Tea Party | The Electron Pencil

07/09/2012

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Don’t threaten me with love, baby. Let’s just go walking in the rain.” — Billie Holiday

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WHITE HEAT

This is truly evil, isn’t it?

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It’s a screenshot from the National Weather Service page Saturday at about 4:55pm.

And dig that humidity: 19 percent! Honestly, those are oven conditions.

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AND THEN, THE HEAVENS OPENED UP

Some folks around town got a little rain Saturday evening, just before sunset. Facebook pals of ours were gushing about the downpour while the ground surrounding Chez Big Mike remained rock dry.

But yesterday afternoon we all got our treat. The rain fell, well, in buckets. When the torrent wasn’t so severe as to knock one off his or her feet, local citizens were actually walking around courthouse square in the rain like little kids, simply enjoying the experience of being wet.

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HERE’S THE STORY OF A LOVELY LADY…

Laura Grover’s Bloomington Storytelling Project is having a big do Saturday, 7:00pm, at the Waldron Center.

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The Groovy Grover is looking for more storytellers to tell their tales, so if you want to regale the citizenry, email her.

This month’s theme will be “Shocks and Surprises” but, really, every BSP event is chock full of S&Ss. If you haven’t caught a night with the BSPers yet, you’re in for a riot. It’s amazing how many raconteurs, fabulists, and flat-out bullshitters live in this burgh.

You know, it’d be a great date destination. Even if your date should bore you to tears, the evening wouldn’t be a total loss. Try it.

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THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS

So, 9th District Rep. Todd Young (R) is hitching his wagon to Mitt Romney, natch.

This area’s first-term congressboy crashed Washington in the 2010 elections on the coattails of the Tea Party revolution (and how revolting it was.) The Tea Party-ists have been lukewarm on the former moderate Massachusetts guv so far this election year.

All Aboard!

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But the GOP gang is noted for its ability to fall into line, so the side of Right is standing by their man even if they are holding their noses.

Young last week was named honorary co-chair of Mitt’s Veterans and Military Families for Romney club, which actually boasts some three bazillion co-chairs.

They’re all fine and patriotic souls whose fondest wish is that a Republican — any Republican — evicts Barack Obama from the White House come November. Of course, in order for them to realize that goal, the economy has to tank even further than it is already.

Such a quandary: loving, loving, loving this holy land while at the same time hoping, hoping, hoping more people lose their jobs and see their retirement investments shrink.

Neat strategy, guys.

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LO-TECH POLS

Meanwhile, Shelli Yoder, the Dem candidate for Young’s seat, issued a press release recently decrying the incumbent’s use of the mails to tell the voters of Indiana’s 9th District what a wonderful guy he is.

Young: “I’m Swell.”

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According to the Yoder camp, Young spent nearly $300,000 sending out junk mail to voters in the District in the year April 1, 2011, to March 31, 2012. Yoder says Young is “one of the top senders of mailings in the House.”

The 87 Republicans who gained seats for the first time in 2010 spent some $9.8M on mailers during their first year in office. These are the folks who sold themselves by saying Congressional spending was out of control.

21st Century Communication?

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According to House records, eight of the ten top 2011 mailers in the US House were freshman.

Franking privileges, which is the official term for taxpayers footing the bill for Congressbeings to send mail to their constituents, supposedly are limited to communications on the issues as opposed to campaign literature. But those of us who aren’t as adept at lying as politicians are understand that when we receive a glossy card or pamphlet from our senator or representative, he or she’s really only looking for our vote.

So Todd Young isn’t alone in using our money to convince us he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Nor are Republicans alone in charging us for their PR postage — two of the top ten frosh were Dems.

Still, in this Internet age how much sense does it make for our elected representatives to be sending us junk mail? And is any of their self-aggrandizing material actually effective?

Search me. I do know this — if Shelli Yoder wins her race against Todd Young, I’ll be watching her to make sure she’s not on the top ten list in 2013.

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THE RAIN, THE PARK, AND OTHER THINGS

The Cowsills were the bargain-basement kids-and-mom of 60s-era Sunshine Pop. The sub-genre’s artistes included the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas.

The sunshine sound began to die with the 1969 release of the Archies’ “Sugar, Sugar.” Even though it was that year’s top selling 45, it’s hyperglycemic lyrics and vocals forced much of the listening public to turn to more morose singer-songwriters for something akin to balance.

Me? I’m still not averse to naked optimism and head-in-the-sand joy in my music. After all, you can only listen to the Cowboy Junkies for so long before you begin to lose your will to live.

The story goes that Screen Gems wanted to do a weekly show about the Cowsills but thought the mom, Barbara, too homely for TV stardom. Screen Gems hired Shirley Jones to play the mom with the rest of the Cowsills playing themselves but when the kids found out about the plan, the family pulled out of the project.

I Hate To Say It But….

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Screen Gems went ahead with Shirley Jones and even hired her stepson, David Cassidy, to play her kid in a sitcom based on a similar idea, “The Partridge Family.”

Anyway, in honor of yesterday’s rain:

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

◗ St. Mark’s United Methodist Church — The Generations Project: “What’s Working, What’s Not?”, discussion of brain injury for victims and family; 10am-noon

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — New exhibit, “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; 1:30pm-close, through September 21st

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◗ IU Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center — Summer Arts Festival: Michael Spiro & IU Summer World Percussion Ensemble; 7pm

◗ Third Street Park — Cuba Friendship Caravan, pitch-in meal, music, and discussion with caravanistas traveling to Santa Clara, Cuba, with aid packages; 7-8:45pm

◗ The Bishop — DJs Mr. & Mrs. Resur; 8pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Arts Festival: Kevork Mardirossian on violin and Lee Phillips on piano play Prokofiev, DeBussy, & Franck; 8pm

◗ IU Auer Hall — Summer Music Series: Zoe Martin-Doike on violin, Nathan Vickery on cello, and Chih-Yi Chen on piano; 8pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Songwriter Showcase; 8pm

◗ IU HPER, room 107 — Ballroom dance lessons; 8:30pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibit, “I’m Too Young For This @#!%” by John D. Shearer; through July 30th

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibit, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts by Qiao Xiaoguang; through August 12th — Exhibit, wildlife artist William Zimmerman; through September 9th — Exhibit, David Hockney, new acquisitions; through October 21st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Kinsey Institute Juried Art Show; through July 21st, 11am

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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06/11/2012

3 Comments

Bill Maher, Creflo Dollar, Donald Trump, Fox News, Labor Unions, Mad Magazine, Mitch Daniels, Mitt Romney, Mr. Burns, NATO, Occupy Wall Street, Paul Kantner, Ron Paul, Ronald Reagan, Tea Party

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“You can’t just sit around and make protest albums all your life; eventually it comes to the point where you have to do something.” — Paul Kantner

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THE RIGHT’S GLOVES ARE OFF

So, Mitch Daniels went all the way Sunday morning. He appeared on Fox News (where else?) and called for the elimination of public sector unions.

That’s Rich, Mitch

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Next week, Donald Trump and Mitt Romney will appear on Fox to call for the elimination of the 50 states. They will be replaced, under the Hair Hell/Mitt Plan, by fiefdoms run by the leading corporations on the Fortune 500 list.

On June 24th, Ron Paul will present his proposal to declare the national deity whichever plutocrat happens to occupy the Richest Man in America spot each particular week.

Sometime in July, Saint Ronald Reagan is expected to arise from the dead, speak briefly on the Fox News Sunday program, and then ascend into heaven.

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AROUND TOWN MONDAY

Click.

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THE DOLLAR IS DOWN

“Prosperity gospel” bunk artist Creflo Dollar harangued his congregation yesterday about his arrest on charges of physically abusing his 15-year-old daughter.

He denied everything, natch. “I want the church family to know that all is well in the Dollar household,” he thundered.

Charged With Battery, Family Violence, & Child Cruelty

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Here’s a personal message to Dollar: Your own daughter caused you to be cuffed, printed, and given a room in the Lockup Hotel. Your own daughter. All is not well in your household.

By the way, the holy loon’s wife is named Taffi Dollar. Did a comedy writer come up with this stuff?

Daffy & Taffi

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His congregation numbers some 20,000 trusting souls. He is reported to have owned a couple of Rolls Royces. He flies around in a private Gulfstream jet. He lives in a million dollar home in Georgia as well as a $2.5M pad in Manhattan. He tells his sheep that Jesus and his old man want them to be rich, rich, rich, just like him. Then he asks them to send him dough. Loads of it. How much? No one can say precisely. MinistryWatch.com has rated him F in financial transparency.

The New York Post reports that his church rakes in $65M a year.

Oh, and his ministry doesn’t pay any taxes.

Wouldn’t you love to do to him what his daughter says he did to her?

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FUNNY

Mad magazine is still at it. (h/t to Brady Haston from Tennessee.)

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TEA PARTY-ISTS ARE LOONS BUT THEY’RE SMART

Bill Maher’s right. (Go to the 2:42 mark in the vid.)

He smacked the Occupy Wall Street and street protest crowds Friday.

OWS and the rest of the dance-on-the-pavement bunch who think The Man is afraid of them because they wear bandannas over their faces have to start thinking about real change in a real world.

NATO Protesters In Chicago

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Playing cowboys and Indians on the streets may be fun but it gets nothing done.

Let’s start holding Town Hall meetings.

Let’s start registering voters.

Let’s run voter shuttles on election day.

Let’s start packing school boards, county commissions, city councils, and other small legislative bodies

Then let’s focus on the House and the Senate.

Let’s withdraw our money from gargantuan banks.

Let’s start credit unions.

Let’s pack municipal, state, and federal legislative sessions.

Let’s apply real pressure.

Whee! I’m Changing The World!

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Here’s Maher: “It seems to be working for the Tea Party. I mean, think of it, three years ago the Tea Party was just a few hundred diabetics angry at blacks and gays for making them feel old. But now they have 62 seats in Congress.”

Believe me, NATO ministers and investment bank CEOs and corporate rapists don’t care who you are under that bandana nor do they care what your placard reads.

Or Your Chest

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06/09/2012

1 Comment

Gov. Scott Walker, Great Society, Lyndon Baines Johnson, Tea Party, Uncategorized, War on Poverty, Wisconsin Recall Election

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Freedom is not enough.” — Lyndon Baines Johnson

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WHAT? HELP THE WEAK AND THE MEEK?

“This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”
“Our first objective is to free 30 million Americans from the prison of poverty. Can you help us free these Americans? And if you can, let me hear your voices!”
“Do something we can be proud of! Help the weak and the meek and lift them up and help them train and give them an education….”
“We have a right to expect a job, to provide food for our families, a roof over their heads, clothes for their bodies, and with your help, and with god’s help, we will have it in America!”

These are the fiery words of the President of the United States. The year was 1964. Lyndon Baines Johnson criss-crossed the country, trying to whip up excitement among volunteers and community organizers and municipal officials, hoping they’d jump on his Great Society bandwagon.

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LBJ, for all his sins — and there were very, very, very many, truly believed this holy land was big and rich and powerful and generous enough to eliminate poverty here.

He pounded the podium as he spoke. He pointed at the crowd. He punched his fists in the air. He leaned so far over you might have wondered if he’d tumble into the crowd.

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Imagine an old-time, stump-speaking pol, roaring at the crowd from his bully pulpit, challenging them to help the weak and the meek!

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You’ll have to imagine it — no self-respecting pol today would dare utter such silliness.

He or she would be branded naive. Or worse. Liberal. Socialist. Maybe even Muslim.

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I’ve lived through the liberal zenith of the mid-60s, highlighted by LBJ’s Great Society, to the nadir of today’s me-first, don’t tax me bro, every man for himself, make sure you’ve got a gun under your pillow, if you’re poor that’s your tough luck, Ayn Rand, Saint Ronald Reagan, Lloyd Blankfein doing god’s work, ugly America.

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The unnecessary re-confirmation of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker drives the point home. The people of Wisconsin elected — twice — a Tory to lead them out of the economic wilderness. If there’s one true thing that can be said about people who are worried about their wallets and pocketbooks, it’s that they’ll panic. They’ll go for any tough-talking bastard who blames the weak and the meek for all the nation’s ills.

Somehow, though, for the briefest of moments the United States of America became, for lack a of a better word, holy. We actually talked about helping our brothers and sisters.

This “Christian” nation became for a fleeting instant, well, Christian.

Not anymore, baby.

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CLICK AND GO!

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05/26/2012

2 Comments

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Bill Maher, Book Corner, Donald Trump, Dr. Joseph Mackey, Ernest Hemingway, Eye Center of Southern Indiana, Jamie Dimon, Lady Gaga, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Jordan, Oprah Winfrey, Sleep, Steve Wozniak, Tea Party, The Godfather Part II

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“I love sleep. My life has a tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” — Ernest Hemingway

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Scary? Scary How?

Just a tidbit from Bill Maher’s latest spew:

“If Obama were as radical as they claim, here’s what he already would have done: pulled the troops out of Afghanistan, given us Medicare for all, ended the drug war, cut the defense budget in half, and turned Dick Chaney over to The Hague. Here’s what Obama actually did: he cut taxes and spending…, he didn’t go on a spending spree, he didn’t break up the ‘too big to fail’ banks — they’ve only gotten bigger and fail-y-er. That’s not what liberals wanted; that’s what conservatives wanted…. [U]nder Obama, there’s more drilling than ever. That’s not what environmentalists wanted; that’s what conservatives wanted. Obama spent most of last year conceding the Republican premise that government needed cutting. That’s not what progressives wanted; that’s what the Tea Party wanted. The Dow was at 7949 when he took office, now it’s at 12,000 and over. Corporates profits are at their highest ever. If he’s a socialist, he’s a lousy one. He could not be less threatening if he was walking home with iced tea and Skittles.”

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I DUNNO. WHADDA YOU WANNA DO?

Don’t do a single thing today until you visit the Pencil’s GO! Events Listings.

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SLEEPLESS IN SUCCESSVILLE

I am a world champion napper. Napping is one of humankind’s finest pursuits. A day spent without a nap is a day wasted.

I’ve been partial to naps ever since I emerged from the womb and yawned.

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Imagine how thrilled I was when my cardiologist told me that due to my congenitally malformed heart, I ought to take a nap whenever I feel the need for one. (Almost as giddy as when he told me drinking a glass of wine and eating a piece of chocolate a day would be of great benefit to me — I nearly kissed him.)

Now, I love working at the Book Corner save for one terrible drawback — Margaret, the owner of the place, won’t let me take a nap while I’m on the clock. The tyrant.

Apparently, much of the world seems to be able to get by without naps. Poor souls.

And, if I can believe what I read, there are those who have energy to burn, who are on the go, go, go, all day long, who can get by with only three or four hours of sleep in a night.

Crazy, no?

Do I Have To Do This?

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Bill Clinton is one of those people. I suppose any number of presidents and aspirants to that sleepless office have less than the average bear’s need for slumber.

I’ve met dozens of people who are great successes in business and entertainment, many of whom view sleeping at night as a kind of annoyance. They can’t get anything done when they’re asleep, they complain. They’re aghast at the idea of taking a nap.

Man.

It seems as though the real hard-chargers in this mixed-up world, people like Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey, Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Wozniak, Jamie Dimon and any Mexican drug cartel boss worth his salt rarely go to sleep.

Who Has Time To Sleep?

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Maybe that’s the key to their fabulous success. Maybe that’s why Donald Trump and Lady Gaga are who they are. They’re blazing trails while the rest of us are laying on the sofa.

Oh, sure, they have piles of dough. Big deal. I’ve got my naps.

I was thinking about all this yesterday when I went to go see young Dr. Joe Mackey at the Eye Center. I went in for my one-week follow up exam after eye surgery. The verdict: All is well. That’s pretty much all Mackey said to me.

As always, he was in a mad rush.

I’ll bet he’s one of the people who don’t sleep much. The guy darts from room to room like a crystal meth fiend. He once told me that on his day for surgery he performs 14 or so procedures. Sheesh! The other days of the week he’s peering into and jiggering with the eyes of dozens and dozens of people each day.

If I tried to keep up his pace for fifteen minutes I’d have to take a nap. A good long one — 45 minutes, maybe, or an hour.

What An Exhausting Day!

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On the bell curve of human sleep needs, he and I occupy the opposite flanges.

Guys like Mackey, big time sports stars, Hollywood actors and actresses, corporate CEOs, big city mayors — all sorts of high achievers seem to be racing every minute of the day. And their days last from before dawn often until after midnight.

Mackey could have elected to live a nice, relaxed lifestyle. He could have opened his own opthalmology practice in some far off locale where he’d see a couple of patients a day. That’s what I would have done. He could do one eye surgery a week. Maybe one every couple of weeks.

Then he could take a nap.

You’re My Third Patient This Month!

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But he chose to go to work for a multi-million-dollar eyeball factory. The Eye Center has dozens of employees, its own surgery center in the basement, enough high-tech, high-buck machines to fill a medium-sized warehouse, and most likely a huge debt load. If you work for old man Grossman and his partners, you’d better be ready to hustle from room to room, checking patients out and sending them home, calling for the next one, chop chop, saying only what you need to say, generating revenue.

This, said Hyman Roth to Michael Corleone in ” The Godfather Part II,” is the business we’ve chosen.

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We talk a lot about doctors needing a comforting bedside manner these days. We need the doc to hold our hands while she tells us to lay off the pie and the french fries. That’s fine for a general practitioner. They have to lay the oil on us if only to get us to open up and tell them about the ache in our knees or the funny mole on our back.

But specialists like Mackey don’t need to cajole information out of us. They’ve got special skills and devices that can tell them a hundred times more about us than we ever could. Then, when it’s time to act, they wield other devices like Jedi knights, they flutter their fingers over our most fragile organs with a deftness that borders on magic.

Has The Patient Been Prepped?

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Mackey shined some tiny beacons into my eyes and muttered notes to an assistant who transcribed his impressions at the keyboard. “Terrific,” he said. “Excellent.” “Very good.” “Healing well.” “Vision better than can be expected.”

I felt flattered, as if somehow I had a hand in the whole procedure. “Yeah,” I said, “I feel great. No complaints.”

Dr. Mackey recoiled slightly from his machine, as if he were surprised I was there. And you know what? He probably was.

He’d been commenting on his own handiwork. He’s a borderline magician and he knows it.

Voila — You Can See!

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And the truth is, without that confidence, without that arrogance, he wouldn’t be one-tenth as good as he is.

How big does your ego have to be to carve up another person’s eyeball and hope not only that you don’t blind the poor sap but can actually make him see better?

Answer: Huge.

Mackey pulled his diagnostic machine away and wished me a pleasant weekend. And like that he was out the door. He moved so fast I thought there’d be a sonic boom.

Dr. Joe Mackey is of a different breed than I am. Maybe even a different species. But that’s what makes him so spectacularly good.

Me? I’m gonna take a nap.

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05/21/2012

1 Comment

Abortion, Air America Radio, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, ¡Satiristas!, Bruce Springsteen, Craig Kilborn, Cyndi Lauper, Dan Dion, Esquire Magazine, Ford Motor Company, Ford Pinto, Fortune Magazine, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jon Stewart, Lewis F. Powell, Lizz Winstead, New Left, Paul Provenza, Powell Memo, Ralph Nader, Richard M. Nixon, Roe v. Wade, Roman Catholic Church, Ronald Reagan, Shoot the Messenger, Steven Higgs, Tea Party, The Bloomington Alternative, The Daily Show, The Tennessean, Thurgood Marshall, US Chamber of Commerce, US Supreme Court

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.” — John Kenneth Galbraith

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THIS MEANS WAR!

Steven Higgs of the Bloomington Alternative ran a fascinating two–parter this month on the 1971 opening salvo in the right wing revolution that has turned this holy land into a corporatocracy. Don’t miss it.

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Less than half a year before he was nominated by Richard Nixon to become a US Supreme Court Associate Justice, the then-rightist Lewis Powell wrote an explosive memo detailing what he saw as the coming war for free enterprise.

Powell, you may recall, retired in the middle of Ronald Reagan’s second term as president. By that time, he was seen as a moderate, a compromiser, the guy who could talk to both Antonin Scalia and Thurgood Marshall. In fact, many felt Powell was even too liberal for a Court and a nation that had moved dramatically rightward in the preceding 16 years.

Reagan nominated Anthony Kennedy, an even more conservative jurist, to replace Powell. Now Kennedy is seen as the moderate, the compromiser, and, occasionally, too liberal for his own good.

The right has come a long way, baby.

Powell

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Anyway, Powell, a big-time corporate lawyer and legal advocate for the tobacco industry, wrote that American capitalism was under attack on a variety of fronts 41 years ago. Everybody, he wrote, from Ralph Nader, the media, academia, the federal courts, communists and “New Left”-ists, to outright revolutionaries were gunning for our sacred economic system.

Powell wasn’t speaking metaphorically either. He was convinced liberals were out to destroy America. His screed sounded like nothing other than a typical Rush Limbaugh upchuck.

For instance, Powell quoted a Fortune magazine diatribe against consumer advocate Nader:

“The passion that rules in him — and he is a passionate man — is aimed at smashing utterly the target of his hatred, which is corporate power. He thinks, and says quite bluntly, that a great many corporate executives belong in prison — for defrauding the consumer with shoddy merchandise, poisoning the food supply with chemical additives and willfully manufacturing unsafe products that will maim or kill the buyer.”

Nader, Powell asserted, was dangerous.

Dangerous

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Funny thing is, a mere six years later it was learned that Ford Motor Company bosses knew their Pinto model was liable to explode in flames in rear-end collisions. Those execs also knew a certain number of Pinto drivers and passengers would die as a result. They decided that the deaths and resulting financial damage claims were simply the cost of doing business.

Dangerous, indeed.

In the Powell Memo, sent to members of the US Chamber of Commerce, he suggested corporate America and political leaders devote themselves to the “constant surveillance” of school textbooks and eliminate left-wingers from schools and positions of power.

“There should be no hesitation to attack,” he advised corporate leaders.

Yeesh!

Higgs concludes that the memo was “a literal call to the political arms that have (sic) subsequently driven the nation’s devolution from democracy to oligarchy.”

I suppose the only difference between today and 1971 is that, back then, the only people who would spout such psycho garbage were toady corporate lawyers. Now, the corporations have an entire Tea Party to parrot their paranoia.

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LIZZ WINSTEAD’S BABY

Lizz Winstead created the fabulously successful Daily Show franchise that we think of as Jon Stewart’s baby.

It isn’t.

Winstead

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Stewart came aboard two and a half years after the show was born. He replaced the smarmy-snarky, celebrity-gossipy Craig Kilborn as host. Toward the end of Kilborn’s run, he granted an interview to an Esquire magazine writer in which he suggested that Winstead would happily blow him. It was the last straw in Winstead’s long-standing battle against the comedy boys club that was taking over her show. She quit soon after.

Since her Daily Show stint, Winstead’s career has soared and dived. She co-founded the ill-fated Air America Radio network. She writes occasionally for the Huffington Post, has produced a few TV and radio shows, and now hosts a weekly New York City radio news wrap up program called “Shoot the Messenger.”

I was reminded of Winstead while reading a neat book called “¡Satiristas!: Comedians, Contrarians, Raconteurs & Vulgarians,” by Paul Provenza and Dan Dion. It was published by itbooks, a HarperCollins imprint, in 2010. In it Provenza chats with dozens of funny people about their art.

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Winstead is included in the line-up. She tells Provenza that part of her comedic sensibility emanates from her conservative Catholic childhood home in Minneapolis.

She recalls facing her first adult dilemma as a teenaged girl.

“[T]he first time I ever had sex, in high school, I got pregnant. I knew I wasn’t having a baby, bu the way to get an abortion was so insane. Being brought up a Catholic, I didn’t know where to go, but one day I saw a sign on the bus for a place that said, ‘Abortion options.’ I thought, ‘Oh, there are many options.’

“So I go to this place, and it was run by some group called The Lambs of Christ. This woman comes out wearing a lab coat, so I’m thinking she’s some kind of doctor. Then I realized the women at the Clinique and Lancôme counters wear lab coats; she’s not really a doctor, lab coats are pretty much available anywhere. She shows me blow-ups of mangled fetuses and a picture of a kid on a bike. I’m like, ‘A bike?’ It was insane. I left completely confused. As I walked out the door, she was yelling after me, ‘Just remember, the choice you make is mommy or murder.’

“I thought, ‘I’m sixteen and here’s an adult, a “person of God,” impersonating a physician, just scaring the shit out of me.’ Even as a kid, I was, like, ‘That’s fucking weird.'”

Winstead’s 51 years old now, meaning the encounter took place 35 years ago, probably sometime in 1977.

Just four short years after the US Supreme Court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade decision.

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Nashville’s The Tennessean newspaper reported Friday that 24 states passed new abortion restriction laws in 2011, more than any previous year.

Talk about fucking weird.

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MONEY CHANGES EVERYTHING

Written by Bruce Springsteen, performed best by Cyndi Lauper.

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05/16/2012

1 Comment

Andromeda Galaxy, Australopithecus, Barack Obama, Jamie Dimon, Joe the Plumber, Kirkwood Observatory, Marcy Kaptur, Me Party, Samuel Wurzelbacher, Shana Alexander, Tea Party, Toledo Blade

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Evolution is fascinating to watch. To me, it is the most interesting when one can observe the evolution of a single man.” — Shana Alexander

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TINY

Just a reminder, you can broaden your visual horizon up to a trillion-fold tonight — for free.

Each Wednesday night, the astro-geeks who run IU’s Kirkwood Observatory, throw its doors open to the public. They’ll actually let you peer out at the universe through its main telescope, a 12-inch refractor, and they’ll show you tons of other cool, geeky things.

If you ever want to feel infinitesimally small, try sneaking a peek at some celestial landmark (or should I say spacemark?) sometime. Say, for instance, the Kirkwood astronuts point their device at the Andromeda Galaxy, the first cosmic structure to be identified as existing outside our own Milky Way Galaxy. The Andromeda is approximately 2.6M light years away from Earth.

M-31: The Andromeda Galaxy

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That is, if you picked up your hyper-strong flashlight, pointed it at the Andromeda, and flicked it on, it would take the its light more than two and a half million years to reach that galaxy.

Or, putting it another way, the Andromeda we’re looking at today actually existed when Australopithecus first started using stone tools in Africa.

Great-Great-Great-Great… Great-Great-Great Grandma

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Not even your grandfather walked that far to school in the middle of winter.

BTW: that trillion-fold reference I made earlier? Just a breezy estimation. It’s said that when a six-foot tall person stands at sea level, the horizon appears to be about three miles away. In other words, that’s pretty much haw far your horizontal vision range is on Earth.

Now, a light year is 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles. Let’s put that in English: that’s more than 5.8 trillion miles. Not million. Not billion. Trillion.

Now do you feel small?

♢

JOE THE SHOVELER

Do you want to feel even smaller?

Great-great… great-Grandma’s (pictured above) progeny — us, Homo Sapiens sapiens — includes within its ranks one Joe the Plumber.

That’s right, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher gained international fame when he confronted candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail during the 2008 race for the president.

At Least One Of These Guys Isn’t Telling The Truth

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Wurzelbacher told Obama that he was planning to buy his boss’s plumbing business and would probably make more than $250,000 a year after doing so. Therefore, Obama’s proposed tax hike on quarter-plus-millionaires would harm him or at the very least make his dream harder to achieve.

Obama responded by saying, in part, that some wealth ought to be redistributed.

Oh, did the Republicans jump on that! Next thing you knew, Obama was painted as the depraved spawn of Marx, Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, and Son of Sam all rolled into one.

Obama’s Dad

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Not only that, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher was rechristened “Joe the Plumber” and became the darling of the Right and eventually a standard bearer for the Me Party.

Only Joe the Plumber was not what he said he was. The Toledo Blade did some digging and found that, although J the P said he worked under his boss’s plumbing license, he was not legally permitted to do plumbing work in the state of Ohio. “He is… not registered to operate as a plumber in Ohio,” the Blade reported, “which means he’s not a plumber.”

Oh.

Turns out his “plan” to buy out his boss’s operation was casually discussed during his hiring process six years previously. In other words, J the P’s grand design was part of the normal bullshit bandied about during any job interview.

Additionally, a close examination of J the P’s finances revealed that he had precisely zero chance in the foreseeable future of buying out his boss’s successful firm.

So, at least J the P was revealed to posses one requisite talent for a plumber — he is expert at shoveling shit.

Joe Can Do This

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But wait — that’s not the end of the story. J the P is still with us. In fact, he may be reporting for work in the US Capitol come January. Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher is running for Congress in Ohio’s 9th District. He faces long-time House Dem Marcy Kaptur.

And guess what — he has an awfully good chance of winning. Right-wingers and Me Party-ists from around the country are contributing to his campaign.

Darwin had it right: we didn’t ascend from the apes, we descended from them.

♢

DIMON IS A BOWL’S BEST FRIEND

I’m not a violent man so when the revolution comes I won’t be in favor of chopping off the heads of the greedy hyper-capitalist no-goodniks who’ve turned this holy land into a tin-horn banana republic.

I do have an idea for how we ought to deal with Jamie Dimon, though.

We, the new bosses after the overthrow, will force him to earn his daily bread by scrubbing public toilets. Those in parks, say, or in non-profit cultural institutions.

Why not? It’s good, honest work. Somebody has to do it. Why not Jamie?

Why Not, Jamie?

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In fact, what with his vaunted rep as a brilliant business strategist, he’d probably be able to form a very efficient operation employing hundreds or even thousands of people.

All of them doing real work that would benefit people.

But no matter how busy Jamie might be setting up his new biz empire, he would be compelled to personally scrub at least a half dozen porcelain princesses a day — we’d hate to have him lose that hands -on experience.

Ain’t I a dreamer?

♢

05/12/2012

The Pencil Today:

✍

THE QUOTE

“Politics hates a vacuum. If it isn’t filled with hope, someone will fill it with fear.” — Naomi Klein

♢

BANG, BANG, BANG

Admittedly the story’s still sketchy as I type this, but the guy who was shooting a gun into a house as he stood stark naked in an alley off 15th Street yesterday afternoon seems to be, shall we say, mentally whacked out, no?

I’m not a shrink — although I’ve helped several members of that fine profession make payments on their sailboats — but I can stand behind the above statement confidently.

There Goes My Money

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In fact, I’m all for the latest edition of the DSM including the psychological diagnosis mentally whacked out. Go ahead psych-folks, you can have the coinage free of charge.

My question is, why did a mentally whacked out guy have a 9mm pistol in his possession in the first place?

It’s getting almost as easy to get a gun card in this great state as it is to get a library card. The National Rifle Association and its friends in the statehouse, I’m sure, are working overtime these days to rectify that.

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Should it turn out that the IU student in question was known to have a screw or two loose and still be qualified to handle pocket artillery, then the enlightened citizens of Indiana had better do something about it.

Which means chuckleheads like me banging out angry words in a blog or marching two or three times around the county courthouse carrying placards reading “End Gun Violence Now.”

I’ll bet we get the attention of pols and legislators — even as they’re collecting their campaign donation checks from the local NRA chapter.

At least I try.

♢

MOURDOCK’S WAY

Richard Mourdock, newly christened nominee in the race for US senator from Indiana, is the definitive Tea Party Republican now.

Mourdock: “I Want My Way!”

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Here’s what he had to say about crafting legislation with other senators should he be elected this November:

“I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view.”

Oops, there was a typo in one of the above paragraphs; the words, “Tea Party” should have read “Me Party.”

♢

TAKE THIS GOD AND SHOVE IT

It’s funny how a little thing can send a guy over the top.

The guy in question, by the way, is I.

Over the course of, say, a week, I roll my eyes enough to look like the readout of a slot machine — all due to the people who blithely try to lay their god-ism on on everybody else in the world.

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People quote from the Bible. They brag about their personal angels. They thank god for their good fortune and then fall all over themselves to absolve him should they encounter a setback a two. They revere a woman who purportedly got pregnant without having sex with a human. They look at the moon and see, instead of a dynamic collection of elements orbiting around our own dynamic collection of elements, the hand of a guy who, for lack of anything better to do one week, created a universe.

A Facebook Chain Post

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I’ve always made it my business not to argue with god-ists, figuring, hell, this life is so terribly confusing and daunting that if they’ve come up with a particular fairy tale to get themselves through it, good for them.

Stalingrad: Ooh, Sorry, The Angels Must Have Been Off That Day

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But now the god-ists have gone too far. And, as I say, it’s funny how it was a little thing that did it.

The skirted men who run Our Lady of Sorrows high school in Mesa, Arizona, have spent the last few months stomping their foot and demanding that another school in town not play a girl on its baseball team.

Ick, girls.

Not As Good As Boys

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See, the Mesa Preparatory Academy has a girl on its baseball team, which the rest of sane America would surely have applauded had they known about it.

Well, now America does know about it thanks to the priests of the Society of St. Pius X, who run OLS. The X-boys don’t want their teenaged students to play baseball against a girl so, earlier this year, they refused to play games against the Mesa Prep nine unless said girl sat out.

And, mirabile dictu, she did. Mesa Prep’s Paige Sultzbach didn’t take the field for the scheduled tilts against OLS this season; she said it was out of respect for the beliefs of the X-priests.

Sultzbach must be a saint because I, for one, wouldn’t have the patience to kowtow to such knuckleheads. I suppose somebody has to be saintly in this matter because these god-ists sure aren’t.

Anyway, it turns out the two teams were to meet in the Mesa city championship game Wednesday night. And OLS once again notified Mesa Prep it would take its balls and bats and go home if Paige Sultzbach was allowed to play in the game.

This time, though, Paige refused to sit out. Hell, she wanted to play in the biggest game of her life, no matter what some old bastards who refuse to have normal sex say.

When the X-priests got wind of Paige’s decision, they up and notified Mesa Prep they wouldn’t show up for the big game, thereby forfeiting the championship.

Well, they got their way, didn’t they? Paige Sultzbach didn’t get to play in the biggest game of her life, solely because she has a vagina.

Paige Sultzbach Broke The Rules; She Lacks A Penis

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Ick, vaginas.

So this is the kind of thinking that results from devoting your life to the worship of an invisible BFF in the sky, eh?

If the folks who run the Mesa high school sports authority don’t thoroughly spank OLS for its biased, discriminatory decision, then they’re not just being patient saints — they’re being fools.

I’d say suspending OLS from playing games against other Mesa high schools in any sport until the X-boys come to their senses and elect to move into at least the early 20th Century would be a wise ruling.

It’s doubtful the city would make such a bold decision. For some weird, weird reason, too many of us are afraid of offending people like the X-boys.

Apparently, it’s god’s plan that people like the X-boys can offend the rest of us any time they choose, though.

[BTW: You have no idea how difficult it was to find the image of the little girls in Catholic school uniforms above. Googling “catholic school girls” brings up more than 74 million results, the vast majority of which is the kind of porn that would make, well, a 15-year-old Catholic school boy blush.]

♢

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

Friday, May 11, 2012

◗ IU Memorial Stadium — Coach Hep 5K Run; 7am

◗ Showers Plaza — Farmer’s Market and the City of Bloomington’s “A Fair of the Arts”; 8am

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Exhibits, “Blended Harmonies: Music and Religion in Nepal”; through July 1st — “Esse Quam Videri (To Be, Rather than To Be Seen): Muslim Self Portraits; through June 17th — “From the Big Bang to the World Wide Web: The Origins of Everything”; through July 1st

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Arts Center — Exhibits at various galleries: Angela Hendrix-Petry, Benjamin Pines, Nate Johnson, and Yang Chen; all through May 29th

“Home” By Benjamin Pines

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◗ Trinity Episcopal Church — Art exhibit, “Creation,” collaborative mosaic tile project; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County Public Library — Art exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

◗ IU Jordan Avenue Parking Garage — University Parking Operation’s Bike Auction; Previews and registration begin at 8am, auction at 9am

◗ Paynetown SRA, Monroe Lake — Int’l Migratory Bird Day, including games, crafts, hikes for spotting birds, etc.; 10am-close

Great Blue Heron

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◗ Buskirk-Chumley Theater — Cardinal Stage Company presents “Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”; 2 & 7pm

◗ IU Jacobs School of Music, Merrill Hall Recital hall — Junior Music Festival; 2pm

◗ IU Art Museum — Family Day: Spring Celebration; Public tour of the museum, 2-3pm, campus tour of architecture, 2:40-3:40pm, and campus tour of public art, 3-4pm

◗ Rachael’s Cafe — Writers Guild open mic; 3:30-4:30pm

◗ Upland Brewing Company Bloomington Brew Pub — WFHB Acoustic Roots festival; 4pm-close

◗ IU Auditorium — “Palette to Palate,” silent and live auction of local art and goods to benefit Community Kitchen; 6pm

◗ IU Cinema — Film, “The Kid with a Bike”; 7pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Dan Telfer; 8 & 10:30pm

◗ The Bluebird — Pam Thrash Retro; 8pm

Pam Thrash Cocalis

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◗ Cafe Django — Keith Karns Big Band CD relase party; 8-11:30pm

◗ Bear’s Place — The Penrose Trio, Minute Details, Great Future; 9pm

♢

05/09/2012

2 Comments

2012 NATO Summit, Barack Obama, Chicago, Christie's, G-8, James Madison, Mark Rothko, McCormick Place, Me Party, Rahm Emanuel, Richard Lugar, Richard Mourdock, Shelli Yoder, Tea Party, Todd Young

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.” — James Madison

♢

EXTREMITIES

So, Richard Lugar was “too moderate.”

Say that to yourself: too moderate.

That was the Me Party charge against the ancient US Senator from Indiana.

And that’s what lost him the 2012 Republican primary.

Too moderate.

Out

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It’s a contradiction, an oxymoron. It’s like saying a guy is of extremely medium height. Or the weather has been unbearably mild.

Too moderate.

In others words, Richard Lugar was thrown out of office because he wanted to work with the opposition party in the Senate.

And again, Dems, don’t get all huffy and righteous over this. Most of the criticism of Barack Obama from his own “loyalists” has been that’s he’s too willing to strike deals with the GOP. Hell, I’ve raked him over the coals for it.

But it occurs to me that moderation and compromise are the qualities that make just about every human relationship — from marriage to democracy — work.

GOP Winner Richard Mourdock Promises Not To Work Well With Others

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But see, we don’t want relationships any more, I suppose. And most especially, the Me Party-ists don’t want relationships. They want their way. And if they don’t get it, why then there’ll be hell to pay.

Another thing occurs to me now — the Me Party-ists are the definitive Americans of the 21st Century. They are the New Ugly Americans.

♢

A BEAUTIFUL MIND

I voted for Shelli Yoder in the Dem primary for strategic reasons. She’s the only one among the five candidates for the nomination for US Congress from Indiana’s 9th District who can beat Republican Todd Young in the November election.

I would have been equally happy with Jonathan George or Bob Winningham, strictly from a philosophical angle. John Tilford, too, only he never had a chance in this race and he knew it (I got that inside info from an impeccable source.) As for John Griffin Miller, well, I hope he had fun running — because his candidacy was a lark.

But Shelli can win over a lot of central and southern Indianans outside the former Soviet Socialist Republic of Bloomington (BSSR) because she’s exceedingly charming and pretty. Don’t yell at me for typing that — I’m just the messenger here. Most people vote for gut reasons, not because they’ve spent hours poring over position papers and contemplating the issues of the day.

All’s Fair

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I’ll say it again, there’s a lot more to Shelli Yoder than her shayna punim (relax, it’s not a dirty term; look it up in your Yiddish dictionary). Being a former Miss Indiana and the second runner-up in the 1993 Miss America pageant will make a lot of people much more comfortable voting for a Democratic woman, though.

In this case, the Dems have to use every edge they’ve got.

♢

THE COLOR OF MONEY

A Mark Rothko was sold for more than $86M in a Christie’s auction yesterday.

Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow”

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Mark Rothko has been dead since 1970, so all that dough isn’t going to benefit him terribly much.

Capitalism’s a really weird system, no?

♢

STALAG 2012

The world’s biggest bags of wind are due to arrive in Chicago in a week and a half.

See, the leaders of the NATO member nations are gathering in my hometown to discuss how they can further carve up the planet.

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The 2012 NATO Summit will run for two days, May 20th and 21st. Not only will the presidents, prime ministers, and otherwise-titled bosses of the NATO states be in attendance, but so will their Secretaries of State, Foreign Ministers, Defense Ministers, and miscellaneous social delinquents.

Naturally, this presents a golden opportunity for the more snappish among the citizenry to cause mayhem.

At the low end of the threat level, some bandanna’d anarchists might embarrass Rahm’s Town, say, by tossing a stink bomb into McCormick Place. On the other hand, there’s the very real danger that some bad guys might try to harm the people who have the generally-accepted right to harm the rest of us when it benefits them and their countries.

So, the security apparatuses of the various nations have agreed to turn my ex-fair city into a prison camp for those couple of days. Everybody’s getting into the act. The Chicago cops are preparing for Armageddon, the FBI is spying on everybody who sneezes the wrong way, the US Secret Service will be on the lookout for people carrying fingernail clippers, and even downtown businesses are prepping their employees for the festivities.

According to news reports, Loop firms are advising their people to dress down on the days of the Summit. The wearing of suits and wingtips, apparently, might induce some wild-eyed radicals to attack. The idea, I guess, is that they’ll think the guy in pinstripes walking down Wabash Avenue with a cup of coffee in one hand and the Sun-Times in the other just might be British Prime Minister David Cameron. And you know wild-eyed radicals — next thing you know the poor schlub has a pie in the face (or worse).

“That Guy In The Suit, It’s The German Defense Minister! Get ‘Im!”

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Here’s my solution to the problem: next time these chuckleheads want to get together, send them to some way out of the way place where they won’t mess up the lives of innocent, ordinary citizens.

You know, the G-8 bosses were scheduled to meet this spring in Chicago as well — that is, until radical activists’ plans to descend on the city became known. Then the State Department moved the confab to Camp David, Maryland, where security is easier and the population is virtually nil.

But they did that for the comfort and ease of the big boys (and girls) involved, not for the little guys and gals on the streets of Chicago.

Ah, the privileges of power.

♢

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

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Arts Center — Exhibits at various galleries: Angela Hendrix-Petry, Benjamin Pines, Nate Johnson, and Yang Chen; all through May 29th

◗ Trinity Episcopal Church — Art exhibit, “Creation,” collaborative mosaic tile project; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County Public Library — Art exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

◗ Bloomington High School North — Spring concert, Southern Indiana Wind Ensemble; 7pm

◗ Butler University, Clowes Hall — Garrison Keillor; 7:30pm

◗ Cafe Django — Media Noche Trio + 1; 7:30-9:30pm

The Media Noche Trio

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◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; sign up begins at 5:30pm, music begins at 7:30pm

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

◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Star-gazing Open House, rain or shine; 9pm

◗ Bear’s Place — Brian Johnson & the Acquitted, Michael McFarland, Brian Fortner; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — The Personal; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — The Strange Boys, William Tyler & the Constants; 9:30pm

The Strange Boys

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◗ Jake’s Nightclub — Battle of the bands; 10pm

♢

05/08/2012

1 Comment

Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Grameen Bank, Hillary Rodham Clinton, IDS, Joe Donnelly, Kelley School of Business, Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, Mohammed Yunus, Paddy Chayevsky, Park Ridge Illinois, Richard Lugar, Richard M. Nixon, Richard Mourdock, Rick Santorum, Ron Ziegler, Tea Party

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Television is democracy at its ugliest.” — Paddy Chayevsky

♢

THIS IS THE OPERATIVE STATEMENT — THE OTHERS ARE INOPERATIVE

How can you not love politics?

“He is the worst Republican in the country to put up against Barack Obama.”

That was Rick Santorum six weeks ago describing Mitt Romney — a man whom he endorsed yesterday.

Best Friends Forever

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Now, if you’re a Dem or you loathe the GOP, don’t start getting huffy and righteous and say something foolish like, Oh, those Republicans — they can’t be trusted. They’ll say anything to get elected.

Let’s go back four short years ago. Hillary Clinton spent a lot of time wagging her finger at Barack Obama during the Dem primaries. Some of her supporters threatened to — gulp! — go Republican if Obama won the nomination. That’s how deep the animus had grown between the two camps. Next thing you knew, both sides had come together to defeat the McCain/Palin ticket that, by all accounts, induced no Clintonistas to switch parties.

See, that’s why I could never be a politician. First, I have no interest in having the skeletons in my closet bared. Second, I know that at some point in time, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from blurting out, “Jeez, can you believe how full of shit I am?”

BTW: recognize the headline at the top of this entry? That was Dick Nixon’s Squealer, Ron Ziegler, speaking to reporters on April 17th, 1973. Operative statements, in Ziegler’s bizarre argot, were simply today’s lies; inoperative statements were yesterday’s.

Animal Farm

♢

THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA IS BUSINESS

Let’s stick with a theme here: How can you not love business?

According to the IDS, a few enterprising students tried to sell ducats online for a c-note apiece to the IU Kelley School of Business commencement ceremony Saturday

An IU spokesbeing issued a statement tut-tutting the scalping deal.

Free Market?

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Making money in a free market is the aim of getting a degree from the Kelley school — except, apparently, when you’re trying to make money selling tickets to a celebration of spending four years of your life learning how to make money in a free market.

♢

HILLARY AT THE SUMMIT

Back to Hillary Clinton. It turns out losing the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008 just might have been the best thing ever to happen to her.

You may recall that Hillary was perhaps the most despised human being in this holy land before Barack Obama came along to wrest the title from her.

WWN Wasn’t Half As Hard On Hil As Fox News

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Remember when Bill Clinton told voters he and the missus were a “package deal”? That she was going to be, in essence, a co-president? Middle America had apoplexy — Hillary was going destroy this sacred society by upending our traditional view of what a First Lady should be.

She even had to stop using her preferred hyphenated moniker, Hillary Rodham Clinton, because too many voters figured a woman who keeps her maiden name is most likely a Nazi abortionist.

And then she came out with that famous quote about not being interested in sitting at home and baking cookies. Millions of Americans became convinced at that very moment that she was a also lesbian communist.

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I never felt particularly warm about Hil. Oh sure, I voted for Bill (and her — I bought into the co-presidency idea) but she always struck me as a privileged white person, no matter how quasi-progressive she claimed her politics to be.

I always suspected she was incapable of dropping a gratuitous F-bomb or wouldn’t know how to drink a shot of tequila.

Park Ridge, Illinois, the Chicago suburb in which Hil was raised, was chock full of prim, holier-than-thou folks — even those, like HRC, who entertained near-liberal ideas.

Still, I’ve always had great respect for her. She’s tough enough in her own way to scare the bejesus out of her serial-philandering husband. Plus, she’s smart as a whip and ambitious to boot.

✍

Barack Obama saw these same qualities and selected her as his Secretary of State. Oh sure, he wanted to keep her occupied for four years as well, just in case she wanted to challenge him again in 2012. Still, he recognized her strengths.

Anyway, she’s done a fantastic job as a globe-trotting SoS. She’s juggling a potentially nuclear Iran, an uppity China, a schizo Pakistan, a mobbed-up Russia, a broke European Union, Myanmar, India, the nagging Isreal/Palestine issue, the Arab Spring, and too many other hot spots to mention. Somehow, the world hasn’t blown itself apart just yet.

She may not be tough enough to suck down a ounce of Tarantula Plata without gagging but I doubt there’s a male national leader on this Earth who has the cagliones to cross her.

✍

Why, just yesterday she told the Bangladesh government in no uncertain terms to lay off the Grameen Bank, the innovative microlender founded by Nobel Peace laureate Mohammed Yunus that helps women in south Asia develop small businesses and escape poverty. A while ago, Bangladesh had given the axe to Yunus as boss of the bank. Hil’s now staring that government down, saying don’t mess with Grameen.

Trust me, she’s writing her own entry in American history books.

But had she become president, she would have been savaged for her imagined sins nearly as much as Obama has for his. Who knows what form her “Birther” opposition might have taken. Most likely, there’d have been a constant flow of Hillary’s-gonna-force-our-daughters-into-dykedom “revelations” coming from right wing bloviators and Me Party-ists.

She might have had to spend her precious time denying that she leads a satanic sex cult in the White House basement.

It’s better being Secretary of State.

♢

INDIANA DEMS HAD BETTER BE RIGHT ABOUT MOURDOCK

Finally, speaking of Me Party-ists, their latest darling in Indiana, Richard Mourdock (“End the EPA!”), looks like a lock to unseat long-time US Senator Richard Lugar in the Republican primary today.

Now we’ll see if the state’s Democratic party theory that Mourdock is a preferable foe for their nominee Joe Donnelly in November holds any water.

Donnelly’d better win. Mourdock has been endorsed by none other than Minnesota’s Michele Bachmann.

She’s Back!

✍

I know, I know — you’d finally swept that name clear out of your consciousness and now I remind you that she’s still around. Hey, politics is a rough game.

♢

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

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — Exhibit, “Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze”; through June 29th

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Arts Center — Exhibits at various galleries: Angela Hendrix-Petry, Benjamin Pines, Nate Johnson, and Yang Chen; all through May 29th

◗ Trinity Episcopal Church — Art exhibit, “Creation,” collaborative mosaic tile project; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County Public Library — Art exhibit, “Muse Whisperings,” water color paintings by residents of Sterling House; through May 31st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

◗ People’s Park — Lunch Concert Series, Starkraven; 11:30am

◗ The Venue Fine Arts & Gifts — Guitarist Erol Ozserver; 5:30-7:30pm

◗ IU Woodburn Hall, Room 101 — Secular Alliance Movie Night; 6-8pm

◗ Jake’s Nightclub — Karaoke; 6pm

◗ Deer Park Manor — Steppings Stones’ annual volunteer awards & recognition ceremony; 6:30-8pm

◗ Monroe County History Center — Civil War round table, “The Truth about the Confederate Flag”; 7-8pm

◗ The Player’s Pub — Blue jam, King Bee and the Stingers; 8pm

◗ The Bishop — EP release party, New terrors with Prayer Breakfast & The New Heaven and the New Earth; 9pm

◗ The Bluebird — Coheed and Cambria; 9pm

♢

11/17/2011

Thursday, November 17, 2011

THE NAKED CITY

Too lazy to run and catch my #6 bus yesterday, I splurged and called for a cab.

The driver was fairly chatty. He mentioned the recent spate of what can only be described as “big city crimes.”

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There have been, in the last few weeks, the random shooting of a middle-aged woman on Hallowe’en night, the killing of the young pizza delivery driver the weekend before last, a botched bank robbery and a successful one, and the murder of a clerk at an adult toy store the day before yesterday.

“I grew up here,” he said in that tell-tale South Central Indiana twang. “We used to leave our doors unlocked. Now, I don’t know.”

He shook his head sadly. He was about 60 or 65.

“Ya know what was a big crime when I was a kid? When somebody got arrested for drunk driving. That was the worst thing that happened. It sure was different back then.”

I added my bit. “And there were jobs, too.”

“Yeah. There were jobs. Now, nothing. The only thing left to do is make that meth. Y’now,” he said, “I think that’s what’s behind all this….” He gestured broadly in the direction of College Mall, as if there were felonies and atrocities being committed in every store even as we spoke.

“They go crazy on that meth,” he concluded.

He got a call for another pick up just as he was stopping to let me out me at The Book Corner. I watched him as he drove off, looking for that next buck. The world — or at least Bloomington — sure hasn’t turned out the way he figured it would.

♢

JUST PAY YOUR TAXES AND SHUT UP

My mother had a fetish for paying bills.

That sounds bizarre but it’s true. She grew up in the Great Depression. Her mother ran a little corner grocery in the Little Sicily neighborhood on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago.

Outfit Boss “Joe Batters” Accardo: The “Pride” Of Little Sicily

✍

Ma’s ma paid her bills when the mood struck her. Vendors and suppliers would send burly guys with snap-brim caps pulled down low late at night to bang on the door of Ma’s girlhood home. They wanted their money.

Grandma would send Ma to answer the door. Grandma figured the burly guys’ hearts would melt at the sight of the curly haired little girl looking up at them with sad brown eyes.

Their hearts may indeed have melted. Still, they made sure Ma would convey a message to Grandma. “You make sure to tell yer mudder,” they said time and again, “d’at she gotta make good. You tell her d’at, y’hear me?”

Ma came to loathe answering the door. Even as a grown woman, when the doorbell would ring unexpectedly she’d straighten up and her eyes would dart, like a rabbit catching the scent of a dog.

Like every single parent in existence, she vowed to do things differently. As an adult she’d chomp at the bit waiting for the mailman to come. She wanted to pay her bills immediately.

At times, I thought she might run down Natchez Avenue in search of the mailman.

“Mister! Mister! Do You Have Any Bills For Me?”

✍

She rarely wasted an opportunity to crow about her bill-paying acumen. Once in a while, she’d mention someone else who — horrors — wasn’t as “Johnny-on-the-spot,” in her words, as she was with creditors. She could never get over how Aunt Teresa kept Dr. Francona waiting for his payments. And in those more innocent days, Dr. Francona never wasted an opportunity to tell Ma that her sister was in arrears.

Ma paid cash for everything, too. She considered the use of checks and credit cards to be gaming the system. (You know what? She was right.)

It didn’t even matter if the bill was in error. She paid. She had a reputation and a streak to uphold. Once, the college that my older brother was attending billed my parents for a semester that he hadn’t taken.

Most people would have called the college bursar’s office and told the clerk to kiss their asses. Not Ma. She called and arranged a bill payment plan: Ten dollars a month until the books were clear. It took her 40 months to pay off the princely sum of $400 dollars (oh yeah, everything was different back then.)

When she mailed in her last payment, she included a note that said, “My bill is paid. I’m up to date.” She crowed about that, too, for years afterward, as if when the bursar’s clerk opened up the envelope, she slapped the side of her head and muttered, “Wow! That lady sure showed us.”

Ma and Dad would do their own taxes, natch. Neither had graduated from high school so the forms and the math presented quite the challenge. Nevertheless, they soldiered on. And I never — ever — remember them complaining about their taxes.

They must have figured, it’s the price we have to pay and that’s that.

Today, of course, the paying of taxes is seen as only slightly more acceptable than child molestation.

✍

And this in a land that among the industrial nations of the Earth has just about the lowest tax rate.

The way people piss and moan about taxes, you’d think we were suffering under a tyrannical, confiscatory system (perhaps like that under the revered Republican icon, Dwight Eisenhower.)

“I’ll Take 91% Of Your Paycheck, Please. Thank You.”

✍

I mention all this because the author Michael Lewis was on NPR this morning, talking about the financial problems in Greece. His new book is “Boomerang.” It tells of the Eurozone economic crisis.

Lewis told the interviewer that a core problem causing Greece’s woes is the fact that relatively few people pay the taxes that they owe and the Greek legal system doesn’t go after them.

Hmm.

And the GOP and the Me Party-ists cry like kindergarteners whenever the word tax is uttered.

Ma would have some simple advice for those who are allergic to raising taxes to help people in need and set the economy right. She’d have said, “Do what you’re supposed to do and pay your bills!”

♢

The Electron Pencil

Category Archives: Tea Party

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Thursday, November 17, 2011

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Category Archives: Tea Party

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