

Cleaning the house reminds me: when I become King of the United States (a position last held by Garfield Goose), I will issue an edict that everybody must scrub their own toilets.

Humbling

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This isn’t as fatuous as you might think. I know of no sane human being who enjoys scrubbing the toilet but it’s a task that must be done. It’s one of the most humbling chores we have to do. Maybe the only thing more humbling is emptying bedpans at a hospital or nursing home. I did that when I was in and out of college in the late ’70s. It took me months to learn how to eat dinner without mentally flashing on what I’d done at work that day.

Anyway, emptying bedpans and scrubbing toilets remind us that, honestly, we as a species ain’t anything special, kids.

Now, we have to assume people like Donald Trump and Oprah do not scrub their own toilets. They have, after all, far more important things to do.

“I Certainly Will Not Scrub My Own Toilet!”

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But the truth is there’s very little in life more important than scrubbing the toilet. On a practical level, we have to do it or else our bathrooms will essentially become oversized Petri dishes for the cultivation of dangerous microbes. And psychologically, it makes us feel invigorated to do our business in a relatively clean cube.

Perhaps most important of all, though, the simple but awkward task of sprinkling cleanser, brushing, and rinsing reminds us we’re no better than any other human being on this planet.

✍

A lesson, I’m sure, that might benefit someone like Donald Trump.

♢

THE BREAST CANCER RACKET

Lousy news the other day about the Susan G Komen gang and Planned Parenthood, no?

(An update: the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization has reversed its earlier decision to cut off Planned Parenthood funding.)

I have a confession to make. I became sick of the color pink long ago. In fact, this whole breast cancer thing is getting to me.

Pink Baseball Bats At The Louisville Slugger Factory

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Now don’t get me wrong — I realize breast cancer is a horrible problem and I hope nobody gets it and all the rest. I know a number of women who’ve suffered from it. For them I hope a cure is found by five this afternoon.

Early Detection

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But years ago it occurred to me that the “battle” against the disease was becoming more of a cottage industry than something people wanted to see won and finished.

The cure walks and the swathing of everything up to and including the Sears/Willis Tower in pink seem more like in-group partying than anything else. Perhaps I’m wrong, wrong, wrong but I suspect that if breast cancer were suddenly and magically wiped off the face of the earth tomorrow morning, a lot of people whose livelihoods depend on “battling” it would be, well, bummed.

Anyway, if the Komen mob’s decision to cut off funding PP is any indication, preventing and curing breast cancer is less important than making sure women stop their nasty habit of having sex.

For a brief moment I was hesitant to write this screed. Surely, I thought, somebody’s gonna rake me over the coals for not genuflecting in the direction of those who walk or race for the cure. But then last night I caught a Facebook post from sexologist Susie Bright and I decided, hell, I’m gonna go with it.

Susie Bright wrote: “Am I the only one who’s thought Komen is full of shit since day one? They’ve always been nauseating, a pink GOP branding machine.” Bright then links to a fascinating bring-down of the Komen myth that ran on a website called Butter Believer.

Susie Bright Reading From Her Book, “Big Sex, Little Death”

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The article’s author looked over Komen’s annual report and discovered that the organization spends fully 60 percent of its money on public health education, fund-raising costs, and administrative costs. And while that public education line might seem noble, it’s really mostly the tab for their pink-washing and self-congratulatory events.

Those things are, for all intents and purposes, advertising.

The author also charges that only a penny of every dollar spent on Komen’s licensed pink products actually goes to research to find a cure for breast cancer.

And, by the way, don’t try to start any kind of charitable organization using the word “cure” in its title. The Komen-ites likely will sue your ass off. “Did you know,” the author writes, “that Susan G. Komen for the Cure spends nearly a million dollars annually suing small charities over the use of the word ‘cure’…?”

The Real Cure

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There is a silver lining to this story. Donations to Planned Parenthood have gone through the roof since the Komen cut-off was announced.

♢

THE FIENDS

What’s the worst crime you can commit in these United States? Arson? Kidnapping a child for nefarious purposes? Robbing a bank?

Nope. The answer is messing with the Super Bowl.

WRTV Channel 6 in Indy breathlessly reported Thursday that union members unhappy over the Indiana State Legislature’s passing of its union-busting bill are threatening to disrupt the Super Bowl Sunday.

Sunday Service

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The Super Bowl, of course, is this holy land’s holiest event. I’ve long endorsed the idea that Super Bowl Sunday should be declared a national holiday. Football is a game that is run by men, involves violence, employs strippers disguised as cheerleaders, and rakes in literally billions of dollars a year for teams, television, bookies, athletes, anthem singers, halftime entertainers, orthopedic surgeons, criminal defense attorneys, and many more.

What’s more American than that?

Game day coverage of the Super Bowl this year begins at eight o’clock in the morning — kickoff is scheduled for ten and a half hours later.

Guaranteed, more people know the name of the starting quarterback for the New England Patriots than can identify the current Secretary of State of the United States.

As for the aggrieved unionistas, they’ve been overruled by their higher-ups. Indiana AFL-CIO chief Nancy Guyott promised union members will not blaspheme Sunday’s sacred rite at the Lucas Oil cathedral.

House Of God

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She probably figures union membership has suffered enough in recent years and Super Bowl security forces likely will shoot to kill anyone who messes with the event.

♢

12/30/2011
Leave a comment
Crime, Ernie K-Doe, Fox News, Helicopter Parents, Hoaxes, Jenkem, Meth Lab, Oprah Winfrey, Parents, Paul Ruditis, Picasso, Rainbow Party, Steven Pinker, Tort Expansion, Urban Legend, US Crime Rate, Violence, W.C. Fields

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“The world is getting to be such a dangerous place a man is lucky to get out of it alive.” W.C. Fields

♢

THE WORRY GENERATION

Parents in the year 2011-going-on-2012 are probably the worryingest humans ever to have evolved.

We might blame TV crime dramas and the 24-hour news cycle for that. This holy land’s living room gibbons have seen so many kidnappings, murders, beatings, and rapes that they’ve begun to believe real life is chock-full of such thrills and chills.

TV Life

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This despite the fact that crime stats have been steadily decreasing in the last few decades. The evolutionary psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker has written a bestseller entitled “The Better Angels of Our Nature” detailing how the human urge to eviscerate or otherwise express his emotions toward his neighbor has profoundly declined in the modern world.

Sure, sure, we have nuclear weapons and religious sects that want to slice our throats if we don’t agree with every single use of the comma in their book of tenets but, by and large, the casual one-on-one violence that characterized daily life as recently as the middle of the 20th Century is pretty much absent today in America.

In 1942, for instance, a man might disagree with the fellow next door over the relative merits of Plymouths versus Chevys. The discourse might become heated to the point that the Plymouth owner would, say, accuse the Chevy aficionado of having carnal knowledge of his mother.

The Chevy guy might at that point punch the Plymouth guy in the nose, causing the poor man to spend the rest of his life resembling a Picasso portrait.

Probably Had A Disagreement With His Neighbor

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And that would pretty much be the end of it save for the eagerly repeated recounts of the encounter which would only peter out when the next such slugging occurred.

Today, of course, a citizen displacing his neighbor’s nose from the front of his face to the side would trigger a flood of squad cars, ambulances, and attorneys to descend upon the block in question.

If it happened in Bloomington, the incident might even make the inside pages of the Herald Times.

We are, by and large, a more civilized people.

✍

Anyway, parents today won’t let their kids do much of anything on their own for fear they’ll be forced into sexual slavery. The world, Ma and Pa America believe, is more dangerous than it’s ever been.

So imagine how the parents of Oakland City, Indiana are reacting to the discovery of a meth lab in the janitor’s closet at the town’s high school.

They’re meeting today with the school’s principal and the town’s chief of police to talk the whole thing over. You know — as much as you know the sun will rise in the east tomorrow — there are now dozens of Oakland City parents who are convinced the nation’s high schools are all housing meth labs.

Even though there’s no evidence the janitor wanted in connection with the discovery had peddled his product to the kids. Nor is there evidence his closet was really a lab at all — the police chief says it appears a small amount of meth was made a single time there.

Parents worry. Always have. But never before the way they do now.

Remember “rainbow parties”? Oprah — who else? — had an episode once during which it was revealed teens were throwing get-togethers wherein the girls all put on different shades of lipstick and proceeded to blow all the boys in attendance — the “rainbow” signifying the lipstick spectrum each boy’s junk was adorned with after the party was over.

✍

Next thing you know, every parent in the land was convinced every Friday night party their precious daughters and lucky-dog sons were going to were really fellatio orgies.

Only there never had been any such things as rainbow parties. They were a figment of novelist Paul Ruditis’s imagination (and they never even occurred in his book, “Rainbow Party“!)

Or how about the Florida police chief who revealed to a startled republic that our sons and daughters were now all doing jenkem, a largely mythical hallucinogen made from fermented human sewage. The DEA and the mainstream media jumped on that bandwagon, warning of the dangers of sniffing hot shit.

Fox News (Who Else?) Reports On The Jenkem Epidemic

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And parents ate it up, natch. Until the jenkem rage was discovered to be a hoax.

Maybe today’s parents need the adrenaline high of worry and fear. Maybe it’s a replacement for the high they used to get from the substances they did before they became parents.

Or, as I alluded to earlier, maybe it’s simply the blurred line between fiction and reality that corporate media has created.

Whatever, every kid seems to have helicopter parents now. And I thought my generation had a lot of parental baggage to shed on the analyst’s couch. The poor kids of today are going to be gulping anti-depressants like M&Ms over the next few decades.

Man, I’m glad I never became a parent.

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MOTHER-IN-LAW

Especially when I or The Loved One might be viewed in the following light by the husband or wife of our thankfully non-existent kid:

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12/06/2011
3 Comments
Al Yellon, Alycin Bektesh, Amy Goodman, Bill Maher, Black Panthers, Bleed Cubbie Blue, Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls, Bobby Kennedy, C. Wright Mills, Chad Carrothers, Chris Rall, Democracy Now!, FBI, Fred Hampton, Goldman Sachs, Herald Times, IDS, January Jones, Jerry Boyle, John F. Kennedy, Lee Huss, Occupy Chicago, Oprah Winfrey, Randall Munroe, Ron Santo, Salon.com, Sam Giancana, Shanda Rude, Soma Coffee, Vandalism, WFHB, XKCD, Yaroslava Mills

The Pencil Today:

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THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST?

Bingo from C. Wright Mills: “People with advantages are loath to believe they just happen to be people with advantages.”

C. Wright Mills Photographed By His Wife, Yaroslava

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TREE STOLEN. WAIT — WHAT? TREE STOLEN?

The Herald Times reports this morning that vandals stole a tree from Bryan Park.

The tree,  a blue spruce, was donated by a neighbor some 22 years ago. The neighbor was able to look at the tree each morning through his apartment window. He’d nursed the tree through some tough times and considered it his “baby.”

A Typical Blue Spruce

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And yesterday he discovered that some punks — apparently — had sawed the whole damned thing down and hauled it away!

If that isn’t bad enough, city tree boss Lee Huss says it’s not terribly unusual. Huss says some twelve trees a year are stolen.

Man. Have I not awakened from my beauty sleep yet and this is just one of those stupid dreams?

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COFFEE CHATTER

Did you catch the puff piece on Soma Coffee in the weekend IDS?

If not, here it is.

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THE JANUARY SAGA CONTINUES

Chad Carrothers, the big boss at Firehouse Radio, says January Jones resigned as WFHB News Director to, in her words, “spend more time with my family.”

Sheesh. I can’t even make a smart-assed comment about that other than to say any good news hound — and January was a fine news hound — knows that’s what you say when what you really want to say will burn bridges.

Her resignation was, in Chad’s words, “unsolicited and unexpected.”

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The news operation at our town’s community radio station undoubtedly will suffer without her even though Assistant News Director Alycin Bektesh is among the sharpest pencils in the drawer and would be a fab choice as January’s permanent replacement.

I’ll redouble my efforts to get January’s take on the split.

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THE WATER CYCLE

Go see another comic by Randall Munroe, the brain behind the strip “XKCD.”

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WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

◗ The radical attorney Jerry Boyle, who’s been running around downtown Chicago for a couple of months now trying to keep the town’s Occupy people out of hot water, posts a Venn diagram of the US Government-Goldman Sachs unholy union.

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I’ll have to repro the diagram here. Dig it, and then tell me our elected officials will do their utmost to rein in those cash cowboys.

Man! It’d be like Jack and Bobby Kennedy putting Sam Giancana in charge of the Justice Department.

◗ Delia Chandler of Brighton, UK, reminds us Sunday was the anniversary of the assassination of charismatic Black Panther leader Fred Hampton — in his bedroom — by Chicago cops, the FBI, and members of the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office in 1969.

Don’t be confused by the line in the Democracy Now! teaser calling it the 40th anniversary of the rub out. Amy Goodman‘s piece ran in 2009.

◗ Bloomington video auteur Chris Rall discovers some good clean spiritual fun for the kids.

◗ Bleeding Heartland Roller Girl Shanda Rude takes her life in her hands by blaspheming Oprah. Or at least pointing out — approvingly — that Bill Maher has soiled the name of the most powerful woman on Earth.

Check the vid — if you dare. Maher skewers Oprah’s consumer goods orgy during her farewell week prior to being assumed into heaven.

Me? I didn’t worry about watching it — I’m slated for hell already.

◗ Finally, uber-Cub fan Al Yellon, proprietor of the Bleed Cubbie Blue fansite gushes over the long-awaited election of Ron Santo to the Baseball Hall of Fame.

If you’re wondering about my own feelings on Ronnie’s canonization, you need only read my Salon.com piece on his death, almost exactly a year ago.

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