Category Archives: Rick Perry

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle class security all bear the union label.” — Barack Obama

PAY ‘EM!

TOP OF THE HILLER

Congrats to Pencillista Nancy R. Hiller for earning state kudos on her fab tome, “A Home of Her Own.”

The Hiller opus was named a finalist in the Best Books of Indiana: Nonfiction 2012 beauty contest this week.

Hey, I ain’t the only guy who can write around here.

GEEK LOVE

A quick reminder: Bloomington’s Science Cafe fires up again Wednesday, September 12th.

IU experimental nuclear physicist Michael Snow will deliver the first presentation on Antimatter.

Physicist Michael Snow

Brain scientist Alex Straiker, who’s organizing this latest incarnation with lab-mate Jim Wager-Miller, says the shebang will begin at 6:30pm at Rachael’s Cafe.

This fall’s science topics will also include “The First Americans,” “Climate Change and Bloomington,” and “Brain-Machine Interfaces: Eye Tracking.”

FLYNT HUSTLES MITT

Hustler was among the worst porn I’ve ever seen in my life.

I say was because I haven’t seen the mag in years. Maybe even decades.

So I have no idea what unflattering poses its intentionally half-witted looking models are being put into these days. Suffice it to say I recall them reclining akimbo to such an extent that were I so trained, I could proffer them instant cervical exams from afar.

That is, were I moved open the mag’s pages.

I just never found the thing arousing. I consider my tastes in unclad women fairly, um, progressive. I mean I don’t need my pix of naked ladies to feature impossibly long-legged and wasp-waisted, vacant-staring, “hotties” with plastic half-cantaloupes on their chests.

That’s me. Apparently the vast majority of American male-dom (male-dumb?) digs that look. Hustler had it in spades.

Duh

The mag’s circulation stands at around half a million these days, down from a high of 3 million per month in its pre-Interwebs hayday.

Larry Flynt, the visionary behind Hustler, long has been a scourge to the Right, specifically its self-appointed plaster saints like the late Jerry Falwell and the regrettably still-respiring Gov. Rick Perry. That alone earns my grudging respect for him even though I hold my nose while stating it.

And now Flynt has flopped a million bucks on the table, calling for anyone in this holy land to produce Mitt Romney’s tax records.

You know, those things Ann Romney, hands on hips, jaw set, has refused to allow us to see. She says she and her special guy have nothing to hide, therefore they’re hiding the returns.

We’ve Given ‘You People’ Enough!

If someone does come through with the docs that’ll tie Romney in with an arch-criminal, global, underground, crushing tyrannical corporate syndicate looking to addict the world population to dangerous chemicals, financial “instruments,” and magic underwear, then a million bucks’-worth of the dough Flynt made portraying woman as DNA receptacles will have done some good.

Of course, it’ll be just as good if the elusive tax returns simply reveal the Romneys to be richer than the spooky god they worship.

I CAN SEE FOR MILES AND MILES AND MILES….

Here, thanks to I Fucking Love Science (or, for the more skittish among us, Science Is Awesome) is a comparison of the mirror sizes of the Hubble Space Telescope and the proposed James Webb Space Telescope.

Is there an “edge” to the Universe? Maybe, the JWST will allow us to see it.

From NASA: James Webb vs. Hubble — How Do They Compare?

From The Moscow Times we learn that Russkies are dying to sound like bossman Vladimir Putin.

Apparently, Putin is the most accomplished of Russian leaders when it comes to prevaricating in the language of his land.

Silver Tongues

In that, he’s like our very own Bill Clinton.

The Pencil Today:

TODAY’S QUOTE

“Just when you thought there wasn’t a dime’s worth of difference between the two parties, the Republicans go and prove you’re wrong.” — Molly Ivins

BUTT-HEAD MORALITY

Here’s all you need to know about the anti-abortion crowd. Last night, four of the devout men — emphasis on men, just in case it slipped your notice — running for the Republican nomination for president genuflected at the altar of the “pro-life” god in South Carolina.

That would be the god, I remind you, who frets obsessively over the safety of those blobs of cellular material the “pro-lifers” call “persons” and then promptly ignores once the blobs develop into what the rest of us would consider human.

Don’t these people know personhood begins the moment papers are filed to establish a corporation?

If This Is A CEO, Then It’s A Person

Anyway, Personhood USA gathered “pro-lifers” together so they could tell each other how righteous they are and to listen to Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul, Ricky-girl Santorum, and Rick Perry each claim to be holy.

Good to know that when our economy is teetering on a precipice, when the country seems to be in the throes of a seizure, when there’s not enough money to keep schools and libraries running properly, when climate change and nuclear proliferation threaten our very future, the pious folks of Personhood USA can keep their focus on women’s uteri.

Last night’s seminar was actually a dialectic musing over precisely when a human being comes into existence. Believe it or not, it’s a question that racks the brains of these folks. Not too long ago, they pushed for a law in Mississippi that would declare “personhood” begins at the moment the egg is fertilized.

So, in other words, if you snuff the life out of a fertilized egg, you’d be committing murder.

Now of course, the problem with that is many, if not most, forms of contraception entail killing the fertilized egg. Which would mean, say, birth control pill users would really be no different than Tucson shopping mall shooter Jared Loughner.

As Bad As One Of Those Birth Control Pill-Takers

A lovely bunch of thinkers, these “pro-lifers,” no?

The debate moderator (a guy) asked Rick Perry (ditto) when he thought life begins. Perry responded, “When the sperm and the egg come together….”

At which point — get this — many in the crowd started tittering.

Yeah, that’s right. Tittering.

Hilarious

As in, “Tehe, he said sperm.”

As in a couple of twelve year-olds sitting around giggling about sperm and dicks and vaginas.

As in Beavis and Butt-head.

Personhood USA.

Pro-life?

THE GAY DISEASE

Some members of the titterering set got together after a Texas confab last weekend and declared front-runner Mitt Romney to be suffering from the dread disease of “homophilia.”

I shudder to think of it. Romney’s office must be decorated with posters for Broadway musicals at the very least.

The First Symptom

“… [M]ost South Carolinians and I have a sane and healthy homophobia,” said the Rev. Huey Mills, some big-shot evangelical.

Sane?

Huey?

Anyway, some other big evangelical leader named Tony Perkins will make a personal appearance with the anointed one, Ricky-girl Santorum, today in South Carolina, two days before the state’s primary. Ricky-girl was tabbed by the Texas evangelical gang as their fave for president.

Endorsing Santorum?

GAY CAR PRIDE

The world hasn’t completely lost it mind — and least not just yet. The state of Indiana this week became the first in the nation to issue a “gay” license plate.

The proceeds from the $40 plate will go to the Indiana Youth Group, which helps gay teens.

Of course, people who have a “healthy and sane homophobia” probably are certain the IYG “helps” teens by luring unsuspecting adolescents into their nefarious clutches.

Because, you know, it’s as easy as Mom’s apple pie to convince a hormone-flooded 15-year-old high school jock he really prefers Clay Aiken to Megan Fox.

Typical Teen Boy: “Gee, Clay Aiken Or Megan Fox — I Can’t Decide!”

I would offer my sincerest congratulations to the great state o’Indiana but the decision to issue the gay plate was forced upon it by a Supreme Court ruling.

 

The Pencil Today:

TODAY’S QUOTE

“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.” — Gore Vidal

NO PLASTER SAINT

Think of Martin Luther King, Jr. today. Think of what a brilliant man he was. Think also of what an imperfect man he was.

King, 1956

His work hastened the enactment of both the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The contender for the most evil American of the 20th Century, J. Edgar Hoover, kept a thick dossier on King’s sex life. Yep, King did those tawdry things outlined in the file. To people like Hoover, that file defined King.

To tens of millions of Americans who can now vote freely and don’t have to worry about not getting a job or being turned away from a hotel or restaurant because they’re the wrong color or sex, King was incapable of such “sin.”

Both views insult the man because they deny the fullness of his humanity, the good in him and his failings, his high principles and his base urges.

Me? I respect King all the more for knowing he battled with and often succumbed to temptation. He was just a guy — but what a human being!

Imperfect Men; A More Perfect Nation

FLIP-FLOP PHONIES

Here’s all you need to know about the state of national politics in this holy land. Jon Huntsman today will endorse Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination for president.

Best Friends Forever

Huntsman is dropping out of the Republican primaries six days before the South Carolina vote and almost a week after he came in third in the New Hampshire beauty contest, a finish he told his supporters was a springboard to South Carolina. He made the decision this weekend.

Up until yesterday, his website listed chapter and verse as to why Romney is unelectable in November. Or, I should say, was unelectable. Romney is (oops again — was) a flip-flopper, a shark, a pretty boy, a man with no real philosophy.

Man, you’d have thought a Romney presidency would almost have been as devastating to America as the presidency of Barack Obama — who, by the way, was Hunstman’s former boss. The only thing Hunstman didn’t accuse Romney of was being a secret Muslim, but there’s only room in the political conversation for one of those, apparently.

Sunday, the keepers of the Huntsman website made all references to Romney’s evils vanish.

Hunstman’s Suddenly Mitt-Free Website

Politics would be a funny game if it didn’t make me so glum.

VOTE FOR ME — I’LL SET YOU FREE!

How weird is it that Rick Perry has suddenly positioned himself as the defender of the people, calling Mitt Romney a “vulture capitalist”?

Very weird.

Perry’s panicked. The man who has sold his governorship to any corporate entity that waves a check in his face, clearly figures the only bullet he has left in his cylinder is to accuse Romney of being a greedy capitalist pig.

Which Romney is — but so is Rick Perry.

It goes to show that the most powerful influence on politics is the virtually pathological ego that spurs a person to want to become a national leader.

Perry: “I’m The One.”

Perry gave up his precious economic philosophy in the snap of a finger when he felt himself in danger of losing out on the ultimate job promotion.

I’ll vote in the presidential election, sure, but I can’t shake the feeling that anyone who wants to be president of a nation of +300M people with some 5600 active nuclear weapons at his command is, well, a bit off. Why would any sane human being want that kind of responsibility?

Oh Yeah, I Can Handle This Thing — Don’t Worry

Just trying to meet the needs and desires of our massive population is daunting enough. Knowing that the ace you have up your sleeve in dealing with the world’s nations is an arsenal that could ignite at any moment a global holocaust makes the job desirable only to a crazy man or woman.

LOCAL POLS: LESS PHONY, JUST AS NUTTY

I spoke with Tim Mayer, the Bloomington City Council’s new president, last week. He’s refreshed from a nice holiday vacation and looking forward to picking up the gavel.

I apologized to him for not playing “Hail to the Chief” when he walked into the Book Corner and he graciously forgave me. “How does it feel to be the Commander in Chief of such an august body?” I asked.

He spun on his heel, pointed to the middle of his back and replied, “The target’s hanging right here.”

Mayer Was Comforted By Judge Mary Ellen Diekhoff After He Was Sworn In

Mayer became serious and said he’s looking forward to the task. In fact, he claimed the best part of being a council member is hearing the citizenry during the public comment sessions at the meetings. At which point I told him he needs psychiatric treatment.

Mayer is still sane enough to say I was probably right. Then he recounted the tale of a particular well-known citizen gadfly who attended every meeting and had a blustery opinion on every proposal. This man was a shrewd provocateur who knew just how far he could go when raising his idiosyncratic Cain — he knew, for instance, that he could get away with uttering the word shit during his comment period but not the F-bomb.

Anyway, Mayer remembered that the man was familiar enough with the personalities on the Council to be able to get under any of their skins. He knew how to rattle one female former Council president by saying repeatedly, “Listen here, girlie….”

The former president’s hair would stand on end at such moments.

BTW: as for last year’s Council president (and I’m not necessarily saying she’s the one referred to above), doctors in the decompression ward report that Susan Sandberg will be released from her straitjacket soon and should recover nicely, save for the occasional nightmare.

Susan Sandberg, Before She Was Institutionalized

Good luck, Tim.

WON’T GET FOOLED AGAIN

Oh yes we will. We always do.

The Pencil Today:

WAR IS THEFT

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower, five-star general of the US Army, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during World War II, planner of Operation Overlord, first Supreme Commander of NATO.

And a guy who considered war a catastrophe.

HELL IN A HANDBASKET

About a month ago, a spate of random shootings, assaults, and a couple of high profile murders got local folks to thinking that maybe this erstwhile happy little town is turning into a hellhole.

Things soon settled down. But there’s been raft of vandalism targeting Christmas decorations of late.

And guess who had to file a police report last night. Yup. Bloomington Police Chief Mike Diekhoff.

His outdoor Christmas decorations were stolen Monday.

Victim

The Herald Times reports there’ve been a dozen or so such complaints within the last week.

IF I FELL IN LOVE WITH YOU

This holy land is everlastingly in love with guns but thinks things like book larnin’ are nothing more than rotten socialist plots.

True Love

Need more proof?

NPR this morning ran a report on states enacting more and more stringent voter ID laws. One little tidbit caught my ear. The state that gave us George W. Bush, Rick Perry, and Chuck Norris considers artillery ownership a more trustworthy identifier than, ugh, intelligence.

In Texas, a citizen can gain access to the voting booth by flashing a gun permit. College photo IDs, on the other hand, just won’t do.

SHOTGUN!

I don’t know which act was cooler: Jr. Walker & The All-Stars or Booker T & The MGs. What say you?

The Pencil Today:

SMARTEN UP

Leave it to Mark Twain: “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

YOU WANT US TO TEACH YOUR KIDS TOO?!

So, the Monroe County Community Schools Corporation is going to spend a quarter of a million dollars installing security cameras and buzz-in doors at local schoolhouses.

New MCCSC boss Judy DeMuth has made it clear her administration’s top priority is “safety.”

The Herald Times in an editorial today says, “…[T]here really is no amount too high to pay for student safety.”

Who Needs Teachers When You Have Security Guards?

Yes indeed, our children will be safe. Not necessarily educated, considering the recent massive cuts in school funding, but safe.

BOOKS? WE DON’T NEED NO STINKIN’ BOOKS!

Speaking of silly things like book larnin’ and other socialist plots, the Monroe County Public Library faces a $600,000 shortfall for fiscal year 2013.

Plenty Of Books But Where Are The Guns?

Thankfully, the philosopher-statesmen in the Indiana statehouse have enacted a concealed carry law permitting patrons to bring their artillery into the library.

Library hours may be cut. Staff may be slashed. Books and materials acquisition will be curtailed.

But we’ll be safe.

PROGRESS

Just to prove I’m not totally down on this holy land in the year 2011, allow me to take you back to the year 1900.

The late Howard Zinn in his excellent “A People’s History of the United States” tells of the “Rules for Female Teachers” a Massachussetts small town board of education issued a 111 years ago:

  1. Do not get married.
  2. Do not leave town at any time without permission of the school board.
  3. Do not keep company with men.
  4. Be home between the hours of 8:00pm and 6:00am.
  5. Do not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.
  6. Do not smoke.
  7. Do not get into a carriage with any man except your father or brother.
  8. Do not dress in bright colors.
  9. Do not dye your hair.
  10. Do not wear any dress more than two inches above the ankle.

There. I wonder if the kids were as safe then as they are today, though.

Oh, and Number 11: Crush Your Abdomen

WORDS ARE FOR LIBERALS, DEMOCRATS, AND OTHER REPROBATES

Cowboy Rick Perry may have had some trouble in recent weeks expressing himself in terms that speakers of the English language can fathom. Some have accused him of being overwhelmed by the complicated task of speaking.

But yesterday, speaking to the Republican Jewish Coalition, he proved himself far superior to the outmoded concept that words have, um, meaning.

Words?

The Republican candidates for president had gathered ’round to tell America’s Jews how much they love, love, love them.

This despite the fact that most Jews in this holy land vote Democrat. But the Republicans are the party of god and in these United States god is the Judeo-Christian big man.

Over the centuries, Christians may have gotten a lot of mileage blaming the Jews for inspiring the crucifix logo design. Still, Christians see Jews as their forefathers, albeit mean, old step-forefathers.

So, the party of god sent its best and brightest to the RJC’s tsuzamenfor in Washington to court voters.

The only GOP contender not to show up was Ron Paul, who wasn’t invited. He has committed the unforgivable sin of calling for a cutoff of aid to Israel. Cowboy Rick also has come close to uttering that dastardly line.

Perry last month called for slashing foreign aid to all countries “to zero” and then making them prove they are loyal, malleable, and/or starving enough to death to earn back our largesse. Naturally, reporters later peppered Perry with questions about our best pals in the Middle East. “What about Israel?” came the query from all sides. “Even Israel,” Perry said.

It would be interested to see how Perry could talk his way out of that one.

He did his best.

Perry told the RJC that the several billion dollars the US government ships to Israel each year is not “foreign aid.”

Golly, foreign aid, Cowboy Rick implied, is money we flush down the toilet for countries full of brown people and folks who are not sufficiently enamored of our sacred system of predatory capitalism.

The dough we send to Israel, the Cowboy explained, is, well, “strategic defensive aid.”

Oh.

The Pencil Today:

SPIRIT IN THE SKY

So, I’m on the alert for lightning bolts directed at me right now because I hereby present one Penn Gillette, one of my fave people on Earth, rating the presidential candidates on their friendliness toward — cringe! — atheists.

I’m not really trying to cause trouble here (oh, alright, yes I am) but a little balance is in order, no?

The Fox News rightists had apoplexy a week and a half ago when President Obama neglected to mention the all-powerful sugar daddy during his annual Thanksgiving message to the nation. Those campaigning to become president and those fortunate — or unfortunate — enough to become one rarely miss an opportunity to thank their sky-dwelling BFF.

Anybody who hopes to become president has to believe in god, still, today, some 300 years after the Age of Enlightenment and nearly 130 years after Neitzsche pronounced, “Gott ist tot” (god is dead.)

Me? I’m looking for the first prez aspirant who, well, doesn’t believe.

There’s your balance.

WHO’S AMERICA’S BIGGEST LIAR IN 2011?

Hey, PolitiFact, the website that vets political statements and claims, has released its 2011 Lie of the Year Finalists. The lucky contestants include Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Facebook posters who claimed Republicans have proposed “zero job creation” legislation, and — horrors! — Barack Obama.

Go there and vote. It’s fun.

LOOK OVER YONDER

Here’s a good song for your Saturday morning, by Tommy James and the Shondells. It made the charts during that magical summer of 1969.

And just to show what a broad-minded fellow I am, it mentions, um, y’know, that big guy in the sky.

The Pencil Today:

POT VERSUS KETTLE

I’d imagine the number of local residents paying the slightest bit of attention to last night’s debate between Republican candidates for president hovered somewhere around, oh, zero.

This is, after all, Bloomington, Indiana, the capital-in-exile of the former Soviet Union and geographical magnet for this holy land’s unscrubbed beatniks, bomb-throwers, abortionists, and other Democrats.

So, The Pencil will do y’all a favor and point out the most eye-opening statement made by one of the fine and decorated statesmen and women who gathered to verbally spar in that other locus of undesirables, Washington, DC.

Minnesota Congressbeing Michele Bachmann dug deep into her her pocket thesaurus and threw a sophisticated two-syllable pejorative at Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Bachmann: “Fingers crossed — Someone Has Less Of A Clue Than I Do.”

The issue was Pakistan and Perry had just pronounced all future financial aid to that nuclear armed Stone Age nation a no-go as long as its leaders wouldn’t keep “America’s best interests in mind.”

Y’know, the way every other nation on this spinning globe keeps the well-being of the land of Donald Trump, Lindsay Lohan, and Black Friday in the forefront of all its deliberations.

Well, our plucky gal Michele found Perry’s logic rather lacking. Bachmann is a member of the House Intelligence Committee which, if nothing else, proves our elected representatives possess a sense of humor. She reminded Perry and the world that this country gains a lot of inside dope on the doings of the wild-eyed gun-toters who populate much of Pakistan’s desolate countryside. Our dough, Bachmann insisted, also insures that the borderline lunatics who run the place aren’t overthrown by certified lunatics.

Bachmann characterized Perry’s statement thusly: “I think that’s highly naive.”

Kudos to Bachmann on grasping the fact that the syllables of a word needn’t be separated by consonants.

Now, imagine how discouraged the cowboy governor is this morning to realize that Michele Bachmann — Michele Bachmann — considers him naive.

The election, folks, is a mere 49 weeks away.

“KILL URSELF”

I have a Twitter account, I’ll admit it. On the other hand, I haven’t touched it in more than a year.

Twitter is the 140-character preserve of semi-literate pro athletes, pathologically self-involved Hollywood stars, and that portion of the populace that was born, sadly, with the condition known as anencephaly.

Take the recent Twit (screw “Tweet” — I’m going with Twit) from Washington Redskins pass catcher Jabar Gaffney.

Poor Jabar was in a funk after his team lost to the rival Dallas Cowboys Sunday. Some Cowboys fan sent him a Twit ridiculing him and his Redskins mates. (By the way, I was under the impression that this was the year 2011. And still there’s a pro team called the Redskins? The Redskins?!)

Anyway, Gaffney promptly advised the Twit-sender to, um, commit suicide.

Yup. Gaffney thumbed these proto-words into his connection to the civilized world: “… I’m just proud I ain’t you get a life or kill urself.” The line is close enough to the human language known as English that I needn’t translate it for you.

Naturally, the NFL and representatives of the sane population of America had apoplexy. Hell, if people can blame Judas Priest, whose song obliquely referred to the ultimate form of self-determination, for a couple of teens’ deaths in 1985, then Gaffney’s unmistakable advisement is fraught with peril.

Gaffney then quoted another Twit-person who agreed with his original broadside. Gaffney thumbed: “I do want that man to kill himself..one less cowboys fan…”

Existential Advice

Sheesh. Now we know there are at least two people in this nation who don’t know ellipsis is indicated by three dots, not two. America is indeed going to hell.

Cooler heads got to Gaffney and he apologized — the way many celebrities, politicians, and corporations apologize these days, which is not at all.

Gaffney Twitted a third time, “They say I can’t tell people to kill themselves didn’t know freedom of speech had limitations so I’ll just say #uknowwhattodo #HTTR better?”

In case this puzzling series of electronic grunts is indecipherable to you, I’ll help. Gaffney is saying: “My heavens, despite the landmark US Supreme Court decision wherein the noted jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. opined that shouting ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater is a practical violation of common sense, civility, and the spirit of the original 1st Amendment, I was under the impression that the concept of Freedom of Speech is sacrosanct. I will therefore alter my original pronouncement by saying, ‘Sir, do you recall that action I advised you to take which, apparently, I am not at liberty to utter in a public setting? If so, please take it.'”

Big time sports and the reprobates who perform in it and operate it are becoming less and less attractive by the week.

DON’T CRY FOR ME HOMESTEAD-MIAMI SPEEDWAY

The Loved One was incensed that First Lady Michele Obama caught the raspberry Sunday at a NASCAR race in Miami.

Obama: “I Can’t Hear You Because I Have These Big Things On My Head.”

Many in the crowd of some 80,000 booed the president’s wife lustily when she was introduced prior to shouting “Start your engines” into a microphone.

Aside from the fact that the speedway was filled with people who find deafeningly loud cars continually turning left at life threatening speeds entertaining, the race, it must be said, was held in Florida. That double-whammy indicates the crowd probably was lacking in thinkers who grasp the subtleties and nuances of today’s domestic and geopolitical debate.

Who was the last Nobel Prize winner to hail from the Sunshine State?

No matter, I actually tried to defend the crowd, which caused my lovely bride to eye me through narrowed lids.

I said, “The fact that people feel free to boo the wife of the boss of the most powerful nation on Earth is a good thing.”

The Loved One shook her head almost imperceptibly. And, I have to admit, I’m not thrilled with my argument either.

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