Category Archives: Tim Tebow

08/08/2012
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2012 Drought, 2012 London Games, BP, Camilo Gonzalez, Cynthia Plaster-Caster, Henrik Rummel, Jay Leno, Jere Longman, Lolo Jones, Louis CK, Mark Kruzan, Nelson Evora, Nelson Mandela, New York Times, Olympics, Red Bull, Tim Tebow, Weird Al Yankovic

The Pencil Today:

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THE QUOTE

“Let there be work, bread, water, and salt for all.” — Nelson Mandela

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SAHARA IN THE HEARTLAND

Your lawn just took a ten count.

Your trees and bushes, too.

The City of Bloomington has instituted a watering ban, beginning Monday and lasting through October 13th.

Pat Murphy’s Utilities Department water plant pumps are running at about a million gallons a day over capacity, upping the odds that one or more of them will burn out. Not only that, some strains of algae have been observed collecting in the pumps, adding to the risk of failure.

Mayor Mark Kruzan says the ban has some teeth after violators get a first warning: second violations earn $100 fines, three-time losers will be smacked with $250 fines and subsequent violations will lighten scofflaws’ wallets to the tune of $500 each.

By the way, don’t even think about washing your car.

Nope

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THE THRILL OF VICTORY

Ya gotta love Cynthia Plaster-Caster of Chicago. She’s made her mark upon this world in large part (often, very large part) by reproducing rock stars’ cetrioli in plaster castings.

So, it’s no surprise she’s got a fine eye for bulges. The London Olympics is providing her a treasure trove of manly salutes.

Here, she points out the pride and joy of American rower Henrik Rummel as he receives his bronze medal in the heretofore ignored sport:

Henrik Rummel, Front And Center

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Rummel’s isn’t the only full mast in Jolly Old this week. Plaster-Caster also spied Portugal’s Nelson Évora, gold medalist in the triple jump, packing heat.

Nelson Évora, Ready To Go

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If these pix indicate how fab the whole Olympics experience is, it’s no wonder kids work night and day for years trying to get there.

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SHE DOESN’T GET IT

Camilo Gonzalez of Chicago points out that Olympian LoLo Jones is bragging that she’s a virgin.

Jones, the American track and field celebrity, is a flamboyant product endorser. Apparently, one of those products is her heretofore-unseen-by-other-human-eyes genitalia.

She feels the world needs to know how untouched her stuff is so she has tweeted about it.

Oddly, she sometimes adopts seductive poses in her ads. She’s the spokesbody for crap products like Red Bull and planet-rapists like BP

Professional Virgin

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Jere Longman wrote Saturday in the New York Times: “… Jones has received far greater publicity than any other American track and field athlete competing in the London Games. This was based not on achievement but on her exotic beauty and on a sad and cynical marketing campaign. Essentially, Jones has decided she will be whatever anyone wants her to be — virgin, vixen, victim — to draw attention to herself and the many products she endorses.”

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Natch, right wingers and religious fetishists think she’s the greatest thing since the cast stone.

Gonzalez, though, doesn’t think much of it. He writes: “[B]eing a virgin at 30 is weird and pathological. Sexual development is an important part of becoming a grown-ass human being…. We don’t fawn over toddlers who refuse to be potty trained, yet we have respect and some have admiration for someone who is similarly infantile.”

If you’ve heard her on any talk shows, you know there’s more than one organ she refrains from using. Jones appeared on the Tonight Show about a month ago and clearly has a child’s brain as well as a child’s vagina.

Fortunately, Louis CK sat on the couch next to her as she bleated to Jay Leno. Jones has hinted she’d like to date fellow god-maniac Tim Tebow. Louis CK suggested the two should make a video. “That would sell,” he said. He didn’t need to explicate precisely what kind of video it would be.

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LIKE A VIRGIN

As if she needs me pimping for her, here’s Madonna.

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Better yet, here’s Weird Al Yankovic.

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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 Charts — Life as seen through charts.

I Love Charts: From PhD Comics

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

❏ Skepchick — Women scientists look at the world and the universe.

❏ Indexed — All the answers in graph form, on index cards.

❏ I Fucking Love Science — A Facebook community of science geeks.

I Fucking Love Science

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❏ Present and Correct — Fun, compelling, gorgeous and/or scary graphic designs and visual creations throughout the years and from all over the world.

❏ Flip Flop Fly Ball — Baseball as seen through infographics, haikus, song lyrics, and other odd communications devices.

❏ Mental Floss — Facts.

❏ Caps Off Please — Comics & fun.

❏ Sodaplay — Create your own models or play with other people’s models.

❏ Eat Sleep Draw — An endless stream of artwork submitted by an endless stream of people.

❏ Big Think — Tapping the brains of notable intellectuals for their opinions, predictions, and diagnoses.

❏ The Daily Puppy — So shoot me.

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

◗ B-Line Trail — Bloomington Community Band 5K Musical Fun Run/Walk; 7:30am

◗ Muddy Boots Cafe, Nashville — Don Ford; 6-8:30pm

◗ Tibetan Mongolian Buddhist Cultural Center — Workshop: Buddhism in Everyday Life with Ani Choekye; 6:30pm

◗ Monroe County Public Library — Volunteer call for Bloomington bike rack inventory; 6:30-8:30pm

◗ Max’s Place — Open mic; 7:30pm

◗ Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington — Contra dancing; 8pm

◗ The Comedy Attic — Bloomington Comedy Festival, audience vote for funniest person in town; 8pm

◗ The Bluebird — Main Squeeze; 9pm

◗ The Bishop — Stagnant Pools, Mike Adams at His Honest Weight, Kam Kama; 9:30pm

◗ IU Kirkwood Observatory — Public viewing through the main telescope; 10pm

Ongoing:

◗ Ivy Tech Waldron Center — Exhibits:

  • “40 Years of Artists from Pygmalion’s”; opens Friday, August 3rd, through September 1st

◗ IU Art Museum — Exhibits:

  • Qiao Xiaoguang, “Urban Landscape: A Selection of Papercuts” ; through August 12th
  • “A Tribute to William Zimmerman,” wildlife artist; through September 9th
  • Willi Baumeister, “Baumeister in Print”; through September 9th
  • Annibale and Agostino Carracci, “The Bolognese School”; through September 16th
  • “Contemporary Explorations: Paintings by Contemporary Native American Artists”; through October 14th
  • David Hockney, “New Acquisitions”; through October 21st
  • Utagawa Kuniyoshi, “Paragons of Filial Piety”; through fall semester 2012
  • Julia Margaret Cameron, Edward Weston, & Harry Callahan, “Intimate Models: Photographs of Husbands, Wives, and Lovers”; through December 31st
  • “French Printmaking in the Seventeenth Century”; through December 31st

◗ IU SoFA Grunwald Gallery — Exhibits:

  • Coming — Media Life; August 24th through September 15th
  • Coming — Axe of Vengeance: Ghanaian Film Posters and Film Viewing Culture; August 24th through September 15th

◗ IU Kinsey Institute Gallery — “Ephemeral Ink: Selections of Tattoo Art from the Kinsey Institute Collection”; through September 21st

◗ IU Lilly Library — Exhibit, “Translating the Canon: Building Special Collections in the 21st Century”; through September 1st

◗ IU Mathers Museum of World Cultures — Closed for semester break, reopens Tuesday, August 21st

◗ Monroe County History Center — Exhibits:

  • “What Is Your Quilting Story?”; through July 31st
  • Photo exhibit, “Bloomington: Then and Now” by Bloomington Fading; through October 27th

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12/21/2011
1 Comment
Age of Enlightenment, Angels, Avian Flu, Barack Obama, Bioterrorism, Bird Flu, Bloom Magazine, Book Corner, Christianity, Davy Jones, Evolution, George Carlin, George W. Bush, Katy Perry, Krista Detor, Monkees, National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, NPR, Psychic, Scientific Method, Super Bowl, Tim Tebow, USSR

The Pencil Today:

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TODAY’S QUOTE

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.” — George Carlin

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LOOK OUT, KATY PERRY

Bloomington chanteuse Krista Detor’s star is getting bigger by the day. Not only is she the subject of a breathless profile in the current issue of Bloom magazine, but tix to her shows are almost as hot as Indy Super Bowl ducats.

She wandered into the Book Corner yesterday, looking for last minute gifts. She told this nosy bookseller/correspondent that her holiday show last week at the Bloomington Convention Center was the biggest yet.

Krista’s 6th annual benefit blast, “Once Upon a Time,” packed the center’s Great Room a week ago tomorrow.

Better grab your chance to see her soon before she starts filling up those big arenas around the Midwest — or even the entire nation!

Krista! Krista! Krista!

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SECRETS, SECRETS, AND MORE SECRETS

Many of my leftie pals have been screaming to high heaven about the US government’s alleged propensity these days to engage in undercover hijinks, manipulation of information, and generally act like the USSR-lite.

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The Obama Administration — and the Bush Gang before it — claims it must keep the citizenry safe from all manner of mayhem.

Here’s a development from NPR‘s Nell Greenfieldboyce. The National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity is urging the feds not to release the findings of government-funded research into bird flu mutation to the public. Their rationale — bioterrorists might take the info and create a virulent strain of the virus to unleash on target cities.

Terrorist?

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Usually, federally-funded research is promptly released to scientific journals and even to the mainstream media. The normal follow-up to the time-honored scientific method is to publish findings so other scientists can test and, if needed, poke holes in a new theory. This last step, the Board is saying, is a little too risky in this case.

One aspect of the lab work has been to fiddle with the virus’ genes. Scientists already have developed a strain that is far more contagious than the original.

So, it’s the right to know versus a crippling bio-attack.

Don’t know what my suspicious pals are going to say about this one.

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WHERE WE ARE TODAY

This is America, some 300 years after the Age of Enlightenment began.

A 17-year-old California boy was sentenced this week to 21 years in prison for assassinating in cold blood a high school classmate who was gay.

Judge, Jury, And Executioner

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A young boy in Washington battled a flesh-eating bacterium in 2006. Doctors expected him to die. He didn’t. Relatives had placed a relic of some Mohawk woman at his bedside. Now Pope Benedict XVI says the whole thing was a “miracle” and will declare the woman a saint next year.

Kids: “You Got A Spare Miracle For Us?”

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NFL quarterback Tim Tebow is a flamboyant Christian. He kneels and prays every chance he gets on the football field. His team has won a bunch of games. Some fans argue that the creator of the Universe is interceding on his behalf.

God: “Nah. I’m Busy With This Football Game.”

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A little baby has been missing in Kansas City since October 4. A Dallas psychic has claimed to have had a vision of where the kid is buried. A party of volunteers actually went searching for her in the area where the psychic said she was. The kid, natch, wasn’t there.

The Renowned Crime Investigator

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And, of course, the old standby: 72 percent of Americans believe in angels while only 45 percent believe in the theory of evolution.

Sigh.

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I’M A BELIEVER

Yep, the Monkees.

BTW: For all the rage surrounding Davy Jones back in the ’60s, he sure looks dorky trying to keep time to the beat, doesn’t he? And did you notice he’s a monobrow? And his face is shiny?

Oh, alright, I’m still envious of him.

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12/18/2011
2 Comments
Ben Joravsky, Chicago Park District, Divine, dlisted, Incest, Ke$ha, Li'l Wayne, Mary Karr, Michael K, Minnesota, Pink Flamingos, Rosemount High School, Sleazy Remix, Sleazy Remix 2.0, Subway, The Third City, Tim Tebow, Vaclav Havel, Velvet Revolution, White Owls, William Bennett, Wiz Khalifa

The Pencil Today:

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THE VELVET REVOLUTIONARY

“Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.” — Vaclav Havel. The leader of Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution died yesterday in his home at the age of 75.

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WHITE OWLS IN SOUTH CENTRAL INDIANA

My old blogging partner, Benny Jay of The Third City website he and I founded, recently wrote about his wife seeing a white owl as she walked along Chicago’s lakefront. The gist of the post was that Benny couldn’t care less about the rare bird; he was busy reading about the Bulls as his bride gushed.

The soulless brute.

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I saw a white owl at the lakefront on my birthday back in 1980. The bird was standing on one of those big four-spout concrete water fountains the Park District used to have everywhere. My girlfriend at the time and I saw the owl, stopped suddenly, and gaped. The bird then noticed us and took it on the lam. Swear to god, his (her?) wingspan had to be a three or four feet.

I’ve never forgotten that moment. And I’ve never seen another white owl.

Now, I may get another chance.

The Herald Times reports that Snowy Owls seem to be migrating as far south as these precincts this winter. The last such “irruption” (unusual migrating pattern) occurred fifteen years ago.

I’m grabbing my binoculars and bird book just as soon as I finish with this post.

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NOW THAT’S DISGUSTING

I try to let very little disgust me.

I can think of only a few examples of things that have actually made me want to retch. I saw the body of a wayward juice loan collector who had his head blown clean off by shotgun blasts on North Nora Avenue back in 1975. I saw Divine eat dogshit in “Pink Flamingos.” And once at the Subway on North Walnut Street, I was forced to listen to Ke$ha’s collaboration with Li’l Wayne, Wiz Khalifa et al entitled “Sleazy Remix 2.0” while trying to eat my Veggie Delight sandwich.

Divine: Screenshot From Pink Flamingos

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I remember that incident well. It took three Subway employees to pry out of my hand the pistol that I had pointed at my temple.

Anyway, while reading Michael K‘s indispensable celebrity gossip site, dlisted, yesterday, I nearly horked. (H/T to memoirist Mary Karr for the word.)

Michael K linked to a pep rally at Rosemount High School in Minnesota where — gack! — jocks and jockettes were blindfolded and then forced to make out with their parents!

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Force yourself to look at the vid. Check out the mom who starts rolling around on the gym floor with — I remind you once again — her son. And watch another mom move — gluck! — her son’s hand onto her ass.

Sometimes I think I really don’t like kids. But then I realize it’s very often parents who turn my stomach.

And, by the way, should I by some weird chance learn that any of these parents vote Republican because this holy land is not living up to its “Christian ideals” I will personally drive up to Minnesota and kick them in their genitals.

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WE DO FACEBOOK SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO

A spamily- and brattle-free zone.

◗ John Spencer Bergman of Chicago was one of my earliest roommates, back in  the days when I had the maturity of an 11-month old. He taught himself how to play bass guitar and turned out to be a pretty good one, providing the rhythmic foundation for the late ’70s cute-boy band Clox. He used to work at a little corner grocery on Clybourn Avenue that sold pig’s ear sandwiches. No lie — the place actually had a big sign out front advertising them. Poor earless pigs.

Anyway, John takes on god’s personal emissary on Earth, the NFL quarterback Tim Tebow, who is beloved by, among others, the degenerate gambler Bill Bennett.

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