Category Archives: Roger Ebert

The Pencil Today:

HotAirLogoFinal Friday

THE QUOTE

“I begin to feel like most Americans don’t understand the First Amendment, don’t understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don’t understand that it’s the responsibility of the citizen to speak out.” — Roger Ebert

Ebert

END OF AN ERA?

I’m worried:

Ebert FB Post

Roger Ebert has battled various cancers for years now. He lost his jaw and has been unable to speak, eat, or drink since 2006. He nearly died that year when his carotid artery burst due to neutron beam treatment for his cancer. He communicates with an innovative technology that uses actual recordings of his voice from the past. He types in the words he wants a machine to say and then the machine plays the appropriate tracks.

Ebert made his bones as the film reviewer of the Chicago Sun-Times. He was the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Tom Van Riper of Forbes magazine ranked him America’s “top pundit” in 1997, ahead of such luminaries as Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher. Ebert even worked with Russ Meyer to write the screenplay for the 1970 sexploitation flick, “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls”; no one could say he had no right to criticize movies since he’d never made one.

Neither an academic bloviator like Vincent Canby nor a patron of the lowest-common-denominator like Michael Medved, Ebert could occasionally make or break big budget movies based on the direction — up or down — his thumb pointed.

Ebert & Siskel

Ebert And His Long-time “At The Movies” Partner, Gene Siskel

But just as often, the ticket-buying public ignored his recommendations. He loathed “Dirty Harry,” calling it “fascist,” but people still flocked to see it. His list of movies he absolutely hated includes:

  • “Joe Dirt”
  • “Spice World” (“The Spice Girls are easier to tell apart than the Mutant Ninja Turtles but that is small consolation: What can you say about five women whose principal distinguishing characteristic is that they have different names?”)
  • “The Dukes of Hazzard”
  • “Tommy Boy”
  • “Freddy Got Fingered” (“This movie doesn’t scrape the bottom of the barrel. This movie isn’t the bottom of the barrel This movie isn’t below the bottom of the barrel. This movie doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with barrels.”)
  • “Catwoman”
  • “Armageddon”
  • “Ballistic” Ecks vs. Sever”
  • “Battlefield Earth” (“The Psychlos can fly between galaxies, but look at their nails: Their civilization has mastered the hyperdrive but not the manicure.”)
  • “Flashdance”
  • “The Green Berets”
  • “The Usual Suspects”
  • “North” (“I hated this movie. Hated hated hated hated hated hated this movie. Hated it. Hated every simpering stupid vacant audience-insulting moment of it. Hated the sensibility that thought anyone would like it. Hated the implied insult to the audience by its belief that anyone would be entertained by it.”)

If you’re in the mood for positives, here’s Ebert’s latest list of the best movies ever made:

  • “Agguire, Wrath of God” — Werner Herzog
  • “Apocalypse Now” — Francis Ford Coppola
  • “Citizen Kane” — Orson Welles
  • “La Dolce Vita” — Frederico Fellini
  • “The General” — Buster Keaton
  • “Raging Bull” — Martin Scorsese
  • “2001: A Space Odyssey” — Stanley Kubrick
  • “Tokyo Story” –Yasujirō Ozu
  • “Tree of Life” — Terrence Malick
  • “Vertigo” — Alfred Hitchcock

It’s a good bet that Ebert doesn’t have much time left in this mixed-up movie theater we call life. He’s been writing about this mad, mad, mad, mad world these days in addition to keeping up with Hollywood (before his health took its current turn for the worse). He’s become a philosopher and a voice of sanity.

He felt compelled to post something in his blog about Sandy Hook last Saturday. He explained that nothing he could write would suffice (plus, apparently, he was in too much pain to do it) so he ran a excerpt from a review he did on Gus Van Sant’s movie, “Elephant,” inspired by the Columbine shootings. Here it is:

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.

If this sounds like a pre-death obit, so it is. It seems all my local boyhood writing idols have checked out, or in the case of Ebert, are in the process thereof.

Mike Royko’s gone. Irv Kupcinet’s gone. Studs Terkel’s gone. Soon, Ebert will be gone. If I try to do anything in this blog, it’s to mash the styles and sensibilities of all those fellows together — along with my own — and hope that what results is a mere tenth as good as what any of them could do.

I can only try.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“You worry too much.” — Big Mike

BIG DOINGS AT THE PENCIL’S WORLD HQ

I won’t be doing my usual thing here for the next four days or so. I’m gearing up for the long-awaited, many-times delayed marriage of this communications colossus with Bloomington’s venerable print and cultural institution, The Ryder magazine and film series.

That’s due to happen Wednesday, November 21st, when the Ryder’s new issue hits the streets. The Ryder’s redesigned website will debut that day as well. All I wanna say is, you’ll love it.

One of the main reasons you’ll swoon is that I’ll be Peter LoPilato’s online editor. I’ll be posting the Ryder’s stories, reviews, previews, and everything else that you normally get in the hard copy. I’ll also be shifting my GO! Events Listings to the Ryder site, only it’ll be called Event Horizon.

That’s Peter’s name for it and I’m cool with it. It inadvertently references an astrophysics phenomenon that science ultra-geeks might refer to as the Schwarzschild radius in some cases or as the Kerr or Kerr-Newman event horizon in others.

Basically, it’s a boundary around a stable black hole beyond which nothing, not even light, can escape. Again, don’t worry — you’ll never be near one so you won’t have to check your life insurance policy to see if you’re covered.

Anyway, my plan is to dash off my Daily Hot Airs in quick order for the next several days so I can work on the new site, all the while planning for a mass invasion of Glabs into Bloomington for the holiday. So if my posts seem a tad terse, you’ll know why.

In fact, I may even miss a day if my work backs up too much.

Don’t worry; you’ll live.

NO (STRONG) GIRLS ALLOWED

Here, I’m gonna let another guy do my work for me today.

Roger Ebert points out the sad demise of one of those great weekly alternative papers that many big and medium-sized cities have, the Niagara Falls Reporter in Buffalo, New York. Some new guy bought the paper from its founder and seems to have turned it into a weird right-wing vanity rag. The Reporter’s movie reviewer found himself being censored by the new publisher and asked why. After some digging and a lengthy trans-Atlantic phone call, the publisher sent the reviewer a Dear John email.

It is the template for the belief system of every man who was mortified by the reelection of Barack Obama. See, it wasn’t just racists, oligarchs, and plutocrats who wet their pants merely thinking about another four years of Obama. The president represents an entire sea-change in this holy land. The browns, the blacks, the Latinos, the homosexuals, and, perhaps most terrifying of all, the women are coming. The new demographics have delineated a terrifying event horizon and many men find themselves being sucked into the black hole of our future.

Don’t you just love how I tie things together?

So, just read the publisher’s email to his suddenly-former film reviewer, whose name is Michael Calleri. The email is reproduced exactly as written:

Michael; I know you are committed to writing your reviews, and put a lot of effort into them. it is important for you to have the right publisher. i may not be it. i have a deep moral objection to publishing reviews of films that offend me. snow white and the huntsman is such a film. when my boys were young i would never have allowed them to go to such a film for i believe it would injure their developing manhood. if i would not let my own sons see it, why would i want to publish anything about it?
snow white and the huntsman is trash. moral garbage. a lot of fuzzy feminist thinking and pandering to creepy hollywood mores produced by metrosexual imbeciles.

I don’t want to publish reviews of films where women are alpha and men are beta.
where women are heroes and villains and men are just lesser versions or shadows of females.

i believe in manliness.

not even on the web would i want to attach my name to snow white and the huntsman except to deconstruct its moral rot and its appeal to unmanly perfidious creeps.

i’m not sure what headhunter has to offer either but of what I read about it it sounds kind of creepy and morally repugnant.

with all the publications in the world who glorify what i find offensive, it should not be hard for you to publish your reviews with any number of these.

they seem to like critiques from an artistic standpoint without a word about the moral turpitude seeping into the consciousness of young people who go to watch such things as snow white and get indoctrinated to the hollywood agenda of glorifying degenerate power women and promoting as natural the weakling, hyena -like men, cum eunuchs.

the male as lesser in courage strength and power than the female.

it may be ok for some but it is not my kind of manliness.

If you care to write reviews where men act like good strong men and have a heroic inspiring influence on young people to build up their character (if there are such movies being made) i will be glad to publish these.

i am not interested in supporting the reversing of traditional gender roles.

i don’t want to associate the Niagara Falls Reporter with the trash of Hollywood and their ilk.

it is my opinion that hollywood has robbed america of its manliness and made us a nation of eunuchs who lacking all manliness welcome in the coming police state.

now i realize that you have a relationship with the studios etc. and i would have been glad to have discussed this in person with you to help you segue into another relationship with a publication but inasmuch as we spent 50 minutes on the phone from paris i did not want to take up more of your time.

In short i don’t care to publish reviews of films that offend me.

if you care to condemn the filmmakers as the pandering weasels that they are…. true hyenas.
i would be interested in that….
Frank

You think Frank’s the only guy in this nation who thinks this way? Think again.

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“Majority rule only works if you’re also considering individual rights. Because you can’t have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper.” — Larry Flynt

HERESY

I ruffled a lot of feathers Saturday when I wrote that I hadn’t swallowed the September unemployment figures like a good boy taking his cough medicine.

Responders called me both cynical and a conspiracy theorist.

I prefer the term skeptic.

Search Me

The outrage, naturally, came from Barack Obama supporters. All of them who voiced displeasure with that post know I am as eager as they are to see the president be reelected in four weeks. Nevertheless, they viewed me, at least for the moment, as if I’d stepped in dog shit.

Just to show that I’ve cleaned my shoe off and am ready to be accepted back into polite society, I’m going to voice doubt for a set of stats once again.

This time Willard Romney on the receiving end of my sharp pen. I heard this morning that Romney’s lead over Obama in one poll suddenly is 4 points. Not even a week ago, Obama led Romney by four points. So, that’s an eight point swing, attributable only to Obama performing in the first debate as if his high school girlfriend had just dumped him.

I don’t buy it.

Margaret, who owns the Book Corner, asked me yesterday if I was getting tired of the presidential campaign.

Man, am I!

And it’s still inconceivable to me that a significant number of people haven’t decided at this late date whom they’re going to vote for.

If opinion polling is a science, it’s the softest of the soft sciences. And that includes such alchemies as economics and psychology.

Early voting in Monroe County begins today in the Curry Building, 214 W. 7th St. The polling place is open most days from 8am to 6pm. Click here for more Monroe County voting info. Also, click here to find out who your elected officials are.

The Curry Building

I’m going to vote today. Here are my choices (I live in Monroe County, Perry Township, Precinct 22):

  • President & Vice President: Barack Obama & Joe Biden
  • Senator: Joe Donnelly
  • Governor & Lieutenant Governor: John Gregg & Vi Simpson
  • 9th District Representative in US Congress: Shelli Yoder
  • Indiana Attorney General: Kay Fleming
  • Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction: Glenda Ritz
  • State Senator, District 40: Mark Stoops
  • State Representative, District 60: Peggy Welch
  • County Commissioner, District 2: Julie Thomas
  • County Commissioner, District 3: Iris Kiesling
  • County Council At Large: Geoff McKim & Cheryl Munson

I’ll leave about a dozen offices blank either because I don’t know enough about the candidates or the opponents are both full of crap.

Now, here are my winners:

  • Obama/Biden
  • Stoops
  • Welch
  • Julie Thomas
  • Kiesling
  • Geoff McKim & Cheryl Munson

Just Win, Baby!

The GOP statewide will make a clean sweep. Indiana also will go for Romney/Ryan but the President will be reelected nonetheless. And, as always, the People’s Republic of Bloomington will go solidly Democratic.

It’s a real mixed bag for me this year but as long as Obama makes it in for a second term, I’ll be happy. What with Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg hanging on to life by her fingernails, I shudder to think what this holy land will become under another president in hock to the right wing theocrats of America. A Romney administration would be salivating for Ginsberg to at last turn in her lunch bucket and nominate a jurist who thinks corporations are people and the Earth is only 6000 years old.

In any case, go vote. If you don’t you’re a jerk.

CRAZY IN LOVE

The woman’s haircut was a cross between Moe Howard’s, an Afro, and a mullet. Swear to god.

Plus, she had vacant eyes, which was fitting because, well, once you hear why she was on the talk show, you’ll understand that her cranium was as empty as a Republican’s promises to the Middle Class.

I don’t remember which talk show the woman was on. It could well have been Oprah. I did a tiny bit of research and found that she’d also appeared on Morton Downey, Jr.’s show. And if you remember him, you ought to dash out and get an emergency lobotomy because your brain is tainted.

Her name was Sue Terry and she made the rounds on national television to proclaim to the world that she was in love with John Wayne Gacy.

Sue Terry: The Most Whacked-Out Fangirl Of All Time?

That’s the John Wayne Gacy who was found in 1978 to have buried the corpses of at least 33 young boys and men in the crawlspace beneath his Northwest Side Chicago home.

Gacy was one of the maddest hatters this holy land has ever produced. His defense attorney probably considered it a monumental triumph that he convinced judge, jury, press gallery, and gawkers not to string up his client immediately after the prosecution’s opening statement.

Nevertheless, the woman with the improbable hairdo pledged her undying love to Gacy years after he’d been locked up and was awaiting execution. If memory serves me correctly, when pressed as to why she’d feel so strongly about a man who murdered more frequently than other men clean out the garage, she replied, “Well, he never done nothin’ bad to me.”

Which, come to think of it, is as Tea Party-ish a thought as has ever been uttered.

Anyway, I was reminded of this woman in an article I read about the fearsome nature of girl crushes. The author, Rachel Monroe of the Awl website, begins the story by laying out the crush roster she and her teen pals had: Monroe was smitten with Gavin Rossdale, friend Mary was into Leonardo DiCaprio, and Emily was all about Paul McCartney.

She Loves Him, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah

The three made their respective idols the absolute centers of their lives, which is not so terribly fearsome. But the extent that other young girls go to vis a vis the likes of, say, Justin Bieber often is. And then there are those who carry their crushes into adulthood — yick — or whose idols are less than savory characters — even more yicky.

For instance, Monroe reveals, there’s a whole interwebs community of girls who, still to this day, are head over heels for the boys who committed the Columbine shootings. And, natch, there’s now a population of teen girls who are gaga for the loon that shot up the movie theater in Aurora, Colorado earlier this year.

Monroe explores the frightful nature of these and less extreme examples of girl crushes. She writes, “A girl with a crush is also capable of crushing.”

She cites the worries that authorities had about the Beatles when that rage was at its hottest. There was real fear that the Fab Four might eventually be injured or killed by the mobs of shrieking girls that followed them.

Beatlemaniacs surely were not psychotic and if they had harmed the boys, it wouldn’t be because they had malice in their hearts. But those who, like Sue Terry or the Columbine fangirls, are mad for vicious murderers even have a psychiatric handle, hybristophilics.

Can This Be Love?

The piece gets into sexual repression, expression, and double standards. Check it out and explore the hairline border between love and violence.

[h/t to Roger Ebert for the original link to the story.]

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

Tuesday, October 9th, 2012

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

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

WORKSHOP ◗ Ivy Tech-BloomingtonSolving the Credit Mystery: Credit Counseling Expert Panel, experts from Fifth Third Bank, IU Credit Union, & Regions Bank offer info and advice on credit scores, credit cards, etc.; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Latino Cultural Center — “Dancing to Fidel’s Tune: Revolutionary Cuba through Alma Guillermoprieto’s Memoir ‘La Habana en un Espejo’,” Presented by Latino Studies Dissertation Fellow, Silvia Roca-Martinez; Noon

LECTURE ◗ IU Woodburn Hall — “From Food to Fracking: Human Health and the Environment,” Presented by ecologist & author Sandra Steingraber; 4-5pm

MUSIC ◗ The Venue Fine Art & GiftsThe Art of the Harpsichord, Presented by Beth Garfinkel; 5:30pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema — “The Lives of Others”; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Ford-Crawford HallStudent Recital: Clarinet Studio Concerto Competition; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, NashvilleRichard Groner; 7-9pm

WORKSHOP ◗ BloomingLabsIntro to Arduino Programming, Arduinos on hand but guest must bring own laptops; 7-9pm

DISCUSSION ◗ Monroe County History CenterCivil War Roundtable: “Hoosiers in the Mexican War Who Became Leaders in the Civil War“; 7-9pm

POLITICS & DISCUSSION ◗ First United Methodist Church — “Health Care Reform and Medicare: Are You Confused?” Bob Zaltsberg of the Herald-Times moderates, 9th District Congressional candidate Shelli Yoder and numerous experts expected to attend; 7-8:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Cafe DjangoJeff Isaac Trio; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer HallContemporary Vocal Ensemble, Dominick DiOrio, conductor, performing Chen Yi, Sandström, Muhly, Cage, Tormis, & DiOrio; 8pm

GAMES ◗ The Root Cellar at Farm BloomingtonTeam trivia; 8pm

MUSIC ◗ The BishopRingo Deathstarr, Secret Colours; 9pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “New Acquisitions,” David Hockney; through October 21st
  • Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists; through October 14th
  • “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
  • Embracing Nature,” by Barry Gealt; through December 23rd
  • Pioneers & Exiles: German Expressionism,” through December 23rd

ART ◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • 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 GalleryExhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibits opening September 28th:

  • A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits:

  • “¡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 LibraryExhibit:

  • 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 OnExhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions

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

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“The Republican vision is clear: ‘I’ve got mine, the rest of you are on your own.'” — Elizabeth Warren

WOMEN, SPEAK UP!

From a Harry Enfield skit: “Yes, overeducation leads to ugliness, premature aging, and beard growth.”

The skit shows a stuffy dinner party where the men pontificate on the economy and the women sit there looking pretty. That is, until one women decides to offer her opinion. Here’s a vid of the skit:

Harry Enfield is a British comedian who has appeared on the BBC since the late 80s. The skit comes to The Pencil in a roundabout way, originally cited by The Telegraph essayist Bryony Gordon and brought to these shores by Roger Ebert.

Gordon uses the skit to illustrate a surprising finding in a recent study. You might think, she writes, that women today are considered just as intelligent as men and capable of contributing to a discussion at any time and on any subject. How quaint Enfield’s little dinner party faux pas looks now.

Asks Gordon: “Right?”

Sez Gordon: “Wrong!”

Gordon

She quotes from the study published in American Political Science Review that indicates women keep their lips zipped still, even in these more enlightened times, when in the company of men.

Gordon says, “Women, this must stop! We must pipe up when we feel like piping down, and not presume that it will make us ‘frightening’ and ‘intimidating’ to men.”

As Ebert says, “Well, it’s true.”

SELF-CENSORSHIP

Funny thing is, a number of comments following Ebert’s posting of the Gordon essay were from women who said, in essence, Dear me, those brutish men we work with rarely let us cut in and when we do they say nasty things about us.

I’ll Never Speak Up Again!

To which I reply, So what?

BUILDING BULLSHIT

You know how the Republicans have been standing on their heads to make hay of Barack Obama’s “You didn’t build that” comment?

“It” Being The Billionaires’ Economy

Of course, the only way they could make their hay is by quoting it so far out of context he may as well have said, “I invented the Internet.”

Anyway, the whole We Built That meme goes all the way back to the last century. It’s long been the kill cry of corporate pirates, bloated plutocrats, and outright capital-sociopaths.

Take, for instance, the bleating of former uber-investment bank capo Sanford Weill. See, Citicorp in 1998 merged with Travelers Group. Only problem was, federal law at the time prohibited firms from being both investment banks and insurance companies. It all had to do with risk, securities, speculation, “creative” financial instruments — you know, the very things that crashed the world economy in 2007-08.

Sanford Weill

But the bosses of the new outfit figured, “What do we care for the law?”

They paid off a former president and a then-Treasury Secretary among many others to grease the merger through what was at the time sniggeringly referred to as the “regulatory process.”

So Citicorp and Travelers thumbed their corporate noses at the law of the land as well as the health of the economy for the rest of us and created the Frankenstein monster called Citigroup.

In other words, they created wealth through the cronyism, bribery, trickery, and criminal acts.

Yet when a very few dared question the machinations that created that merger monster, Sanford Weill, who became the chief boa constrictor in charge of the shiny new Citigroup toy, would balance his limbless body on a soapbox and cry out, “We didn’t rely on somebody else to build what we built!”

The Gang’s Hideout

Just like the leader of a home invasion burglary ring tells his gang that they’re, well, ambitious men who don’t let trivialities like the law stand in their way.

Keep beating the “We built that” meme into the ground, Republicans. You’re in great company.

[Just a reminder: After Citigroup lost its clients’ shirts in the big crash (for which it was partially responsible), it demanded and got some $45 billion in federal welfare. Yep, they built that.]

BE A BLASPHEMER

Today.

Awfully timely, no?

The only events listings you need in Bloomington.

Sunday, September 30th, 2012

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

FAIR ◗ Monroe County Fairgrounds, Commercial Building West29th Annual American Red Cross Book Fair, +100,000 used books, CDs, DVDs, games, maps, sheet music, etc.; 9am-7pm, through October 2nd

WORKSHOP ◗ Dagom Gaden Tensungling MonasteryFree introductory course on Buddhism; 10-11am

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

The Sprout BoxFinish Day, participants complete their tech projects; Noon-10pm

SPORTS ◗ IU Bill Armstrong StadiumHoosier women’s soccer vs. Northwestern; 1pm

OPEN HOUSE ◗ White Violet Farm, Sisters of Providence Center in Saint Mary-of-the-WoodsCelebrating National Alpaca Farm Days, see 53 alpacas and their caretakers; 1-4pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer HallBaroque Orchestra with director Stanley Ritchie, performing Fux & Handel; 2pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema“Sleepwalk with Me”; 3pm

MUSIC ◗ Oliver WineryAged to Perfection: Voces Novae chamber choir performs Bruckner, Elgar, Sullivan, & Verdi; 3pm

MUSIC ◗ Trinity Episcopal ChurchChoral Evensong, performed by choristers from Trinity & the IU Jacobs School, works by Walmisley & Hurford; 5:30pm

COMPETITION & BENEFIT ◗ Buskirk Chumley Theater6th Annual Bloomington Chef’s Challenge; 6pm

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s PubPenrose Trio; 6pm

FILM ◗ IU Cinema“Road Comics: Big Work on Small Stages,” documentary producer Susan Seizer will appear; 6:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Bear’s PlaceRyder Film Series; “Neighboring Sounds”; 7pm

MUSIC ◗ St. David’s Episcopal Church, Bean BlossomConcert for dedication of new church organ; 7pm

COMEDY ◗ The Comedy AtticNeil Hamburger; 8pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “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 CenterExhibits:

  • 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 GalleryExhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibits opening September 28th:

  • A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits:

  • “¡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 LibraryExhibit:

  • 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 OnExhibit:

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

ART ◗ Boxcar BooksExhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions

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

The Pencil Today:


THE QUOTE

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

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

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

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.


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.

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

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.

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 StudiosParticipate in the construction of “The Messnger,” recycled metal sculpture to be installed at B-Line Trail; 9am-5pm

POLITICS ◗ IU Memorial Union, Dogwood RoomIndiana 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 RoomIssues & 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 DjangoDave Gulyas & Dave Bruker; 7pm

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

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

PERFORMANCE ◗ Unity of Bloomington ChurchAuditions and rehearsal for the Bloomington Peace Choir; 7pm

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

MUSIC ◗ The Player’s PubStardusters; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ Max’s PlaceOpen mic; 7:30pm

MUSIC ◗ IU Auer HallPro Arte Singers, William Jon Gray, conductor; 8pm

DANCE ◗ Harmony SchoolContra dancing; 8-10:30pm

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

MUSIC ◗ Buskirk Chumley TheaterAni Difranco; 9pm

MUSIC ◗ The BluebirdRod Tuffcurls & the Benchpress; 9pm

ONGOING:

ART ◗ IU Art MuseumExhibits:

  • “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 CenterExhibits:

  • 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 GalleryExhibit:

  • “Samenwerken,” Interdisciplinary collaborative multi-media works; through October 11th

ART ◗ IU Kinsey Institute GalleryExhibits opening September 28th:

  • A Place Aside: Artists and Their Partners;” through December 20th
  • Gender Expressions;” through December 20th

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibit:

  • “CUBAmistad” photos

ART ◗ IU Mathers Museum of World CulturesExhibits:

  • “¡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 LibraryExhibit:

  • 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 OnExhibit:

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

ART ◗ Boxcar BooksExhibit:

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

PHOTOGRAPHY ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

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

ARTIFACTS ◗ Monroe County History CenterExhibit:

  • “Doctors and Dentists: A Look into the Monroe County Medical professions

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

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“All the people like us are we, and everyone else is they.” — Rudyard Kipling

PAY ‘EM: DAY 5

Both sides say this morning that the Chicago Teachers Union strike may end any minute.

Striking Chicago Teachers Rally At Buckingham Fountain

School board boss David Vitale told the Chicago Sun-Times that the strike may end as soon as today, with classes meeting Monday.

Teachers union boss Karen Lewis is playing it a little more conservatively, saying “I don’t know” repeatedly when asked about a swift return to the classroom.

As usual, the city is buying the teachers out with scads of dough, which is fine. But the CTU’s demand for improvements in teacher evaluation system probably won’t be part of the new collective bargaining agreement.

On a political note, if the strike does end this weekend, Barack Obama will not suffer any fallout from it, considering that the memory span of the average voter is about 13 and a half seconds.

Designated Bad Guy

Obama’s former Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is now mayor of Chicago and has been positioned as the villain in this morality play by striking teachers and pro-union observers. Obama campaign staffers have been keeping their fingers crossed that the stink of Emanuel’s anti-union stance won’t rub off on on the president..

GOD’S MAD MEN

Now the rage spreads to mainland Africa.

Protests over the non-film that ignited the embassy attacks this week have flared up in Sudan.

Sudanese Protesters Burn Down The German Embassy

This whole affair is starting to stink in the worst possible way. Read Roger Ebert’s take on the anti-Islam film, which he has discovered is really no film at all.

And one of this holy land’s fave snake-oil selling preachers, Pastor Terry Jones, was one of the financiers of this particular hate bomb.

I call for the immediately transport of Jones, “filmmaker” Nakoula Nakoula, and anybody else affiliated with “Innocence of Muslims” to the center of downtown Cairo for their just deserts.

The Trailer

That said, my take on the outrage is this: Muslim men ought to spend more time with women. The mobs in the streets are all male, natch. There’s no calming or nurturing influence. Just a bunch of testosterone-engorged bullies shaking their fists and occasionally throwing a stone or slaying an ambassador.

Any culture that relegates women to second-class status is bound to be dominated by the least savory aspects of maleness.

And speaking of males:

Click For Full Article

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

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

THE STRONG CAN BE LAID LOW

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

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

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

Pencillista Queen

MY GUY ROGER

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

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

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

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

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

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

TRUTH IN HUMOR

Toles Cartoon From The Washington Post Syndicate

DOWN WITH JOE

Penn State University is doing the right thing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Call me a dreamer.

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE…

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

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

Here’s how I waste my time. How about you? Share your fave sites with us via the comments section. Just type in the name of the site, not the url; we’ll find them. If we like them, we’ll include them — if not, we’ll ignore them.

I Love ChartsLife as seen through charts.

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

“What If?” From XKCD

SkepchickWomen scientists look at the world and the universe.

IndexedAll the answers in graph form, on index cards.

Flip Flop Fly BallBaseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

Mental FlossFacts.

Caps Off PleaseComics & fun.

SodaplayCreate your own models or play with other people’s models.

Eat Sleep DrawAn endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

Big ThinkTapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

The Daily PuppySo shoot me.

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

Twin Lakes Recreation CenterAmerican Softball Association Slow Pitch State Tournament; all day

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

◗ IU Willkie AuditoriumCultural fair: Silk Road Bayaram Festival; 3-6pm

The Player’s PubBenefit for Margery Sauve; 6pm

Bryan ParkSunday Concert: Steel Panache, steel drum band; 6:30pm

Bear’s PlaceRyder Film Series: “Oslo, August 31”; 7pm

Buskirk-Chumley TheaterBig Brothers Big Sisters fundraising gala; 7:30pm

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

◗ IU Auer HallSummer Arts Festival: Pipe organ faculty recital; 8pm

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

The BishopDaniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes, the Shams Band; 9pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron CenterExhibits:

  • 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 MuseumExhibits:

  • 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 GalleryExhibits:

  • 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 LibraryExhibit, “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

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

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

70

Happy birthday to Roger Ebert.

Hanging In

KING OF PAIN

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

“Sunset Boulevard”: The Way To Go In Hollywood

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

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

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

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

And you know what I think of rap.

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

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

Law Enforcement

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

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

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

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

MONDAY

Click.

RIOT FOR RIGHT

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

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

Penn State Student Overturn A TV Truck For Justice

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

EBERT’S TOP TEN

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

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

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“I believe that as long as there is plenty, poverty is evil.” — Robert F. Kennedy

THE LIVES WE LEAD IN A LIFETIME

Bobby Kennedy was shot in the head 44 years ago tomorrow. He lingered, unconscious, for a day, then died.

At the time of his death, Bobby Kennedy was a caring, dedicated, sensitive man.

But for much of his adult life, he’d been a jerk. He’d been ruthless, clannish, a moralizer, pathologically ambitious — the list can go on.

Tragedy changed Bobby Kennedy. The death of his brother catapulted him into deep depression. He had, for lack of a more scientifically accurate term, a nervous breakdown. He emerged on the other side of it a different human being.

Kennedy was  Roman Catholic. For all the Church’s sins — and there are many — one praiseworthy aspect of it is its insistence that there is redemption.

I’ve experienced redemption once or twice. Maybe even three times. So, I would assume, have you.

No, not religious redemption. Human redemption. For lack of a more scientifically accurate term.

THE PENCIL’S DAILY EVENTS LISTINGS

Click. And GO!

ANYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH ME IS MENTALLY ILL

A movie reviewer from my old haunt, the Chicago Reader, has panned “The Avengers” in his capsule review.

Naturally, he’s been flooded with emails and other communiques calling into question his sanity and accusing him of possessing the foulest character. After all, this is the United States of America wherein everybody’s opinion on a movie is of paramount import.

The “calling into question his sanity” part elicited a revelation from reviewer Ben Sachs, though.

Ben Sachs

Sachs told the reading public that indeed his brain wiring is screwy — he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 2004. No one outside his circle of friends and family knew about his problem until he was goaded into this public confessional by a commenter named Morganthus who called him “emotionally imbalanced,” an assessment based only on Sachs’ dislike of “The Avengers.”

“How did Morganthus know?” Sachs wrote.

Wow.

A Typical Movie Reviewer In His Office At The Mental Institution

In fact, Sachs even explored the role his mental illness plays in his judgement as an arts arbiter. “I liked the movies, literature, and music that I did because they gave form to emotions I couldn’t organize in real life,” he wrote. He wondered if Morganthus somehow sensed this.

That’s a very charitable attitude on the part of Sachs. I can’t imagine that someone who gets so riled up about a movie review that he’ll write in a comment questioning the reviewer’s psychological stability is actually a perceptive soul hoping to help.

Nevertheless, this Morganthus fellow’s rant resulted in Sachs’ fascinating bit of introspection. Read the entire piece; it’s not terribly long.

[h/t to Roger Ebert for pointing out Sachs’ piece on Facebook.]

FAIR IS FOUL AND FOUL FAIR

Wisconsin voters go to the polls tomorrow. Gov. Scott Walker’s future is in their hands. Will they fire him? The outcome is even money right now.

I don’t know what I like less — Scott Walker or recall elections.

For all Walker’s sins — and there are many — he broke no laws. He was elected fair and square by Wisconsinites. Now, suddenly, he can be removed from office just because he pushed through legislation and made executive decisions a lot of people didn’t care for?

Folks, that’s democracy. The concept does not imply that once we elect a guy or gal we get everything we want. Isn’t that rather childish?

Now, if I lived in Wisconsin, I’d stand on my head to help defeat Walker in the next regular election.

This whole hoo-hah reminds me of two things. One is professional quacker Rush Limbaugh crying like a schoolchild after Barack Obama’s election in 2008. “What about the other 46 percent?” he bleated.

The simple answer to his simplistic question was: They’re out of luck until they become 50 percent-plus-one. Rules of the game, baby.

The other thing I thought of was the startling number of my liberal friends who swore they’d move to another country if George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004. A former co-worker who’d moved to Rochester, New York, said it to me one afternoon and I challenged her. “Is that just hyperbole,” I asked. “or do you really mean it?”

“I really mean it,” she said. Rochester is just across Lake Ontario from Canada, she explained, so it wouldn’t be that big a deal. She neglected to mention if the Canadian government had pledged to honor all her wishes after her move.

Dems Flee The US After George W. Bush’s Reelection

I cared for George W. Bush even less than I care for Scott Walker. Bush will go down, I’m certain, as one of our worst presidents.

His two elections saddened and discouraged me. I could only wonder why a modern nation of some 300M people could select as their leader such a chucklehead. Not that I’d be dancing in the streets had either Al Gore or John Kerry won but, the way I look at it, a stubbed toe is better than being kicked in the gut repeatedly.

Anyway, Bush hooked and crooked his way into the White House the first time he ran and then played the war card to win a second time. But he was still my president because I’m a participating member of the American electorate.

Not That I Was Thrilled About It

Say what you will about the late John Wayne, when asked his reaction to the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960, he said, “I didn’t vote for him but he’s my president.”

Sounds a tad more adult than today’s blatherings, no?

Anyway, rules of the game, right? As long as recall elections are within the rules, I hope Walker gets his ass beat.

BALL OF CONFUSION

Vote for me and I’ll set ya free!

The Pencil Today:

THE QUOTE

“At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big To Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we’ll all be paying for until the end of time.” — Matt Taibbi

NAH, IT CAN’T BE — CAN IT?

Gawker had this first, then Roger Ebert re-posted it. It’s a purported commercial for the Rick Santorum campaign.

Ebert says he can’t believe it’s real. And, quite frankly, neither can I.

I mean, Little Rickey is the altar boy who loved all the attention the priest lavished on him, leading him to become the world’s most prominent closeted figure. His resultant damaged psyche then led him to turn the Republican primary battle into a cheap Outer Limits episode, natch.

But this? For real?

Well, just watch. Someone out there has to know if this is legit or not. Lemme know, would you?

PSANTORUM IS PSYCHO

Here’s the definition of Paranoid Personality Disorder, as presented in the DSM-IV-TR, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th edition, text revision, that is the bible (you’ll pardon the pun) of the psychiatry profession:

A. A pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent, beginning in early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by four (or more) of the following:

  1. suspects, without sufficient basis, that others are exploiting, harming, or deceiving him or her
  2. is preoccupied with unjustified doubts about the loyalty or untrustworthiness of friends or associates
  3. is reluctant to confide in others because of unwarranted fear that the information will be used maliciously against him or her
  4. reads hidden demeaning or threatening meanings into benign remarks or events
  5. persistently bears grudges, i.e, is unforgiving of insults, injuries, or slights
  6. perceives attacks on his or her character or reputation that are not apparent to others and is quick to react angrily or counterattack
  7. has recurrent suspicions, without justification, regarding fidelity of spouse or sexual partner

B. Does not occur exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia, a Mood Disorder With Psychotic Features, or another Psychiatric Disorder and is not due to the direct physiological effects of a general medical condition.

There you have it. Little Rickey is damned on at least five criteria: numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6. This man who should be eating soft foods prior to being given his nightly mega-dose of Thorazine may well be your next Republican candidate for Vice President of the world’s only remaining superpower.

THE ONLY TRUE RELIGION

Believe me, I love the Book Corner but I’d jump at the chance to work in this palace in a heartbeat.

The painstakingly preserved 13th Century cathedral in Maastricht, Holland, is the new home of the Dutch Selexyz Dominicanen bookstore.

Dig this shelving under the soaring vaulted ceiling:

Meanwhile back in this holy land bookstores are closing faster than James Patterson and Nicholas Sparks can type out those disposable consumables they call novels.

RUBY, DON’T TAKE YOUR LOVE TO TOWN

Happy birthday, Leonard Nimoy.

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