Category Archives: Penn State University

06/14/2014
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Big Talk, Bill Moyers, Bill Nye, Charlotte Zietlow, Climate Change Denial, Daily Beast, Earth System Science Center, Herald Times, Indiana University, Michael Mann, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Penn State University, The Ryder, WFHB

Hot Air

Scientists: Come Out Of The Closet!

Hey, kids, I realize we live in the most informed, brilliant, and sensitive burgh this side of Berkeley, California, but still some of us might come up against a simian thinker who, say, doesn’t believe all this socialist, bike-riding propaganda about climate change.

Baboon

What Do All Those Scientists Know?

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You know, it’s all a plot to destroy America and so on.

So you might have a need to destroy his ignorance and put him in his proper place (A zoo cage? A mental institution?) should you run into him bleating his views in a bar or at your coffeehouse headquarters.

Many of us emerge from such a tête-à-tête ruing our inability to deliver just the right bon mot that would send him scurrying out of the place, humiliated to the point of wondering whether he should just end it all. (Imagine, too, using pretentious Gallicisms to finish him off — pure bliss, no?)

Anyway, Bill Moyers this morning offers us a good guide to winning these “arguments” via Penn State U. climatologist Michael Mann. He runs PSU’s Earth System Science Center. He thinks climatologists and other scientists ought to get out into the arena more and fight the good fight for knowledge and investigation.

Which I agree with. These days, we have what I’d call science’s designated hitters: Bill Nye and Neil de Grasse Tyson. Their Q-ratings nearly approach those of fictional brains such as Frank-n-Furter, Dr. Strangelove, and Professor X.

Movie Scientists

Scientists

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Don’t get me wrong, I dig NdGT and Nye the most. Still, to the gen. pub., they’re pretty much the alpha and omega of smart guys. OTOH, we get all sorts of un-scientists spewing their mouth refuse about things scientific. People like Sen. James Inhofe, Rep. Michelle Bachmann, and Rush Limbaugh — and there are dozens more where they come from. Corporate news purveyors find these chuckleheads by the score whenever there’s a climate debate or an evolution debate or even a flat-Earth debate.

Guys like Michael Mann toil in anonymity in their labs and classrooms, discovering things, learning things, and being, well, all scientific while the populace of this holy land learns about the physical world from Steve Doocy and Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

So, go, go. go, M. Mann et al. As for you, loyal Pencillista, read his piece on climate change and go into your next argument on that topic armed with the best info.

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The Old Pro

My complete interview with Charlotte Zietlow is now up on The Ryder website. It’s a long one but it’s a good one. Take some time and read it — and feel better about politicians for a brief moment, armed with the knowledge that that vocation’s roster has included decent souls like CZ.

Zietlow

Charlotte Zietlow

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If you’re pressed for time, catch my eight-minute mini-interview with the Dem doyenne that ran on WFHB’s Daily Local News a couple of weeks ago.

End of commercial.

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All The News That’s Old

Now we learn that 40 percent of the Indiana University student pop. is from out of state. This thanks to the Daily Beast‘s ranking of the decade’s “hottest” schools (via the Herald Times).

IU, acc’d’g to the D. Beast‘s rankers, is the third most thermal institution of higher education in Murrica, after USC and Vanderbilt.

Good journalist that I am, I googled “hottest schools decade IU daily beast,” just to verify the story and, perhaps, to provide a link to the Beast’s piece (which the H-T hadn’t).

Lo and behold, I found that the DB‘s list of hot colleges was done in 2009. It ran December 13 that year, which makes sense, considering it was an “of the decade list.” Such things aren’t done in the middle of a ten-annum.

NYT

Didja Hear The News?!

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So thanks, Herald Times, for the five-year-old news. If I’d paid the $8.95 the paper wants every month for an online subscription, I’d be steaming about now. Luckily, I’ve figured out a way to get it free, which is what it’s worth.

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08/03/2013
1 Comment
Bob Filner, Daniel Ellsberg, Health Care, Penn State University, Rape, Sarah Palin, SarahPAC, Sexual Harassment, Yale University

Your Daily Hot Air

Conviction

“I decided it was worth a life in prison to do it.” — Daniel Ellsberg

Ellsberg

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Problem Solved

Yale University has hit upon the magic solution to the problem of rape. Rape culture, at least within the confines of the ivy-covered halls of the institution that has given us Sinclair Lewis, John Hersey, Garry Troudeau, Aldo Leopold, Eero Saarinen, Meryl Streep, and…, and…, um, George W. Bush (nobody’s perfect), has been smashed to bits for good.

Lewis/Bush

Fellow Elis: Sinclair Lewis & George W. Bush

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Rape shall be no more at Yale!

That’s because the university has now eliminated the usage of the word from its official lexicon. A provost’s report released this week addressing the Campus Sexual Climate for the school year just past, makes rape disappear by simply not calling forcible sexual contact, well, rape.

It’s now the much more palatable nonconsensual sex. Isn’t that better?

And just in case any Elis still harbor any desire to attempt a bit of the good old violent penetration, why, they’ll be deterred, no doubt by the dreaded threat of the written reprimand.

Wow. That’s tough, man.

And if some male student happens to commit a particularly egregious form of nonconsensual sex, he just might be put on probation or even suspended for a year!

Thank god. The women of Yale can now feel free to walk the campus in the nude, making come-hither gestures without fear of having creepy guys try to force themselves upon them.

Because that’s how women usually become rape victims, isn’t it?

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Get healthy — or else!

Let’s stay with academia.

Former football factory extraordinaire Penn State University also is getting tough, this time with employees who refuse to be healthy.

PSU Icon

The Nittany Lion (What The Hell Ever That Is)

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See, professors, janitors, and clerks alike are being threatened with hefty — nay, borderline confiscatory — financial penalties for failing to submit to the U’s stringent wellness (a word I loathe) guidelines and reporting procedures.

Chief among those procedures is PSU’s mandatory “biometric screenings.” This means if you refuse to have your waist measured, step on a scale, have your blood sugar tested, and a raft of other peeks inside and around your holy temple, you’re going to have to pay a cool hundred bucks a month extra for your health insurance coverage.

Waist Measurement

Get ‘Em Up!

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Say you’re a brand new PSU hiree making $15,792 a year. That comes out to about $850 per month after taxes. Should you consider the university’s health spies poking into your bloodstream or running a measuring tape around your heretofore pleasing girth to be intrusive, well, you’re going to have to pay a full 12 percent of your ready monthly cash flow for your silly little principle.

Which, I suppose, is the U’s intent. You’ll have to slash your grocery budget to next to nil. That’ll shrink your waistline.

British Model

See? Now You’re Healthier!

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PSU, of course, is well known for its strict adherence to rules and law. Why, it took the less than a decade for the school to ban Jerry Sandusky from campus after he’d been seen sodomizing a ten-year-old in the shower.

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Not My Fault

You know — don’t you? — that scary-looking San Diego Mayor Bob Filner squeezed all those women’s asses, groped their breasts, and pressured them to have sex with him (a nauseating prospect, to be sure) because he’d never gotten harassment training.

Filner

Eek!

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At least that’s what he and his lawyer say in an effort to get the city to pay his mounting legal bills in the harassment lawsuits brought about by a number of women whose ladyparts now bear his cooties.

Hell, this revelation ought to cause the judge or judges in those cases to dismiss them forthwith.

How in the world can we expect anyone to know that groping and forcibly kissing co-workers is frowned upon if we don’t have a mandatory training session telling them so?

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Palin’s Payouts

Here’s what Sarah Palin’s squealer arm, SarahPAC, spends in a typical half-year, in case you give a good goddamn.

Palin created her PAC for the ostensible purpose of supporting candidates for office who share her (terrifying) views. So far in 2013, SarahPAC has spent a total of a half million dollars. Palin’s action faction in the same time has donated $5000, or 1 percent, to political candidates. That’s some overhead.

Sarah PAC FEC Filing

Click For Full Federal Election Commission Report

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12/15/2012
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Aaron Freeman, Al Pacino, Apollo 17, Columbine, Gary Busey, Gene Cernan, Harrison "Jack" Schmidt, Harvest Moon, Jack Levin, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Kevin Sears, Mark Twain, NASA, Neil Young, Northeastern University, Penn State University, Ray Hanania, Ron Evans, Sandy Hook Massacre, Shoe Bomber, US Homicide Rate

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Saturday

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THE QUOTE

“We build a fire in a powder magazine, then double the fire department to put it out. We inflame wild beasts with the smell of blood, and then innocently wonder at the wave of brutal appetite that sweeps the land as a consequence.” — Mark Twain

Twain

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BANG, YOU’RE DEAD

I was as enraged as anyone after learning of yesterday’s madness in Connecticut.

I took to Facebook and ranted:

From Facebook

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— and —

From Facebook

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America, with its psycho-sexual fixation on guns, is indeed deranged.

That said, a sociologist and criminologist from Northeastern University named Jack Levin appeared on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday afternoon to put yesterday’s horror in perspective.

“The truth is,” Levin said, “there’s still about 20 mass killings every year in this country, and that has been true for decades.”

In other words, things aren’t getting worse.

Which is scant consolation to the parents who lost kids in Sandy Hook.

Wait, there’s more. Funnyman Aaron Freeman points out this fascinating set of statistics:

◗ US population, 1990: 248,709.873 — 23,440 homicides.

◗ US population, 2011: 311,591,917 — 14,612 homicides

Chicago Police Homicide

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“We are,” Freeman writes, “moving in the right direction.”

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PEOPLE ONLY ACT WHEN FACED WITH CRISIS?

Politico Ray Hanania points out this example of how mightily weird our species is:

◗ One guy tries to use a shoe bomb on an airplane — Now every air travel passenger must remove her or his shoes before reaching the gate.

◗ Some 31 lunatics have committed school shootings since Columbine — No changes have been instituted.

Airport Security

Whew! I Feel Safer Now.

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ACTION!

Yesterday morning, Kevin Sears, the Toastmaster General of Bloomington, and I mused on the inevitable movie about Jerry Sanduski, Joe Paterno, and the Penn State scandal. Here’s what we agreed upon:

Gary Busey will play Sanduski

Al Pacino will play Paterno

Casting

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That’s all you need to know.

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THE LAST MEN IN THE MOON

Precisely 40 years ago today, Gene Cernan, Harrison “Jack” Schmidt, and Ron Evans departed lunar orbit and began their quarter-million mile trip back to Earth.

Cernan and Schmidt were the last human beings to walk on the moon.

NASA Photo

Jack Schmidt On The Moon

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Their mission, Apollo 17, originally was planned to be the third-to-last lunar trip but budget cutbacks forced NASA to cancel Apollos 18 and 19.

The two astronauts in the Lunar Module that descended to the moon’s surface from the Command Module spent a little more than three days on the Earth’s natural satellite. Their craft landed in the Taurus-Littrow lunar valley. The two walked on the moon for a total of 23 hours.

Schmidt was a geologist who’d go on to serve as United States Senator from New Mexico. Cernan was a Navy jet pilot before joining NASA. Both men are still alive and are approaching the age of 80.

NASA Photo

Cernan & Schmidt On The Trip Back To Earth

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Before he left the moon, Cernan carved the initials of his daughter on a lunar boulder.

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HARVEST MOON

One of the prettiest songs I’ve ever heard.

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07/28/2012
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Andy Graham, Atomism, Big Ten, Book Corner, Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower, Democritus, Herald Times, Joe Paterno, Liza Pavelich, Penn State University, Perseids Meteor Shower, Yummy Mommy Makeover

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.” — Democritus.

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THE BIG 10’S BIG STORY

Herald Times sportswriter Andy Graham stopped in to the Book Corner earlier this week to pick up a Big 10 football preview magazine.

It was his last stop in town before setting off for Chicago, where he’s covering this week’s Big 10 Media Days dog and pony show.

You think anybody’ll be talking about anything other than Penn State?

A Prison Of His Own Design

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Check out Graham’s piece on the scandal that ran in Friday’s edition.

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… AND LO-OVE WILL STEER THE STARS…

It’ll be a great night for a meteor shower.

The Delta Aquarids shoot through the eastern sky late tonight. Seemingly emanating from the Aquarius constellation, they’ll be a teaser for the year’s biggest shooting star show, the Perseids, in fifteen days.

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Tonight’s display will be special, though, because the moon won’t interfere with it. The moon is waxing gibbous in the west in the early evenings these days.

Best viewing hours for the Aquarids are midnight through dawn.

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NEWLY ATTRACTIVE PREDATORS

Liza Pavelich of Bloomington says she was on the receiving end of a Facebook ad for something called Yummy Mommy Makeover.

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The ad features a testimonial from a now-scrumptious mother. It reads, according to LP: “It’s great. Now I get hit on by teenaged boys all the time!”

Which Liza characterizes, rightly, as “gross.”

She also points out that her memory of teenaged boys was such that any sane human being would shun their advances, considering how virtually sub-human they are.

Then again, it’s hard to imagine that anyone who spends the $300 to become a “yummy mommy” is actually, you know, sane.

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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.

I Love Charts: Interactive History Of States & Territories

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

❏ 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 and Correct — (New Listing) 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.

❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ 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.

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❏ 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.

◗ City Hall, Showers Plaza — Farmers Market; 8am-1pm

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Indiana State Fingerstyle Competition; 11am-3pm

◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds — Opening day, 2012 Monroe County Fair, Queen’s Day, Grand Opening ceremony at 10am, Truck & Tractor Pull at 7pm, Queen contest at 7:30pm, (no carnival until Monday at 4:00pm); Noon to 11pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theater — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 2pm

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Indiana State Fingerstyle Competition evening concert; 6-7:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Kumaré: The True Story of a False Prophet”; 7pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Finger Picking Competition; 7-9pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theater — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 7:30pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Joe & Jan Edwards; 8pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall — Ryder Film Series: “Gerhard Richter Painting”; 8pm

◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberg Auditorium — UB Films: “Sixteen Candles”; 8pm

◗ Cafe Django — Post Modern Jazz Quartet; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Baron Vaughn; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series:”Oslo: August 31st”; 8:30pm

◗ The Bishop — Eleni Mandel, Henry Wolfe; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — Led Zeppelin 2; 9pm

◗ Max’s Place — Kayle Truman; 9pm

◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — Depeche Mode dance party; 9pm

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Brett Holcombe; 9:30-11:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Odkoga; 10pm

◗ Max’s Place — The Gentle Shades; 11pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits: Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; through August 3rd

◗ 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

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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07/22/2012
2 Comments
Amy Goodman, Aurora Colorado Mass Shooting, Chicago Sun-Times, Democracy Now!, Guns, Harriet Hall, Joe Paterno, Joseph Conrad, Lynda Barry, Morehouse College, New York Times, Penn State University, Rebecca Watson, Roger Ebert, Sarah Sandberg, Skepchick, SkepDoc, Susan Sandberg, Tariq Taylor, Toles, Tony Robbins, Washington Post

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” — Joseph Conrad

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THE STRONG CAN BE LAID LOW

Sarah Sandberg commandeered her sister’s Facebook account last night at about 9:30pm to pass on some alarming news and to issue a warning.

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I’m hoping Sarah’s prediction that Susan will be back to work soon is a lot more than wishful thinking.

Susan Sandberg is royalty among Pencillistas. Join me in hoping her doctors have a lot of tricks in their black bags.

Pencillista Queen

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MY GUY ROGER

America’s best movie reviewer and an incisive cultural observer in his own right, Roger Ebert, has weighed in on the Aurora, Colorado atrocity.

Check his take in the Chicago Sun-Times. Here’s a quote from that piece:

“The hell with it. I’m tired of repeating the obvious. I know with dead certainty that I will change nobody’s mind. I will hear conspiracy theories from those who fear the government, I will hear about the need to raise a militia, and I will hear nothing about how 9,484 corpses a year has helped anything.”

Or you can read his New York Time op-ed piece. Here’s another quote, this one from that piece:

“Should this young man — whose nature was apparently so obvious to his mother that, when a ABC News reporter called, she said “You’ve got the right person” — have been able to buy guns, ammunition and explosives? The gun lobby will say yes. And the endless gun control debate will begin again, and the lobbyists of the National Rifle Association will go to work, and the op-ed thinkers will have their usual thoughts, and the right wing will issue alarms, and nothing will change. And there will be another mass murder.”

This ain’t no movie, kids. This is life. Guns are designed to take it.

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TRUTH IN HUMOR

Toles Cartoon From The Washington Post Syndicate

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DOWN WITH JOE

Penn State University is doing the right thing.

Workers Tear Down The Paterno Statue At 9:30 This Morning

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Now, maybe the people who run the institution can refocus on something novel: the development of students’ minds.

Joe Paterno made a lot of dough at the school. He signed a three-year contract in 2008 that called for an annual salary of a half million dollars a year. He made piles more — several times that amount per year — from ancillary sources.

The late unindicted co-conspirator was responsible for nothing more than the likes of instructing running backs on which way to turn when linebackers were approaching. It seems to me that particular aspect of the education of young men can be done by any number of “teachers” who’ve studied football (read: “have sat in front of the TV on Saturday and Sunday afternoons”).

Me? I’d spend half a million bucks on five teachers of a different sort, say:

  • Lynda Barry, creative writing and cartooning — The creator of “Ernie Pook’s Comeek”, “The Good Times Are Killing Me” and other works of reality-based fiction and visual art, Barry has transformed the struggles of an outsider into brilliantly funny and therapeutic entertainment. Think of what a role model she’d be for geeky, self-deprecating teenaged girls.

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  • Rebecca Watson, general science — The founder of Skepchick, she works tirelessly to upgrade the status of brainiac girls and female scientists around the world.

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  • Tariq Taylor, Humanities, black studies — As a Morehouse Collage grad student, Taylor visited Thailand after having never traveled in his life before. His experiences in that country were documented in the video “The Experience,” which reveals how travel can profoundly affect young black men who’ve been cloistered in racial and economic ghettos their whole lives.

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  • Amy Goodman, journalism — The boss of Democracy Now!, Goodman digs deeper than just about any reporter alive.

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  • Harriet Hall, MD, philosophy — The SkepDoc, Hall strips away the masturbatory bullshit that passes for curiosity and inquiry in the New Age and alternative medicine worlds today.

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Wouldn’t you think a hundred G’s a year would be good pay for each of five individuals whose words and guidance might affect literally thousands of students a year? Oh, and none of those students would have to be winners of the gene pool lottery wherein they’d have been born bigger/faster/stronger than 99.9 percent of their peers.

Call me a dreamer.

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WHERE THERE’S SMOKE…

As if anybody needed more proof that Tony Robbins is a con artist:

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Or that people who buy into his brand of fraud are dopes?

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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.

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

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ 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.

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❏ 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.

◗ Twin Lakes Recreation Center — American Softball Association Slow Pitch State Tournament; all day

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — “The Taming of the Shrew”; 2pm

◗ IU Willkie Auditorium — Cultural fair: Silk Road Bayaram Festival; 3-6pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Benefit for Margery Sauve; 6pm

◗ Bryan Park — Sunday Concert: Steel Panache, steel drum band; 6:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Ryder Film Series: “Oslo, August 31”; 7pm

◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — Big Brothers Big Sisters fundraising gala; 7:30pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It with You”; 7:30pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Pipe organ faculty recital; 8pm

◗ The Root Cellar at Farm Bloomington — The Size of Color, Minus World; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes, the Shams Band; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ 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

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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07/16/2012
Leave a comment
50 Shades of Grey, A Stolen Life, Bill Clinton, Cairo, Contras, GT3D, Hillary Clinton, Hsoni Mubarek, Iraq War, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Joshua Foer, Lady Gaga, Marie Curie, Mohammed Morsi, Monica Lewinsky, Moonwalking with Einstein, NCAA, Nicaragua, Oliver Sacks, Penn State University, Shah of Iran, The Mind's Eye, Vietnam War

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie

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CAIRO CREEPS

The world’s citizenry has plenty of reasons to be mad at the US.

In my lifetime alone there’ve been Vietnam, the Shah, the Contras, a couple of senseless wars with Iraq, and Lady Gaga.

Down With The USA!

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That’s enough to make anyone hurl a shoe at the Secretary of State’s motorcade.

Which is what a gang of Egyptians did yesterday when Hillary Clinton passed through Cairo. They threw tomatoes at her entourage as well.

Apparently, the protesters were hot because this holy land allegedly has taken sides in their presidential election charade. I wouldn’t doubt that we are, considering the US puts its big nose into everybody’s business. That’s what empires do.

But the protesters also shouted “Monica, Monica, Monica” at Hillary’s limo.

You remember Monica Lewinsky, the most famous fellator in human history, don’t you? Also, in case you’ve forgotten, she was a walking humidor.

Quite A Bouquet

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Anyway, I’d lay off the sexual references if I were the Egyptians. They didn’t exactly comport themselves well with women in the streets when they were in the process of overthrowing their tyrant leader, Hosni Mubarek.

An effort, by the way, the United States supported.

In fact, just the other week a crowd of Egyptians sexually assaulted a female British journalist covering the celebration for newly elected prez Mohammed Morsi.

♢

THUMBS DOWN

Some observers of the Penn State University situation have said the NCAA has no authority over the institution in criminal matters not related to athletics.

Their “logic” goes that Jerry Sandusky’s sex life with children and Joe Paterno’s winking consent of same are not violations of the rules of the sacred game of football. Nor did they give Penn State an edge over its rivals in the playing of games.

The Little Girl Wisely Leans Away From The Nittany Lion

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Maybe. Of course, if the NCAA’s lawyers find this to be true then we can only hope the National Collegiate Athletic Association shuts down its offices and goes out of business forever.

Me? I’m all for the NCAA giving Penn State the death penalty. Shutting down its football program for one or two years just might remind people in Happy Valley as well as in college towns around the nation that big time sports is not the reason universities exist.

♢

COOL

Scientists have developed a device that can allow people to use their computers simply by moving their eyes.

This will be a miraculous boon to quadriplegics and amputees, among others.

The device, called GT3D, reads the user’s eyeball movements and translates that information into instructions to move a screen cursor. Users can play games, write emails, and do most of the things people with two usable hands can.

Click on the image below to see the video of a guy playing Pong with his eyes. Unfortunately, I can’t embed the vid.

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The technology may one day be extended to wheelchair users. The device would be able to read the chair-bound user’s eye movements and cause the chair to proceed accordingly.

Some two decades ago I predicted that within fifty years we’d have implantable personal video and audio recording devices. Those of us who could afford it would have micro-devices surgically placed in our eyes.

Imagine how that would affect the criminal justice system.

Science, my friends, is cool.

♢

SCIENCE CHICK

The above story reminds me of a woman I met last week at the Book Corner. Her name is Sarah and she was stocking up on science-y books for summer reading.

That’s right — rather than lull herself into a trance by reading, say, “50 Shades of Grey” or “A Stolen Life,” she opted to spend her time on good stuff like “Moonwalking with Einstein” by Joshua Foer and “The Mind’s Eye” by Oliver Sacks.

This Just In: Girls Have Minds, Too

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I got to chatting with Sarah and she revealed she is here in Bloomington working on her doctorate in chemistry.

She admitted there aren’t many other women in her chosen field. She said she fell in love with chemistry thanks to an inspiring high school chemistry teacher, who happened to be a man.

Sarah was funny, extremely sociable, and curious about many things. And, again, she’ll soon have a PhD in one of the hard sciences.

The only downer is there are so few young women like Sarah running around the Great United States, Inc. these days.

♢

✍

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

◗ Monroe County Public Library — “It’s Your Money: Flapjacks & Greenbacks,” Learn to make pancake mix from scratch and other tips to save money; 7pm

Make Your Own

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◗ Cafe Django — Bloomington Short List, hosted by Marta Jasicki, variety show, ten acts, ten minutes each; 7pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Chamber music students college audition; 8pm

◗ The Bishop — Murals, The Natives, Chandelier Ballroom; 9pm

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◗ The Player’s Pub — Songwriter Showcase; 8pm

◗ IU HPER, room 107 — Free ballroom dance lessons; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — Dave Walters karaoke; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ 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

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

♢

07/12/2012
Leave a comment
Ambrose Bierce, Bill O'Reilly, FBI, Good Times, Great Society, Jerry Sandusky, Jimmie Walker, Joe Paterno, Louis Freeh, Penn State University

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Acadame, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught.” — Ambrose Bierce

♢

SANDUSKY’S CO-CONSPIRATORS

“The most saddening finding by the Special Investigative Counsel is the total and consistent disregard by the most senior leaders at Penn State for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims.”

So there you have it. The official damnation of Penn State University by former FBI chief Louis Freeh’s gumshoes.

The Freeh report was released this morning.

And, no, this is no outside slam job. Freeh et al were hired by Penn State to dig into the sludge that threatens to drown the institution.

This is more satisfying even than the guilty verdict Jerry Sandusky earned after years of sodomizing 10-year-old boys. He’s a sick man. But his superiors at Penn State gave him license to fuck and blow children and to force them to blow him.

Now, riot over that one, Penn State faithful.

PSU Erected A Statue Of The Unindicted And Thankfully Dead Joe Paterno

♢

DUMB TIMES

Have you caught Jimmie Walker’s latest act yet.

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The “actor” who played JJ on the 70’s CBS-TV sitcom “Good Times” is doing the grand tour promoting his memoir. It’s called “Dyn-o-MITE: Good Times, Bad Times, Our Times,” the catchword, of course, being his great contribution to American culture.

Walker doesn’t like Barack Obama.

“Sometimes even a brother, you have to let him go,” Walker told Bill O’Reilly yesterday.

Walker, you may recall, won precisely zero Emmy Awards for his portrayal of a jiving, shucking Negro on the show. Walker’s JJ made Stepin Fetchit and Little Black Sambo look like George Washington Carver.

Now he’s talking politics. On Fox News, no less.

Oh, just a little irony here. Walker was the beneficiary of a Great Society program when he attended a federally-funded writing class for unemployed youth after he graduated from high school.

We taxpayers want our money back.

♢

WE’RE NUMBER…, UM…, WHERE ARE WE?

Bummer!

Bloomington did not make the list of coolest college towns on Ranker.com.

Here they are, in order:

  • Boulder, Colorado
  • Austin, Texas
  • Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Berkeley, California
  • Madison, Wisconsin
  • Burlington, Vermont
  • Charlottesville, Virginia
  • Washington, DC

Georgetown Students Can See Mitch McConnell On The Streets On Any Given Day

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  • Santa Cruz, California
  • Oxford, Mississippi
  • Eugene, Oregon
  • Amherst, Massachusetts
  • Chapel Hill, North Carolina
  • Cambridge, Massachusetts
  • Iowa City, Iowa
  • Athens, Georgia
  • Tuscaloosa, Alabama

The Tuscaloosa Motel 6

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  • Richmond, Virginia
  • Gainesville, Florida
  • Los Angeles
  • Durham, North Carolina
  • Clemson, South Carolina
  • Knoxville, Tennessee
  • Atlanta

Honestly? Washington, DC?

Tuscaloosa?

Jeez, you’d think Leo Cook’s weekly Bloomington’s Got Talent! show at the Bluebird alone would earn us a spot on the list. Go figure.

♢

✍

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

◗ IU Simon Music Library — Guest lecturer Professor David Castilo speaks about 18th Century Brazilian music; 5pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Janiece Jaffe; 5:30pm

Janiece Jaffe

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◗ Third Street Park — Outdoor concert series, Bloomington Community Band; 6:30pm

◗ IU Ford Hall — Latin American Music Center Guest Series: Recordist David Castilo plays Brazilian music; 7PM

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

◗ Panache Dance — Local First July mixer, wine, cheese, and Samba dancing; 7-8:30pm

◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — Musical, “You Can’t Take It With You”; 7:30pm

◗ Monroe County History Center — Architectural history researcher Bill Coulter speaks about how to trace the history of your building; 7pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Two for the Show; 8pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Music Series: Recital participants in the IU Summer Percussion Academy; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Chelsea Peretti; 8pm

Chelsea Peretti

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◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Team trivia; 8:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — New Old Cavalry; 9pm

◗ Uncle Elizabeth’s — Karaoke; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • John D. Shearer, “I’m Too Young For This  @#!%”; through July 30th
  • Claire Swallow, ‘Memoir”; through July 28th
  • Dale Gardner, “Time Machine”; through July 28th
  • Sarah Wain, “That Takes the Cake”; through July 28th
  • Jessica Lucas & Alex Straiker, “Life Under the Lens — The Art of Microscopy”; through July 28th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st
  • Bloomington Photography Club Annual Exhibition; July 27th through August 3rd

◗ 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

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

♢

06/18/2012
Leave a comment
Ed Tyll, George Holliday, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, NWA, Penn State University, Rodney King, Roger Ebert, Sunset Boulevard, WLUP

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“I am utterly bored by celebrity interviews. Most celebrities are devoid of interest.” — Roger Ebert

♢

70

Happy birthday to Roger Ebert.

Hanging In

♢

KING OF PAIN

So, Rodney King left this mad, mad world in a classic Hollywood fashion — face down in a swimming pool.

“Sunset Boulevard”: The Way To Go In Hollywood

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Funny thing is, King was so un-Hollywood. Except that he became part of our national consciousness on videotape. His vicious beating was his intro to the American public. Next, his swollen, discolored, shattered mug became TV fare for days. And then, his voice shaking, he tearfully pleaded for peace.

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I was 36 years old when East LA exploded into violence following the ludicrous not guilty verdict in the trial of the cops who’d played the tom toms on King’s head and then laughed about it afterward. I appeared on Ed Tyll‘s WLUP-AM talk radio show as LA burned. Tyll asked me what I thought about the King thing.

“Put your finger on the delay button,” I warned before taking a pause to make sure he was ready to bleep me. “Here’s what I think: Fk tha police.”

See, the whole situation had enraged me so that I quoted from a gansta rap song.

And you know what I think of rap.

Anyway, I was at a family function in the days following the beating a year before. Naturally, talk turned to King and the cops. The house was full of Sicilians, a few of whom had suffered back in the 1930s and 40s at the hands of Chicago cops who called them “nigger” before hauling them in on suspicion — suspicion, usually, of being too dark for their own good — and then giving them a good working over in the lockup. I’d supposed my uncles might sympathize with King.

My uncles were outraged, natch, but not at the cops. And, the funny thing is, not even at King. No, they were hot at the guy, George Holliday, who’d recorded the beating on his videocam.

Law Enforcement

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“That guy had no business taking those pictures,” one uncle said. “That was none of his business.”

“He shoulda minded his own business,” another said.

“He’ll cause a lot of trouble with them pictures,” agreed a third.

As I said, this is a mad, mad world.

♢

MONDAY

Click.

♢

RIOT FOR RIGHT

Now, I wonder how Penn State University students will react when Jerry Sandusky is found guilty in his child sex abuse trial later this month.

I mean, they rioted after beloved Coach Joe Paterno was fired for allowing Sandusky free rein to sodomize young boys in the football facility shower room for years.

Penn State Student Overturn A TV Truck For Justice

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And Sandusky is going to be found guilty, isn’t he? This world can’t possibly be mad enough to let him walk, could it?

♢

EBERT’S TOP TEN

Roger Ebert drew up this list for a Sight & Sound magazine poll of noted film critics. Here are his choices for the ten greatest films ever made.

  • “Aguirre: The Wrath of God,” by Werner Herzog
  • “Apocalypse Now,” by Franics Ford Coppola
  • “Citizen Kane,” by Orson Welles
  • “La Dolce Vita,” by Frederico Fellini
  • “The General,” by Buster Keaton
  • “Raging Bull,’ by Martin Scorsese
  • “2001: A Space Odyssey,” by Stanley Kubrik
  • “Tokyo Story,” by Ozu
  • “Tree of LIfe,” by Terrence Malick
  • “Vertigo,” by Alfred Hitchcock

♢

01/30/2012
2 Comments
Abby Tonsing, Buzz Bissinger, Chuck Williams, Drexel University, Florida Primary, Friday Night Lights, Herald Times, Indiana University, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Lauren Spierer, Laurie Levenson, Loyola University (Los Angeles), Maryann Pelic, Mitt Romney, Mort Sahl, Newt Gingrich, Penn State University, The Daily Beast, University of Nebraska

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they’ve stolen.” — Mort Sahl

♢

DUH, GOLLY GEE, I DUNNO!

The day before yet another Republican primary, this one in Florida.

As always — I repeat, always; I mean it, always — Big Media is doing remotes from a bunch of heretofore unknown sandwich shops and church basements that the various candidates will visit to ask voters whom they’ll, um, vote for tomorrow.

And danged if the intrepid reporters invariably pick out the same kind of yokel: Well, uh, I haven’t made up my mind yet, and so on, ad nauseam.

Come on, people! There’ve been 373 debates within the last week alone. Moon Newt and Rich Mitt have been in the public eye for years. The issues they’ve skirted have been with us since time immemorial.

Who Are These Guys?

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How on Earth can you not know who to vote for tomorrow?

Sometimes people say they need to actually see the candidates — with their naked eyes — before they can decide.

Look, neither the Republican candidate nor the eventual president is going to sit down with you and balance your checkbook, nor is he going to do your windows or vacuum your carpet. He’s going to be administering a government of 300-odd million people. You’re merely one of them.

He doesn’t have to visit with you personally in order to get your vote.

Sheesh, don’t people get it?

♢

WHO’S RIGHT AND WHO’S WRONG?

If you’re not decrying the split between liberals and conservatives within this holy land these days, you’ll be accused of not paying attention. Many wags and wonks say the gulf is tearing our nation apart and is either created or exacerbated by the corporate media in order to provide content for its infotainment product.

Lah-de-dah.

But a recent study by University of Nebraska researchers indicates that liberals and conservatives react differently, and viscerally, to images of good and bad things. The researchers conclude that liberalism and conservatism may be driven more by biology than any analysis of issues.

Conservatives, the study finds, physically react more strongly to pictures of car crashes and flesh wounds whereas liberals react more to pretty, peaceful scenes.

In other words the right is spurred on by peril, the left by bonhomie.

This Ought To Push A Liberal’s Buttons

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Those on the right, the researchers also found, exhibit more dramatic physiological reactions when shown pictures of Democrats than they do when shown Republicans. Oddly, liberals respond the same way. The researchers see this as further proof that conservatives are kicked into higher emotional gear by things they loathe or fear while libs are just the opposite.

Conservative?

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It’s not much of a stretch to suppose that Republicans, therefore, are stimulated more by attack ads and fear-mongering.

So, don’t expect the pissing match between Moon Newt and Rich Mitt to peter out any time soon. And then look for even more thrills and spills come September and October.

♢

STILL WAITING

Abby Tonsing of the Herald Times pointed out yesterday that Lauren Spierer turned 21 on January 12th.

The missing IU student’s parents, Charlene and Robert Spierer, still believe the male students who reportedly saw Lauren in the hours and moments before she disappeared on June 3rd have more information that they’re not sharing.

Daddy-o Robert called the story one of the boys told police “laughable.”

Lauren, On A Previous Birthday

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I still can’t figure out why the four male IU students identified as having spent time with her before she vanished are all lawyered up. Then again, former assistant county prosecutor Maryann Pelic tells me it’s the smart thing for them to do (and she’s not at all implying they have anything to hide.)

♢

TOO COWARDLY TO UTTER ICKY WORDS

So, the trial of the two idiots who sat on their hands when news of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s sex crimes was reported to them will soon begin.

To refresh your memory, another assistant coach allegedly saw Sandusky naked in the football shower room engaging in anal intercourse with what appeared to be a naked 10-year-old boy. The assistant coach reported what he saw to head football coach Joe Paterno who, in turn, reported it to a couple of paper shufflers in the PSU athletic department.

Paterno promptly washed his hands of the whole affair, convinced he’d done everything he was legally obliged to do. Apparently, he was satisfied with doing next to nothing.

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The two paper shufflers now face charges of failure to report a child sex crime to the police and lying about what they knew to a grand jury.

Sandusky has been charged with 50 counts of having sex with young boys.

Paterno died last weekend of lung cancer and the Penn State community came out to tell the world what a great guy he was, what a leader of men, what a moral beacon, and tons of other holy horseshit.

But when the scandal broke it was learned that Paterno allowed Sandusky to continue to use Penn Sate facilities for years after the great man was told about the shower incident. Despite being retired from the football program, Sandusky was allowed to keep an office in the football hall and kept bringing prepubescent boys to the place at all hours.

Paterno, apparently, never raised a peep about the creepy set-up. We know for a fact he never stopped any of it from happening. And, believe me, Paterno could have stopped it all — at least within the hallowed halls of the football facility.

Now, defense attorneys for the two paper shufflers seem to be focused on how all the fine, upstanding men involved in this case were afraid to use actual words to describe what Sandusky allegedly had done.

The defense attorneys are hoping a jury agrees that by the time the story got to the two university officials, it had been so watered down by skittish football men that it didn’t even sound like a crime anymore.

A CNN reporter contacted a couple of experts to decode the whole mess,. Laurie Levenson, who teaches law at Loyola (Los Angeles) University, told the reporter, “Sodomy, rape, and anal intercourse are not easy words for men, especially jocks, to verbalize, and they may become particularly reluctant when they are speaking to authority figures.”

Another expert, Dr. Chuck Williams of Drexel University said, “Being uncomfortable with the subject matter could have led all men involved to minimize the Sandusky mess and avoid confronting it head on.”

Man alive! This whole stinking tale becomes more rancid by the moment. One weekend we’re being told Joe Paterno was one of god’s “greatest gifts to the world,” (by a Catholic priest, no less) and the next we hear that god’s gift is too squeamish to blow the whistle on a child sodomizer.

A former Penn State quarterback called Paterno “the most extraordinary person I know.” But JoePa was not extraordinary enough to say a phrase like “My assistant saw Jerry Sandusky penetrating the anus of a child with his penis.”

There. I just said it. And no one’s calling me extraordinary.

Paterno even had a hard time telling police investigators and prosecutors what he’d heard. His testimony to the grand jury showed a man afraid to say dirty words.

Everyone involved made a choice: don’t say too much because talking about it is icky. The fact that at least one ten-year-old kid had his anus forcibly dilated to an approximate width of two inches did not at all enter into the equation.

Perhaps the best account of this ugly tale was written by Buzz Bissinger, the author of “Friday Night Lights,” in the November 10th edition of The Daily Beast. He wrote, “[W]e need to stop the daintiness and describe the alleged offenses for what they truly are in the vernacular to somehow try to capture the monstrousness. Not anal intercourse or oral sex, which sounds clinical, but butt-fucking and blowjobs and cock-grabbing and pants-groping and other assorted acts that the 67-year-old Sandusky allegedly inflicted on [the victims].”

Big time college sports guys can run fast, jump high, throw balls long distances, or plot out clever plays. But if they’re too grossed out to save a kid from being ravaged, they’re neither brave nor strong.

And they certainly aren’t god’s gift.

♢

12/23/2011
2 Comments
670 The Score, Air Jordan 11 Retro, Animal Tool Behavior, Book Corner, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, College Sports, Dan Bernstein, Erik Estrada, Herald Times, Home Improvement, Indianapolis Zoo, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Julia Karr, Morning Edition, Nike, NPR, Penn State University, Robert Shumaker, Ron Jeremy, Tammy Faye, Tim Allen, Trishelle Cannatella, Truth, XVI

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“… Tammy Faye calls me and Ron Jeremy calls me. Erik Estrada sends me a Christmas card every year.” — reality show mannequin Trishelle Cannatella, testifying that even celebrity zombies enjoy Christmas.

♢

A GIFTMAS CAROL

Hah! The Herald Times put my mug shot up. Must be a slow news day.

♢

ANIMAL MECHANICS

Some pretty smart cookies live and work at the Indy Zoo. And I’m not just talking about the keepers and the animal researchers there.

Rob Shumaker is one of the alpha males at the zoo. He’s the boss of the Life Sciences department and is a world renowned expert on orangutans. He and two other critter scientists have written a book that dispels many of the notions we have about animals using tools. I’m not revealing too much by saying it isn’t just monkeys, apes, Republicans, and humans who use tools.

Shumaker

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The book, “Animal Tool Behavior,” co-written with Kristina R. Walkup and Benjamin B. Beck, asserts that brain size and general smarts don’t determine which creatures use tools, as has been considered gospel until now. Wasps, spiders, dolphins, polar bears, and a host of other species could just as easily as Tim Allen been the star of “Home Improvement.” Maybe easier.

Guess: One Of These Two Is An Animal, The Other Is A TV Star

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Wasps use rocks to smooth out soil. Some spiders throw sticky balls at flying insects and reel them in for supper.

The more we Homo Sapiens sapiens learn, the more we realize we (and Republicans) ain’t so special after all.

♢

YES, BUT DO THEY USE TOOLS?

So, Nike has introduced a new pair of ugly sneakers, the Air Jordan 11 Retros. And — wouldn’t you know it? — some of Indianapolis’ finest citizens rioted at a couple of locations when they went on sale yesterday.

Just Looking At These Makes Me Want To Go Out And Break Windows

♢

WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

A no-spamily, no-brattle zone.

◗ Bloomington author Julia Karr scored big with her teen dystopia novel “XVI.” Now, she’s back with the sequel, “Truth.”

Don’t take chances; buy both.

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◗ Don’t these guys ever learn? The business-suited baboons at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange are discontinuing their charitable giving for 2012. This despite the fact that the mob of them made a pretty penny — $826 million, to be more precise — last year. Oh, and the cartel also has some $750 million just laying around — cash reserves, they call it. But, sorry kids, there ain’t enough to spare for your schools.

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◗ Hundreds of football ironheads from Penn State University have signed a fawning letter of support for their embattled former coach, Joe Paterno. Sports yapper Dan Bernstein of CBS-owned 670 The Score dismantles the letter point by point. Paterno, you may recall, heard about his pal Jerry Sandusky being seen sodomizing a little boy in the Penn State shower room. He grudgingly told his putative superiors (in truth, no one at PSU was superior to Joe Pa) and promptly forgot the whole thing. Meanwhile, Sandusky allegedly continued to have his way with young kids.

This is a tough thing for me to say in Bloomington, Indiana, but the more I learn about big-time college sports, the more it turns my stomach.

♢

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