Archive for the 'OUT ON A LIM' Category

27 September 2011: Kansas Walk of Honor/Walk of Shame

Paul September 27th, 2011

Former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole is the first Kansan to be singled out for the new Kansas Walk of Honor. Ceremonies on Friday in Topeka will include the unveiling of a bronze plaque at the southeast corner of the Kansas Statehouse lawn. According to an editorial in The Lawrence Journal-World, “Plans call for the state to add up to three plaques a year to the Walk of Honor, which is intended to recognize people with significant connections to Kansas who have made notable contributions at the state and national level.”

So, now that we have this wonderful Kansas Walk of Honor, how about establishing a parallel Kansas Walk of Shame?  Alongside those bronze plaques at the southeast corner of the Kansas Statehouse lawn, how about putting up some cheap miniature plastic fire hydrants for dogs to pay homage to those Kansans who have brought us nothing but ridicule and shame?  My first nominee for a hellfire-red hydrant is, of course, our very own Pastor of Hate, the Rev. Fred Phelps of Topeka’s Westboro Church.

Who’s your nominee?

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19 September 2011: GLEE Avoids the Word “Gay” in Song

Paul September 19th, 2011

I just watched GLEE’s entire second season. I continue to like the way the writers of the show tackle all the important issues of our day by showing us what goes on in the lives of its high-school characters as they sing and dance their way through their day-to-day problems, including how many of them are dealing with their sexuality—how Kurt and Blaine are both out-of-the-closet and are now a happy couple; how Santana and Brittany are still going through a lot of angst while struggling with their secret lesbian relationship; and how Karofsky, the hateful homophobic football-playing bully, is himself actually gay, having forced himself on Kurt sometime ago by kissing him in the locker room, and who now lives in fear of Kurt not keeping his lips sealed.

Given GLEE’s seeming advocacy of topical gay and lesbian issues, I am greatly puzzled by the song which Rachel sings in the episode about whether or not she should improve her looks by submitting to plastic surgery after her nose is accidentally punched and broken by her boyfriend Finn.  For those who don’t watch GLEE and don’t know, Rachel is Jewish.  She admires Barbra Streisand for not getting her nose fixed. She herself has never thought about getting the procedure done, until now, when the plastic surgeon tells her that he can make her look more like Quinn, the school’s reigning cheerleading Aryan blond beauty queen.

In the end, Rachel does the right thing and decides to keep her schnoz.  She starts to sing “I Feel Pretty,” the Rodgers and Hammerstein song which the Asian-American Nancy Kwan sang so fetchingly in the movie adaptation of FLOWER DRUM SONG.  The lyrics to the song are fairly well-known:  “I feel pretty/Oh so pretty/I feel pretty and witty and gay…” But when Rachel sings the song, she changes the lyrics to:  “I feel pretty/Oh so pretty/I feel pretty and witty and bright…”

So what’s going on here?  Is the heterosexual Rachel afraid to use the word “gay” for fear that her peers might not know that the word also means merry and happy?  And since when did gay become synonymous with bright anyway? Or is this Rachel’s way of admitting how dumb she is for not singing the song the way it was written?  In any case, did the writers and producers of GLEE clear this word revision with the Rogers and Hammerstein estate?

Last night, at the 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards, GLEE won none of the awards, and MODERN FAMILY won five, including the Best Comedy Award, which it also won last year.  I used to like both GLEE and MODERN FAMILY equally; but now, if I have to decide which of the two shows is braver in its depiction of gay and interracial issues in America today, like the Emmy judges, I too would have to go with MODERN FAMILY.

For me, GLEE lost some of its luster when it substituted the word “bright” for “gay.”  And, for all her gay agenda last night as host of the Emmy Awards, I thought the GLEE-ful Jane Lynch should have just worn her usual Sue Sylvester polyester gym sweats for the show, instead of all those ugly gowns which made her look like Ichabod Crane in drag. Not a bright choice for someone’s who’s gay. That’s how Sue would have called it.

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18 September 2011: Mrs. Sam Brownback Has a Mission!

Paul September 18th, 2011

Kansas First Lady Mary Brownback says it’s important to promote literacy.  ”If you can’t read, it’s awfully hard to get a job, and you can’t develop to your full potential,” she opined wisely in an interview which appears in today’s Lawrence Journal-World.

And so the governor’s wife is launching the Kansas Book Festival, an annual event which will open next Saturday at the Kansas Historical Society in Topeka. In attendance will be more than 30 writers from Kansas or who have strong Kansas connections.

It isn’t clear who’s going to pay for all this.  According to the Journal-World, Mrs. Brownback established the festival as a nonprofit organization, with the goal of it becoming a self-sufficient organization within a few years. She believes it will also enable the organization to give out grants to school and public libraries around the state.

And what does her husband think of all this?  That isn’t clear either, but here’s a quick look at how Kansas Governor Sam Brownback voted in Congress on various matters with regard to education.

Gov. Brownback voted NO on spending $338B of tax cut on education & debt reduction (4 April 2001).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on funding smaller classes instead of private tutors (15 May 2001).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on shifting $11B from corporate tax loopholes to education (17 March 2005).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on $5B for grants to local educational agencies (26 October 2005).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on $52M for “21st century community learning centers (27 October 2005).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on additional $10.2B for federal education & HHS projects (23 October 2006).

Gov. Brownback voted NO on the College Cost Reduction and Access Act (27 September 2007).

And, of course, Gov. Brownback does not believe in evolution, nor in global warming.

I think Mary Brownback has her job cut out for her.  If she wants the Kansas Book Festival to be properly funded, she’ll need Sam’s support.  She needs to get him to read her lips.  To that end, she should herself begin by reading Lysistrata, the ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, which shows women how best to get their husbands to give them what they want, by getting off their backs.

Good luck, and good night.

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12 September 2011: Giving a Stranger a Hug on 9/11

Paul September 12th, 2011

Yesterday evening, being utterly exhausted from watching the heart-breaking non-stop TV-coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, some friends and I decided to take a break by attending a wonderful non-9/11 “celebration of music and art from the 17th to 19th centuries” in the central court of the Spencer Museum of Art  on the KU campus. We had great seats on the front row, and we were in for a real treat. On hand were two superb artists from the KU School of Music, vocalist Genaro Mendez, accompanied on the piano by Robert Hiller, in a concert of songs by Purcell, Beethoven, Liszt, and Tosti.

Moments before the concert began, I noticed that the dapper-looking gentleman in his 60′s sitting on my right, who seemed to be saving a couple of seats to his right, kept turning his head to look at other folks who were arriving for the concert.  Trying to make chit-chat, I smiled and asked him, “Are you waiting for friends?”

“No,” he replied woefully, “I have no friends.”

“Oh, you poor man,” I mumbled sympathetically.  ”Would you like a hug?”

His face broke out in a smile, so I reached over and hugged him.  Then I heard someone laughing behind us.  I turned to look.  It was Joyce Castle, the opera singer, now also on the music faculty at KU. “You should hug him back,” she said to the stranger I had just hugged.  Which he did, promptly. And then the wonderful concert began.

At the reception following the concert, someone told me that the dapper-looking stranger whom I had hugged so spontaneously, and who had hugged me back with equal enthusiasm, was Shade Little, the husband of KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little.

And that’s how I will choose to remember September 11, 2011.

 

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4 September 2011: Camouflage Diapers For Babies!

Paul September 4th, 2011

As a former advertising man, I’m intrigued by the announcement that Huggies is offering a new line of camouflage diapers. Since babies don’t buy their own diapers, I find myself wondering which adults are being targeted in groceries and supermarkets to purchase this specialty item—Aggressive military recruitment officers eager to catch them while they’re still in the cradle?  New mothers whose husbands are deployed everywhere around the world where America has troops?  Our hawkish leaders in Congress who voted for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, to give as gifts to all their expectant constituents?  Or maybe anyone in America who still believes in the rallying cry from the flower children to “make love, not war,” and to “give peace a chance”?  After all, there’s no camouflaging what diapers are for, and that’s to catch and collect shit so that we can dispose of the shit as cleanly and efficiently as possible without soiling ourselves. “Shit on War” or “Poop for Peace,” take your pick.  I’m just glad Huggies is not making Stars-and-Stripes diapers.  Not yet, anyway.

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30 August 2011: Is Michele Bachmann’s God Laughing?

Paul August 30th, 2011

Republican Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota now claims she was just kidding when she said Hurricane Irene and the earthquake centered in Virginia last week were a warning from God to politicians.

“Of course I was being humorous when I said that,” the comical presidential candidate laughed reassuringly. ”I am a person who loves humor. I have a great sense of humor.”

The religious congresswoman ought to be more careful with her jokes.  There is no evidence whatsoever in the Bible that her God has a sense of humor.  The last thing she wants to find are lice in her big new hairdo, or for it to start raining frogs in her home state of Minnesota, just two of the Ten Plagues of Egypt, according to the Book of Leviticus.

Be afraid, Michele. Be very afraid.

 

 

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27 August 2011: Placenta for Dinner!

Paul August 27th, 2011

First, there was news that “Baby Gaga,” a specialty ice cream made from mothers’ breast milk, was selling like, if you’ll pardon the expression, hot cakes, at The Icecreamist store in London.  And now, according to “The Placenta Cookbook,” an article in this week’s New York magazine, “For a growing number of new mothers, there’s no better nutritional snack after childbirth than the fruit of their own labor.”

One woman is quoted thus:  ”When I was pregnant, I just craved organs. I’d go to Diner (a Williamsburg restaurant) and order beef hearts, marrow…so the placenta just made sense.  After I gave birth, I threw a chunk of placenta in the Vitamix with coconut water and a banana.  It gave me the wildest rush.”

When is cannibalism not cannibalism?  Also, one wonders, what next?  Tossed salads garnished not with bacon bits but with crispy foreskins from routine circumcisions?  Pate made from stomach lint? Energy drinks flavored with salt from one’s own sweat?  Some dogs have been known to eat their own fecal matter.  Perhaps we can learn something from Man’s Best Friend.  Waste not, want not.

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24 August 2011: Moms Need Mars!

Paul August 24th, 2011

Here’s good news for unemployed moms in Kansas who are looking for work.

Mars Chocolate is building a new $250 million candy factory south of Topeka which is expected to create about 200 permanent full-time jobs in northeast Kansas. The plant, which will produce M&Ms and Snickers candies, is the first new chocolate factory Mars has built in 35 years. Calorie production should begin in 2013, and Mars officials say the project has the potential to create nearly 1000 direct and indirect jobs in Kansas, including temporary jobs relating to the factory construction and building supplies.

In other related news, the Kansas Department of Health & Environment Bureau for Children, Youth and Families has just released a study which indicates that the prevalence of obesity among adults in Kansas has increased by almost 70 percent since 1992. More than one in five adult Kansans are now obese, and almost three in five (including children) are at least overweight.

Okay, don’t snicker. But I bet the new working moms in Topeka will be bringing home more than just their fat paychecks once the factory is in full production.  Along with extra pocket change, how about fringe benefits like sacks full of M&Ms for the chubby kids to snack on while they’re playing their favorite video games?

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19 August 2011: The Logic to Brownback’s Madness

Paul August 19th, 2011

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback has just signed into law three controversial measures related to his own personal religious anti-abortion beliefs.  This, in the wake of his shutting down not just planned parenthood clinics in Kansas, but also the Kansas Arts Commission, and the SRS office in Lawrence.  Additionally, let’s not forget his raising the speed limit on Kansas interstate highways from 70 to 75 mph, plus the persistent rumor that he intends to get rid of the mandatory seat belt law in Kansas because it’s just one more sign of Big Government intervention in the lives of private citizens.

Well, I’ve decided that there’s good logic to Gov. Brownback’s seeming madness.  If getting rid of planned parenthood and abortion in Kansas increases the population and thus also the poverty-level of Kansans, leading to more Kansans in need of Social and Rehabilitation Services, then the figures will all even out after you factor in the number of Kansans who will speedily speed to their deaths (with or without their seat belts on) while getting away with driving 80 mph under the new 75 mph limit.

Of course, that’s just physical mortality.  So, what about the arts and art education?  Forget it.  In dire economic times, the arts are luxuries.  No need to feed the soul when bodies need to be fed first. Plant wheat, corn and soybeans. Raise pigs, cows and chickens.  Chairman Mao had the same idea for China back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and look where they are now. The Chinese own America, so now they can afford to enjoy the artistic fruits of our democracy. What’s good enough for the Chinese should be good enough for Kansans.

Coming soon to a bookstore near you:  BROWNBACK’S LITTLE RED BOOK FOR BLEEDING KANSAS.

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11 August 2011: Eat the Rich!

Paul August 11th, 2011

According to Dr. Philip Kramer, director of the Caribbean program for the Nature Conservancy, a good way to take care of problematic invasive species like the lionfish, Asian carp and European green crabs, is to find another predatory species that will eat them to extinction. And that means you and me.  ”Humans are the most ubiquitous predators on earth,” says Dr. Kramer.  ”Instead of eating something like shark fin soup, why not eat a species that is causing harm and, with your meal, make a positive contribution?”

This, too, may be a solution for all our current economic woes in America.  When the starving unemployed masses in America can no longer put food on the table, they can always look to the millionaires and billionaires whose tax cuts the Republicans in Congress are trying to protect. Eat the rich. That’s true trickle down econo-meals.

Stephen Sondheim was way ahead of his time when he wrote about all this in one of his musicals. For recipes on how to prepare a rich array of meat pies, consult Mrs. Lovett’s cookbook in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

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