Category Archives: Poverty

03/03/2015
1 Comment
Earth Wind & Fire, Health Care, Janet Cheatham Bell, Poverty, Ramsey Lewis, W. Kamau Bell, WFPK

Hot Air

Life Is Not Fair

Listening to my fave radio station in the world — Louisville’s WFPK — this morning, I learned that it’ll be pushing 60º in the River City today.

Sixty goddamned degrees.

Spring

Flowers

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Now L-ville is a mere 71.13 miles from B-ton as the crow flies. So why is it that they get March-like temps and we get freezing rain, sleet, and snow today?

I’m telling you, some rotten-to-the-core weather deity has it in for us.

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Condolences; Here’s Your Bill

We all agree that there’s a crisis in health care in this holy land. It’s true even after the initiation of the Affordable Care Act under which some 12 million people are now covered.

Still, though, health care in America is a money game. If you’ve got the dough, you don’t have to worry all that much about fancy tests and ER visits and expensive prescriptions. If you’re poor, well, life is tough, isn’t it?

That is, human health care. What about critter doctorin’?

I know a guy — let’s call him Randy — who’s on the hook for a medical bill from a veterinarian that he can’t pay. He’s an Army veteran and he’s going to school right now, looking to earn his master’s degree in business.

Randy’s cat was injured a while back. Over the next couple of days, the cat’s wound became infected. Randy took the cat to a local veterinarian. The vet told Randy the cat would have to stay overnight. The next morning, the vet called Randy and gave him the bad news — the cat had died that night.

Randy cried his tears and got on with his life. Then the bill came. The veterinarian wanted $600 for treating the cat and boarding it overnight.

To a guy like Randy, $600 may as well be $60,000. He’d be hard pressed to pay if the vet had demanded $60. Randy told the vet he didn’t have the dough. The vet responded by hauling Randy into court.

The two parties have yet to meet before the judge. Randy says the vet is a villain, charging him, essentially, for services that did him and his cat no good. Why, Randy wonders, should he have to pay for them?

This one’s a poser, no?

Cat

A Live Cat

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Even lawyers, a breed we like to stereotype as money-grubbing, offer services at contingency rates, meaning if they lose your case, you don’t pay them. Can’t doctors do something similar?

The argument can be made that doctors, their nurses, their receptionists, their record-keepers, and everyone else associated with running a well-oiled office still have performed for you whether or not your cat dies or the dot on your skin becomes cancer. Then again, lawyers can say the same thing. Doctors may counter that they actually use goods and products — hypodermic needles, catheters, medicines, and those paper slippers you have to slip on as you trudge down the hall to the MRI room. Somebody’s gotta pay for them.

All Randy knows is he brought his cat in for repair and was left only with an impossible bill.

I don’t know where I stand on this right now. I suppose if I were Randy’s confidant (we’re only acquaintances) I’d suggest he work out a payment deal with the vet or offer to fork over a percentage of the total at once. Of course, Randy would say he doesn’t even have a fraction of the $600.

The only conclusion that makes any sense is being poor sucks.

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The Bell Of Bloomington

Our town’s Bell family is quite a high-minded bunch. Janet Cheatham Bell, who lives here, writes about being a black woman, touching on nearly all aspects of living in this holy land, what with our racism, sexism, poverty, materialism, our love of guns, our fear of The Other, and a myriad of different ills. Her kiddo is comedian and social commentator W. Kamau Bell who’s the equal of or better than 98 percent of the gabbers and muggers who appear nightly on television (and don’t ask me who the superior two percent are). He had his own show a while back, on an FX network, but that didn’t work out. He doesn’t look altar-boyish like Jimmy Fallon or innocuously clownish like Conan O’Brien. He looks like, well, a black man and that’s a bit scary for Ma & Pa Kettle.

Bell

Bell, Then & Now

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Janet has been writing about her negotiations with America for years. Her tomes include:

  • Famous Black Quotations
  • Victory of the Spirit: Reflections on My Journey
  • The Time and Place that Gave Me Life
  • Not All Poor People Are Black

Nobody’s made a movie based on any of her works but I’ll tell you this: They’re a hell of a lot more compelling than some upper middle class white woman’s story about “finding herself” by hanging around with sub-continent mystics and shamans.

Bell (Janet Cheatham, that is) this past month did a series of radio and web interviews largely in celebration of Black History Month. Here are some highlights:

She hints she has a few more interviews coming up in March — Women’s History Month — so keep an ear and/or eye out for them. Perhaps it’s time we start seeing the likes of Janet Cheatham Bell as more than just token speakers for black people but as articulators of the entire human experience. She is one of us — all of us.

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Sun Goddess

Ramsey Lewis and Earth, Wind & Fire collaborated on this gem in 1975. Don’t ever let anyone tell you the ’70s were a bad decade for music.

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09/23/2014
1 Comment
Anand Giridharadas, Anti-intellectualism, Anti-science, Bloomington City Council, Bloomington Parks & Recreation, Deer Culling, IFLS, ISIS, Jeff Hobbs, Lisa Winter, Mark Kruzan, Poverty, Racism, Susan Sandberg, Syria, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Hot Air

Oh, Those Deer Again

As mentioned earlier in these precincts, the upcoming deer cull (or, if you prefer, kill) has raised a lot of hackles around town. A private wildlife management company (or, if you prefer, hired assassins) will mow down a few of the cuddly but troublesome ruminants this fall. Some B-town residents are in favor of calling out the Air Corps and having them drop the A-bomb on the Griffy Lake area where the deer loiter. Others say, Hey, wait a sec, those little cloven-hoofed Bambis were here first so we should learn to live with them. All of them.

The argument has reached sniffy and huffy proportions at times. The city’s Parks & Recreation Dept. approved the cull plan earlier this year. The City Council followed up by waiving the city’s no-shootin’-o’-them-there-firearms ban. Mayor Mark Kruzan then vetoed the Council’s waiver. The majority of the Council sniffed, stuck to their guns (pun intended), and overrode his veto.

Bloomington Council

Bloomington’s City Council

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One of our fave Pencillistas is Bloomington City Councilperson Susan Sandberg. She voted yea on the cull and has been dodging missiles ever since. And, like pretty much all political discussion these days, the rhetoric turned ludicrous. Some anti-cullers have suggested that the kill plan is symptomatic of this holy land’s love affair with guns and one or two have even suggested that recent muggings on the B-Line Trail just may be a direct result of the Council’s (and Sandberg’s) mania to solve our problems with firearms and violence.

Well, our gal got pushed over the edge by that. Sandberg took to Facebook the other day and huffed:

I just have to get this off my chest based on a subtle but false remark made in the last Council meeting. To equate gun violence against human beings with my position on responsible deer population management in the Griffy Woods Preserve to protect the ecology of other species is simply not acceptable. For all who follow my posts here, there is no one, I repeat NO ONE who is more horrified by senseless gun violence in America than yours truly. To suggest that those of us who support managing the over abundance of deer in Griffy is in any way related to a reckless gun culture or a direct cause of violence in Bloomington is irresponsible and untrue. I will not let that propaganda stand without respectful rebuttal. I’ve heard that some folks are out there saying that the recent violence on the B-Line trail is directly related to the City Council supporting lethal and humane methods of deer management in Griffy. Those two issues have nothing to do with each other and to spread that false line of thinking is offensive and absurd. I’ll be much more outspoken about this in public meetings if these false comparisons continue.

I, of course, leapt to Sandberg’s defense. Hell, she may be a Congressbeing or even the Governor one day and wouldn’t it be swell to have a friend in either the state’s or nation’s capital?

Like The Dude, Sandberg drew a line in the sand and would not let this (verbal) aggression stand, man.

From "The Big Lebowski"

This Will Not Stand

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Later on in the comment thread, SuSand hinted that some communiques from the anti-cull gang have been threatening and one or two have even characterized her as a Hitler. Susan Sandberg, I’ll say here and now, is no Adolph Hitler — she’s not even a vegetarian.

I spoke with another high-ranking official in these parts yesterday afternoon. Whadja think of SS’s smackdown of her critics the other day? I asked.

This high-ranking official eyed me for a moment and then responded, “When you take the job, you’ve got to accept the criticism that comes with it.”

I think my high-ranking official source is right. Therefore I advise S-squared to ignore the dumb bastards in the hereinafter. I’ll take up the sword in her stead. I’m no elected official so I don’t have to put up with anybody’s stupidity.

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Bomb Newark

Here’s a Wow! quote from the front page of Sunday’s New York Times Book Review:

There are places in America where life is so cheap and fate so brutal that, if they belonged to another country, America might bomb that country to “liberate” them.

That’s as powerful a statement as I’ve read in a big-time media outlet in I don’t know how long. Honestly, I can’t imagine how the line got past the NYT editors.

It is incendiary, it is dramatic, it is shocking, it is bold and, above all, it is true.

It’s the opening sentence in a review of the book, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, the saddest of possible tales about living in the slums of Newark, New Jersey. The book traces the life of the title kid who somehow succeeds despite being raised among gangsters, poverty, miserable schools, and the constant threat of violence. He found his way to Yale University where he majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. But Rob also had a daddy-o who was a dope dealer and who warned him off reading books because they’d make him soft. Rob eventually inherited his daddy-o’s drug business. Then he was killed.

Book Cover

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A NYT columnist named Anand Giridharadas wrote the review. Jeff Hobbs wrote the book. I suppose if you want to drive yourself into a deep depression, you’ll read it. On the other hand, there’s a lot about America that’s awfully depressing and it does us no good to ignore it.

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Boom Times

Just for the record, I’m four-square in favor of the pounding the US and its temporary allies are giving those ISIS boys in Syria and parts nearby.

Tomahawk Missile

Stock Image Of A Tomahawk Missile Launch

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People here and there are harrumphing that the whole ISIS scare is a false flag thing, that the US can’t be trusted to deliver us the truth since Iraq. It’s true Little Georgy Bush’s funtimes war against Saddam Hussein was based on pure, unadulterated bullshit. And that indeed should give us pause every time the leaders of this holy land try to sell us a bill of goods.

It doesn’t mean, though, that every utterance from every succeeding president is fraudulent.

The world needs to be wiped clean of ISIS.

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Science (Non)Fiction

Lisa Winter writes in IFLS about the Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries of Science.

That is, the most perplexing questions we haven’t been able to answer about the world — hell, the Universe — around us. Those who scoff at science (can you believe I’m actually writing these words in the 21st Century?) say, See, Science doesn’t know everything!

Correct. Science doesn’t know everything. Actually, science knows nothing since it’s a descriptor of a process rather than a person or group of people who, like, know things.

Those anti-science-ites like to say things like that to infer that not only does science not know everything, it really knows nothing. Evolution? Bah. Global warming? Puh-leeze. Childhood vaccinations? Never. That’s a lazy over-reaction on a par with those (as mentioned in an entry above) who think that because of Iraq, all American presidents lie about everything.

Bumper Sticker

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Well, presidents do lie and science — or , more accurately, scientists — are scratching their heads about any number of things. As Osgood Fielding III says in Some Like It Hot, “Nobody’s perfect.”

Here then, acc’d’g to Lisa Winter, are the most troublesome Q’s scientists face these days:

  • Why is there more matter than anti-matter?
  • Where is all the lithium?
  • Why do we sleep?
  • How does gravity work?
  • Where are all the extra-terrestrials?

From "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Where Are These Guys?

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  • What is dark matter?
  • How did life begin?
  • How do plate tectonics work?
  • How do animals know where to go when they migrate?
  • What is dark energy?

When I was a little kid, I’d watch cars zip by on North Avenue on Chicago’s Northwest Side and feel frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how they could move. Nothing was pushing those cars; nothing was pulling them. The fact that they were zipping by seemed, to my little mind, impossible. Somehow, though, I knew it wasn’t impossible, nor was it magic. There was a reason, an explanation, a confidence that I’d eventually know.

Scientists today are like little kids when it comes to the aforementioned ten bogglers. No, science doesn’t know everything; it’s got a million questions.

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07/25/2014
1 Comment
Abdul Hakim-Shabbaz, Charna Halpern, Del Close, Homeless, Improv Olympic, Indianapolis Star, iO, Jim Tomasello, Mick J. Napier, Neil Steinberg, Poverty, R.E. Paris, Richard Branson, Rush Limbaugh, Sandra Fluke, Yes And....

Hot Air

Yes And…

“Life is much richer when you say ‘yes’ than if you say ‘no.'”

So said Richard Branson to the Chicago Sun-Times some years ago, as reported by Neil Steinberg in his column today.

Branson

Richard Branson

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Apparently Branson’s bank account (accounts?) would bear this out. He’s one the the richest guys around, natch, making his dough through such ventures as Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airways. It isn’t just money, though, that makes for a rich life. As long as you have enough to eat, a roof over your head, health care, an education, friends, and family, your life can be as rich as Donald Trump’s (or richer because I can’t imagine Trump’s world being at all fulfilling — either to me, theoretically, or him, in reality.)

Anyway, Branson appears to be one of those guys whose def. of success does not include the annihilation of you, me, or anyone else. He’s a win-win type of primate. Capitalism of late seems a hyena-versus-lion proposition, as in I’m eating and if you’re starving, what do I care?

Today’s world, as defined by Trump, the Kochs, the oil companies, and the Wall Street banksters, is a win-lose prop.

So huzzah for Branson and his riches, pecuniary and otherwise.

Saying Yes has been a philosophy I’ve tried to adhere to (often with success, even) ever since I studied comedy improvisation under the late Del Close and Charna Halpern at the improvOlympic (since renamed, thanks to trademark lawyers, iO Chicago). I started going up on stage to create skits and scenes without a script back in the winter of 1986. I even was part of an improv troupe that put on a weekly stage soap opera called “Children’s Hospital,” along with such notables as comedy guru Mick J. Napier and musician Jim Tomasello. At the then-improvOlympic, I worked with and watched such future Hollywood stars as Mike Meyers, Chris Farley, Lili Taylor, Joel Murray and a raft of others.

Close/Halpern

Del Close & Charna Halpern

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The single defining commandment of iO was “Yes and….” In fact, boss Charna Halpern‘s business card read “Yes and….”

It’s a simple idea. Whatever suggestion or proposition someone makes on stage, you go along with it. You build on it. You say to the person who proposed it, “Yes, and…,” and then you build an even taller skyscraper of imagination. If your stage mate says, for instance, Here we are an a spaceship to Mars…, you don’t say, Aw, that’s crazy. You say, Yes, and when we get there, we’re going to hunt for extraterrestrial badgers with our ray guns. Won’t that be fun?

On our first day in class Charna (who taught the intro course) told us the Yes and…. thing not only would make us good improv performers but would actually help us in our daily lives. It sounds almost cultish or at least self-help-ish to say this, but she was right.

I’ve striven to say Yes rather than No as much as humanly possible in the ensuing three decades. Think of all the arguments you’ve ever had; as a rule, they arise when someone, maybe you, says No.

Some examples:

  • Wife: You know, sometimes I feel you don’t pay attention to my issues.
  • Husband: No. You don’t pay attention to my issues.

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  • Person A: Life is bleak. I wonder why I should go on.
  • Person B: No, it isn’t. You just need to snap out of it.

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  • Person X: The Israelis must be able to defend themselves.
  • Person Y: No. They’re murderers!

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  • Person 1: The Palestinians must be able to defend themselves.
  • Person 2: No. They’re murderers.

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On the other hand, one can go too far, albeit rarely, in saying Yes to everything. To wit:

  • Rush Limbaugh: Sandra Fluke is a slut.
  • Sane person: No she isn’t. You’re an asshole.

The No-sayer (in most cases) puts a halt to the progress of any conversation or plan. The word itself is combative. It’s fearful. It stops time. I try to say Yes whenever I can (and, as I say, I occasionally succeed.) Yes is freedom; No is not.

Try saying Yes all day today. You might be surprised.

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Career Counselor

Who is this son of a bitch, Abdul Hakim-Shabbaz?

That was the first thing that jumped into my mind when I read his horribly mean-spirited piece in Tuesday’s Indy Star recounting his clever, fun prank of asking panhandlers for money.

Hakim-Shabbaz

Abdul Hakim-Shabbaz, Social Reformer

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He wrote:

There is nothing more annoying than trying to enjoy a meal, cigar or just some quiet time and have people come up to ask for money. And since the City-County Council Democrats continue to block any meaningful proposal to get these guys off the streets, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to turn the tables on the panhandlers and start asking them for money.

So he hectored panhandlers for money. What a wit, no?

No — as if it’s necessary for me to answer that for you.

In order to put these poor, homeless bastards in their place, he actually asked them for a handout. Pardon me, while I catch my breath; I may laugh myself into a heart attack.

And that would be because I, unlike Hakim-Shabbaz, actually have a heart.

He thinks a lot of the panhandlers he must endure as he digs the good life in downtown Indianapolis are really frauds and leeches. There’s the woman who “claims” she’s disabled but is able to push around all her Earthly belongings in a shopping cart (now there’s a great con job, eh?) Then there’s the kid who’s selling candy for charity but the sharp-as-a-tack Hakim-Shabbaz notes the charity is a different one every day.

Hoohoo, haha! — he began asking them for money. Oh man, he’s killing me!

So who is this social observer on a par with Wilde, Dickens, Sinclair, or even Marie Antoinette? Turns out he’s a talk radio host/attorney/standup comedian/college law instructor. Here’s his own bio on his website.

I suppose Hakim-Shabbaz might advise Indy’s crew of panhandlers to do as he did; that is, get jobs as talk radio hosts/attorneys/standup comedians/college law instructors. Then they wouldn’t ruin his day by asking for money.

You know, it may be easy to become a talk radio host/attorney/standup comedian/college law instructor just like him. All you have to do is work hard at being an asshole.

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Paris

Here’s the latest on the passing of RE Paris.

Paris

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According to her son, Eric, she began having trouble breathing at home Wednesday morning. She managed to call for an ambulance but by the time it arrived, it was pretty much too late. No details yet on why she had trouble breathing, although she’d been physically ill for a while, thanks in large part to being too broke to afford health insurance premiums.

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04/12/2014
2 Comments
Anat Shenker-Osorio, Birth Control, Holy Bible, Jonathan V. Last, Overpopulation, Paul McCartney, Poverty, State Book of Louisiana, Wealth & Privilege, What to Expect When No One's Expecting

Hot Air

Church & State

Time to get scared, kiddies:

NO Times-Picayune Headline

Click Image To Read Article

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Do I need to riff on this, or does the intrinsic insanity of it speak for itself?

Yeah, I’ll go with the latter.

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Too Many People….

I hate to be a buzzkill to all those proud pappies and mammies who plaster zillions of pix of their trophy babies all over the interwebs, but my deeply held opinion is that we have way, way, way too many peeps on this planet.

I’ve heard humanity described as the ultimate invasive species. I won’t go that far but I cannot deny that the lot of us need too much of the limited tonnage of natural resources Ma Earth can provide. There’s flat-out not enough raw stuff to produce all the goods needed to elevate everybody alive to our Murrican standard of living. Not everybody can expect to drink water out of a plastic bottle, keep a calendar on a handheld electronic device, wear a pair of sneakers made by slave labor in China, and have a Double Quarter-Pounder with Cheese for lunch every day. Homo Sapiens sapiens would need two or three Earth-like planets to supply all the ingredients for that universal lifestyle.

Street Crowd

Oh, The Humanity….

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Still, folks want us to go blithely and merrily along, procreating our way toward 8, 9, even ten billion cramped souls on this little rock, religious fundamentalists, primary among them. IDK why but the uber-pious loathe the notion of birth control in any form. I suppose it goes back to their codified worldview, which was formed and refined for a passel of pre-technological, pre-literate, overly-credulous, nomadic desert tribes in what we now call the Middle East. Nothing like having that forward-thinking gang set cultural and scientific policy for our 21st Century society, no?

Anyway, if you’re interested in reading both sides of the overpopulation argument, the New York Review of Books has a piece on a book by Jonathan V. Last entitled “What to Expect When No One’s Expecting: America’s Coming Demographic Disaster.” Last’s argument — one that’s pretty much advanced by all anti-birth-control-ists — is that if the pop. growth of this holy land is in any way curtailed, even slightly, why then these United States will be wiped off the face of the Earth by whatever gang is busy humping its way toward elbow-to-elbow existence.

The reviewer takes issue with Last in no uncertain terms. If you want more, here are a few other links for reviews of the tome:

Conservative news outlets, natch, are hot for Last’s book,

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Nobody’s Poor

Speaking of having not enough — or not having enough…, oh, you know what I mean — recent research has found that, in this holy land at least, even the poor don’t want to be classified as poor, so any pol trying to get votes by declaring himself a friend to the needy isn’t going to find much of a sympathetic audience.

Weird, huh?

If you’ve been following these screeds of late, you know my feeling that most Murricans harbor the fantasy that they’ll be billionaires one day, ergo the electorate’s patience with pols who do the bidding of the Kochs, the Ricketts, and Sheldon Adelson. In a sense, common folk think that whatever benefits the plutcocracy will one day benefit them.

Great Depression

Not Us!

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Talk about fairy tales.

Ironic — isn’t it? — considering the fact that the divide between the haves and have nots is growing enormous-er every second of every hour of every day.

So, back to pols erring in their siding with the poors, that’s the conclusion arrived at by Anat Shenker-Osorio, a political communications consultant. She writes in Salon that progressive candidates and sitting office-holders have to start using new terminology to show how much they love the more unfortunate among us. Or the less fortunate. Whatever, you know what I mean.

The idea being you can’t say, “Hey, guys, you ain’t rich and I’m on your side.” Our American egos are so fragile that if you think we’re poor, we don;t want you on our side.

Like I said, weird.

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Too Many People…, Redux

My least fave Beatle, sure, but Ram was a cool album. And this cut fits today’s post theme.

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04/10/2014
1 Comment
Ben Stein, Bloomington City Council, Bloomington Deer Task Force, Equal Pay, Equal Rights Amendment, Joe Ricketts, Poverty, Raw Story, Republican Party, Sheldon Adelson, Wealth & Privilege

Hot Air

Primavera

I’ll say this: If you don’t like what the sky, the winds, and the greenery are doing to us these days, you’re beyond help.

LMonroe20140405

Lake Monroe At Sunset, Saturday

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Ready, Aim….

You didn’t catch this in today’s Herald Times because the City Council didn’t get around to voting until well after the paper’s midnight deadline, but our dear elected leaders voted to allow that controversial deer shoot around Griffy Lake.

Deer

… Fire!

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Only Dorothy Granger and Steve Volan voted against it. Council chambers were packed yesterday with folks railing against the cull.

I’m in favor of whacking the deer if their meat can be harvested to feed the homeless. Same with Canada geese.

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Greed Is Good

Ben Stein, whose greatest contribution to society thus far has been the movie line “Anyone? Anyone?”, opened his caviar hole again the other day and told us how lucky we are that our species can boast among its membership the subspecies, billionaire.

“They fund symphonies and ballets and schools for inner city kids. They are a bulwark against tyranny because they can afford lawyers to fight overweening government,” Stein said, as reported by Raw Story.

Y’know, because the poor keep all their money to themselves, the selfish slobs.

Food Stamp

The Poor Keep Their Assets To Themselves

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Not content with elevating the likes of the Koch Bros. to sainthood, Stein also pontificates upon the poor.

“My humble observation is that most long-term poverty is caused by self-sabotage by individuals. Drug use. Drunkenness. Having children without a family structure. Gambling. Poor work habits. Disastrously unfortunate appearance. Above all, and counted in the preceding list, psychological problems (very much including basic laziness) cause people to be unemployed, have poor or no work habits, and enter and stay in poverty,” he said.

No word yet on whether Stein solved the eternal chicken-or-egg conundrum.

More evidence that a certain percentage of people in this holy land see the accumulation of wealth and those who obsessively participate in it as, de facto, good.

Mr. Pennybags

Whee, Me!

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Again, for the benefit of those on my side of the fence who wonder aloud how folks can keep voting for candidates whose raison d’etre is to further grease the already-frictionless path for the pathologically rich, lots of our national brethren and sisteren truly believe wealth — gobs of it, obscene piles of it, more than anybody could ever need in one lifetime or ten — makes the holder thereof morally, ethically, philosophically, and evolutionarily superior to the rest of us.

And it isn’t just the wealthy who buy into this — if so, coatholders for the plutocracy such as Paul Ryan or Scott Walker would never win an election. The 1% (in truth, more like 0.01%) has all the dough, sure, but they by definition constitute only that eensy sliver of the electorate. No, the mids and the poors revere wealth just as much as Sheldon Adelson or Joe Ricketts do. They think that if they’d just played their cards right and the breaks all had fallen their way, they, too, would have amassed a fortune big enough to buy elections, legislators, and, well…, heaven here on Earth.

Let’s go a step further: most of the mids and poors still dream that they’ll reach the rarefied heights of billionaire-dom one day, no matter how entrenched they are in their caste today.

That’s the American Dream: One day I’ll be richer, and better, than you.

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Frenemies

OTOH, how to explain the continued love affair half the electorate has with the Republicans, 100 percent of whose Senate members voted, essentially, against the equal pay bill?

I assume women vote Republican. And, if so, why? The GOP as far back as the 1970s demonstrated its loathing for dames by killing the Equal Rights Amendment. They haven’t done anything since to indicate that their view of females as brood sows and fap objects has changed a whit.

Being a double-X chromosomer and voting for Republicans is like being an Oglala Lakota and pulling for the 7th Cavalry. You’re all mixed up.

Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse: “Go, Custer!”

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03/31/2014
3 Comments
Asperger's Syndrome, Autism, Fox News, Masahiro Tanaka, O-baka Tarrento, Poverty, Walmart, Walton Family

Hot Air

Walmart Wants You Poor

This is no breaking news (The Pencil is not CNN talking incessantly about a missing jetliner) but Walmart’s business model has been found to depend on an expanding population in poverty so that its shareholders and execs can amass gobs of cash.

In other words, it’s in Walmart’s best interests for you to collapse, financially. Isn’t the free market a delight?

Great Depression

Walmart’s Preferred Customer Base

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As I say, we’re not stopping the presses to get this news out. Only that the Walton family, the members of which rank among the richest humans in the universe, has now confirmed what those of us who aren’t snoozing through life have known for years. In the company’s latest annual report, Walmart comes out and says, unapologetically, that it needs people receiving SNAP benefits and other public assistance programs in order for its wealthy bosses to become even more wealthy.

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Everybody’s On The Spectrum

And I will be condemned to death by stoning by many in this holy land, but I’ve been talking about this for years:

Autism

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The author’s suspicion? There is no patented autism drug that the obsessive anti-Big Pharma people can jump on — the idea being that all drug companies are run by amoral fiends who force doctors to diagnose diseases and prescribe drugs solely to bolster bottom lines.

But first, let’s whip on the author: He’s wrong. There’ve been plenty of pieces in mainstream and scientific media about overdiagnosis of Asperger’s and other autism spectrum maladies. Nevertheless, the point still holds. If everyone and his brother has autism, then nobody has autism. One observer has hit the nail quite nicely on the head: It’s a spectrum, and we’re all on it.

[h/t to Jerry Boyle.]

▼

Stupid Talent

Finally, oh golly gee, I love this! First, a caveat. You may not care for sports, and that’s cool. You may also think long profiles of professional athletes are about as fascinating as watching the person in front of you in the checkout line look for his preferred customer discount card for about an hour and a half. Most times you’re right.

The New York Times yesterday ran a super-long thesis on the life and times of erstwhile Japanese pitching star Masahiro Tanaka, who’ll be flinging the horsehide for the Evil Empire this annum. Trust me, I’m a baseball geek and even I couldn’t slog through all the Tanaka minutiae. But I did learn one fabulous thing. Tanaka’s wife is known as an o-baka tarrento. That’s Japanese for stupid talent. Literally!

Game Show Girl

A Typical O-baka Tarrento

■

Yeah, the Japanese have an actual term for silly, cute girls who have achieved some level of fame on, say, game shows, reality shows, or other high water marks of culture. Often they’re clueless about the world and their flamboyant dingbat-ism is so over the top that their very idiocy alone propels them to the top of the Q-ratings.

Acc’d’ng to the NYT, many Japanese consider such o-baka tarrentos to be “nonthreatening and adorable.”

Of course, we revere such inane human beings in this holy land as well. Only we call them Fox News personalities.

Fox Blondes

Megyn Kelly, Martha McCallum, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, And Gretchen Carlson

▲

11/12/2013
3 Comments
Dickinson (Texas) Independent School District, Erik Barajas, InfoWars, KTRK-TV, Obedience, Poverty, School Meals Programs, Think Progress, Typhoon Haiyan

Hot Air, Chilled Out

Life Challenges

Before we think about anything else, let’s think about this:

◗ Up to 10,000 human beings dead

◗ Hundreds of thousands without food, water, electricity, or shelter

◗ Infrastructure damage of more than $2 billion USD

◗ Agricultural damage of more than $8 billion USD

◗ Death, injuries, and destruction in the nations of Micronesia, Palau, Philippines, Vietnam, and China

Satellite View

Typhoon Haiyan Slams Into The Philippines

■

You and I, my friends, have no problems today.

▼

Personal Responsibility

We’re going to take a break from the slaughter in the streets of Bloomington over the naming of a new general manager at radio station WFHB. You know — a city divided against itself, brother against brother, and all that. With the grace of god and the tender mercies of men and women of peace, the blood may soon stop flowing.

Well, okay, at least the snippy comments, sidelong looks, and emphatic harrumphs may cease; Bloomington is not Syria so we have to take pride in whatever civil war we can muster.

Anyway, a story out of Texas — where else? — has been sticking in my craw the last week as Bloomingtonians girded themselves against the invasion of Kevin Culbertson.

You’ve probably seen the story on your preferred social media outlet or on newsy sites ranging from Think Progress to InfoWars. It seems some kid went to school one day last week and stood in line for his breakfast. He comes from a needy family so his breakfast is discounted. The way it works, his mother pays into an account, which is debited each time he sits down to eat at school. If his account is tapped out, he’ll be denied his grub.

Turns out the kid’s account was shy 30 cents on the day in question. The cafeteria servers wouldn’t give him his tray. He called his mom who, in turn, called the school and said she’d be right over to throw some cash into the account. But that, apparently, wasn’t good enough for the cafeteria servers. They dumped his tray in the garbage and told the kid to scoot to class.

His mother told reporters afterward: “There were kids all around him. I think he may have been a little embarrassed and upset and, of course, hungry.”

School officials told reporters thems the rules and they ain’t nuffin’ they can do about it.

Scene from "Oliver!"

“Please Sir, Can I Have Some More?”

■

Maybe so. Rules are rules and if we don’t follow them all of society will devolve into chaos and next thing you know men will be able to marry men and brown-skinned commies will be elected president.

Honestly, what else are officious bureaucrats supposed to say?

So I won’t quibble with the spokesbeings for the Dickinson, Texas, Independent School District.

I will, though, happily deliver verbal slaps to those cafeteria servers.

Is it so important to you to follow every single goddamned trivial rule, I would ask (correction: demand), that you’d humiliate a 12-year-old kid and deny him his breakfast?

It was 30 cents, for pity’s sake! Thirty goddamned cents. You mean to say you couldn’t have fished out a nickel and a quarter from your own pockets just to save him from humiliation and make sure his belly was full for a day of learning?

And let’s say none of the cafeteria servers could scrape up the 30 cents. Couldn’t they have just given him his tray and forgotten about the pennies he owed? I mean, if they felt it was so important, they could have pulled him aside and said, Look, kid, tell your mom to keep your account up to date.

The original story about this incident ran on Houston TV station KTRK, an ABC affiliate. Several grafs down in the piece, reporter Erik Barajas says it’s not known if the Dickinson ISD will change its procedures so this kind of thing won’t happen again.

I say screw the ISD, Erik. You should have peppered the cafeteria servers with the very questions I pose above. Organizations, departments, and bureaucracies are chock full of rules and regs that can’t be violated on penalty of death. It’s human beings who put these strictures, even the silliest of them, into action.

And human beings denied a 12-year-old his breakfast, humiliating him as part of the bargain.

Over 30 cents.

You want a revolution? Here’s the clarion call for it: People of America! Violate stupid regulations and procedures! Disobey officious, idiotic bosses!

What happened in Dickinson wasn’t a problem with the system; it was a lack of individual human decency.

▲

09/01/2013
1 Comment
Genocide, Labor Movement, Labor Unions, Marvin Gaye, Michael Dobbs, Native-American Holocaust, Oxfam America, Politicide, Poverty, Six Months In 1945, Slavery, Yalta Conference

Your Hot Air Today

Labor Day.

Celebrate it.

Why?

Simple.

Labor Day

■

According to a recent study released by Oxfam America, one of every four working Americans earns less than $10 and hour.

$10 an hour! That’s $400 a week. $20,800 a year. You’d better be living alone if you make that kind of scratch. And I do mean scratch. If you have kids, you’re screwed.

At least a quarter of this holy land’s population lives, therefore, in poverty. As Oxfam America concludes, the United States is “The most unequal rich country in the world.”

Need any more reason to support organized labor?

◆

The Limits Of Evil

This nation commits its share of crimes, both great and minor, against humanity. There is no argument. It is in the nature of empire to steamroll individuals and even other nations. If you don’t like it and wish it to change, then you must be prepared to give up cheap gas, air conditioning every single enclosed space you enter, filling your refrigerator enough to feed a small Bangladeshi town, and paying a first baseman $25 million a year.

Gas Europe

■

I don’t like much of what the Earth’s only superpower does in the name of god and country and I’m not afraid to say so. That’s what this space has been all about for the last five years (we moved from The Third City to The Electron Pencil a couple of years back.)

On the other hand, are we really all that bad? Is America as evil as, say, the old Soviet Union or even, as some on both ends of the spectrum love to shout, Nazi Germany?

Hell no.

To say so is to identify one’s self as a boob.

Tea Party Rally

■

Our most heinous evils, I daresay, are behind us. The Indian Holocaust and slavery are history and although we still have economic Jim Crow and we relegate Native Americans to sports mascots, the leaders of America are not ordering their mass killing.

An example. I’m reading the book Six Months in 1945, by Michael Dobbs. It covers the endgame of World War II when the leaders of the USSR, the United Kingdom, and America carved up the post-war world. In February of that year, Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin met at Yalta, a spectacularly gorgeous stretch of waterfront on the Black Sea in Crimea.

Yalta

“You Take This; I’ll Take That.”

■

The victors of “The Good War” were gathering in a place that was surrounded by desolation. The Crimea had been ravaged by invading German armies. In fact, as Roosevelt rode through the countryside on his way to the Livadia Palace, where he’d stay during the talks, he watched the passing lifeless landscape and remarked that he must suggest to Stalin that he re-forest the great Crimean plateau. He also said that the scorched and empty lands made him want to visit revenge upon the Nazis more than ever.

The only problem was, as much as the invading Wehrmacht devastated the Crimea, the Soviet Union itself, under orders from Stalin, had destroyed, killed, and razed in the countryside as efficiently and happily as the Nazis had. See, a few Tatars had more or less cooperated with the invading Germans. Therefore, in Stalin’s mind, every Tatar was guilty (at least potentially so) of collaboration.

Stalin

Man Of Steel

■

In Stalin’s mind, even the possibility that an individual or group might commit treason was the equivalent of guilt. A few Tatars flipping to the enemy was the same as all of them doing so.

Stalin ordered the relocation of the Tatars from their centuries-old homeland to a desert in Uzbekistan. That is, some 190,000 civilians were forced into train cars, locked in without water or waste disposal facilities, and sent off on a days-long journey. Nearly one in five died. While this was going on, the Soviet security forces flattened the land from which they’d come.

This happened in 1944. Anyone who is 69 years old or older was alive when it happened. My mother was 23. George H.W. Bush was 20. Warren Buffet, George Soros, Clint Eastwood, Rupert Murdoch, and Vin Scully all were alive.

The incident is within the lifetime memory of thousands, hundreds of thousands — hell, millions — still alive today.

That didn’t happen here. Nor did the mass killings in Cambodia in the late 1970s. The East Pakistan politicide of 1971. The almost countless genocides of sub-Saharan Africa since the 1950s. The +40 million killings in Mao-ist China.

Cambodian Genocide

Cambodia

■

The United States often is a bad player. But our evil of late has been finite.

That’s something to remember. Even if we are the the most unequal rich country in the world.

◆

What’s Going On

The full album, right here.

▲

09/28/2012
Leave a comment
Andrew Beacham, Ann Coulter, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, CNN, Great Depression, Great Recession, Huffington Post, Isaac Newton, Joe Donnelly, John Gregg, Mark Kruzan, Mike Pence, Planned Parenthood, Poverty, Republican Party, Richard Mourdock, US Census Bureau, Vi Simpson

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” — Isaac Newton

▲

MONEY WELL SPENT?

Bloomington’s big name Democrats will gather in Nick’s English Hut to raise dough for the party’s gubernatorial ticket tonight.

John Gregg and his ace in the hole, Vi Simpson, will press the flesh at the fabled old place starting at five. Mayor Mark Kruzan will host.

The Simpson Bump Won’t Be Enough

✍

With the roll that Barack Obama is on leading up to the general election in November, Gregg’s got to be hoping he can ride the president’s coattails into a victory that six months ago seemed impossible.

The truth is a Gregg win still would be a jaw-dropper. The Huffington Post’s Election Dashboard has Pence up by anywhere from 13 to 18 points in its compilation of polls.

If you’ve got a limited amount of cash to toss at a political campaign, it might be better spent on the US Senate race between Dem Joe Donnelly and Tea Party sweetheart Richard Mourdock, which HuffPo rates a toss-up.

Donnelly Can Win

▲

HARD TIMES, STILL

Conventional wisdom has it that when people are suffering economically, the sitting president’s going to be in hot water.

But like the Great Depression, this Great Recession has not been a conventional time. The electorate sees these bad money times as a result more of systemic failures than simply any single president’s policies.

And don’t let anybody fool you — we’re still in a big time slump. Take Indiana. More than a million Hoosiers now live in poverty, according to the US Census Bureau. That’s a nearly five percent increase from last year. Speaking of percentages, 16 percent of this state’s residents fall below the poverty line now.

Then Or Now?

✍

Perhaps if the Republican Party wasn’t in the clutches of whacked-out ideologues and, simultaneously, hadn’t nominated a wishy-washy boob as its standard bearer this year, Obama would be looking at a monumental poll deficit.

With enemies like the GOP, the Dems have all the friends they need.

▲

BATTY

Okay, let’s just say it and get on with our lives, Ann Coulter is mentally unbalanced.

HELP!

✍

The Harridan of the Right told George Stephanopoulis on ABC’s “This Week” wagfest that gays and women and immigrants and, well, anybody else who’s not Ann Coulter don’t have civil rights. And, no, I didn’t mistype there. You might try to get technical and say, “Hey, wait a minute. Ann Coulter’s a woman!”

That would be true were she not a nightmarish product of the TV industry’s evil brain.

▲

IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD PARTY

No, wait, let me amend that: the whole Republican Party is deranged.

A Tea Party candidate for Congress from Kentucky’s 2nd District has produced a campaign ad linking Barack Obama to serial killer Ted Bundy as well as Al Capone, Adolph Hitler, and the Muslim Brotherhood because he supports Planned Parenthood and has not expressed a desire to nuke the capitals of the Muslim world as yet.

Peas In A Pod: Adolph & Barack

✍

A word of warning: the vid shows images of aborted fetuses and murdered adults.

▲

THE MADNESS IS CONTAGIOUS

Wait, wait, wait! It’s CNN that’s psychotic! Dig these headlines from its online version the other night:

  • Decapitated woman lives to tell tale
  • Half-ton aunt too fat to be real killer
  • Fecal transplant saves woman’s life
  • Alcohol-enema case ‘shocks’ UT officials

That’s right — fecal transplant. I don’t even want to know.

A New Media Colossus?

▲

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

✍

Friday, September 28th, 2012

Brought to you by The Electron Pencil: Bloomington Arts, Culture, Politics, and Hot Air. Daily.

FAIR ◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds, Commercial Building West — 29th Annual American Red Cross Book Fair, +100,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, games, maps, sheet music, etc.; 9am-7pm, through October 2nd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center, outside WFHB Studios — Participate in the construction of “The Messenger,” recycled metal sculpture to be installed at B-Line Trail; 9am-5pm

CONFERENCE ◗ IU Memorial Union, Walnut Room — “Where’s the ‘World’ in Popular Music?” Interdisciplinary presented by the Colloege of Liberal Arts & Sciences, click link for schedule of events, free and open to the public; 9am-5:30pm

SEMINAR ◗ Various venues — The Combine, 3rd annual display of talent , innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit, featuring speakers, workshops, idea pitches, and mixers; through Sunday, September 30th, today’s events:

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Workshops; 9am

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Verge Power Pitch Session; 4pm

❏ Bloomington Convention Center — Tech Cocktail, mixer; 7pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — “Maria, Put the Tea Kettle on! We’ll All Have some Tea”; Anthropologist April Sievert discusses artifacts found at the Munson House at Spring Mill State Park in Lawrence County; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Art Museum — Noon Talk series: “Weston, Callahan, and Cameron,” presented by Garrett Hansen, guest curator of the Kinsey Institute’s exhibit, “A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners“; Noon

POLITICS ◗ Nick’s English Hut — Fundraiser for Indiana Democratic gubernatorial ticket John Gregg & Vi Simpson; 5pm

ART ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Opening reception for lobby exhibit, Stone Belt Art; 5:30-8pm

TEENS ◗ WonderLab — Teen Night, 5:30-8:30pm

DANCING ◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Salsa Under the Stars, part of National Hispanic Heritage Month; 6pm

OKTOBERFEST ◗ KRC Banquets — Music, dancing, & food, featring the Hungry Five German Band, the Bloomington Bones, & the Bloomington Brass Band; 6pm

ART ◗ The Venue Fine Art & Gifts — Opening reception for the exhibit, The Art of Fenella Finn; 6pm

RETREAT ◗ Bradford Woods — One Diva Weekend, for gay/bisexual men; Begins at 6pm, through Sunday at 1pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — Derek Jarman Super 8 Films; 6:30pm

WORKSHOP ◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Buddhism in Everyday Life Series: “What Is the One Most Important Thing on the Buddhist Path?” Presented by Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series: “Meet the Fokkens“; 7pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Gymnasium — Hoosier volleyball vs. Illinois; 7pm

OPEN HOUSE ◗ IU Radio-TV Services Building — WFIU Annual Listeners Reception; 7-9pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Joe Sanford; 7-9pm

NATURE ◗ Twin Lakes Sports Park — Bats in the Park, learn about bats, presented by the Center for North American Bat Research & Conservation; 7pm

MUSIC & POETRY ◗ Sweet Claire Bakery — Jacqueline Jones LaMon, poet, & Erol Ozsever, classical guitarist; 7-8:30pm

STAGE ◗ Bloomington Playwrights Project — Comedy, “RX,” by Kate Fodor; 7:30pm

STAGE ◗ IU Halls Theatre — Drama, “When the Rain Stops Falling;” 7:30pm

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU SoFA McCalla School — Group exhibit, “Aufheben,” photographers presented by curators Zachary Norman & Aaron Hergert; 7:30pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier women’s soccer vs. Illinois; 7:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Woodburn Hall Theatre — Ryder Film Series: “Neighboring Sounds“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Matt MacDougall Quartet; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 8pm

BALLET ◗ IU Musical Arts Center — “Light and Shade,” Presented by IU Ballet Theater; 8pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — The Reacharounds; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s Place — Grandview Junction; 8pm

FILM ◗ IU Fine Arts — Ryder Film Series: “Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present“; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Wakefield; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ Serendipity Martini Bar — Live Turkish music, Istanbul Breeze; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bluebird — Thomas Rhett; 9pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Blue“; 9:30pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy Attic — Greg Behrendt; 10:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Katy Perry: Part of Me;” 11pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Fleshpot on 42nd Street“; Midnight

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • “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

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “What It Means to Be Human,” by Michele Heather Pollock; through September 29th
  • “Land and Water,” by Ruth Kelly; through September 29th

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

ART ◗ Boxcar Books — Exhibit:

  • Celebration of Cuban Art & Film: Papercuts by Ned Powell; through September

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“

▼

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

07/13/2012
Leave a comment
Barry Manilow, Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls, George Wallace, Health Care Reform, Higgs Boson, Marshall McLuhan, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, NAACP, Poverty, Richard M. Nixon, Shelli Yoder, Soma Coffee, Todd Young, Tyler Ferguson

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Affluence creates poverty.” — Marshall McLuhan

♢

GAME ON

I have a feeling Rep. Todd Young (R-Indiana) is getting a little concerned about Shelli Yoder.

She Works Hard For The Money

✍

The Dem challenger, you may recall, came out of nowhere a couple of weeks before the primary filing deadline and proceeded to trounce four opponents, two of whom were actually serious candidates.

Yoder’s been criss-crossing the 9th District, shaking hands, marching in parades, and listening to folks talk about the state of the nation in diners and church basements. She’s been raising dough, too.

The former Miss America second runner-up is looking more and more like the real deal.

Ergo, the Todd Young campaign is hitting up contributors for what might turn out to be a contest. He’s raised $1.2M so for this election season, according to the Herald Times.

♢

TYLER EARWORMS ME

The inimitable Tyler Ferguson (Kaka Caliente of the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls) blew into Soma Coffee this AM, singing “Mandy.”

You remember “Mandy” don’t you? The Barry Manilow hit of 1974 wherein, according to legend, he sings lovingly — some say a little too lovingly — of his lapdog. He wasn’t, of course; the song was written by someone else years before Manilow turned it into his first chart-topper.

Please Forgive Me

✍

Anyway, Tyler/Kaka was pumped because the selfsame Manilow, she gushed, will be playing in these parts soonly. “You can get tickets for ten dollars!” she said. “I’d pay that for him. Nothing more, though.”

Where? I demanded, so I could leave the region while he was in it.

“I dunno,” Tyler said. “Somewhere.”

Which, come to think of it, is the definitive Tyler/Kaka answer.

So, here’s the deal. Manilow will play in Indy on August 3rd and in Louisville, July 27th. Bloomington will be, in other words, surrounded by Barry Manilow.

And now I have “Mandy” looping in my brain.

♢

WE’RE BROKE (EXCEPT FOR THAT TWO BILLION BUCKS WE FOUND)

I’ve never pretended to understand high finance. It’s as baffling to me as Higgs Boson is to a kindergartner.

All I know is Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and his legislative co-conspirators within the last couple of years have moaned and groaned about how the economy has ruined state finances and, therefore, school funding must be slashed to the bone.

Sorry, Kids

✍

Now, all of a sudden, there’s a $2.15B surplus in the Indiana state treasury? And now, all of a sudden, the state’ll be to be mailing out $100 checks to each and every taxpayer in the state? During an election year?

Are you confused about this, too? I have a sneaking suspicion, though, it all makes perfect sense.

♢

ROMNEY’S SMART

Say what you will about Mitt Romney, he played a brilliant hand when he spoke to the NAACP the other day.

In fact, he took a page out of the playbook of the Republicans and Cro-Magnon Democrats of the ’60s by putting himself in a position to be booed by attendees of the venerable civil rights organization’s annual conference the other day.

Ladies And Gentlemen Of The Negro Race….

✍

The likes of Dick Nixon and George Wallace occasionally would speak before hostile crowds and withstand their jeering just to remind their core constituencies which side they were on. Wallace was particularly adept at the tactic; he loved ranting and raving before college crowds, knowing full well he’d get verbal tomatoes (and sometimes the actual vegetable/fruit) thrown at him. His anti-intellectual base would read of the rude response in the papers or see it on TV news and be reminded how much they hated pointy-headed liberals.

You College Kids Hate Me, Donchya?

✍

Romney told the NAACP shindig that President Obama’s health care reforms were garbage. Natch, the NAACP-ers gave him the raspberry.

Some wags say Romney failed miserably in his effort to court black voters. Now there’s a misreading of the situation for you. Honestly, do you think Mitt expects to get any meaningful portion of the black vote?

Neither do I. But now the Me Party-ists and the shootin’ iron-totin’ back country Republicans know for sure that them blacks (saying the word with scorn and rage) are agin’ Romney almost as much as real Americans hate Obama.

♢

✍

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

◗ Stable Studios, Spencer — Bluegrass festival 2012, tonight: Open jam — tomorrow: The Travelin’ McCoury’s, The White Lightning Boys, Rumpke Mountain Boys, Flatland Harmony Experiment, New Old Cavalry, the Stuttering Ducks, The Seratones; 1pm-midnight

The White Lightning Boys

✍

◗ IU Dowling International Center — English Conversation Club, for non-native speakers of American English; 1pm

◗ The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts — Opening reception, ‘Our Fine Feathered Friends” exhibit by William Zimmerman, John Gould, James Tracy, Joanne Shank, and Julia Ferguson; 6pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Music Series: String academy final student recital; 6-8pm

◗ IU Art Museum — Jazz in July series, Mahluli-McCutchen Quartet; 6:30pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”; 7pm

“Jiro Dream of Sushi”

✍

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Whipstitch Sallies; 7-9pm — Bonz; 9:30-11:30pm

◗ Monroe Lake, Paynetown SRA — Dedication for new Activity Center, ice cream social; 7-8:30pm

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

◗ Brown County Playhouse, Nashville — Musical, “Footloose”; 7:30pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Chelsea Peretti; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ Cafe Django — Earplane, Latin-Brazilian jazz; 8pm

◗ Max’s Place — Sad Sam Blues Jam; 8pm — Ziona Riley; 10pm

◗ IU Musical Arts Center — Summer Arts Festival: Symphonic series, conductor Carlos Kalmar, works by Rossini, Dvorak, and Brahms; 8pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Elles”; 8pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Crossover; 8pm

◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — Ryder Film Series, “Gerhard Richter Painting”; 8:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — The Brown Bottle Flu, Hotel, War, Coralus; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Film, “Own Worst Eenemy”; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — Dot Dot Dot; 9pm

◗ Uncle Elizabeth’s — Vicci Laine & the West End Girls; 10pm & midnight

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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