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(02/17/12 3:01am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Joseph Ricks, a computer consultant at the Kelley School of Business, didn’t expect to see fraggles on his flight back from Afghanistan in spring 2002.Ricks, who was in the Army at the time, had taken Ambien prescribed to him by a doctor who did not explain the side effects, including auditory and visual hallucinations. For Ricks, this meant the bizarre experience of seeing a band of Fraggles — characters from Jim Henson’s puppet show “Fraggle Rock.”He shared this story last summer at a Bloomington Storytelling Project event at The Bishop.“Telling that story and listening to the audience just get it, laugh at the right parts and respond positively was a sort of affirmation for me,” Ricks said. This month, the Bloomington Storytelling Project is giving people a chance to tell their stories every day. The group, which is part of the local Bloomington radio station WFHB 91.3, is collecting up to 29 stories to play on “The Porch Swing,” a program that airs at 5:30 p.m. Saturdays.The stories must be fewer than 15 minutes long, true and told without notes. The first 29 storytellers to contact BSP will be entered into a drawing to receive a red Porch Swing gift basket with more than $100 in gifts from local businesses, such as Dats restaurant, Bloomingfoods, Sweet Claire Bakery and more. BSP created the 29 Stories Drive in honor of the leap year month. Although this is the first year the radio station announced the event, BSP has been airing peoples’ stories since summer 2009, said Laura Grover, the creator of the storytelling project. “The project has seemed to gain more and more attention as the years go by,” Grover said. “It started out as just me, setting up events and making connections with others in the community.” Ricks said sharing his story at the BSP event made him feel his life experiences had a purpose. “If that purpose is me growing as an individual or just having something funny to tell the grandkids one day, it was comforting to know that I had done something that other people were curious about and eager to hear about and ready to laugh about,” Ricks said. WFHB Manager Chad Carrothers created the idea for the story drive with Grover as a way to “raise stories,” she said. Since its inception, BSP has sponsored more than 20 storytelling events throughout Bloomington and has aired more than 60 episodes of the “The Porch Swing.” The group also has one of the largest volunteer teams at the station. Barton Girdwood, a junior studying gender studies and public memory with the Individualized Major Program, first heard about the project in fall 2009 when he attended a storytelling event at the Bishop Bar. Since then, Girdwood has been putting together two storytelling events per semester at Collins Living-Learning Center, including story circles with the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community. At live events, peoples’ stories are recorded on stage and used later for “The Porch Swing.” The BSP has also set up story booths at local events and will either record the stories in the station or meet the storytellers in their homes.Girdwood said people will sometimes reach out to him to tell their story. “I don’t know if I can speak for other people on why they want to share a story,” he said. “I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But what I can tell you is that at a live event, the stories are given differently to the audience and the other storytellers in the room.” At a Collins live event in spring 2011, IU student Lee Davis told a story called “There was this one time at band camp,” in which she shared the amusing account of her first summer as a high school freshman in a drum line and when she fell backward in front of the instructor she had a crush on. During another Collins event, several people told stories about the effect of cancer on their lives, including one girl whose mother died of the disease. “I think it’s a way for people to feel like they are important because they got to do it in front of an audience and say, ‘This is my life, this is what I’m doing, this is what happened to me,’” Girdwood said. “It also relates to other people, too, because people laugh and people cry while they’re telling the story.”Grover said BSP will likely have the 29 Stories Drive next year. The group has planned another February event in which people will read from their diaries on stage Feb. 25 at the Bishop. “Anything goes, and we are not picky,” Grover said. “What’s important to us is that they are real. Real people telling real stories. That’s what we’re all about.”
(02/14/12 4:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Nobody wants to be alone on Valentine’s Day. That’s why the City of Bloomington Animal Care and Control is giving people the opportunity to connect with that special someone — a dog, cat or rabbit — for just $40 from Feb. 13-19. The $40 adoption fee covers the first round of vaccinations, a visit to the veterinary office, heartworm testing for dogs or feline leukemia for cats, microchip identification, and spay or neuter surgery. Normally, the adoption, which also covers the health services, is $75 for cats and dogs younger than 5 years old or $55 for those that are older than 5 years. This is the second year the shelter has had the “My Furry Valentine” adoption event. Laurie Ringquist, the director of Animal Care and Control, said the shelter frequently promotes specials to encourage more people to adopt. “People want to come in and make a connection with an animal and that’s what we want, too,” Ringquist said. “We don’t want them to pick this animal just because it’s cheaper. We want them to pick the animal because they have a connection.”The shelter, which is open seven days a week, takes in animals from other counties for a small surrender fee and rarely sends patrol officers into the city to pick up strays. Jason Tharp, a senior from Bloomington High School South who has been volunteering at the shelter for three years, said they’ve taken in rats, reptiles, horses and llamas. “We take pretty much anything,” Tharp said. “In most cases they’re stray.” On average, two-thirds of the 4,000 animals they take annually are stray animals. Ringquist said about 60 percent of the animals are adopted per year. More dogs than cats are adopted, she said. The shelter has three separate rooms for cats, most of which are adult cats. Some of the animals have been there for more than a year without being adopted. Bloomington resident Kristin Arnold and her two daughters visit the shelter about once a month to play with the cats. Arnold said she grew up with animals but that right now, her family won’t adopt because of her husband’s job. “We travel a lot,” Arnold said. “Having another pet at home would be another labor of difficulty. Looking at the kittens is the next best thing to owning one.” Ringquist said her job can be emotionally consuming and that she makes sure to separate her personal and professional life.“When you see the day-to-day progress we make and all the animals that go home with somebody else, there’s not that sense of urgency that I have to personally take them home,” Ringquist said. “You just have to go in, knowing you can’t (adopt).”
(02/10/12 2:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After Susan G. Komen for the Cure initially decided last week to stop funding to Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings, Planned Parenthood of Indiana received $9,000 in donations from individuals, said Jon Mills, PPIN director of marketing and communications. “The outpouring of support for us was tremendous, at times overwhelming, to be honest,” Mills said. But two days after Komen announced the decision, CEO Nancy Brinker said in a statement that the foundation rescinded their decision to stop donating to 17 of the 19 affiliates of Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood in Indianapolis does not receive Komen donations, Mills said. Komen, a nonprofit that fights against breast cancer, made its decision to stop funding Dec. 26, 2011, because of federal investigations of Planned Parenthood ordered by Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla. The goal of Stearns’ committee was to find out if White House officials knew about Planned Parenthood’s financial state before the organization filed for bankruptcy. Last year, Komen donated to 19 clinics of Planned Parenthood, according to a New York Times article last week. Elise Leblanc, communications coordinator for the Komen Foundation in Indianapolis, said they were bombarded with angry feedback. While donors have requested donation cancellations, she said the Indiana affiliate has also received new donations. “No matter what the reasoning was behind the decision to make them temporarily or permanently ineligible to apply for funding in the future, there was likely to be a backlash,” she said in an email. Komen’s donations largely fund breast cancer screenings. PPIN performed 14,000 breast exams last year alone, which led to thousands of mammogram referrals, Mills said. “In my circle, we don’t understand why Komen was giving money to Planned Parenthood to begin with,” said Carole Canfield, a member of Christian Citizens for Life in Bloomington. “They don’t do mammograms. So what were they giving the money for?” Canfield said several pro-life advocates she knows who previously donated to the Komen foundation chose to stop donating since its decision to continue funding Planned Parenthood. Mills said PPIN has received several supportive messages, phone calls and Facebook and Twitter posts. “I think the takeaway message for the reason the reversal came about was that the public wanted to see organizations committed to fighting against breast cancer and improving women’s health and providing affordable health care to Hoosiers,” Mills said. Canfield said she believes Planned Parenthood uses its influence to gain donations. “I just don’t see how you can call a place that encourages women to abort their children a great health place for women,” she said. Rob Stone, the director of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Care Plan, said the Komen Foundation is much more political than their donors realized. HCHP is a statewide group that fights for universal health care. “If we had a rational health care system, we wouldn’t need so many donations,” Stone said. “We should have a better way to pay for poor women’s health care.” Stone said he volunteers at Volunteers in Medicine in Bloomington, which also receives donations from the Komen foundation.“Americans want to see health care access in the fight against breast cancer being fought collaboratively and not politicized,” Mills said.
(02/09/12 3:46am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Federal health officials recommended last week that 11- and 12-year-old boys receive routine vaccinations for human papillomavirus, which can cause genital warts and even cancer. They also recommend boys between the ages 13 and 21 who have not been vaccinated receive “catch-up” vaccinations.The recommendations were made last fall by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices but were recently formalized by the 2012 immunizations schedule, which was published by the Annals of Internal Medicine. ACIP recommended to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that boys as young as 9 years old should be able to receive the vaccination. The committee said Gardasil, the only recommended vaccine for males, has a greater impact on boys’ immune system between the ages of 11 and 12 and is most effective before exposure to the virus through sexual contact. Three doses of Gardasil must be taken within a six-month period. Currently, males can receive HPV vaccinations through age 26, but the CDC is now highly recommending that boys receive routine doses of Gardasil at younger ages to also reduce cancer rates, said Joan Duwve, the chief medical director at the Indiana State Department of Health. “Now we have efficacy data in boys against cancer, so it makes sense now to make that recommendation that boys get this vaccine as well,” Duwve said. In 2006, the CDC recommended HPV vaccinations for girls ages 11 and 12, as well as for those through age 26. The next year, Indiana passed a law that required parents of girls entering the sixth grade to receive information about the link between HPV and cervical cancer, as well as information about the availability of the vaccines. The schools receive the letters from the state and then send them to the parents, said Kathleen Hugo, the director of Special Education at the Monroe County Community School Corporation. “It’s always an individual family decision,” MCCSC nurse Jane Pilgrim said. She said the corporation has not yet received official instructions from the health department about the new vaccine guidelines for boys. “We haven’t gotten any complaints from parents about vaccinations,” she said. Twenty-eight percent of parents vaccinated their children against HPV, according to a health and wellness survey conducted by the MCCSC last fall. The HPV vaccinations are now covered by most insurance plans and by the Vaccines for Children Program, a federal program for children who meet certain eligibility requirements. Duwve said the health department will likely send an update to providers, informing them about the new vaccine recommendations for boys. “What I think will happen is that providers will see that this is a recommended vaccine and that it’s always a choice, but there will be a little bit more motivation for providers to recommend it,” she said. The cost for all three doses of Gardasil is $360, and the private-sector cost for a single dose of Gardasil or Cervarix is $130. Both Cervarix and Gardasil can safely vaccinate girls. Seven percent of Americans have an oral infection of HPV, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study also found the oral infection of HPV was more than eight times more common among sexually active people. Fewer than one percent of people with no sexual experience had an oral infection of HPV. Since HPV vaccinations for children were recommended in 2006, right-wing critics and concerned parents have argued that the vaccinations will encourage sexual activity at a young age.“But the most important thing that we do is keep kids safe,” she said.
(02/06/12 1:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Coping with the loss of a loved one can soon be part of the medical diagnosis of depression.The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders will include bereavement as a sign of depression. Mental health professionals will be able to diagnose and medicate people who are experiencing the loss of a loved one as long as they meet an additional five of the 10 criteria listed in the DSM. Recommendations for the fifth edition, which will be released in May 2013, include changes for more than a dozen disorders, including autism and depression. The changes are published on the manual’s website and were determined by a report completed by two psychiatric professors.Since then, critics of the change in depression’s definition have said it will over-medicalize a natural part of life and, as a result, over-diagnose people. The answer to whether grieving should be a condition is not so simple, Bloomington therapist Carole Suzanne Holton said.Holton said she probably would not diagnose someone with depression if he or she was grieving because of the loss of a loved one, but said she thinks talking to someone other than friends and family is sometimes necessary for people to recover and move on. “My opinion is that grieving is something we all do, hopefully,” she said. “Some people really need to talk to somebody about it. So it probably should be in the DSM. So it’s a struggle that way.” Insurance is also another issue, she said. If the diagnosis isn’t in the DSM, people won’t be able to receive medication or treatment. “This is the real problem it comes down to,” Holton said. Margaret Squires, a licensed psychologist in Bloomington, said clinicians need to be careful when using labels to diagnose patients so they don’t treat the label rather than the person. “The important point is that clinicians must be careful and thoughtful in deciding what to do,” she said. Using labels leads to prescriptions, as in the case of Ball State University junior Andrew Carson, whose doctor diagnosed him with generalized anxiety disorder and mild depression when he was in high school. Carson was prescribed Zoloft and Abilify, two medications that are used as a treatment for depression. “The medicine had affected my sleeping patterns and my moods, but not in a way that I thought was actually helping my original symptoms,” Carson said.Carson has been off the medication for six months and said he now feels that he was misdiagnosed. “My original diagnosis of ‘general anxiety’ may have just been a growing pain,” he said. “I will certainly be more suspicious of the way doctors diagnose me in the future.”Squires said the change in the manual could lead to a rise in the over-medication of grief.“Inappropriate treatment will result,” she said. “If they take the time to know their clients and modify their treatment approach when needed, then the best results can be achieved.”
(02/01/12 5:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Three years ago, Bloomington resident Sharon Blair lost her oldest child, 29-year-old Jennifer Reynolds, to what most people might not call a disease: drug addiction.But Blair, 54, believes an illness is what caused her daughter’s accidental overdose on Jan. 15, 2009.“The brain is malfunctioning. It’s not processing,” she said. “So it is a disease. That is something no one wants to talk about.”However, Blair intends to get the attention of lawmakers in Indiana and Florida, where Blair and her family lived when her daughter died.Blair drafted the Jennifer Act in 2002 when her daughter was still deeply addicted to drugs. She was addicted to opium pills, heroin, marijuana and alcohol.The act would allow families to commit substance-addicted people to state-funded treatment centers. During Jennifer’s fluctuating addiction, Blair sent her daughter to treatment centers using the Marchman Act, a Florida law that allows families to commit a substance-addicted person who has met certain criteria to qualify for state-funded treatment.The year Jennifer died, Blair sent the bill to county representatives in Florida. Blair and her family were able to pay the fees for the petition in each county, which could sometimes cost $400. She saw this as discrimination against people who can’t afford the fees. The Jennifer Act in Florida would also put the petition fees at a flat, affordable rate. When Blair moved to back to her hometown of Bloomington in 2010, she discovered Indiana law defines substance addictions as different from mental illness.The same year, State Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Bloomington, and then-state Sen. Sue Errington, D-Muncie, sponsored the bill. It has been reintroduced by Simpson in the current legislative session as Concurrent Resolution 7.Jill Matheny, the director of the Indiana Addictions Issues Coalition, said she believes the bill has a good chance of passing legislation and that it should receive more attention this summer. “I would hope that this would enable more Hoosiers to access treatment and find long-term recovery,” she said. “Too many people out there still believe that this is a willpower or moral issue. It’s not.” Blair said Jennifer first began her drug use when she was 16, not long before she dropped out of high school. Although she earned her GED diploma, she sank deeper into the addiction so that Blair had to constantly intervene.“You balance between tough love, codependent, enabling boundaries, and the boundaries just keep moving and coming in and out, and the goal is to reach treatment but the walls just keep moving in and out,” she said. “It’s the process of traveling with someone who is addicted to drugs.” Nathan Blair, 25, said his sister’s death brought his family closer. “I think it’s a tragedy that made us realize how important it is to have family,” he said. Nathan said he has helped encapsulate the act, mainly in Florida, by helping with the website and sending out ads in Clearwater, Fla.One of the messages of the Jennifer Act is that no one grows up believing they will become drug addicts and that it isn’t a conscious decision. “It just happens through a series of bad events in your life, one after the other, and slowly it consumes you, and at that point, it’s almost like you don’t have the capacity to make the decision for yourself,” Nathan said.Blair said one of the components she won’t compromise on is making faith-based treatments an option for those involuntarily committed. “I know that I’m probably never going to get every single thing of the Jennifer Act I asked for, but if I get some of it, I feel like that’s progress,” she said. “I think that’s positive and that we’re moving in the right direction and that it’s beneficial for families to know that they have health options out there.”
(01/31/12 4:21am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Religious institutions in all states will soon be required to cover free birth control for employees, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently ruled. Most new and renewed health plans will begin covering contraceptives Aug. 1, 2012. After reviewing more than 200,000 comments from relevant parties, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a press release that nonprofit religious hospitals, colleges and social service agencies have until Aug. 1, 2013, to comply with the regulation, which is part of the health care overhaul. The one-year extension intends to allow employers time and flexibility to implement the new coverage, but must qualify for the delayed implementation. Starting Jan. 1, 2014, employers must cover emergency contraceptives and sterilizations for women without cost-sharing and must inform employees where contraceptive services are available. Some critics have called the provision an infringement of religious freedom that blurs the line between church and state. “This kind of mandate has raised serious concerns about faith-based hospitals, not only Catholic hospitals but also religious-based,” said Joe Stuteville, spokesman for the corporate headquarters of the Franciscan Alliance in Mishawaka, Ind. “There may be some constitutional questions involved.” Although the health care overhaul does not require insurance plans to cover abortions, critics said the ruling suggests the federal government could force religious employers to pay for them. “The Catholic Church will never offer coverage for contraceptives, aborted patients or perform sterilizations to conform to the President’s reproductive health care mandate,” said Sister Diane Carroll, the director of the Pro-Life Ministry for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. “Informed Catholics must respond responsibly to the present administration’s disdain to religious freedom in the United States.” Currently, 26 states, Indiana excluded, require employers to cover contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures website. The health administration consulted an advisory panel last year from the Institute of Medicine for the decision to put birth control on the list of drugs covered by employer health insurance. Sebelius said she believes the ruling “strikes the appropriate balance between religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.” However, the Catholic Health Association of the United States sees the ruling as a missed opportunity. “The challenge that these regulations posed for many groups remains unresolved,” said Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of CHA. “This indicates the need for an effective national conversation on the appropriate conscience protections in our pluralistic country, which has always respected the role of religions.”
(01/30/12 1:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Places where gay couples can feel comfortable hearing the results of a test for HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases with a significant other are hard to come by.That’s why Testing Together, a program designed for gay male couples to take HIV tests together, was created.However, sites for Testing Together exist in only two cities in the country, Chicago and Atlanta, due to funding shortages. The two sites in Chicago, Broadway Youth Center and Howard Brown Health Center, have tested 33 couples since the program was implemented.HIV tests in Bloomington are offered at several clinics. Planned Parenthood’s downtown location recently cut its prices in half to $12.50 per test. The Futures Family Planning Clinic charges HIV tests on a sliding fee scale. For a person making $20,000 annually, tests are only $7.50. But it’s not cost that concerns most patients, especially gay male couples, taking HIV tests. Some say gay men, or anyone within the gay community, might feel judged for walking into a public health clinic, said Doug Bauder, coordinator of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services. “Gay men don’t have access themselves to these services because of discrimination,” Bauder said. “People don’t want to go to the health center.”This is why GLBT SSS has free HIV and hepatitis testing from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every Thursday. MSM persons — men who have sex with men — can receive free syphilis testing as well. The testing services, which began in August 2010, are offered by Positive Link, a coordination site with IU Health-Bloomington Hospital for people living with HIV/AIDS.At Testing Together, if either partner tests positive, a counselor sits down with the couple to discuss alternatives for how to deal with HIV. “The idea is that the couple will be taught healthy communication skills, which they can continue to utilize in their relationship after leaving the testing appointment,” said Emily Brinegar, a prevention coordinator at Positive Link. “This skill set is not something you are necessarily going to find in a health department setting or through a private physician,” she said. When one partner tests HIV negative, the rate of the transmission of the disease is cut by more than half, according to a Jan. 18 Associated Press report.Senior Caleb Kurowski said he thinks the program has the potential to be a valuable source.“I think it’s good to offer something like that for couples,” he said. “It would be good for them to aim the program at heterosexual couples as well.”Kurowski said there is a stigma that gay men are more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases. “There are people who are normal just like anyone else,” he said. “It’s not like we have particular diseases or anything like that.”Brinegar said one of the reasons gay men might be more likely to contract HIV is a lack of culturally competent education but that “men who have sex with men are less likely to seek testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections.”As a result, programs such as Testing Together could be beneficial for gay men with these concerns, she said.“The benefit of this type of counseling is that each partner is able to talk about these issues with a counselor who is trained to foster a conversation with the couple regarding sexual behaviors, risks and relationship dynamics,” Brinegar said.
(01/26/12 3:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>‘Tis the season to wine and dine — and donate. Nick’s English Hut will be raising money for the Homeward Bound Walk from 5 to 8 p.m. tonight. Ten percent of the backroom food and drink sales will be donated to Homeward Bound, and one of the waitresses, Natalie, will donate her tips to the non-profit organization. The Homeward Bound Walk will be celebrating its 10th year April 15 at Third Street Park. “As far as Homeward Bound Walk, our goal is to raise over $100,000 and over 1,000 walkers,” said Kathy Mayer of the City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources Commission. The commission has nine volunteers who work with different human issues in the city, including homelessness. The “donate-and-dine” fundraising will continue with Applebee’s on Feb. 28. “This year, we did a lot of brainstorming and coming up with ways that we could help and support the event,” Mayers said. Twelve Bloomington agencies fundraise for Homeward Bound Walk. “Most of the team captains will go out and recruit some of their friends or colleagues to be on their team, and we kind of compete team to team within our own agency,” said Vanessa Schmidt, coordinator at Youth Services Bureau, a non-profit that houses runaway youths. Centerstone, a community-based behavioral health facility, has raised money for the walk since its inception. “Every year, I try to raise the goal a little bit just to keep everybody motivated,” said Kelley Salvo, who raises funds with Centerstone. Mayer said the fundraising is also a way to keep families in their homes. “With this economy, it’s just another way for low-income citizens to make it through day to day,” she said.
(01/23/12 4:11am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“Stop Abortion Now.” “It’s a Child Not a Choice.”Men, women and families shivered in the icy cold, but they held their signs high to protest against abortion on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. On Sunday afternoon, the 2012 Rally for Life took place on the Monroe County Courthouse lawn, its 20th year. This year, the protest attracted more pro-choice advocates than ever before to counter those who were pro-life. “This is one of the biggest anti-life crowds I’ve seen,” said Andrew Henry, a pro-life activist who attended with his daughter and pregnant wife. “I had a couple of guys say things I’d never repeat. Oftentimes, they are very rude and impolite while we are here very calmly, peacefully.” Pro-choice and pro-life protesters converged face-to-face with their signs’ opposing messages — “Free Vasectomies for Pro-Lifers,” for example — on the corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Walnut Street. Henry, who has been attending the Right for Life protest for 10 years, said about 200 pro-life advocates show up each year. “In terms of what is honestly going on, it is unjustifiable,” he said. Normally, right-for-life protesters march past the Planned Parenthood clinic on College Avenue, said Scott Tibbs, publicity director for Christian Citizens for Life, a pro-life organization in Bloomington. This year, however, protesters lingered near the courthouse or across the street shouting “life, life, life.” Tibbs, who has helped organize almost every Bloomington Right for Life protest, said a number of women at Planned Parenthood have decided not to get abortions because of the Christians who protest on the clinic’s sidewalk every week.“We just want to continue to be a witness against this great and terrible evil so that, hopefully, we can stop it,” he said. Pastor Joseph Bayley from ClearNote Church of Indianapolis spoke before protesters who were urged to hold up their signs and walk along the sidewalks. Before and after his speech, he led the crowd in prayer. Bayley said the history of slavery is like the “atrocious practice of abortion.”“Too much of this country’s past is built on the blood of the innocent,” he said. “We need to speak up in these circumstances, not just when it is safe.” Henry said the pro-life ralliers don’t just protest against abortion. He said they also donate diapers and supplies for pregnant women at Hannah House Maternity Home, a residential program at the Crisis Pregnancy Center in Bloomington. “A lot of women who consider abortion have financial hardships,” Henry said. “Being able to help with that is a beautiful thing.” Lane Bowman, who was an IU student 10 years ago and lives in Bloomington, said he was encouraged to protest as a student but remained indifferent to the abortion controversy. “I was ignorant to how prevalent it was and pleaded ignorance,” he said. Bowman also said he saw more opposition to the pro-life rally this year than he has ever seen before.Tibbs said he thinks the amount of publicity for the 2012 Rally for Life brought more pro-choice protesters. “In this county, they’re the majority,” he said. “But as long as abortion is legal we are going to continue to be here, and we’re going to continue to protest it.”
(01/20/12 5:04am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In Indiana, health care options range from expensive to free. But for some people, even free health care is costly. Lisa Haymaker, a 49-year-old Bloomington resident, does not qualify for state programs, such as Hoosier Healthwise or Healthy Indiana Plan. Her chronic illness, called degenerative disc disease, means that local free clinics — such as Volunteers in Medicine — fall short of alleviating her back and neck pain. “I can’t walk too long, I can’t stand too long, I can’t sit too long,” Haymaker said. “I have to be really careful when I sleep.” Haymaker’s disease is not very common, but only because it is not always considered a disease. Degeneration of the discs along the spinal cord is a natural part of aging, said Dr. Paul Kraemer, spine surgeon at Indiana Spine Group in Indianapolis. But when static positions become painful, “degenerative discs” become “degenerative disc disease.” “That’s actually pretty uncommon,” Kraemer said. “It goes from normal, healthy-looking discs to very significant degeneration, but it doesn’t have to be painful.” Haymaker’s bone degeneration might have begun long before she received treatment, but in 2001 she fell and twisted her back while helping a patient with cerebral palsy at her job as a home health care worker. With the funding of employee-sponsored insurance, she visited a hospital where the doctor found she had a bone missing in her right ankle. “After that, things just started going downhill,” Haymaker said. Eventually, she had to quit her job and went on to work at more than five different jobs, some of which forced her to resign. She quit working altogether in 2005, the year she received an MRI, an imaging test that doctors typically use to study bones and joints. Haymaker has yet to pay the $1,800 for that single examination. “Part of that time, I would go and they would say it was covered and I would find out that it’s not,” she said. Until then, Haymaker’s bills were paid for by Workers’ Compensation. In 2007, she appealed for Disability Medicaid and was denied because she had worked within the last 12 months. “That’s not their problem, and that’s what I was told,” she said of the appeals process. “I said, ‘How am I supposed to live?’ They said, it’s not our problem.” Scott D. Lewis, a lawyer in Indianapolis who specializes in disability claims, said most Social Security Disability Insurance applications are denied. Statistically, claimants are denied three times before they have a hearing with an administrative law judge, he said. “That’s where the majority of the claims end up,” he said.According to a USA Today article, one Social Security Administration judge denied 82 percent of 297 claims. The amount of disability-worker benefits in fiscal year 2010 rose 38 percent during the past five years, although the average waiting time for the review process has dropped steadily. Indiana State Eligibility Manager Christy Johnson handles claims from Monroe County and said the only additional resources she recommends if claims are denied are the Healthy Indiana Plan or Volunteers in Medicine.Since Haymaker makes too much money with child support from her ex-husband, she does not qualify for any of the state health plans, including Hoosier Healthwise. To qualify for Disability Medicaid in Indiana, an applicant must also qualify for Social Security Income benefits. Haymaker’s incoming child support also makes her ineligible for SSI. “They wait for natural selection,” she said. “If you’re too poor to afford it, you die off. Well, that’s one less person in the system. That’s how the system looks at it.” The last time Haymaker received any form of medical care was the end of 2008. In her former hometown, Terre Haute, Ind., Haymaker frequented Saint Anne’s Clinic, where general practitioners offered services for just a $20 visit charge. The clinic was open two days a week for eight hours. People waited in lines down the block for the small chance of getting into one of the 20 spots the clinic had available. “It can be very difficult to give access for everybody and to see somebody who can really give them good advice on what needs to be done,” Kraemer said. “I think the bigger issue is access to specialists for people without very good insurance.” Kraemer said about two-thirds of spinal care providers in Indiana won’t see Medicaid patients because Medicaid is a hassle to deal with and pays doctors poorly. “It can be very difficult, and there is no good solution,” he said. Haymaker said her contact with disability lawyers has not been altogether positive, but she plans to file for SSI again and contact local lawyers. “You have no choice,” she said, smiling. “If you can’t make it, you save your money until you can buy it, and if you can’t do either one, then you make do with what you’ve got. You do what you can, and that’s all you can do.”
(01/19/12 3:37am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Despite rising food costs, school nutrition remains a concern for parents and the community.The majority of Monroe County Community School Corporation parents are dissatisfied with nutrition in school food, according to a Health Education and Wellness Survey of more than 1,100 parents published last semester by MCCSC. More than 90 percent supported healthier options for breakfast and lunch at school.“Now that the community leaders have this information, it helps them start that discussion with the school corporation, parents and other advocates in the community that people are seeing this data,” said Marcie Memmers, director of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Indiana State Department of Health. The division works with partners throughout the state that offer vending machine items to schools, as well as “cart” food items at special events. Memmers said the division follows nutrition guidelines by the Institute of Medicine so that vending food and drink options are healthy. However, the MCCSC survey, which included seven pages of parents’ comments about general nutrition at schools, reported that parents felt the vending options were not ideal, while three participants wrote that vending machines at school are not necessary. “Some schools are really ahead of the curve where they have committed for many, many years that school nutrition is important to them for various reasons,” Memmers said. The Bloomington Developmental Learning Center, a nonprofit child care provider for children ages 6 weeks to 6 years old, currently prepares a vegetarian-only menu to avoid meat contamination, said Deb Murzyn, the executive director for BDLC. “The overall goal is to prepare high-quality, well-balanced meals and snacks that our children enjoy and that encourage them to try new foods at a time when they are forming eating habits for life,” she said. The center’s fees might be an issue for some parents who send their children to Monroe County schools. Thirty-four percent of participants said their children do not eat from the cafeteria because of cost. “I don’t necessarily agree with the concept that nutritious food costs more,” said Scott Little, a local chiropractor who also has a certificate in personal training. “If your kid is addicted to sugar, then that is all they’re going to want to eat. There isn’t an issue in our nation that isn’t greater than food or health.”According to a study conducted by John Cowley at Cornell University in 2010, obesity-related illnesses cost Medicare $19.7 billion and Medicaid $8 billion in 2008. “We seem to aim a lot of money at paying for medical care itself through public programs,” said Kosali Simon, a professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs. About 50 percent of parents in the MCCSC survey said there should be more school resources to teach kids healthy eating habits. “You need that nutrition program to educate the children, but you also need to make sure that what they’re eating at the schools reinforce that education they’re learning,” Memmers said.
(01/19/12 3:34am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The White River Central Labor Council continued its pledge against the right-to-work bill Tuesday evening at the Fountain Square Mall Ballroom. “This is a power grab by the Republican party,” said Jerry Sutherlin, treasurer of WRCLC. The council is part of the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations. “They are not going to let it slip by unless we make them, unless we call them out to what this is,” Sutherlin said. “It’s an attack on our democratic principles.” States with right-to-work stop unions from collecting dues from workers’ paychecks at private companies. Recently, Democrats wanted to add amendments to the legislation so Indiana citizens could directly vote on it. Opponents of the bill say workers are “free loading” if unions provide services and benefits for all employees. Indiana workers have been gathering at the statehouse to protest against the state administration’s non-public hearings on the bill. IU Maurer School of Law Professor Kenneth Dau-Schmidt lead the discussion with panelists and audience members. Five local panelists spoke against the bill, including Monroe County Commissioner Mark Stoops and Carvan Thomas, the president of the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers. The speakers argued that the right-to-work bill is attempting to raise business profits and will not help lower unemployment rates. Thomas read a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. and said the inflation in the 1960s and 1970s is what led to the current economic state. “It was an economy created by all these traders that were trading for nothing,” he said. “Every one of them walked away with millions of dollars in parachutes.” Thomas said it is important for workers to gain control in the economy, which is why the right-to-work bill should not be passed. Currently, fewer than the half of the states have right-to-work laws. “Tonight is not just about unions versus the Republican party,” he said. “I want to focus on what environment we will have in this state and what it is going to be like 10 years from now.” The referendum is a race to the bottom for the county and the state, and that Republicans are “trying to constitionalize bigotry,” Stoops said.Labor Representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Tom Szymanski said the Democrats should be able to voice their opinion at the statehouse. “(The bill) isn’t in the interest for the 99 percent of us,” he said.
(01/18/12 3:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Many birth control advertisements have two things in common: A happy woman and a long list of risks.By law, those risks must be conveyed, and in December, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that the labels for Yaz and Yasmin needed to better communicate the high risks of blood clots. In the same month, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius denied an FDA review that said a new brand of a morning-after pill is safe for women of all ages. Right now, all emergency contraceptives require a prescription for women younger than 17.The Center for Drug Evaluation and Research confirmed that the new pill, Plan B One-Step, “was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted diseases.” Sebelius said, however, that there was not enough data confirming the safety for women of all ages. In a press release, Sebelius said “it is common knowledge that there are significant cognitive and behavioral differences between older adolescent girls and the youngest girls of reproductive age.” Critics say Sebelius acted on political motives due to a new conservative bloc in the administration. Some worry that Sebelius’ and the FDA’s rulings will negatively affect women’s perception of birth control, as well as girls’ access to emergency contraceptives. “The key element that is missing in all of these discussions is the need for comprehensive sexuality education for all children, starting in grade K through 12 (and beyond),” said Catherine Sherwood-Laughlin, clinical associate professor in applied health science in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.Laughlin, who has been conducting sexual health research for almost 20 years, said if schools, parents and community members gave medically accurate sexual health information from the time a child is born, teen pregnancy rates and other sexual health issues would not occur. “This is another way to restrict access to sexual health information and products, and again the issues surrounding teen sexuality are minimized and ignored,” she said. Yaz and Yasmin contain drospierenone, which increases the risks for blood clots, strokes and heart attacks for women who smoke. The risk of high blood clots, which the FDA estimated as being 10 in 10,000 women per year for those who take drospierenone-containing drugs, is highest for the first year of use.IU junior Jessica Townsend, 21, took Yaz the first time her doctor put her on birth control. Townsend said she switched to a different birth control when her doctor first informed her of the high risks of Yaz. “If they know it’s happening and they know that there are ones that don’t come with as high of a risk that they can prescribe instead, I’m still being looked out for and I still feel safe taking it,” she said. IU sophomore Jordan Dunmead, 19, said she started taking birth control when she was a sophomore in high school and that she was “somewhat aware of the risks of taking it.” “My doctor and mom were both very informative, and for the age that I started taking it, I think I had a good grasp of what could happen,” she said. The limited access of Plan B, one form of emergency contraception that prevents pregnancy within 72 hours of unprotected sex, was first approved by the FDA in 1999 for prescription use by women of all ages. Some say it contributes to the high rate of unplanned teen pregnancies. In 2005, the pregnancy rates for 15- to 17-year-olds in Indiana was 20.5 per 1,000, and the pregnancy rates for 18- to 19-year-olds was 78.8 per 1,000 females of that age group.“This is a missed opportunity to reduce teen pregnancy and abortion rates,” said Chrystal Struben, vice president of development, communications and education for Planned Parenthood of Indiana. “Until the availability restriction is lifted and access is made more available, women of all ages will still encounter significant barriers in accessing the full range of contraceptive options available to them.”Pregnancy rates were also highest among women with incomes below the federal poverty level between 1994 and 2001, according to a report from the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “It will certainly limit their access,” Sturben said of the Sebelius ruling. “By limiting access to contraception, women, especially low-income women, are at risk for unintended pregnancy.” Townsend said women of all ages should have access to emergency contraceptives because 15- and 16-year-olds clearly do have sex and get pregnant. “The one thing we cannot deny is that teens have sexual feelings,” Sherwood-Laughlin said. “Constant education about these issues is what’s most important.”
(01/11/12 4:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The new federal health care law might not address whether doctors can run diagnostic tests even when it isn’t necessary, but it’s a tendency experts agreed is a problem. The American College of Physicians, a national organization of physicians who specialize in the treatment of adult illnesses, claims that doctors are running too many diagnostic tests on patients who raise health care costs and that the doctors put patients’ health at risk. The overuse of diagnostic testing can cost the U.S. health care system up to $250 billion, which is equivalent to about 10 percent of the amount spent on the nation’s health care, according to an article published in U.S.A. Today. “The way to solve the problem is to change the way we pay doctors and put them on salary rather than fee-for-service, but getting patients more involved in the decision-making process can help too,” said David Orentlicher, a professor at the Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. The problem that Orentlicher points out casts an even worse light on doctors’ motivations, a much talked-about issue due to the rising costs of medical care and the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Patient-doctor communication is also defined by doctors’ financial incentives, Orentlicher said. “Doctors are like everybody else,” he said. “If you’re in a fee-for-service system where you’re paid more to do more, you’re going to do more. And I don’t think it’s conscious, but people are very responsive to financial incentives.” To bridge the gap between doctors’ decisions to run expensive tests and patients’ deference to doctors, medical schools have created ethics programs to train students on how to develop strong relationships with patients. When Orentlicher attended medical school, ethics education was optional. But at the IU School of Medicine in South Bend, a new program has been designed to help medical students develop effective communication with future patients. “Overuse of diagnostic testing reflects doctors’ fears of being sued due to lack of protection from tort lawyers,” said Forrest Craig, a second-year student at the IU School of Medicine in Bloomington.The threat of litigation also hangs over current practitioners. Eric Knabel, a doctor in family practice at IU Health’s Southern Indiana Physicians in Bloomington, said “defensive medicine,” a concept that motivates doctors to run tests to rule out all conditions, might be one of the reasons doctors run too many diagnostic tests. Knabel also said another factor is that some patients “want to have everything done” because they believe their insurance will pay for it.“This puts the provider in somewhat of a predicament,” Knabel said. On the other side of the spectrum, a lack of health insurance covering various diagnostic tests leads to a bad health care experience for patients. Bloomington resident Lisa Milanovits, 49, used to be on her former husband’s insurance, the military health plan TRICARE. “If you’re not the active member, you’re cattle,” she said. About 11 years ago, Milanovits started experiencing back pain that stopped her from sitting or standing for longer than 30 minutes without feeling unbearable pain. Her chronic disease, called cervical degenerative disc disease, led her to receive several types of medical care, such as Workman’s Compensation and care from local clinics. “I think that a big factor in that is whether or not you have the insurance,” she said. “If you have money, they will encourage you to get this, that and the other.”
(01/06/12 3:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When gas prices rise, Americans drive less. When food prices increase, Americans cut coupons. And when medical costs go up, both consumers and employers cut health insurance. A recent study found that roughly nine times as many Americans have lost health coverage in the recession of 2007-09 as in the recession in the early 2000s. The study, titled “The Impact of the Macroeconomy on Health Insurance Coverage: Evidence From the Great Recession,” stated that an estimated 9.3 million Americans lost their coverage because of unemployment rates, which were worse than the recession 10 years ago. “We were surprised more hadn’t been done on how the macroeconomy affects health insurance,” said Kosali Simon, a faculty member of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs who helped author the study. Other authors include John Cawley, a professor in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, and Asako Moriya of Carnegie Mellon University, who has a Ph.D. in economics and public policy. The study, which Simon said built on previous literature on how economic turmoil affects people, found, however, that 4.2 million children under 18 gained health insurance. Yet white, older and well-educated men were much more likely than women and children to lose health insurance because of the recession. Even for men who didn’t lose health coverage, increases in the unemployment rate were associated with loss of health coverage.Simon said she believes small business firms face a tougher financial burden when it comes to cutting health care costs, although she said she does not have a research-based answer to whether smaller firms lost health insurance due to the recession. “I expect, based on the research evidence that exists on small firms, that they would have an especially tough time in the recession,” Simon said. Additional evidence suggests that smaller firms’ financial burdens are due in part to higher broker fees and health plan administrative costs. A study done by researchers at the University of Minnesota found that loading fees — the amount of medical care expenditure the insurance companies pay along with administrative fees, profits and other sales-related expenses — are lowest for firms of 10,000 employees.But Mike Ketron, vice president of insured sales at SIHO Insurance Services, said the belief that smaller businesses pay more than big businesses for health insurance is a misconception and that many years ago, the size of the company might have lowered the cost of health insurance. “We base the cost on the demographics: sex of the employees, where they’re located and the health risks involved,” Ketron said.Ketron said most agents are paid on a “pro-head basis” — a certain number of dollars per employee per month.“The base rate itself is not dictated because of the size of the group,” he said. “There are group-size factors, but it’s not so significant that a small group is extremely higher than a larger group.”Regardless of the price variations between company sizes, Ketron said that while working at SIHO, he has seen businesses forced to cut employee benefits or consider changes to make the health plan more affordable. “Employee benefits help attract employees, and if you drop your plan, that puts a big burden on your employees, so what are they going to do?” he said. “They’re forced to look somewhere else at a job that provides benefits. “You’re also putting your employees at risk and your workforce at risk. It’s the last thing you want to do.” Some companies, however, maintain employee attraction by implementing cheaper alternatives for health benefits, such as a wellness program. The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, an organization in Bloomington that offers resources to local businesses, created the Healthy Business Bloomington Program. In 2010, the chamber’s Healthcare Team offered a program businesses can apply for to improve work site wellness. Such programs can still be expensive for businesses that are struggling, Ketron said, but Tasus Corporation, an automotive supplier that has 2,400 employees in 32 locations, including Bloomington, found ways to improve employee health by forming a wellness committee. “I think in the long run, the only way we can control medical costs is to have a healthier workforce,” said Mike Anderson, who lost more than 100 pounds in the past year and is the director of human resources at Tasus. “It starts with individuals and personal accountability, because I don’t see the cost of medical care going down anytime soon.” Although Anderson said the company is continuing to struggle along with other businesses, he said company officials did not make changes to their employee benefit plans. The company paid minor costs for the healthy business program. Anderson said what works for one company to save money while improving health might not work for another, but that forming a wellness committee is a good idea. “At the very basic level, it’s an individual choice for health living, regardless of whether the economy is good or bad,” he said. “It starts with one person.”
(12/08/11 1:43am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Every once in a while, a great piece of motion picture art comes along, and it falls outside of every definable genre.In the case of “Inni,” a short documentary consisting mostly of the claustrophobic live performances by the Icelandic band Sigur Ros, indefinable is not always a good thing. But the creators of “Inni,” including the four-person band whose music has appeared in multiple U.S. movies and has collaborated with artists such as Radiohead, probably couldn’t care less whether it is categorized by the genres or subgenres cinema has to offer.Despite the indulgent screen captures of a black, pulsing piece of blob, “Inni” opens with a fantastic 10-minute performance that quickly conveys Sigur Ros as a one-of-a-kind band. Using a bow on an electric guitar while endlessly belting a perfect falsetto, lead singer Jonsi Birgisson never loses breath, or grace for that matter.Every band performance is shot in a unique tone of black and white from which viewers are sure to get a sense of the pain and passion the members of Sigur Ros put into their art. During brief screen captures of the band being interviewed, the members don’t seem to care to articulate what their music is, or at least how others may listen to it. The one humorous moment of “Inni” involves one member saying, “We worship the devil and we make music for him.”Birgisson sounds more like an angel than a devil-worshipper. And beyond its majestic costumes in concert, Sigur Ros appears to be a relatively normal bunch of musicians. Whereas die-hard fans might have exited the theater feeling closer than ever to the band’s music, an interested audience must surrender all the mundane ideas of the world and commit to being confused, blinded and suppressed by streams of unknown textual images.
(11/15/11 4:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Students pay for college in a variety of ways, and many of them depend on federal funding to alleviate the burden of cost. A recent survey administered by advocacy groups Demos and Young Invincibles for 872 people aged 18 to 34 found that three of four respondents thought college had become harder to afford in the last five years and that college loan debt had become unmanageable. Eighty percent of the respondents agreed college education is more important now than during their parents’ generation. The survey also found almost 30 percent of students had more than $10,000 in student-loan debt. Carlene Quinn, who advises students at the IU School of Social Work, said students frequently express concerns about paying for college and repaying loans after graduation. “Some of our students are experiencing an episode of poverty for the first time in their life,” she said. She said the School of Social Work, located on Atwater Avenue, has food pantries that get “used with some consistency.”“I don’t assume who’s hungry anymore,” she said.Quinn said many students are considering programs, such as AmeriCorps and Peace Corps, to pay back loans after they graduate. Justen Warne, a senior in English secondary education, works 40 hours a week as a supervisor at Residential Programs and Services, even though he receives federal loans. “I just find that there’s not much aid to a working-class student,” said Warne, who transferred from IU-Northwest in summer 2010. “The loan forces you to play a zero-sum game against time and odds, and the economic forces are out of our reach.” New legislation, such as President Obama’s Pay As You Earn proposal, will allow students with both Federal Direct Loans and Federal Family Education Loans to consolidate payments to lower interest. While interest for the Stafford Subsidized Loans is set to double July 1, 2012, the Income-Based Repayment Plan lets post-graduates who either support themselves or live with any number of people and make no more than $20,000 annually to pay nothing per month.Students who want to pay for the school term as they go can elect to use a Personal Deferment Option that the Office of the Bursar offers. Students’ bursar balance is separated into a “Minimum Due” and a “Total Due.”Students who use the option pay the minimum by the due date and defer the rest of the balance until the next month. The process is repeated through the course of the semester, said Kimberley Kercheval, associate executive at the Office of the Bursar. “Students who work part-time or who have people helping them pay the bursar bills and need to use income as it is earned find this plan very helpful, specifically because they do not have to pay everything at once,” she said.IU also offers a variety of departmental scholarships, and incoming freshmen, based on academic standing, can qualify for Automatic Academic Scholarships. Ron McFall, associate director for the Office of Scholarships, said the program is received by 30 to 35 percent of enrolled freshmen. But students who don’t receive scholarship aid, stay in college beyond four years and are less likely to receive federal funding have added stress, Quinn said. “If a student has to work a lot or at times is completely stressed out about their finances, it is going to shortchange their education,” she said. Abby Rose, who graduated in May 2011 and studied exercise science and physical therapy at IU, said she had to take only one loan during her senior year since her parents saved up money, but she still had a job throughout college.“Just because my parents had my undergrad pretty much paid for, it made me want to have my own money even more so because I didn’t want them to have to pay for everything else, too,” said Rose, who added that having a job never interfered with grades or a social life. The wide range of socio-economic statuses at IU might account for severe cases of poverty and homelessness, like Quinn has witnessed with students she advises. “It’s as if we act that the problem doesn’t exist,” she said. “We kind of turn a blind eye, and so I don’t think that sets up a student for success.” Warne said it’s frustrating to see students at his job who don’t think twice about spending hundreds of dollars on meal points. “As far as then and now, I think it’s a whole different paradigm,” he said of how the value of higher education has changed. “College wasn’t an option. It was simply the next step.”
(10/30/11 11:12pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>College is expensive. But for current students and some college graduates, relief is on its way. President Obama announced to a crowd of students Oct. 26 at the University of Colorado his new “Pay As You Earn” or “Know Before You Owe” executive order will alleviate some costs by lowering student loan interest rates to half a percent and consolidating them for nearly 6 million borrowers. Obama’s executive order will also allow students to pay 10 percent of their discretionary incomes per month to federal loans. With the present law, students have to pay 15 percent of their discretionary income. The loan repayment will be forgiven after 20 years instead of 25, as current law stipulates. The new proposal will address student debt in January 2012.Provisions for the new proposal could also benefit up to 1.6 million low-income students, although there is no official definition of “low income.” Additionally, borrowers who took out loans before 2008 do not qualify for the interest rate changes, and students who have both a Direct Loan and a Federal Family Education Loan can only consolidate their payments. Neil Theobald, the chief financial officer for IU, said the new program saves a decent amount of money. “It’s a good effort, in two pieces,” Theobald said. “One, it simply takes students who previously had had two loan payments that they’re going to have to make for years and has them consolidate it together if they can and provide some incentive to do that.” Theobald said the decreased interest rate will save students — who on average graduate from IU with $16,000 of debt — $80 per year. "Any amount helps,” he said. “But it’s not going to turn quarters for anyone.” The program, which is part of a series of executive actions to increase the employment rate for Americans, will go into effect at no cost to taxpayers since it will be paid for by the elimination of federal subsidies to private banks once the loans are consolidated. However, interest rates for subsidized Stafford loan borrowers, which are currently at the same rate for unsubsidized loan borrowers, are set to double next July.“The difference for me between 10 percent and 15 percent of my disposable income is negligible, particularly because I don’t really have any disposable income,” said former IU student Charis Heisy, a facilitator with Occupy Bloomington. Heisy, who doesn’t qualify for the consolidation or the lowered interests since she took out loans before 2008, said she thinks the reforms are small steps designed to placate the public opinion. “I don’t know what the answer is, but, to me, this plan doesn’t make much of a difference,” she said. Any federal change that directly concerns college payment is on many students’ radars, including Occupy Facilitator for OccupyColleges Natalia Abrams, who is a recent graduate of the University of California, Los Angeles. “Now everything is over. Everything is better now. There was not that feeling at all,” Abrams said about the members of OccupyCollege, which Abrams said doesn’t necessarily address student debt. Despite student debt set to reach $1 trillion — more than the credit card debt in the nation — Theobald said students will make $1 million more with a college degree than if they were to have just a high school degree. “There’s nothing wrong with debt as long as you plan for how you’re going to pay it back, and you’re using that tool wisely,” he said.
(10/03/11 12:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Across the street from Kilroy’s Bar & Grill, where there was the usual rowdy laughter, friends and family gathered at People’s Park on Kirkwood Avenue to remember Crystal Grubb on Saturday.A poster with the words “Walk for Crystal Grubb” hung on a concession table in the middle of the park. The years of Crystal’s life, 1981 through 2010, were written on the opposite sides of Crystal smiling in a picture.The people there were gathered for a memorial walk for Crystal on the one-year anniversary of when her body was found in a cornfield by a farmer north of Bloomington. She was last seen alive Sept. 18, 2010.On that night, Crystal, then 29, reportedly got angry at her friends and walked away. A couple of weeks later, an autopsy of her body confirmed that the death was a homicide. “She’s got two little girls that are going to be raised without a mom,” Janice Grubb, Crystal’s mother, said. “It’s worse when somebody takes your kid away from you, and you don’t know why. And that’s why I want justice done.”Three men, one of them Crystal’s boyfriend at the time of her death, are currently being held in the Monroe County Jail for methamphetamine charges. They have been labeled as persons of interests in the case. Preparations for the memorial walk began just a few a weeks ago, about one year after Crystal’s disappearance. Bloomington resident Melinda Herald contacted Janice through Facebook after seeing widespread publicity for the disappearance of IU student Lauren Spierer. Herald said she knew some people by the last name of Grubb but did not have any direct relations with the family. “It started with posters, and it turned into this,” she said. “There hadn’t been anything for Crystal — nothing — and I just decided to do it.” Susan Norris, Crystal’s aunt, as well as Crystal’s friend Colleen Moore, helped coordinate the walk. Diane Daily, the executive assistant of Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan and Crystal’s former big sister in the Big Brothers Big Sisters mentoring program, helped donate more than 200 T-shirts for Saturday’s event. Guitarist Bob Jones stood atop one of the park’s picnic tables and started strumming the chords for “Amazing Grace.” In addition to the posters made for Crystal, several people held up signs created in honor of Lauren Spierer. Private Investigator Tim Mullis, who manages his own investigation company in King Mills, Ohio, said the attention Lauren’s case brought to Bloomington led him to contact Janice about Crystal’s case. “Everybody, regardless of how much they have or don’t have, should have somebody who’s helping them,” he said. Mullis said he is investigating Crystal’s murder on his own time. A Bloomington native, he comes back every two or three weeks. When Janice and Mullis began talking about Crystal, they discovered that they were distant cousins. “That kind of sealed it for me,” Mullis said. “It’s not family that knew Crystal directly, but it’s close enough.” Before the crowd began walking opposite of campus on Kirkwood, Herald handed out blue ribbons for people to pin on their shirts. Finally everyone walked in unison, led by Janice Grubb holding up a poster. “She was a good person,” said Carri Harris-Spiras, who knew Crystal through Tony Williams, the father of Crytal’s two daughters, Abby and Rose. “She didn’t have a lot, but if you needed something, she’d give it to you.” The memorial walk, about a mile long, wound down Walnut and Ninth streets and in front of Kilroy’s Sports Bar, the establishment that was cited with two alcohol-related charges in relation to the Spierer case. The walk purposefully went past Smallwood Plaza apartments, where Spierer lived, and past the Monroe County Courthouse. Amy Stewart, who was a close friend of Crystal, said the walk is going to take place on the same date every year “until we get the justice the family deserves. We actually want justice for both Crystal and Lauren.” Everyone cheered after returning to People’s Park at the end of the walk. Posters rested on a picnic table where walkers wrote down their memories of Crystal.“I wouldn’t want any parents to go through this at all,” Janice said. “I don’t want to see them go through what we’ve just gone through.”