Meanwhile, in Illinois, Part 1

2012 will go down as the year I traveled a bunch.  Still, before any of that, I made a couple of trips back to Illinois in May.  Here was what was in the news at the time.

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There has been a big push in the last few years to stop bullying.  As someone who was on the short list of kids in my school that got bullied the most, I have to say I am for these changes.  Sure parts of it humor me (the WWE has launched the anti-bullying 'Be a Star', despite the fact pro wrestling is largely based on the idea of taunting and picking fights).

I don't know why I feel this way.  My experience with other school programs (Just Say No to drugs, abstinence campaigns, etc.) show that they are pretty ineffectual, and I have no reason to believe anti-bullying wouldn't be the same.  Still, anti-bullying programs are one of those thing everyone supports.  How could you not?  Who's going to be pro-bully?  it's like being anti-puppy.

Still, leave it to the Illinois Family Institute, James Dobson's Alliance Defense Fund, state senator Kyle Mccarter, and Illinois Republicans to come out against the anti-bullying legislation.  Mccarter and the IFI felt that the anti-bullying program was just part of the gay agenda to indoctrinate school kids to accept homosexuality and transgenderism.  It seems that they held on to the pre-1980s belief that the queer indeed must be smeared.

Never mind, of course, that 20 % of Illinois students are bullied, and the biggest group affected were teenage girls.  Never mind, that we live in a time of cyber bullying.  Never mind that the only real reason that it seems Mccarter and Dobson's group seems to hate this bill is because LGBT activists support it.

From my experience over two decades ago, it was the most pious kids who got picked on (after the effeminate boys, of course), so it's likely the children of Dobson and McCarter who would benefit most from the bill.  (Though I don't buy into Christian persecution, it was the 'bible thumpers' in school who were just as much as ostracized as the boy who liked shopping a bit too much).

The GOP won this one and the legislation was defeated.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, Part 2

A continuation of what was going  on when I went back to my hometown.

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One thing most people don't know about Central Illinois is its oil.  I grew up with dozens of pumping oil wells and the 24/7 burning flame of gas flares.  i don't know any different, but if you weren't born there, you are probably surprised to see a little bit of Dallas in the middle of the Prairie State.

There was an oil boom in Central Illinois in the 50s.  It was what you would expect- jobs in the oil fields flourished and some local families became rich for years.  My family did not become superrich, but have gotten supplemental income for years.

Now, the oil boom is back thanks to a new process called fracking.  I don't know that I can explain fracking very well, but it seems that water is used to induce pressure which then brings previously untapped oil and natural gas resources to come released.  (There are helpful websites provided by people like Exxon Mobil and other oil producers.  Just google it).

Fracking is a god-send.  Central and Southern Illinois has been an area that has had high unemployment and low job creation even before the economy went south.  Now, farmers who were working their fingers to the bone could see an unexpected light at the end of the tunnel.

Still, one can't help wonder where all of this unexpected good luck came from.  (Okay, I have been reading Jared Diamond, but one needs to head south and see the results of that other innovation strip mining and what happened from it).

There are as many websites that warn against fracking as those for it.  Like many high stakes gambling games, there appears to be a potential side effect to all this 'get rich quick-ness'.  You see, it seems that fracking can leave the ground water on these family farms undrinkable and unusable due to the process.  This not only mean the money dries up when the oil is gone, it leaves the farm family with land that once was their gift to future generations and makes it worthless.

My grandma (I mentioned the supplemental income above) has been approached by the oil companies aggressively.  To her credit 9and to my mild surprise), she has resisted the lure of easy and quick money.

I will admit to a certain extent, I don't know both sides of the story as well as maybe I should.  Maybe BP and their pals are closer to the 'friends of the Gulf Shore' image that their ads portray and less of the image most Americans have of them (which rates them below loan sharks and Congress).  Still, this appears to be one of those phenomenons that we will look back 20 or 40 years and wonder why we ever made this mistake.

New Music Initiative 046; Wymond Miles/The Fresh & Onlys

Some of you have lamented that there's no new music out there. I am here to help solve that issue. Look for a handful of bands to be posted here soon.

If you are one of those looking for new music, I need only point you to Sacred Bones Records- an incredible record label that seems to have their hand on the pulse of the best new music.

While the idea of buying the artists of a certain record label seem like an idea that went away with Netscape and Friends, you will have to trust me on this one.

Sacred Bones gave us Crystal Stilts (on their way to become one of this decade's best bands) and two artists that made my "Best of 2011" list - Slug guts (the last in a great lineage of Aussie sleaze-core bands) and The Men (a band who embraces No wave as well as noise's Goo/Green Mind/ Doolittle's heyday). On this year's Open Your Heart, the Men are making a lot of best-of lists already, by marrying their love for NYC noise with their inner Westerberg.

One of Sacred Bones's newest artist is Wymond Miles.

Miles plays the kind of psychedelic rock that I can't get enough of (and oddly, I don't spend that much time around pharmaceuticals.)

Spin lets you stream the album here.

I sense a lot of Bowie-style prog, but you can also find a bit of the Cure's gothier moments and a bit of Nikki Sudden's heroin chic.

This song is pretty amazing as his most of the album.

Along the way researching Miles, I figured I ahd to check out the band he used to play in , the San Fran-based The Fresh and Onlys.

They have a new album on the horizon, and although I am not sure if they are now Miles-less (I don't think so, but I could be wrong), it gives some good psychedelia as well (with indie pop appeal, think Dandy Warhols) .

Adventures of a Swing-state Voter- "Not Running, Waving" edition

We know we are in the midst of campaign season because the Obama and Romney ads run every hour and both men are making numerous trips here.  Obama was in cedar rapids this past week and his talking point was the Bush-era taxcuts.

I am told it's a negative campaign.  A local news channel points out Obama was in Cedar Rapids in 2008 and assaulted McCain for being negative, and in 2012, and in the last month, 76% of Obama's ads have some anti-Romney content.

Still, it doesn't feel particularly sleazy.  I guess after the caucus season with Romney, Gingrich, Paul, and Perry, it was bound to be tame.  I guess it is negative.  Obama's biggest campaign point is a clip of a nonchalant Romney saying "Planned Parenthood?  We're going to get rid of that.".  Romney has stuck with (for a second cycle of ads) with Hillary Clinton circa 2008 saying "Shame on you, Barack Obama".

Of course, things may just be about to get ugly.  Obama has struck at Romney again and again for outsourcing jobs.  Romney's defense is that it's untrue and says if he will say anything to get elected (which is why he plays the Hillary video), then he will tell lies again and again.

Romney's argument is that he left Bain in 1999, and that places like FactCheck.org have confirmed that there was no outsourcing at that time.  The question has since raised if Romney actually had left Bain as he said, or if he still played a major role.  Things are about to get sticky.

Regardless of the truth, I imagine Obama will stick with it, and Romney will be saddled with it.  Romney was a venture capitalist and a  hedge fund manager, and those are terms that give people a bad taste in their mouth.  Romney likely would have better time admitting to being a stripper than admitting a hedge fund past.

Things also will get worse as Restore Our Future are about to dump $7 million in swing states.  They got a lot of practice in last fall by roughing up Newt and Perry, and they have tons of money and support from the 8th richest American Sheldon Adelson who makes boatloads of money from innovative ideas a lean assembly production line  the latest technologies the fact Americans love to gamble.

Romney didn't make it to Iowa this week, but guess who did?

Rick Santorum.

Santorum spent two days in Iowa on a 'thank you' tour.  So yes, the 2016 Presidential election starts now.

He was here to promote local GOPers. 

Not Willard?

Rick was on local news and he said he was going to "hold (Romney's) feet to the fire" just as much as he would to Obama.

Uh-oh!

Of course, my favorite political story from Iowa this week isn't from Barry, Willard, or even Rick.  It's a candidate that was running for a State Senate spot.

I say running- past tense, because this week, she dropped her campaign because she discovered the US government was replaced by an illegitimate corporate government in 1871.

So instead of running for the state congress, she says she has been appointed as a US Senator in the Republic of the United States of America (the name sounds a bit Phantom Menace-ish to me, but whatever).

You can get read more about the Republic here and maybe you could be Attorney General of the Republic if you ask them nicely.