"The blog has made Glab into a hip town crier, commenting on everything from local politics and cultural happenings to national and international events, all rendered in a colorful, intelligent, working-class vernacular that owes some of its style to Glab’s Chicago-hometown heroes Studs Terkel and Mike Royko." — David Brent Johnson in Bloom Magazine
Barney Frank wasn’t perfect but he was good enough for me.
He’s retiring from Congress and that body of lickspittlers, toadies, and mouthpieces for the plutocracy and the lunocracy will be the worse for it.
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The highest ranking openly gay elected official in this holy land, Frank showed millions of Ma and Pa Kettles throughout the country that a homosexual man isn’t necessarily a swishing, mincing, cross-dressing, eye-rolling drama queen (although many of the gay pals I’ve had throughout my life were and I’d have been proud to support some of them if they decided to run for Congress.)
Any time we can smash a stereotype, we become a better people.
Frank was direct, powerful, at times courageous. If you hadn’t known in advance that he liked to have sex with men, you wouldn’t know it by looking at him or listening to him. He was a human being.
Forget his legislation and his rhetoric. You can agree with what he did and said or not. But you have to admit Barney Frank made much of America aware that a gay man is nothing more or less than a human being.
The first time I ever heard of this type of sign was in Jim Bouton‘s groundbreaking book, “Ball Four.” Bouton explained that sports teams jealously guard their privacy. Never let the unwashed masses know what we do or say in this hallowed haven of sweaty jockstraps. Bouton, of course, gleefully thumbed his nose at the proscription, telling the world how the New York Yankees and Seattle Pilots drank, fought, cheated on their wives, and did other things that would have made a 14-year-old proud.
Memorably, he told of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford leading a group of Yankees around the roof of Washington, DC’s Shoreham Hotel in the middle of the night, trying to peak into guest room windows and hoping to see women undressing.
Mantle & Ford — All-star Voyeurs
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Much of what Bouton revealed was silly. Some of it was borderline criminal.
The only conclusion one could make was that sports teams didn’t want to be embarrassed if the general public learned what lunkheads they really were.
But when you create an atmosphere of secrecy, inevitably some member of your team is going to use that cloak of darkness to commit a truly ugly deed.
If the boys in charge were smart, they’d let winter quash the Occupy encampments across this holy land.
But the boys in charge are smart about as often as a Republican candidate for president talks about issues that mean something to you and me.
So, this weekend riot-geared cops waded into Occupy camping jamborees here and there. And it’s ironic, considering that within the last few days there was a street melee that warranted the use of force in response.
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I mean, honestly, wouldn’t you have felt good about the world in general had local and campus police cracked some skulls with their nightsticks when those Penn State reprobates rioted Wednesday?
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An essayist on Michael Moore’s website opines that arrogant white men don’t like to be held accountable for their actions. The author of the piece, one Mike Elk, holds that Penn State is is the capital of whiteness in Pennsylvania. (Hat tip to my old pal R.E. for putting this up on her Facebook page.)
But the cops played nice with the entitled white boys who were so enraged that their child-molester-protecting, GOP-supporting football coach was fired.
The fact that poverty is spreading here in America, right wingers are clamping down on sex and women, corporations are taking over world governments, the gap between rich and poor grows more alarming every hour, and other terrifying developments meant nothing to these little frat farts. Only their football coach being persecuted for sitting on his hands while his great and good pal sodomized ten-year-olds in the shower room drove them into the streets.
An op-ed contributor in the LA Times rails against the cult of college sports, a sentiment close to my heart. I realize I risk being lynched in these precincts but the whole hypocritical, corrupt, fairly racist major college sports structure makes me ill. (Hat tip to Roger Ebert on Facebook for citing the LA Times piece.)
My next door neighbor Tom asked me if I wanted to watch the Hoosiers basketball game with him the other day. I like Tom. He’s a good man and a good neighbor and I enjoy spending time with him but watching college sports ranks just below submitting to my yearly prostate exam on the list of things I want to do.
One of the Irish Tough Guys who hang out at Soma, Tough Guy Pat, holds season tix to just about every sport on the Hoosier athletic department sked. His mood often is dictated by the result of yesterday’s football game or last night’s volleyball match.
College sports means a lot to guys like Tom and Tough Guy Pat. I get that. I also get that were it not for Hoosier sports husbands would have to start talking to their wives around here, and that, of course, is unnatural.
And, speaking of unnatural, it strikes me that too many folks burdened with what they or society consider “unnatural” sexual urges seem to gravitate toward institutions that frown on the whole notion of doing fun things in the nude.
Authoritarian clubs like the Catholic church and the Republican Party sometimes seem overrun with closeted gays and boy-lovers.
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Now, I need to clarify my usage of the term “unnatural.” We all agree that men who have sex with boys are operating with frighteningly faulty wiring. Gays, on the other hand, are not. But many, many, many poor souls consider their own homosexual feelings sinful or sick. They would consider themselves “unnatural.”
Here’s why I made mention of Joe Paterno’s Republican party affiliation. The GOP in the last 35 years or so has become fixated on sex. Birth control, abortion, gay marriage — if you don’t hew to the party line on these topics you ain’t gettin’ elected, simple as that.
(Which reminds me of the George Carlin bit about how these sex-obsessed people aren’t the kind you’d want to have sex with anyway. Thanks to Benny Jay for reminding me of this routine.)
Anyway, the Church and the GOP hold that every kind of sex except the stultifyingly boring kind between married heterosexual Iowa farm couples is icky to the point of criminality or sin.
Once you paint bonking as intrinsically evil, you lose the capability to see truly evil sex for what it is.
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Maybe Joe Pa didn’t even realize that poking a pre-teen lad is an ugly crime. Maybe he just thought Jerry Sandusky had simply succumbed to temptation, you know, like offensive guards who engage in premarital sex or tight ends who masturbate too much.
Maybe he’d been listening for too long to the fetishists who’ve taken over his party.
Penn State lost. Good. May they never win another game again.
Joe Pa’s Statue Being Molested By Penn State Fanatic
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PONY UP
Indiana University employees are raising a stink about having to pay a larger share of their health insurance premiums, according The Herald Times (log-in required).
Some 800 IU wage slaves have signed an online petition asking for more time to mull the huge increase. IU honchos say the increase is set in stone, so tough luck, kiddies.
The hike will hit IU workers who make about $10 an hour hardest. The university did agree to a slim wage increase for this school year ($1.5-3 percent) but additional expenses like the health insurance premium pretty much offset it.
I hate to be a nudge (well, alright, I love to be a nudge) but I just want to remind the world that Big Chief Michael A. McRobbie is enjoying his hefty pay raise this year. The school’s pres is making $533,120 in 2011-12, an increase of 12 percent over lost year’s paltry sum.
Higher Premium? No Prob.
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Jes sayin’.
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LOOSE NUKES SINK WORLDS
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m supposed to villify Senator Richard Lugar but I can’t help but thinking he isn’t all bad.
You know, we progressives are mandated by blood oath to abhor all Republicans. They are, after all, the spawn of Adolf and Eva, but — silly me — I’m just a contrarian.
Commentator Mike Leonard in today’s H-T heaps kudos on the 79-year-old running for his sixth term in the Senate for a piece of legislation Lugar co-sponsored 20 years ago. Lugar and Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, a Democrat, successfully pushed through the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program Act in 1992.
The bill authorized this holy land to spend tons of dough to help the nations of the former Soviet Union find and destroy nuclear weapons that had been positioned within their borders. The Soviet Union, natch, wasn’t the most open of hegemonists when it planted the big bangers within such wild spots as Azerbaijan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.
The Act led to the destruction of at least 7500 nukes as well as thousands of delivery systems and tons of fissionable materials.
Here Is Soviet Gift To You, Mr. and Mrs. America
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For you younger readers, the Act was the result of something we used to refer to as “bipartisan cooperation,” a quaint concept that means Democrats and Republicans working together.
I know, weird, huh?
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LOVE TRUMPS POLITICS
Sam Allison is quitting his job as Monroe County Board member.
I met Sam on election night, 2010, when his fellow Dems across the nation were dropping like flies under the onslaught of the Me Party-ists. Even Bloomington congressman Baron Hill got fired by the voters that sad night.
Not Slick, Just Decent
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Allison had been the County Recorder and was running for the first time for County Council. He and his lovely bride hung around the Democratic campaign headquarters on 3rd Street. Gloom descended upon the place as results came in. The figures showed Allison winning early in the night, though. Too bad his moment of triumph came in what was essentially a funeral parlor.
Sam Allison seemed a decent and humble man. Those qualities, apparently, didn’t hinder his political career. Now his lovely bride has scored a big new gig in Missouri so Sam, faithful mate that he is, is following her.
Good luck.
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I’M COMIN’, ELIZABETH!
“Heaven Is For Real” is still the number one paperback bestseller in this holy land, according to the New York Times Review of Books. Next week will mark a full year since it hit the list. That ain’t all: Somehow, the hardcover version is still among the top movers in that category, sitting at number 26 this week.
It’s The Big One!
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“Heaven…” recounts young Colton Burpo’s trip to paradise after his appendix burst when he was three years old. The book was written by his father, Todd Burpo, an evangelical pastor from Nebraska. Old man Burpo’s co-writer was the controversial Lynn Vincent who co-penned another other work of bizarre fantasy, “Going Rogue,” with Sarah Palin.
The book is joined on the coffee tables of the willfully credulous by “The Boy Who Came Back From Heaven” at number 17. This one is the tale of a six year old kid who falls into a two-month coma after a car accident. The kid, of course, comes as close as can be to joining the putative creator of the universe in his palatial digs but somehow finds the strength to come back to Earth because, you know, any place with the Taliban and Donald Trump in it has to be preferable to eternal paradise.
Screw Heaven; I’d Rather Be Around This Guy!
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Anyway, this whole I’m-precious-enough-to-be-brought-to-the-doorstep-of-god thing got me to searching the interwebs for other fascinating folks who’ve seen the bright light. Sure enough, Hollywood is filled with ’em!
Generally when The Loved One drives me to Soma on a Saturday morning the most we offer to each other in the realm of conversation are grunts. We understand each other enough to know that human verbal intercourse is not biologically possible before we have our caffeine.
Today is different.
This Penn State thing has been on everybody’s mind this week. Even The Loved One, who doesn’t know a Nittany Lion from the Nattily Attired, has followed the story.
What In The Hell Is A Nittany Lion Anyway?
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And she’s come to a conclusion.
“Here’s what I think,” she began as she negotiated the construction zone at 3rd Street and the Bypass.
My first instinct was to grunt. I reached down deep into my reserves of civility and said, “Yes, my precious angel?”
“Every man, except you and some other men I know, is a child molester,” she said.
I sat up straight. I surely wasn’t going to grunt at this pronouncement.
“Huh?”
“That’s what I believe. There are just too many incidents. It happens far too much. The only thing I can say is that the only man who’s not a child molester is a dead man.”
Wow. Normally I feel somewhat itchy about carrying the XY chromosome, what with fellow males like Rush Limbaugh, Gene Simmons, and the Rev. Fred Phelps running around loose. (Then again, the Double-X set can claim Ann Coulter and Michele Bachmann, so there!) Anyway, I suddenly felt awash in guilt by association.
If Rush Is A Guy, I Don’t Want To Be One
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“But darling,” I protested, “Methinks you’re hyperbolizing. Yes, we hear about child molestation but that’s because it’s news and news usually is the unusual.”
The Loved One shook her head. “It happens everywhere. And what about the way men look at teenaged girls?”
“Well,” I said, “you have to consider this. Wouldn’t it be natural for men to look at a female just as soon as she reaches sexual maturity? I mean, a fourteen-year-old can be alluring because she’s already grown all the necessary appurtenances. But laws and mores forbid us from acting on those instincts so most men don’t.”
“That’s just what I’m getting at,” she countered. “Women see things differently than men. Women feel that if you’re thinking about it, it’s just as bad as doing it. Take ‘Lolita.’ The men who saw it probably thought, ‘Oh, it’s just a movie.’ But it deeply affected a lot of women who saw it.”
At this moment I thought I’d hit upon the coup de grace. “If what you say is true, ” I said triumphantly, “why do you exclude me and these unnamed other men you know. Aren’t we, then, child molesters, too?”
I waited for The Loved One to relent and say, “Yeah, you’re right. I exaggerated.”
And waited. And waited.
By the time we reached Indiana Avenue, I’d shrunk into a corner of the car seat. If the Prius had an ashtray, I’d have jumped in.
She pulled up in front of Soma, we kissed each other goodbye, and I watched her drive off. My wife. MY love. The woman who posits that I’m a child molester.
Marriage is a fascinating experiment.
Remind me to tell you about the time The Loved One called me gay because I knew all the words to “There Is Nothin’ Like a Dame” from “South Pacific.”
Yup. Ninety percent of the enlightened, educated, broad-minded populace of Bloomington, Indiana and surrounding environs chose to give the finger to democracy.
Oh, sure, the election was pretty much a joke. After all, Mayor Mark Kruzan and City Clerk Regina Moore ran unopposed. And every single Republican who lives in this blessed county ran in the election (that would be three GOP-ers overall.)
And The Winner, In A Unanimous Decision, Is…
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But there was a semblance of a race for the three at-large seats in the Bloomington Common Council. Chris Sturbaum faced a nominal challenge in the 1st council district as well.
The Me Party-ists won so many of last November’s Congressional contests in large part because voters who actually possess cerebellums stayed home.
Maybe we’re not so smart after all.
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THE SECRET
So far, the Indy Colts are the worst team in the National Football League. Their record stands at 0-6.
It’s a civic embarrassment. The combined record of the Colts and the Indiana Hoosiers would be an execrable 1-15. Yech.
Clearly these are not glorious days for professional and collegiate bone snappers and ligament rippers in the great state o’Indiana.
Sad Sundays
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Something had to be done so the Colts’ Jeff Saturday, a mountain of gristle and muscle who plays center, called a team meeting this week. Apparently, he roared at his mates and then revealed to them the secret to winning which he, a 13-year veteran of the human carnage that is NFL football, has learned.
He spoke about his revelation later in a press conference. “…[I]t needed to be said and I said it,” Saturday explained.
The secret? Saturday told his fellow Colts they must “play better.”
Oh.
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LESS IS MORE
Speaking of sports, who do you think will have the better basketball season — the Pacers or the Hoosiers?
Laid my mitts on a couple of local publications I’d never seen before this week. One is put out by high school aged kids, the other by college students.
“The Antagonist” is a monthly publication of Brad Wilhelm‘s Rhino’s Youth Center. Rhino’s caters to kids from the ages of 13 through 18. The fall issue of “The Antagonist” is devoted to horror, natch.
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You’ll find some fairly fascinating stuff within its semi-glossy pages. James Pfister lists some of the haunted sites in and around Bloomington. The IU Career Center, so the story goes, is ghost-infested because abortions were performed in the place many years ago. Who knew?
A kid named Ricky pens a fairy tale with a moral and the aforementioned Pfister rates local buildings in their efficacy as safe havens in the event of a zombie invasion. The fourth cover features a colored pencil drawing of Puffy the Vampire Bear.
Nice work.
“The Black Sheep” bills itself as “A college newspaper that’s actually about college,” which I suppose is a jab at the IDS for running stories about silly things like local news and world events.
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The tabloid provides a guide to lying to loved ones when the college student returns home for Thanksgiving. There’s plenty of value in that. Hell, I’m 55 and I still fudge things when I report back to the clan for the holidays.
An attached photo also endorses alcohol as a therapeutic bracer against the onslaught of kin. Count me in again. Man, I’ve contemplated dosing myself with morphine when forced to rub shoulders with my blood relations.
On the other hand, “The Black Sheep” descends into over-weening snarkiness at times. Here’s an example. In a piece about IU being an alcohol-free campus, the writer types, “… it is supposed to be dryer than Mother Theresa’s (sic) corpse’s vag.”
So “The Antagonist” is refreshing and creative while “The Black Sheep” is world-weary and shock-jock-y. That can describe the difference between many 14-year-olds and 19-year-olds.
Wanted: Linda Robbins. Suspect May Be Armed (with paper ballots).
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Bloomington’s three incumbent at-large Common Council members have been reelected. Tim Mayer, Susan Sandberg, and Andy Ruff all outpolled the two lone Republicans on the ballot (the two, in fact, may be the lone Republicans in Bloomington, period.)
In the only contested district race for the Council, incumbent Dem Chris Sturbaum whupped newcomer KC Baker to keep his seat in the First.
Not That KC, Silly!
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Our KC is also a Republican so there are at least three of them in our town now.
Did I mention Mayor Mark Kruzan and City Clerk Regina Moore retained their offices after all the ballots were counted? They ran unopposed, of course. Sheesh. And people say my hometown of Chicago is a monolithic, single-party kingdom.
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IS IT LEGAL TO SPANK COLLEGE STUDENTS?
You thought I was steamed yesterday when I wrote about the Penn State knuckleheads who rioted because football Coach Joe Paterno was fired? You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Tomorrow is PSU’s last home game of the season. Extra security forces have been called in — the Pennsylvania State Police will beef up its contingent to help State College and campus cops keep a semblance of order. One regent from visiting Nebraska wants more protection for his “student-athletes.”
State College police spokesman Capt. John Gardner described the situation in terms of war. “Each time they (rioters) up the ante, we’re going to up the ante too,” he promised.
This Means War!
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But here’s what’s frying me. Penn State assistant coach Mike McQueary won’t be anywhere near Beaver Stadium. Why not?
Well, the no good rat had the gall to report that he’d seen a former assistant coach having sex with a ten year old boy in the PSU football facility shower room in 2002. That revelation, stonewalled and sat upon by university officials — including Joe Paterno — led to the firings of the legendary coach and the university’s president Wednesday. At least three people including Jerry Sandusky, the alleged child molester, have been charged by a Pennsylvania Grand Jury so far in the ongoing scandal.
Naturally, a lot of faithful Penn State football fans have responded. They’ve sent death threats to McQueary.
Off With His Head!
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Imagine that! The no-goodnik wrecked everything for Penn State football. Just because he saw some child being sodomized by a grown man.
Grrrr. I’d like ten minutes alone in a room with any of the entitled little white rats who rioted Wednesday or sent those death threats to McQueary. And you know most of those reprobates are having fun with McQueary’s surname — as in Mc-Queer-ey.
When it comes to knuckleheads like them, a college education is a terrible thing to waste.
By the way, pretty boy actor Ashton Kutcher had to shut down his Twitter account yesterday because he expressed outrage that Joe Pa would be fired over such a trivial thing as ignoring the pederasty that was going on right under his nose.
As if all this isn’t crazy enough, former mediocre pizza company boss, radio talker, shameless self-promoter, and Republican presidential nominee front-runner Herman Cain reports that his campaign contributions have actually gone up since four woman have come forward to report what a slick and smooth romeo he is.
Now, Let’s Talk About That Job You Want.
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NUMEROLOGY’S EFFECT ON PLANETARY MOTION
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the world is spinning out of its orbit after all.
Ah, these are the good old days — redux — of campus activism, student organizing, direct action, participatory democracy, and, woohoo!, all those fun antics of the 1960s.
What’s old is new again, no?
Fighting For Peace And Justice In The 1960s
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Take last night. Hundreds of students — maybe thousands — took to the streets at a major campus. Tempers flared. A TV van was overturned. Bonfires were lit. The chant went up, “Fk the trustees!”
Oh man, I’m young again! When I was 13 years old, I couldn’t wait to get to college where I could shake my fist in righteous indignation at the stuffy old board of trustees, rail against the Vietnam War, and carry placards against racism.
Today, the kids are alright once again. Wall Street, the sickening gap between the rich and the poor, and the right wing have driven students into the streets just like the ’60s. Occupy encampments are popping up all over the….
Wait a minute. Whoa.
Last night’s festivities had nothing to do with poverty and greed and austerity budgets. No.
At Penn State, the trouble was over the firing of one Joseph Vincent “Joe” Paterno, born 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, resident for the last 60-plus years near the central Pennsylvania town of State College.
Fighting For…, Um…, Something In The 2010s
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Joe Paterno may be the most celebrated Pennsylvanian since, oh, Ben Franklin. Or at least Kevin Bacon.
Old Joe Pa was fired last night. That’s why the mobs descended upon the sleepy campus and rioted.
Old, venerated, wildly successful, legendary Joe Pa. Kicked to the side like just another half-eaten hamburger. The winningest college football coach in the history of the Solar System. Maybe even the Milky Way Galaxy, for all we know.
What ensued was, yes, righteous indignation, direct action, participatory democracy.
And all because a great man was unceremoniously dumped.
Um, that great man essentially sat on his hands when he found out his trusted aide, his long-time friend, the architect of the Nittany Lions’ storied defenses, was caught having sex with a 10-year-old boy in the shower room of the football facility nearly ten years ago. Allegedly.
Still Pals Despite The Shower Scene
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A Grand Jury has charged Joe Pa’s great and good pal Jerry Sandusky with diddling around with at least eight other such small fry. It also has charged Penn State’s athletic director and campus police boss with perjury. Apparently, they valued the football program’s reputation a thousand-fold above the psyches, the mouths, and the anuses of those little boys.
As for Joe Pa, he found out about the shower room incident almost immediately after it was discovered. Some graduate assistant, according to the top notch sports writer Joe Posnanski, had decided to go to the football facility late one night in 2002 to study game films. He heard noises coming from the shower room and went to investigate. There he saw the perverse primal scene.
The graduate assistant reported what he saw to Paterno. The coach told his own superiors.
And that was that.
Joe Paterno, a great man, a legend, leader of young men, and the winningest college football coach in the Solar System, promptly forgot about the whole thing.
Alright, maybe he didn’t exactly forget about it. I have no way of knowing what rattles around in the head of a great man or the winningest college football coach in the history of humankind.
We only know that Joe Pa did nothing to delve into the accusation. He instituted no investigation. He didn’t fire or reprimand his great and good pal. He could even have thought the whole story was a malicious lie and raised a stink that his trusted companion was being persecuted. But he didn’t.
The record shows that Joe Pa sat on his hands.
Joe Pa, whose surname means “fatherly” in Italian, issued a press release earlier this week. In it he said, “… I did what I was supposed to do with the one charge…. Let’s be fair and let the legal process unfold.”
In other words, he covered his ass.
Whaddya Want Me To Do?
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And now he’s fired.
And the student activists of Penn Sate University have rioted in response.
I hope Penn State never wins another game in any sport they play as long as Joe Pa is alive. Oh, and as long as any of the child-abuse condoning jerks who took to the streets last night live, either.
