Category Archives: Rape

09/14/2016
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Rape

Hot Air: Boys Will Be Boys

With a bizarre, masked home invader scaring the bejesus out of half the citizenry, rape has become perhaps the top topic of discussion in workplaces, at dinner tables, in bars and coffeehouses, and pretty much everywhere else females gather here in Bloomington.

Now, if we were to eavesdrop on any type of male-only pow-wow we likely wouldn’t hear the first reference to the punk who’s sneaking into homes of late and trying to rape lone women therein. And isn’t that an awfully big part of the problem? Why wouldn’t men be just as outraged as Bloomington’s women are?

The answer: Men don’t have vaginas. They have no skin in the game. So they couldn’t care less. In fact, too many of them — far, far, far too many of them — think the women who’ve been victimized by this weasel probably deserved their fate. Hell, they shoulda locked their doors or had a gun in the nightstand or shouldn’t’a dressed so alluringly — even though, I might remind you, the women were home alone, not expecting a masked psychosexual felon to barge in.

Most men simply don’t get rape. Tons of males think women secretly want to be raped, would love to be raped, and would swoon for the strongman who has the gumption and the guts to take what he wants from them by force.

Most men are idiots.

And now rape, for the umpteen-zillionth time, has become national news. A female student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has claimed UNC football player Allen Artis raped her in February. The incident, student Delaney Robinson says, took place in an apartment on campus early Valentine’s Day morning. Robinson says she was drinking but insists, rightly, that does not give anyone license to commit a violent or forceful crime upon her person.

screen-shot-2016-09-13-at-10-41-24-pm

The Best Defense Is A Good Offense

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Nevertheless, Robinson says, when she reported the rape at a local hospital, officials in charge of protecting the university from rape accusers, AKA the school’s Department of Public Safety, peppered her with questions about her sexual history, her sexual proclivities, and whether or not she had led Artis to believe he’d strike gold that early morning. “I was treated like a suspect,” she says.

Odd — isn’t it? — that school Public Safety officials would grill her rather than console her and assure her justice would be done. That’s what they’d have done had she accused Artis of swiping her smartphone. Now, that’s a crime that can’t be tolerated.

Then again, the way they treated her wasn’t odd at all.

It gets worse. Robinson says she and her attorney have viewed videotapes of the question-and-answer session DPS had with Artis after the incident was reported.

She told reporters yesterday:

Rather than accusing him of anything, the investigators spoke with him in a tone of camaraderie. They provided reassurances to him when he became upset. They even laughed with him when he told them how many girls’ phone numbers he had managed to get on the same night he had raped me. They told him, “Don’t sweat it. Just keep on living your life and keep on playing football.”

Artis, a junior, plays defense for the Tarheels. On the Tarheel Times‘ football team depth chart, he’s listed as the third strong side linebacker. Depth at linebacker is of vital importance for any football team’s defense. It’s certainly more important than the fragile feelings of some drunken little slut. How much do you want to bet that’s how Delaney Robinson is being described in the Tarheels’ locker room these days?

Anyone who isn’t outraged by the investigators chuckling and chortling with Allen Artis as he bragged about how many bitches’ phone numbers he collected that night simply doesn’t get rape. Maybe because they don’t get raped.

Rape, to them, is somebody else’s problem. The real problem, I’m sure too many UNC officials must feel, is finding a way to beat the James Madison University Dukes at Chapel Hill Saturday afternoon.

Life’s problems sure are simpler when you don’t have to worry about getting raped.

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08/02/2014
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Abbeville South Carolina, Anti-semitism, Charles Murray, Ku Klux Klan, Mark Potok, New Empire Knights, Racism, Rape, Richard Dawkins, Southern Poverty Law Center

Hot Air

Save Our Land, Join The Klan

Yup. That’s the message attached to bags of candy being thrown into yards in Abbeville, South Carolina, these days. It seems the Ku Klux Klan is trying to recruit kids and, golly gee, we ought to do something about it! That is, after we go out dancing the Charleston tonight and then after we vote for Herbert Hoover for president tomorrow morning.

Jeez, have we been transported back to the year 1932 while we slept?

A chap named Charles Murray IDs himself as “the Imperial Wizard of the New Empire Knights” of Abbeville. The group, Murray has written, is to “build a legit pro-white organization and become the voice of White America.”

Al Jazeera America tells the tale of this regressive, antediluvian, retro-in-the-worst-possible-way development.

Here’s a pic of a recent cross-buring I found on the New Empire Knights website:

KKK

Campfire Boys

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The site also carries news like the “fake” cross-burning a “Negro” pastor in Tennessee staged in front of his church not long ago. The author of the post, presumably the Imperial Wizard Murray himself, writes:

Negroes and Jews are known to hoax hate crimes daily. The Jewish Defense League for example, would bomb synagogues.

Betcha didn’t know that.

Bet you also didn’t know that, acc’d’g to Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, a lot of guys start klaverns (KKK-speak for local groups) as a way to make a living — as in, they don’t want to do something as prosaic as work, so they crank up a new group of cranks and then live off the monthly dues.

Hey, it’s a tough job market out there.

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Evil By Degrees?

I’m asking for help from female Pencillistas again. I’ve been trying to understand how women feel about rape. Oh sure, that’s easy; they hate it. I don’t mean that, though. I mean what are the nuances, is there any moral relativism re: rape, and can men ever “get it” about the crime? While we’re at it, let’s get Pencil-loving lads to pitch in as well — but I’m really more interested in Double X feedback here.

Please answer this Q: Are some rapes less, well, rape-y than others? That is, does date rape, for instance, constitute less of a violation of a woman’s body and mind than rape at gunpoint or knifepoint?

I bring this up because an erstwhile hero of the secular, progressive gang (me, me, me!) has recently found himself in very hot — perhaps boiling — water for suggesting such a thing. Richard Dawkins, the planet’s premier spokesguy for evolution and non-theism, has Tweeted the following thought:

Dawkins Tweet

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Got that? Okay, Dawkins then wrote:

Dawkins Tweet

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Let’s put aside the pedophilia bit just now and concentrate on rape. That Dawkins observation stirred an Australian woman named Eleanor Robertson to pen a guest column in The Guardian asking, “Richard Dawkins, What On Earth Happened To You?”

She suggests Dawkins should have “retired from public speech when he had the chance to bow out before embarrassing himself.” She goes on to rip Dawkins as a “figure of mockery,” “an old man who shouts at clouds,” an Islamophobe, arrogant, bigoted, and narrow-minded. What she doesn’t do is explain why his statement is offensive to her.

She hints, of course, that women know instinctively why. Sadly, I wasn’t born with the proper genes so I need help getting this.

Ergo, I’m going to run two polls here, one for women and the other for men. If you count yourself a Q in the LGBTQ equation, fill out both polls. Here you go:

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As always, feel free to explain yourself in the comments section. Now, make us all smarter.

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07/13/2014
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Hobart & William Smith Colleges, Misogyny, Neil Steinberg, Rape

Hot Air

Rape, Redux

My man-crush newspaper columnist Neil Steinberg addresses that stickiest of topics today: rape. I jumped into the same morass the day before yesterday on the Pencil.

Both columns in q. deal with rape on campus. Kids, you couldn’t get into a stickier mess than that of campus rape. Tons of frat boys and their running partners seem to believe all women want them in the worst way possible, and they only say no initially in some kind of perverse charade of chastity. No, to too many young males, means yes — after some strong persuasion that may or may not include physical intimidation.

Frat Boys

Surely They’ll Be Caring, Sensitive Lovers

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Some college females, it’s been argued, seem to be defining rape as something they feel uncomfortable about only in retrospect. For my part, I asked some pointed questions in these precincts. For instance, why would a college-aged woman sleep in the same bed as her accused rapist and even make him breakfast the morning after the alleged act occurred?

Recently, many colleges have re-written their policies concerning rape accusations. One or two are even recommending negotiations in flagrant delicti along the lines of “May I now touch this?” which, I imagine, might throw a splash of cold water on the proceedings.

Sadly, way, way, way too many of our male college students haven’t the foggiest idea how to read the non-verbal signals a young woman is issuing. Those boys, of course, can’t see the forest for their wood.

Anyway, Steinberg says the efforts by colleges and universities to control the problem misses the point. He refers to a big front page article in today’s New York Times about how Hobart and William Smith Colleges mishandled one student’s accusation that members of the Hobart football team gang-raped her. [Males attend Hobart and females go to W. Smith, even though the two are considered part of one institution.]

NYT Front Page Story

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The accusing student was harassed after the football players were exonerated in an apparent whitewash. Other students were enraged that she’d accuse the football guys of such a heinous crime even as they were on their way to an undefeated season. Winning, you know, excuses many crimes and misdemeanors.

Steinberg says rape victims are fools for turning to colleges for satisfaction. He writes:

[C]olleges have a hard enough time fielding competent professors. They are not in the crime-detection business, and while their bobbling such an investigation is not acceptable, it’s not surprising either.

He concludes:

The message from this story, a message that I believe is not driven home enough, and should be, is that if someone rapes you — a football player, a priest, a friend, anybody — you should always call the cops. Immediately. The cops might mishandle it, God knows they do that. But they’re the ones with experience in investigating crime, the ones in the best position to have a chance to get it right. Calling the police, I believe, is an important step in a crime being taken seriously.

Both Steinberg and I admit that we’re men, so what do we know? Again, I call for comment from loyal female Pencillistas.

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07/11/2014
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Kate Bush, Kay Kyser, Misogyny, Philadelphia Magazine, Rape, Sexism, Trigger Warning: Breakfast, University of Illinois-Chicago

Hot Air

Old Hat, New Head

The very sophisticated barista at the Pencil back office (AKA Soma Coffee) sent me reeling back to my college years by playing Kate Bush this AM.

Bush

Kate Bush, Then & Now

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Now, Kate Bush was viewed by the hip college intelligentsia (your humble correspondent, for one) as the cat’s miao some 34 years ago. That, my babies, is antico. Please consult your Italian-English dictionary. Natch, it’s not just emo-arty-baroque pop princesses who are still spun by the youth of this holy land these days. Had the rather sensitive-looking barista been, say, an aficionado of lunkhead rock (as remote a possibility as Michelle Bachmann attending her current husband’s inevitable gay marriage) he might have been playing, oh, Blue Öyster Cult’s Godzilla.

To fully grasp this phenomenon, one must consider whom I might have been listening to in those heady, smoke- and acid-filled afternoons spent lolling about in the University of Illinois-Chicago’s A. Montgomery Ward Student Lounge. In the year 1980, it follows, I’d have had to be grooving to the strains of Kay Kyser and His Orchestra or, IDK, something like  I Can’t Begin to Tell You, a duet by Bing Crosby and Carmen Cavallaro. Need I point out that I was doing no such grooving?

Kay Kyser’s Kollege Of Musical Knowledge

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I know of countless parent-child combos who attend rock concerts together, with the younger halves of those unlikely pairings not cringing in deathly embarrassment. My brother and his sons catch Steely Dan every time that act hits the Chi. area. My friends Kim (a mom) and Harmony (her issue) recently took in the Arrowsmith show up in Indy.

I would have run away from home and sold myself into white slavery had my parents suggested we all attend a Perry Como show at the Auditorium Theater.

Who knows? Perhaps the generation gap has become a crack in the sidewalk.

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Rape

Scroll through this strip. It’s called Trigger Warning: Breakfast. It’s raw. It’s heartfelt. It’s powerful.

From Trigger Warning: Breakfast

Panel From “Trigger Warning: Breakfast”

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Its first line is “The morning after I was raped, I made my rapist breakfast.”

It is, therefore, puzzling.

I don’t get it. And, considering the fact that I’m more feminist-y than even half the women I know, I’m going to suppose 99.9 percent of my gender confreres don’t get it either. So we need help.

Help us understand this.

Help us understand why a woman who considers herself raped would make the perpetrator breakfast.

Help us understand why she wouldn’t plunge a steak knife into his heart.

In April, Philadelphia magazine ran a piece about campus rape that included a story told by a former Swarthmore College student who says she was raped by a man in her dorm room. Here are some details about the rape: she and the man had been lovers for several months but had recently agreed (she thought) to be just friends; he fell asleep on her bed; she changed into her pajamas and laid down next to him; he woke up and became frisky; she told him she wasn’t interested in sex; he ignored her and carried on. Here, let’s let her finish the story:

“I basically said, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’ And then he said, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ and stopped,” Sendrow told me. “And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep.”

The woman considers what happened to have been a crime. A crime she did not report for a month and a half.

I understand why a woman would be loath to report a rape, especially on campus. The man whom the woman says raped her was a frat boy. The person she eventually reported the rape to was a frat brother. When she told the person about the rape, he was aghast that “such a good guy” would do such a thing.

For years, accusers have been battered in rape trials. Tens, hell, hundreds of thousands of them have been called sluts, flirts, opportunists, drunks, whores, man-haters, reckless idiots, and even the Devil in courts of law. No defense attorney calls a homeowner the Devil himself when he appears in court for the trial of someone who, allegedly, broke into his home and stole the family jewels.

Mamie Van Doren

Every Rape Victim In Every Court Of Law

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So, I’m not unaware of how the legal system and society winks at rapists. For far too long, we’ve considered the only real victims of rape to be husbands whose wives were so molested or parents whose teenaged daughters had been assaulted. In other words, rape has been officially viewed as a property crime. And the property in question has never really been the vagina, the mouth, or the anus of the true victim. Nor has the true victim’s dignity, sanity, or physical health been of much concern to the courts.

Until more women are elected as legislators, this take on rape will continue to be predominant.

Now that my cred has been established, I ask loyal female Pencillistas to come forward and explain something to me. I want to know.

I want to know why the Swarthmore College woman continued sleeping in the same bed until morning with a man she says raped her the night before. I want to know why she didn’t tell him to go fuck himself when he continued to press for sex after she’d said no.

I want to know why the earlier-mentioned woman didn’t add arsenic to her former boyfriend’s eggs.

In each case, the upshot might have been a fight. So be it. I want to know why the women elected to avoid a fight at the cost of their future sanity and self-regard.

Teach me.

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06/24/2014
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Barack Obama, E-books, George Will, Guns, Indiana University Press, Open Carry, Rape, Rick Perlstein, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Washington Post

Hot Air

Changes

A little house wren whispers in my ear that the debate is ongoing over at Indiana University Press regarding whether or not the outfit should cease publishing actual books.

Should the Press decide to quit the paper and ink racket, it would confine itself exclusively to electronic publishing. The bird asks, “Whaddya think?”

“As long as there still are people who grew up with hard copy books, there’ll be a demand for them,” I sez. “As soon as those generations die off, that’ll be the end of the printing press.”

The bird nods and says no more.

People tell me it’ll be a sad day when there are no more actual books. Of course, people probably said 30 years ago, “It’ll be a sad day when my VCR isn’t half the size of a city bus.”

Vintage VCR

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Target Practice

NPR reported this AM that Prez Barack H.O. has been making his security forces jittery of late by opting to walk hither and yon in the nation’s capital.

From NPR Morning Edition

Out In The Open

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After five and a half years of voluntary incarceration in the White House, Obama, like many another C-in-C before him has grown weary of living in the gilded cage. The report quotes Harry Truman, f’rinstance, as referring to the White House as “the great white jail.”

It was a cute story, characterizing BHO as a bear strolling around in search of food. The first reaction that hit me, though, was less than cute: There are at very least a few hundred Open Carry fanatics and, worse, clandestine gun-toters who right now are walking around in a state of tumescence over the golden opportunities Obama’s idylls are presenting them.

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Love Guns

Speaking of this holy land’s erotic fixation on shootin’ irons, my academic historian hero/man-crush Rick Perlstein writes in Salon that the gun industry’s recent triumphs over decency and common sense are more than just a clear and present danger to innocents who wish only to go to a movie, sit in a classroom, or have lunch in a mall food court. The victory of the Wayne LaPierre gang over humanity actually erodes the primacy of law and may actually be an irreparable breakdown of, well, these civilized United States.

To wit: The Cliven Bundy ranch showdown in which the feds backed down in the faced of armed lunatics means that Open Carry and other gun eroticists actually beat the law as well as the entire structure of the nation. He writes, “When legitimately constituted state authority stands down in the face of armed threats, the very foundation of the republic is in danger.”

Perlstein finds an unlikely villain in the gun madness that has overtaken Murrica — the Democrats. My own party (and his, he acknowledges) once stood in stark opposition to unfettered access to guns. The Dems represented what I like to think of as a majority opinion that guns should be controlled. And, just prior to the Age of Reagan, it was conventional wisdom that people who dug automatic weapons, called for unlimited access to ammunition, and fantasized strutting around town armed to the teeth were sick in the head.

Once upon a time, Democratic presidential candidates robustly argued for gun control — that, as the party platform put it in 1980 (the year the NRA made its first ever presidential endorsement, of Ronald Reagan), “handguns simplify and intensify violent crime”; Democrats support “enactment of federal legislation to strengthen the presently inadequate regulations over the manufacture, assembly, distribution, and possession of handguns.” Note no mention of machine guns, because back then the notion that there should be no barrier to their ownership would have seemed self-evidently ridiculous to most reasonable observers.

The Dems, though, lost a key election or two and decided to drop the whole gun control idea in hopes of wooing Southern white men. A courtship, BTW, that was never consummated.

Open Carry

He Never Would Be Dem Material

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Sometimes, sometimes…, no, most of the time, I feel not happy at all to identify myself as a Dem. Then again, what choice do I have?

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Chilling Effect

Sure, George Will made an ass of himself when he bleated that women dig identifying themselves as rape victims. He wrote earlier this month in the Washington Post op-ed page that colleges and universities, essentially, are teaching young women that it’s cool to have been raped and Commie/abortionist Washington is encouraging this brand of thought. Will opined our institutions of higher educ. are making “victimhood a coveted status that confers privileges.”

That, my friends, is the reasoning of a jerk.

Will

Jerk

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The news came last week that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch will no longer carry Will’s screeches from the WashPo syndicate. “The column,” the paper’s eds. wrote, “was offensive and inaccurate.” So, for all intents and purposes, the Po-Dis fired him.

I suppose that’s their right but it makes me uncomfortable when I hear of an opinion columnist losing her/his job for writing something controversial. Even if it is idiotic.

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05/22/2014
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Carrie Newcomer, Charles Van Zant, Cirkut Camera, Georgia Carry Law, Guns, Homophobia, Memory Chain, Rape, Sex Toys, The Weekly Special, Tom Roznowski, WTIU

Hot Air

Hands Up; Hands Off!

How weird is this country?

This weird: In Georgia, you can carry your artillery around with you into schools and government buildings. You can be as armed as the bastard child of Annie Oakley and John Wayne even when you stop off at the Chick-fil-a. If you’re loaded down with guns so much that your knees buckle, it’s cool. But you can’t buy a vibrator unless you have a prescription and many doctors are loath to write scrips for something (they feel) is so trivial.

Gun/Vibrator

Glock (l) & Dolly Dolphin (r)

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Remember kiddies: Guns, good; sex, bad.

America!

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Cool Shots

The Cirkut camera was patented in 1904. It allowed photogs to shoot super-wide-angle pictures, even 360-degree still scenes. WTIU has been presenting a series, Memory Chain, featuring historical pix taken by the rotating camera, as well as other compelling shots. Our town’s Tom Roznowski narrates and writes the series, a part of the public TV station’s Weekly Special program.

Have you caught Memory Chain yet? If not, here’s a taste:

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The Weekly Special airs Thursdays at 8pm and Sundays at 10:30am. Tom’s voice and take are perfect for the presentation of these images of Hoosiers from a hundred years ago.

For more Cirkut camera images, check out America by the Yard: Cirkut Camera Images from the Early Twentieth Century, published by WW Norton. Some Cirkut cam pix were five feet wide.

Thankfully there’s no evidence that Cirkut cam images exist of funny cats or You won’t believe what happens next… click bait.

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Carrie Live

Speaking of B-town musicians, Carrie Newcomer stopped by the Book Corner yesterday and reminded one and all that she’ll be doing a special show, Saturday evening, October 11, 2014, at the Buskirk Chumley Theater.

Newcomer

Carrie Newcomer

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I’d cop my tix now if I were you.

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Cry Rape

Campus cops around the nation may think they’re prepping rape victims for the rigors of potential trials by challenging their every statement during initial interviews but to many female students this third degree only makes them not want to report the crime.

One cop in New York explains, “For every single rape I’ve had, I’ve had 20 that are total bullshit.”

The quote’s from a piece in Aljazeera America on the college rape crisis.

The cop doesn’t explain how he knows fully 95 percent of rape claims are “bullshit.”

Rape

Rape (Image from The Guardian)

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Even though we’d like to think of ourselves as enlightened regarding violence against women, too many ⎯⎯ far too many ⎯⎯ people still want to put the onus on the victim because, well, they just don’t get rape.

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They’re Everywhere!

Some people think way, way, way too much about homosexuality.

From ThinkProgress

Rep Charles Van Zant (R-Florida, left) Is Obsessed (Click Image For Story)

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12/06/2013
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College Sports, Florida State University, Jameis Winston, Joseph Farah, Nelson Mandela, Rape, Ted Nugent, William Meggs, Wm. "Billy" Bullion, WorldNetDaily

Early Winter Hot Air

A Life Well-Lived

Mandela

Nelson Mandela

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Rape: What A Riot

People call the police all day long, every day.

They say their cars have been stolen. That they’ve been threatened by their next door neighbors. That someone passed them a bum check. That their employees embezzled from them. Woman say they’ve been raped.

The list of crimes people report is long. Not a one is considered a laughing matter.

Oh, wait a minute…, one crime is a big joke. Rape.

At least that’s the way some folks in Florida look at it.

A college kid in Tallahassee was accused of rape recently. Normally, this wouldn’t be remarkable news, considering the fact that far too many college boys have about as much control over their urges and impulses as the hyena of the African plains.

But this particular college kid happens to be the star quarterback on the Florida State University football team. FSU is the number one-ranked team in the nation. The kid, Jameis Winston, is a lock to win the Heisman Trophy later this month.

When the rape accusation was first publicized, many, many, many people were saddened and sickened by the news.

No, not because some poor young women might have been violated, traumatized, and made to fret for a period of time that she might have been impregnated as a result of the criminal act. They were aghast that the leader of their team might be indicted, arrested, and suspended. Their dreams of vicarious glory washed down the drain because some stupid bitch cried foul.

Let’s be frank: rape is rape, but a national championship is real, man.

Let’s continue to be candid: You know as well as I do that the young woman who made the charge against Winston was called a stupid bitch ten thousand times in barroom, living room, and office conversations in the Sunshine State. And that was probably the politest thing people called her.

FSU fans breathed a sigh of relief this afternoon when the Leon County State’s Attorney held a press conference to announce no charges would be filed against Winston.

Now, they can get back to the important business of winning that national championship. Or, more correctly, watching others win it. Sometimes people get confused about these things.

The mood during State’s Attorney William Meggs’ press conference was as light and joyous as if it had been revealed that, on second thought, the South had won the Civil War. There were broad smiles, laughter, winks, and nods. It was a day to be joyous.

Tallahassee Democrat Photo

Teehee — She Said “Rape”

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Meanwhile, a young woman still insists she was raped.

I don’t care about the details of the case. And I know one of the hallmarks of our system of justice is every accused person is innocent until proven guilty. Especially when the accused can run like the wind and thread a pass through a thicket of defenders to hit the open man.

I only know a young woman considers herself the victim of a crime.

And we don’t laugh when people say they’ve been the victims of crimes. Most of the time.

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A Strange Freedom

Actor and director Wm Bullion reminds us on the day Nelson Mandela died that some heroes of this holy land are cut from a different bolt of cloth.

For example, Ted Nugent, gun worshipper, former rock star, Obama hater, and columnist for the paranoiac website World Net Daily, is seriously considering a run for president in 2016.

This, mind you, from a man who favors the sentiment, “Trample the Weak; Hurdle the Dead.”

Nugent

Ted Nugent With His Wife

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Nelson Mandela’s not even in his grave yet but I’ll bet he’s already spinning.

By the way, WND bossman Joseph Farah advises us in today’s column, “Don’t Mourn for Mandela.” He explains why but if you can get through more than two sentences of his blathering you have a stronger stomach than I do.

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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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10/24/2012
2 Comments
Diamanda Galas, IU Lilly Library, Monroe County Public Library, Rape, Republican Party, Richard Mourdock, Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, The Bell Jar, Yaddo

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“I don’t want to know about the constitution of the rapist — I want to kill him! I don’t care if he is black or white, if he is middle class or poor, if his mother hung him from the clothesline by his balls: I only want to kill him! Any woman who is raped will agree.” — Diamanda Galás

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DIDJA VOTE YET?

No satellite voting centers today. Two new centers will be open Monday & Tuesday.

You may still vote downtown:

❐ The Curry Building, 214. W. Seventh St.

And if you’re still unsure about where your precinct polling place is, go to the Monroe County and State of Indiana find-a-polling place page.

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IN GOD’S OWN IMAGE

Okay, these right wing schmucks have to stop right now.

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said in last night’s debate that it’s all part of god’s plan when a woman who is raped becomes pregnant. “[T]hat,” Mourdock said, “is something that god intended to happen.”

From God’s Lips To His Ears

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Now get this: when the rest of the sane world started yelling that this was going too far, Mourdock responded after the debate, “Rape is a horrible thing and for anyone to twist my words otherwise is absurd and sick.”

Wait, now we’re absurd and sick?

Let me lay it all out for you, Mr. Mourdock. Your god is a jerk. And so are you.

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PLATH, POETESS

Sylvia Plath is the big deal around the IU campus and Bloomington itself for the next four days.

Saturday will mark 80 years since her birth in 1932. This month also marks the 50th anniversary of her creative explosion. In July, 1962, she discovered her husband, the British poet Ted Hughes, had been having an affair. They separated in September and the next month Plath began to write the vast majority of verse for which she became world renowned.

Just four months later, Plath sealed up the doors and windows of her kitchen, kneeled down before her oven, turned the gas on and stuck her head in. Her body was discovered by a visiting nurse who was due that day to help her care for her two small children.

Sylvia Plath

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Ironically, the women her husband had been seeing killed herself in precisely the same manner some six years later. Hughes became a bete noire among feminists who felt he at least emotionally drove the two women to take their own lives and at worst, physically abused them to the point that they couldn’t bear to live. Several women even publicly vowed to kill him in revenge.

Plath, though, was a lifelong depressive. She’d made half-hearted attempts at suicide as far back as her college years at Smith. It wasn’t until she learned to tap into her inner angst and pain for inspiration that her work became magnificent. In 1959 during a residence at the Yaddo writers colony in upstate New York, she opened up her soul as a poet. She learned there, she said later, “to be true to my own weirdnesses.”

Her works often have invited derision. Plath’s only novel, “The Bell Jar,” and her poetry have been called melodramatic and overwrought. Her life itself occasionally has become fodder for smirkers. In the movie, “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen’s character Alvy Singer pontificates: “Sylvia Plath — interesting poetess whose tragic suicide was misinterpreted as romantic by the college girl mentality.”

Today, you can view the archived Plath collection at the Lilly Library at 3pm. Nine poets will read from Plath’s work at the Monroe County Public Library at six. Throughout the day and for the next three days, academics and versifiers will be discussing and dissecting Plath and her output around town from morning until night.

Scoot on over to the Sylvia Plath Symposium 2012 website for a complete schedule of events.

And stay out of the kitchen, would you?

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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

✍

Wednesday, October 24th, 2012

VOTE TODAY ◗The Curry Building, 214 W. Seventh St.; 8am-6pm

STUDIO TOUR ◗ Brown County, various locations — The Backroads of Brown County Studio Tour, free, self-guided tour of 16 local artists’ & craftspersons’ studios; 10am-5pm, through October

LECTURE ◗ IU Memorial Union, Persimmon Hall — Institute for Advanced Study Lecture: Bengt Sadnin talks about “State-Building, Surveillance of Children, & the Rise of Early Modern Education“; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Art Museum — Noon Talk Series: “Patrons and Purveyors of Culture,” Michelle Facos talks about Jewsih collectors, patrons, & dealers of German Expressionist works; 12;15-1pm

POETRY & BOOKS ◗ Various locations around IU campus & Bloomington — Sylvia Plath Symposium 2012, celebrating 50 years since the publication of her “Ariel” collection, Through Saturday, Today’s highlights:

  • IU Lilly Library — Plath archives show-and-tell by library staff; 3-4:30pm
  • Monroe County Public Library — Reading of Plath’s poetry by Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Emily Bobo, Cathy Bowman, Christine Brandel, Peter Cooly, Annie Finch, Cate Marvin, Kathleen Ossip, & David Trinidad; 6-7:30pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Fine Arts Theater — “Our National Security,” Presented by Chris Kojm, chair of US National Intelligence Council; 5:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Malibu Grill — Alki Scopelitis; 6-9pm

DISCUSSION ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — The panel considers “Books, Text, & Information: The Role of Libraries in the Arts and Humanities” 6-7:30pm

CLASS ◗ IU Art Museum — IU Lifelong Learning course, “What Is a Fine Print?” Three sessions: October 24th & 31st, and November 7th; 6-7:45pm

SCIENCE ◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Bloomington Science Cafe, Tonight’s topic: “The Truthy Project: The Promise & perils of Digital Democracy,” Presented by Karissa McKelvey & Michael Conover; 6:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “Blood of Jesus”; 7pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier men’s soccer vs. Evansville; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Kenan Rainwater; 7-9pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Master’s Recital, Amy bearden, mezzo-soprano; 7pm

PERFORMANCE ◗ Unity of Bloomington Church — Auditions & rehearsal, Bloomington Peace Choir; 7pm

STAGE ◗ IU Wells-Metz Theatre — “Richard III“; 7:30pm

LECTURE ◗ IU Memorial Union, State Room East — “Antisemitism and Philosemitism in France: Emile Zola and the Ambiguities of Universalism,” Presented by Maurice Samuels of Yale University; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Musical Arts Center — University Orchestra, Cliff Colnot, conductor; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Doctoral Recital, Aleksey Artemyev on piano; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — The Mongrel Dogs featuring Alex Puga; 8pm

ASTRONOMY ◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Open house, Public viewing through the main telescope; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford Hall — Artist Diploma/Doctoral Chamber Music Recital: Youngsin Seo on violin, Woonjoo Park on viola, JinSeo Joo on piano; 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bluebird — The Personnel; 9pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bishop — Sleeping Bag, Demon Beat; 9:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Bear’s Place — Colonel Angus; 11pm

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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
  • “Threads of Love: Baby Carriers from China’s Minority Nationalities“; through December 23rd
  • “Workers of the World, Unite!” through December 31st
  • “Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • “Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

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

ART ◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibit:

  • Buzz Spector: Off the Shelf; through November 16th
  • Small Is Big; Through November 16th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibits:

  • “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 from the Slocum Puzzle Collection

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Soup’s On — Exhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • Doctors & Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical Professions
  • What Is Your Quilting Story?
  • Garden Glamour: Floral Fashion Frenzy
  • Bloomington Then & Now
  • World War II Uniforms
  • Limestone Industry in Monroe County

The Ryder & The Electron Pencil. All Bloomington. All the time.

09/26/2012
1 Comment
Alex Straiker, Antimatter, Don Belton, Indiana Court of Appeals, Jacob S. Hacker, Jim Wager-Miller, John Gregg, Matthew Rowe, Michael Griffin, Michael Snow, Mike Pence, Paleoindians, Paul Pierson, Rachael's Cafe, Rape, Roger Ebert, Science Cafe Bloomington, Tea Party, Vi Simpson, Winner-Take-All Politics

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“…[T]he fact is, most people are not going to be rich someday.” — Roger Ebert

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THE WAGES OF SIN

So, the state Court of Appeals reduced Michael Griffin’s sentence by five years. They’re saying the fact that he had to suffer the horror of homosexual sex is as onerous as five years in the joint.

Don Belton: Dead

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See, Griffin, who summarily executed IU professor Don Belton during the Christmas season 2009 claimed during his trial that Belton orally and anally raped him while he (Griffin) was passed out drunk after a party. And because Belton did that bad stuff, he (Griffin) felt compelled to stab him 21 times with his Marine combat knife a couple of days later. Did I mention that Griffin also slashed Belton’s throat?

Griffin was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Monday, his sentence was reduced by the higher court. The reduction was based on that claim that Belton committed a crime.

Michael Griffin: Five Years Closer To Freedom

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Does this mean that every time Hooisers are sentenced for crimes, all they have to do to get years shaved off their sentences is to claim their victim did something bad first? Without any corroborating evidence?

Just wondering.

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WHO WAS FIRST?

The Bloomington Science Cafe convenes again tonight at Rachael’s Cafe on Third Street at 6:30.

The bi-monthly caucus of certified knowledge geeks and the folks who dig them (me, et al) will hear IU archaeology doctoral student Matthew Rowe discuss the peopling of the Americas at this second confab of the season.

Who Were These People?

✍

Organized by Alex Straiker and Jim Wager-Miller of IU’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, our town’s Science Cafe brings topics of pressing import to the knowledge hungry masses of Bloomington. IU physicist Michael Snow wowed the crowd with a trippy explanation of antimatter two weeks ago.

Rowe’s gabfest, entitled “The First Americans: New Insights into Ancient Migrations,” will address the question of whom, if not the Clovis people, were the first Americans.

Get to Rachael’s early if you want to find a seat.

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VI ON RICHISTAN

The race for Indiana governor between Tea Party darling Mike Pence and Dem John Gregg may be a close one.

Gregg earned high praise for selecting as his running mate former State Senate minority leader Vi Simpson. She’ll give a talk today at the Indiana Memorial Union Dogwood Room on “The War on the Middle Class.”

Vi Simpson & John Gregg

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The topic is fairly timely for me. I’m reading a book called “Winner-Take-All Politics” by Yale’s Jacob S. Hacker and Cal-Berkeley’s Paul Pierson. Hacker and Pierson are as liberal as the Republican Party fears all university-employed political scientists are. Their thrust is the Republicans have engineered an economy and a federal legislative system in the last 40 or so years that’s geared to funnel more and more dough in the pockets of the plutocracy — at the expense of the middle class

Funny thing is, the Tea Party, which trumpets itself as the voice of jes’ plain folk, really is in the bag for the billionaires of this holy land.

Check out Vi if you have a chance. She’ll speak at noon.

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The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

✍

Wednesday, September 26th, 2012

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

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

POLITICS ◗ IU Memorial Union, Dogwood Room — Indiana Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor talks about “The War on the Middle Class,” free and open to the public; Noon-1:15pm

DISCUSSION ◗ Meadowood Retirement Community, Terrace Room — Issues & Experts series, bi-monthly talk by an IU faculty member on an issue of local, national, or international importance, today: Tim Grose of Central Eurasian Studies discusses Economic Disparities & Consumer Confidence in the People’s Republic of China; 12:15-1:45pm

SCIENCE ◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Bloomington Science Cafe, bimonthly discussion led by an IU faculty member on a selected topic in the hard sciences, tonight: Matthew Rowe discusses “The First Americans: New Insights into Ancient Migrations;” 6:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe Django — Dave Gulyas & Dave Bruker; 7pm

FILM ◗ IU Memorial Union, Whittenberger Auditorium — UB Films: “Perfect Pitch,” sneak preview; 7pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong Stadium — Hoosier men’s soccer vs. Notre Dame; 7pm

PERFORMANCE ◗ Unity of Bloomington Church — Auditions and rehearsal for the Bloomington Peace Choir; 7pm

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

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s Pub — Stardusters; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer Hall — Pro Arte Singers, William Jon Gray, conductor; 8pm

DANCE ◗ Harmony School — Contra dancing; 8-10:30pm

ASTRONOMY ◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Open house, public viewing through the main telescope (weather permitting); 8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Buskirk Chumley Theater — Ani Difranco; 9pm

MUSIC ◗ The Bluebird — Rod Tuffcurls & the Benchpress; 9pm

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“

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