46 items found for your search. If no results were found please broaden your search.
(04/27/10 4:18am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Kaelan Barowsky sits alone in his armchair, a near-empty bottle of champagne in his hand.Outside his Varsity Villas apartment, the Little 500 party of the year is raging on without him. It’s the monster he created, and now it’s taken on a life of its own.The police have already busted it once tonight, but they came too early. Instead of cutting off its head, they only rapped it on the knuckles and sent it scurrying into the shadows, hiding in the corners of the long, narrow yard that Kaelan’s front deck faces. Now it has re-emerged, picking up speed, pulling in people with the force of a high-powered magnet.That was, of course, the ultimate goal. But that was also before the cops showed up and threatened to arrest him.Clad in a red T-shirt that screams “I’M IN BTOWN BITCH,” Kaelan seems pretty ordinary. But the senior telecommunications major has built up an impressive reputation as one of IU’s grand masters of drunken revelry. He’s graduating in May, so this is his last Little 500 week and he wants to go out big. Everyone’s been expecting him to deliver since the massive block party and pudding wrestling tournament he organized last year spawned stories people still talk about.The No. 1 item on Kaelan’s agenda is to make sure everyone has fun, and he willingly deals with the consequences of having too much of it. When he heard one apartment’s glass door was shattered by a keg at his Halloween party, he immediately went over to introduce himself and apologize. He takes care of all the people who pass out at his place, and handles the guys who get too enthusiastic with the girls during events like last year’s pudding wrestling and tonight’s bikini contest.But he can’t control everybody. When his block party was shut down last Little 5, somebody had slashed the tires of a police car on their way out, and another person ended up being arrested. Someone else punched in the window and front door of a neighboring apartment.Both his roommates are gone, so Kaelan has to deal with this alone, and he’s tired. He’s stressed. “It’s out of my hands now,” he says. A few friends come in to hide out. “They said the cops are here,” someone says. One officer is at the kitchen window; another one is behind the back porch. There’s a knock at the door.“I’m not doing anything,” Kaelan protests, getting out of the chair. He walks to the door and pulls it open, but it’s only more friends trying to duck out of eyesight. Kaelan lets them in, then looks outside. The police are talking to his neighbors, and it doesn’t look like things are going well. He can’t let them take the fall for this. Kaelan steps outside, and closes the door. ‘I’M IN BTOWN BITCH’Five acts had performed that day, including Kaelan’s roommate, Keith Turner, or rapper Kingaspades Turnaphrase. In celebration of both Little 500 and 4/20, the music blared, the alcohol flowed and the buds blazed all afternoon, but the crowd didn’t really start to gather until the sun set around 9 p.m. The party crowd is generally a nocturnal one, especially on a Tuesday, when many students are still faithfully trekking to campus.At 1:30 p.m., Kaelan started setting up the sound equipment he had borrowed from a friend. Travis returned from class shortly after.“Did you put extra supports under this thing?” he asked Kaelan, indicating the deck. “I just took a sledgehammer and busted those things out so it’ll collapse later,” Kaelan laughed, taking a practice swing. Last year one of the steps had broken under the weight of block party crowd. So Kaelan bought two rolls of plastic poultry netting and nailed it to four wooden posts in buckets that he bought from Lowe’s, rigging a crude fence to prevent the hordes of cross traffic that had spelled doom for the porch before. The fencing also acted as a barrier between the bands and the people.“If people like this gentleman need to get through, we just set it aside,” Kaelan said, rolling the post-and-bucket out of the way of a student burdened with a backpack. The student tipped thank you on the way past, snacking on a pack of Pop-Tarts. This time there will be a contest for techno hip hop group LMFAO’s Polka Dot Bikini Girl, and the winner would dance on stage with the duo at GLOWfest Thursday. In addition, Kaelan ordered T-shirts at someone’s request and is selling them as souvenirs.He’s wearing one of them today. The back of it reads “Little 500 2010,” and features three items checked off: Villas Block Party, Pudding Wrestling, Skipped Class. He also ordered them in pink for the girls who participate in the pudding wrestling on Friday.It was warm out, and it felt a lot hotter than the projected high of 70 degrees. Two maintenance workers were building a wall at the end of the property, seemingly deaf to the music pumping from Mike Walker’s balcony, the first on the left from Kaelan’s deck. Kaelan grabbed a couple cans of Natural Light and walked them down to the workers.The music kicked off around 3 p.m., and at 4 o’clock Kaelan picked up the mic and initiated a countdown to 4:20 as ska band Go Go Gadget! packed up. At 4:19, the lighters flicked on and marijuana circulated both the musicians and the spectators. “If you’re smoking weed, nobody cares,” he had yelled at a few people hanging back from the yard.“It is the day,” someone on the grass added.As the sun went down around 9 p.m., the number of people went up. Psychadelic jam band Spacesuit had finished their set and were disassembling their equipment as ’90s rock cover band On The House started moving in. To fill the dead space, Mike turned up the music. Kaelan took over the microphone, joking with the crowd.Suddenly two cops were standing over him. Arms crossed, they stood side-by-side, surveying the crowd like prison guards. Police cars had been rolling through the complex as early as 8:30, but the noise ordinance doesn’t kick in until 9. The noise also needs to continue for at least 15 minutes to justify a disturbance. The police showed up at 9:20. What would Dylan do? Sgt. Joe Crider stepped over to catch Kaelan’s attention. When he saw the officer, Kaelan immediately stepped away from the microphone.“Party’s over. You need to turn off your equipment,” Crider said.Officer Burns took Kaelan’s ID for a background check, and Kaelan headed back to the microphone to tell the people on the lawn that they have to shut down.“They’re nice guys, they’re very nice guys. They’re just trying to help us out,” Kaelan said of the officers.The crowd clapped.“I am a little upset that we can’t get to the polka dot bikini girl contest, but can you come back for that and just work security for it?” Kaelan asked the officers. “That would be phenomenal.” The officers laughed.“I appreciate the invite, but no. We’re gonna call it a night,” Crider responded. Kaelan stepped over to discuss things with the police, trying to find a happy medium where everyone could have fun without getting in trouble. He didn’t find one, and finally shook the officers’ hands.“Now if people want to stay down here, that is ultimately not our decision,” he said to the audience. “But please don’t party in front of my door because I will go to jail.”The crowd booed.“Don’t boo, they’re doing their job,” Kaelan said.“Jail is not the answer,” someone yelled.Kaelan proceeded to take down the equipment. The police left, and Kaelan started clearing everyone off of the deck. Though he was polite and joking with the officers, he’s still upset the party got shut down so early. “Stick it to the man,” a friend said to him.“What would Dylan do?” Kaelan joked, referring to Bob Dylan. Both Kaelan and his friend are in MUS-Z404: “The Music of Bob Dylan.” Kaelan started setting up for the bikini girl contest. As he was clearing the deck, the crowd came back. They never really left in the first place, and now the late-comers have started to show up too. It’s more than twice the size it was when the police showed up.When the four girls in the contest were ready, Kaelan hyped up the crowd.“Are you ready to see Girl No. 1?” he yelled from the cooler he was standing on.He was barely audible over the noise. The girls walked out, dancing and posing individually to the approval of the crowd. They went one more round, then Kaelan did his best to quiet everyone for a vote. Though the audience cheered for every girl, Girl No. 3 incited an incredibly loud response that crowned her winner. She received a $50 gift card to buy her polka dot bikini for LMFAO’s show on Thursday.Then Kaelan took over the cooler podium again and threw out his remaining beers, acting as an emcee even though he no longer had a mic. Someone started music from their apartment, since Mike had taken his down when the police showed. After only a few minutes though, Kaelan retired and began clearing the people off his deck again. They had overtaken it as soon as the contest started. Then he went inside and shut his door, where he stayed until the police returned. He didn’t get arrested that night when he walked out to face the cops, but he “called it a night.” It was only 11 p.m., but the whole event had worn him out.The officers issued a $50 fine to his neighbors, and continued on across the complex, going door to door with citations. One rule It has been raining all morning, but it’s stopped, and the skies are holding their water for now. It’s Friday, April 23, the day of the pudding wrestling. The kiddie pool is sitting on a tarp in the yard, awaiting the chocolate substance. Kaelan bought 21 seven-pound cans of the pudding from Sam’s Club the day before, and now he and his neighbors set to the task of opening all of them. The pudding looks like curdled chocolate milk once he starts adding water to it. Even though the cans had filled up Kaelan’s trunk, it’s barely enough to coat the bottom surface of the pool. There’s a keg race going on at the neighboring apartment, and people are slowly starting to show up. Mike is acting as DJ again, but there are no girls. One participant texted Kaelan to say that her friend went to the hospital with a concussion the night before. “No pudding wrestling for us :(” the text read.The first two girls had put on an entertaining show earlier in the day at the pudding wrestling, and something, whether it was broken glass or a nail, had gashed one girl’s foot, sending her to the hospital. That put a damper on the already cloudy day, and no one else is interested in getting in. Kaelan starts commentary on the keg race behind the pool instead, where people are spewing beer every few minutes. “Puke and rally!” he cheers. There is so much vomit that one person slips and falls. In lieu of wrestlers, Kaelan singles out girls to negotiate free T-shirts, so the crowd is treated to several instances of flashing, plus a brief topless make-out session. Two more girls show up just after 4 p.m. to wrestle, the last to do so. They’re much more timid than the first pair. Kaelan announces the only rule, the same rule they had last year: The first girl to get the other’s top off wins. They stare at each other open-mouthed, laughing in shock. “Or if you make out or have sex, you both win,” Kaelan jokes.Even though they know the rule, the girls stay in. They gingerly start trying to pull each other down, but they never attempt to de-clothe one another. The crowd gets bored, so the two get out to pull in Kaelan. He obliges, and steps in the pool with them.All three of them stand there for a second, and Kaelan looks around at the crowd like he isn’t sure what to do. Then in one sudden motion, he reaches out and claws at both girls’ tops, exposing them for a split-second before they recover. The crowd erupts.One of the girls immediately leaves, but the other stays in with him for a few more minutes. Kaelan makes a few slow attempts at her bathing suit again to please the onlookers, but she sits down and covers up every time. He finally succeeds in pulling her top off all the way to end the fight, throwing it toward the people. She gives up and walks away, with her hands over her breasts. Kaelan collapses against the side of the pool, arms thrown over the sides, smiling.Someone throws the top back. Kaelan takes off his shirt and puts it on, modeling it for the crowd.“It’s a little small,” he says.He gets out and walks back up the stairs to the deck and slings the bathing suit over the corner of the roof like a flag. Then he hangs his pudding-covered T-shirt across the front of the deck and lets it hang there like a banner.That wrapped up the pudding wrestling for the day, though other people would occasionally jump in for a minute or two. Kaelan had successfully completed his final Little 500 without any major consequences from the authorities.“Are you going to jail?” one girl had asked him anxiously at Tuesday’s block party, throwing herself into his arms. “I’ll come visit you.”Kaelan hugged her.“Thank you,” he said, smiling.
(03/30/10 8:41pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Somewhere on the west coast of Florida tonight, the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay sleeps.When the sun rises over the Gulf of Mexico in the morning, the rhesus macaque resumes his search for others of his own kind, cutting his way through the urban jungle of swimming pools and pastel condos, dodging paparazzi camera flashes and trackers’ tranquilizer darts.He’s likely an exile from a troupe of wild monkeys living in Silver Springs, who are believed to be the descendants of escaped extras used in the 1930s “Tarzan” films. His decision to challenge the mating rights of an older male likely first got him the royal smackdown, then the boot out of the community. The Mystery Monkey has become a celebrity fugitive, a furry reincarnation of John Dillinger. Snapshots are rare, sightings unreliable. Though many people are rooting for him to avoid capture, some are ready to put a bullet between his eyes. He was first spotted in January 2009 in the small town of Hudson, roughly 100 miles from Silver Springs. From there he’s ping-ponged across Tampa Bay, covering about another 80 miles from Clearwater to Hillsborough County, then back up to Palm Harbor and down to the southern tip of St. Petersburg. His most recent sighting was last week in St. Petersburg. Monkey fans around the world have been cheering on MM, as he is known to his 60,000-plus Facebook followers, each time he eludes his would-be captors. His year-and-a-half run from captivity has sparked global attention, and he’s been featured everywhere, from “The Colbert Report” to MSNBC. In addition to the Facebook group, he has a Web site selling T-shirts, as well as a Twitter account. One Tweet on March 9 alluded to a woman in south St. Petersburg who made news for trying to feed him some fruit: “bitch chased me with a banana today, she’s lucky I didn’t turn around and let her have it between the eyes, we all know what ‘it’ is don’t we”People from Florida to Belgium to South Korea follow the monkey’s adventures regularly. To them, he is the embodiment of freedom. His Facebook page features many fan photos, including one of a revolution-style fist clenching a banana, with the caption “POWER TO THE MONKEY.” ElusiveEvery celebrity has his demons, and MM’s are fame and drugs. He’s been shot more than a dozen times with the tranquilizer drug Ketamine, street name “Special K.” His trackers, veterinarian Don Woodman and Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation director Vernon Yates, have now switched to Telazol, a faster-acting drug they hope will have more of an impact. They’ve loaded him up with enough Ketamine to bring down a chimpanzee, an animal that weighs five or six times more than the rhesus. “We could have been hitting it with holy water for all the good it did,” Woodman said. The Special K has had little effect on the monkey, probably because of the power of his own adrenaline, Woodman said — easy to believe when the little guy has been trapped on a rooftop with trackers one way, paparazzi the other and a helicopter above him. That particular day, MM was running across apartment complex rooftops between Woodman and Yates as they both tried to flush him toward the other. But the public presence was so oppressive that Woodman was afraid they might “dart down a kid” in their attempts to capture him. “It becomes quite a circus,” Woodman said. Fueled by his own terror, the rogue primate escaped to a place where he probably slept off the effects of the drug. Confined to the ground, his trackers couldn’t keep up with him. “He can scale a three-story building like Spider-Man,” Woodman said. In the wildThe monkey’s getaways are always met with cheers from his Facebook fans, who leave hundreds of comments on his profile daily: “Keep evading the Suckas!”“go my little friend go!”“Monkey, you’re my new hero!”MM’s trackers think his celebrity status is funny but only to an extent. Woodman believes people, ignorant of the brutal reality of nature, often romanticize the idea of animals and freedom. “Wild animals have hard, hard lives,” he said. “They don’t live as long. They die hard deaths.” Florida’s lone-ranging fugitive is looking for other monkeys in a region full of people, far away from his species’ native land in eastern Europe and Asia. “He’s a social animal,” Woodman said. “He’s roaming around desperately looking for companions and there are none to be found.” All of the love from MM’s fans is unrequited. Yates doesn’t believe the monkey was ever a pet because he avoids humans. Frankly, he wants to be left alone. Though he shies away from people, he wouldn’t hesitate to use his incisors if he were cornered. Monkeys can also carry diseases like herpes B, which Woodman said essentially “melts your brain.” Yates said the monkey’s “street smarts” are another indicator that he’s not a house pet. Out of about a hundred monkeys Yates has pursued, MM is the brightest, and he gets sharper by the day. He avoids power lines, and witnesses have observed him looking both ways before crossing a street, things he learned from his rhesus family. “The troupe told him, ‘No goofy, you wait here. You don’t dart in front of cars because that’s how Uncle Joe got smashed,’” Yates said. The fugitive also avoids humans now because of their association with pain. He recognizes Yates on sight, immediately screaming and fleeing. The sting from the tracker’s darts has stayed with him. The general public is more dangerous, but the monkey’s fame might be his savior. On Woodman’s second time out tracking him, he heard a police officer whisper, “If it weren’t for the cameras, we could shoot it with a 22 rifle and be done with it.”“A couple days after that it got its Facebook account, so it’s been sneaking to the library to use the computer, I guess,” Woodman said. Ultimately, the two trackers are in a no-win situation. If they successfully bring MM in, they have ended his status as a symbol of freedom and rebellion. If they don’t, he could be killed by someone else. “I’ve already met people that said as far as they’re concerned they’d just use a shotgun on him,” Yates said. MM gets aroundThe monkey’s nomad habits have kept him out of the trackers’ reach for now. His traveling has baffled his pursuers. Woodman said he thinks the roaming primate must have an account with Yellow Cab. The renegade animal typically vanishes for several weeks after an encounter with the public, and his extensive travels make his next appearance hard for the trackers to predict. “The monkey is a smart little guy,” Woodman said. “You do think he’s almost enjoying himself here the way he’s making a mockery out of everyone trying to catch him.” According to recent Facebook updates, he enjoyed the St. Pete Grand Prix and banana daiquris last week. But taunting his pursuers never gets old. “Hey, is that a tranquilizer dart in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? gotta go...”
(03/30/10 8:32pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Somewhere on the west coast of Florida tonight, the Mystery Monkey of Tampa Bay sleeps.When the sun rises over the Gulf of Mexico in the morning, the rhesus macaque resumes his search for others of his own kind, cutting his way through the urban jungle of swimming pools and pastel condos, dodging paparazzi camera flashes and trackers’ tranquilizer darts.He’s likely an exile from a troupe of wild monkeys living in Silver Springs, who are believed to be the descendants of escaped extras used in the 1930s “Tarzan” films. His decision to challenge the mating rights of an older male likely first got him the royal smackdown, then the boot out of the community. The Mystery Monkey has become a celebrity fugitive, a furry reincarnation of John Dillinger. Snapshots are rare, sightings unreliable. Though many people are rooting for him to avoid capture, some are ready to put a bullet between his eyes. He was first spotted in January 2009 in the small town of Hudson, roughly 100 miles from Silver Springs. From there he’s ping-ponged across Tampa Bay, covering about another 80 miles from Clearwater to Hillsborough County, then back up to Palm Harbor and down to the southern tip of St. Petersburg. His most recent sighting was last week in St. Petersburg. Monkey fans around the world have been cheering on MM, as he is known to his 60,000-plus Facebook followers, each time he eludes his would-be captors. His year-and-a-half run from captivity has sparked global attention, and he’s been featured everywhere, from “The Colbert Report” to MSNBC. In addition to the Facebook group, he has a Web site selling T-shirts, as well as a Twitter account. One Tweet on March 9 alluded to a woman in south St. Petersburg who made news for trying to feed him some fruit: “bitch chased me with a banana today, she’s lucky I didn’t turn around and let her have it between the eyes, we all know what ‘it’ is don’t we”People from Florida to Belgium to South Korea follow the monkey’s adventures regularly. To them, he is the embodiment of freedom. His Facebook page features many fan photos, including one of a revolution-style fist clenching a banana, with the caption “POWER TO THE MONKEY.” ElusiveEvery celebrity has his demons, and MM’s are fame and drugs. He’s been shot more than a dozen times with the tranquilizer drug Ketamine, street name “Special K.” His trackers, veterinarian Don Woodman and Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation director Vernon Yates, have now switched to Telazol, a faster-acting drug they hope will have more of an impact. They’ve loaded him up with enough Ketamine to bring down a chimpanzee, an animal that weighs five or six times more than the rhesus. “We could have been hitting it with holy water for all the good it did,” Woodman said. The Special K has had little effect on the monkey, probably because of the power of his own adrenaline, Woodman said — easy to believe when the little guy has been trapped on a rooftop with trackers one way, paparazzi the other and a helicopter above him. That particular day, MM was running across apartment complex rooftops between Woodman and Yates as they both tried to flush him toward the other. But the public presence was so oppressive that Woodman was afraid they might “dart down a kid” in their attempts to capture him. “It becomes quite a circus,” Woodman said. Fueled by his own terror, the rogue primate escaped to a place where he probably slept off the effects of the drug. Confined to the ground, his trackers couldn’t keep up with him.“He can scale a three-story building like Spider-Man,” Woodman said. In the wildThe monkey’s getaways are always met with cheers from his Facebook fans, who leave hundreds of comments on his profile daily: “Keep evading the Suckas!”“go my little friend go!”“Monkey, you’re my new hero!”MM’s trackers think his celebrity status is funny but only to an extent. Woodman believes people, ignorant of the brutal reality of nature, often romanticize the idea of animals and freedom. “Wild animals have hard, hard lives,” he said. “They don’t live as long. They die hard deaths.” Florida’s lone-ranging fugitive is looking for other monkeys in a region full of people, far away from his species’ native land in eastern Europe and Asia. “He’s a social animal,” Woodman said. “He’s roaming around desperately looking for companions and there are none to be found.” All of the love from MM’s fans is unrequited. Yates doesn’t believe the monkey was ever a pet because he avoids humans. Frankly, he wants to be left alone. Though he shies away from people, he wouldn’t hesitate to use his incisors if he were cornered. Monkeys can also carry diseases like herpes B, which Woodman said essentially “melts your brain.” Yates said the monkey’s “street smarts” are another indicator that he’s not a house pet. Out of about a hundred monkeys Yates has pursued, MM is the brightest, and he gets sharper by the day. He avoids power lines, and witnesses have observed him looking both ways before crossing a street, things he learned from his rhesus family. “The troupe told him, ‘No goofy, you wait here. You don’t dart in front of cars because that’s how Uncle Joe got smashed,’” Yates said. The fugitive also avoids humans now because of their association with pain. He recognizes Yates on sight, immediately screaming and fleeing. The sting from the tracker’s darts has stayed with him. The general public is more dangerous, but the monkey’s fame might be his savior. On Woodman’s second time out tracking him, he heard a police officer whisper, “If it weren’t for the cameras, we could shoot it with a 22 rifle and be done with it.”“A couple days after that it got its Facebook account, so it’s been sneaking to the library to use the computer, I guess,” Woodman said. Ultimately, the two trackers are in a no-win situation. If they successfully bring MM in, they have ended his status as a symbol of freedom and rebellion. If they don’t, he could be killed by someone else. “I’ve already met people that said as far as they’re concerned they’d just use a shotgun on him,” Yates said. MM gets aroundThe monkey’s nomad habits have kept him out of the trackers’ reach for now. His traveling has baffled his pursuers. Woodman said he thinks the roaming primate must have an account with Yellow Cab. The renegade animal typically vanishes for several weeks after an encounter with the public, and his extensive travels make his next appearance hard for the trackers to predict. “The monkey is a smart little guy,” Woodman said. “You do think he’s almost enjoying himself here the way he’s making a mockery out of everyone trying to catch him.” According to recent Facebook updates, he enjoyed the St. Pete Grand Prix and banana daiquris last week. But taunting his pursuers never gets old. “Hey, is that a tranquilizer dart in your pocket or are you just happy to see me? gotta go...”
(03/08/10 4:16am)
(03/04/10 5:05am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In Zambia, he was known as Jesus.At the informational meeting in the atrium of the School of Public and Environmental Affairs on Wednesday night as part of Peace Corps Week, Peace Corps alumnus Jeff Rhodes was simply an advocate for the program, presenting his experiences to a small crowd of about 20 potential applicants.His Zambian nickname came from both his well-cultivated beard as well as his mission to educate the local people on the health risks of their country, most notably malaria. Rhodes’ main message was motivation; It takes dedication to serve two years in a developing country. Making an effort to learn the language and culture makes you stand out to the native people.“The more you jump into that stuff, the more endearing it is to the people you’re with,” he said, recalling how the local women would literally fall on the ground when he started negotiating with them at the market.Rhodes now works as a recruiter for the program, a far cry from the health work he did in Zambia, where he hauled his own water, cut his own firewood and spent his vacations in Zanzibar.“I need to start bringing my traditional dress around for these presentations,” he said. “It’s so much more comfortable than a suit and tie, and it gets the point across so much better.”Peace Corps Week marks the 49th anniversary of President John F. Kennedy signing the agency into existence on March 1, 1961.As Rhodes said, the Peace Corps is a great experience, but the more assimilated you become, the more work there is.“When you break that barrier and become their friend, that’s when the real work starts happening.”
(02/23/10 9:51pm)
“What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.”The quote on the t-shirt hanging in BLU Boy Chocolate Café and Cakery sums up its owner, David Fletcher, in his steel-rimmed glasses, in his white chef’s shirt, with his white cup of coffee.The heavy-set, Eminem-blonde chocolatier is perched in the corner of the cafe, with only a few precise spots of chocolate dotting his shirt. He has his back to the picture window overlooking the Walnut-Kirkwood intersection, instead facing the chocolate-lined shelves and catchphrase t-shirts featuring quotes like the one above.Fletcher started the tiny bakery, a space of muted reds, yellows and browns in 2007 with his husband, Scott Jackman, and has become sort of a local celebrity.His “office,” as he calls it, occupies one of the four two-person tables squeezed into the café. It’s the Thursday before the Week of Chocolate, three days before Art of Chocolate, where he will once again showcase the talents he developed in New York and honed in Munich.The other customers in the café have left, the young, quiet couple against one wall and the two loud women against the other, but the door opens frequently, and an employee shyly interrupts occasionally to ask Fletcher questions. His replies are quiet, patient.His soft voice is hard to hear over the occasional crash of the coffee machine. Valentine’s Day is only a couple weeks away, but you wouldn’t know it from the cafe, even though chocolate is one of the holiday’s most famous associations. Fletcher is unapologetic.“I struggle with the whole retail thing. I should already have hearts everywhere,” he says, waving his hands at the undecorated walls. He really likes Valentine’s Day because he gets to change the cafes fare. “My nature is to change things. I like to change without apologizing.” It all seems so fluid, but the culinary direction wasn’t an easy one for Fletcher to take. Chocolate was always present in his life, though it wasn’t his focus. It was there during his childhood in Mannheim, Germany, where his mother’s family lives and where he was introduced to the culture of afternoon dessert. It was there in high school, where he first started to realize his love for the culinary. It was there in the first couple years as a music major at the University of Iowa, while he played cello. It was there in medical school and during his 15 years as a physician. And it was there the night in the kitchen when he suddenly concluded that he needed a change.“I was tinkering with a recipe and I remember thinking, ‘I wonder if I can learn more about this…I’m going to try this,’” Fletcher recalls.After his revelation, Fletcher started flying to New York on weekends for a nine-month “pastry camp” at the Institute of Culinary Education in 2002, while continuing to practice at the Student Health Center during the week. In 2005, he and his husband took a class in Munich, where he learned specialty confectionary techniques, like to blow sugar the way a glass worker blows glass. And in 2007, the couple opened the café.“You may stray, but you will always return to your dark master, the cocoa bean,” another t-shirt reads.Fletcher stands in front of a spinning wheel of chocolate. It’s 9 a.m., Jan. 30, and he’s already working with a 150-pound tub of liquid chocolate. The tempering machine with which he works is aptly named: performing an exact process of heating the chocolate, cooling it, then heating it again. The procedure insures the candies’ smooth, shiny texture and the clean snap when a piece is broken.He works quickly, filling up little heart-shaped molds under the wheel’s fountain and scraping away the excess. They’ll eventually become perfect little pictures of brandied cherry and passion fruit for the Art of Chocolate patrons the next night, but there’s still a lot of detail work to do.Fletcher’s 20 years of medical education and practice, something he refers to as a “distraction”, means he’s well-acquainted with precision. But if you ask him, chocolate is a lot harder than medicine.“In medical school they teach you everything you have to know,” he says. “In culinary school you don’t learn what to do when the chickens aren’t laying. Thank God I love it.”A lot rests on those chickens, which roost in Heartland Family Farms in Bedford. Fletcher and company use up 25 dozen eggs in a week, along with 50 pounds of flour and 70 pounds of butter. The cocoa count is higher: they make 5,000 pounds of their own chocolate each year and order over 3,000 pounds of other suppliers’ chocolate.The culinary art is about as nebulous as Fletcher says his homework in New York was. Perfecting techniques is one thing. Constantly coming up with new recipes and presentations is another. Fletcher’s ideas sprung from department store window displays to the lady behind him in the grocery line who forgot the celery.“I’d think, ‘Ok celery. Maybe not a taste that everyone would like but how can I incorporate that crunchiness?’” he says.In the midst of stacks of chocolate-stained molds, trays of rainbow-frosted cupcakes and the heavy aroma of French Roast coffee beans, Fletcher’s sous-chef Stacy Strand and fellow employee Janae Allabastro work around him. It’s one hour til opening, and the three chitchat as they ready the cafe. Talk skips around from the status of the cinnamon rolls to the time of the PRIDE Film Festival shows that day at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, with which BLU Boy shares a door. Fletcher has had maybe three unhappy customers total. The worst complaint is that the coffee is a little cold. He’s never had a bridezilla. In short, chocolate makes people happy. Most of Fletcher’s customers don’t know anything about him. They don’t know he’s legally married to his husband, even though Indiana doesn’t recognize the union. They don’t know that his 45th birthday is Monday and that he hasn’t decided if he’s going in to work or not. Or that he loves bloody, gory movies, though you won’t find any splatter pattern inspiration in his chocolates. They don’t know he finds inspiration in the crunchiness of celery and squid ink, which he’s had a bottle of for eight years. (It’s not good anymore, and no, he hasn’t figured out a way to use it.)Still, the people are by far Fletcher’s favorite part of the business. His place in the back room of the café is a mere three steps from the front counter. He may be out of sight, but he’s far from out of earshot.“My best experiences are sitting back there and listening to all the relationships out here,” he says, noting a “world-renowned” professor who comes in every Saturday to share a chocolate chip cookie with his daughter. For the duration of that cookie, Fletcher says, the professor gives his daughter his absolute undivided attention.“It’s not like solving world peace, but for 20 minutes it’s really cool,” he says.Even the cafe's name has a deeper meaning. BLU stands for Boys Like Us, meaning boys like Fletcher and his husband, who completely rerouted their lives long after they’d settled into a niche. Plus chocolate’s just sexy.“There’s an inherent sensual quality of chocolate,” Fletcher says, cupping his hands as if about to dip them in a liquid chocolate pool. “When you melt down a 10-pound pot and start working with it…that’s pretty luscious.”He fills another mold, but this time he flips it over, letting the chocolate pour out in thin streams. He’ll let the chocolate coating the surface set before he fills them, seals them and pops them out to arrange meticulously on a tray, the way Allabastro is doing now.She fills the rotatable glass display case with fresh chocolates, carefully shifting individual pieces a little this way, a little that way.Almost ready. “Without chocolate there would be darkness and chaos,” reads the last t-shirt on display at BLU Boy.It’s 6 o’clock Sunday night and the cafe is empty. It’s the only day of the week BLU Boy is closed, but tonight Fletcher and the staff don’t get the night off. They’re a few blocks away at the IU Art Museum, giving out samples of their Valentine’s Day chocolates to the Art of Chocolate patrons.The setting sun glows warm on the walls of the high, glass-ceilinged foyer of the museum as jazz tunes from the Andy Cobine Trio float upward from the first landing. The older crowd wears slacks and loafers, while the younger crowd wears jeans and boots.Fletcher is set up right in front of the Arts of Asia and the Western World, standing quietly to one side while Allabastro and baker Dominique Webberhunt point out the different chocolates to the steady surge of people. He’s traded the white chef’s shirt for an outfit of all black and every now and then he greets people, engaging in light hugs and small-circle conversation.The crowd moves around the tables in a long, slow stream. They stop to contemplate every table, wine glasses in hand.Downstairs, a grumpy old man near the entrance gripes to his wife.“All the chocolate stuff tastes pretty much the same,” he complains. “It’s just chocolate.”Asked for a response, Fletcher smiles slightly and looks away. After a moment of thinking he shakes his head.“I don’t have a clever response. It is just chocolate.”
(02/23/10 3:32am)
Pick a name you won’t hate in 5 years.
(02/12/10 3:55pm)
See the top 5 tips for making a band when Inside hits stands February 23.
(02/10/10 11:19pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>“What you see before you, my friend, is the result of a lifetime of chocolate.”So sits David Fletcher in his steel-rimmed glasses, his white chef’s shirt, with his white Mac laptop and white cup of coffee.The chocolatier is perched in the corner of BLU Boy Chocolate Cafe and Cakery with only a few precise spots of chocolate dotting his shirt.Fletcher started the tiny bakery, a space of muted reds, yellows and browns, in 2007 with his husband Scott Jackman and has become a sort of local celebrity.His soft voice is hard to hear over the occasional crash of the coffee machine. Valentine’s Day is near, but you wouldn’t know it from the look of the cafe, even though chocolate is one of the holiday’s most famous associations. Fletcher is unapologetic.“I struggle with the whole retail thing. I should already have hearts everywhere,” he says, waving his hands at the undecorated walls. He said he really likes Valentine’s Day because he gets to change the cafe’s fare. “My nature is to change things. I like to change without apologizing,” Fletcher said. It all seems so fluid, but the culinary direction wasn’t an easy one for Fletcher to take. Chocolate was always present in his life, though it wasn’t his focus. It was there during his childhood in Mannheim, Germany, where his mother’s family lives. It was there in high school, where he first started to realize his love for culinary arts.It was there in the first couple years as a music major at the University of Iowa, where he played cello. It was there in medical school and during his 15 years as a physician. And it was there the night in the kitchen when he suddenly concluded that his life needed a change.“I was tinkering with a recipe and I remember thinking, ‘I wonder if I can learn more about this ... I’m going to try this,’” Fletcher recalls.After his revelation, Fletcher started flying to New York on weekends for a nine-month “pastry camp” at the Institute of Culinary Education while continuing to practice at the student health center during the week.In 2005, he and Jackman took a class in Munich, where he learned specialty confectionery techniques, including how to blow sugar the way a glass worker blows glass. And in 2007, the couple opened the BLU Boy, whose name might sound strange but has a deep meaning. BLU stands for Boys Like Us, meaning boys like Fletcher and Jackman, who completely rerouted their lives long after they’d settled into a niche. Fletcher said he’s had maybe three unhappy customers total. The worst complaint is that the coffee is a little cold. He’s never had a bridezilla. In short, chocolate makes people happy ... for the most part. Plus, he said, chocolate’s just sexy.“There’s an inherent sensual quality of chocolate,” Fletcher says, cupping his hands as if about to dip them into a liquid chocolate pool. “When you melt down a 10-pound pot and start working with it ... that’s pretty luscious.”
(11/17/09 1:41am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Gov. Mitch Daniels is struggling to avoid raising taxes on the already hard-hit Hoosier residents, but disappointing state revenue is forcing him to cut each state agency’s spending by 10 percent.October saw the fourth-straight month of revenue that failed to meet the forecast amount for fiscal year 2010, which began in July. Total tax collections for October fell $46 million below the forecast, bringing total state revenue $309 million, or 7.4 percent, below the expected number. Daniels had already cut agency budgets by 5 percent in July, but upped the reduction to 10 percent on Nov. 6. On top of that, state employees will not receive a pay increase for the second year in a row, and agencies are offering voluntary unpaid leave for the rest of the fiscal year. State capital projects will be deferred, and certain dedicated funds will be redirected to the general fund.Daniels’ cost-saving measures were implemented to avoid raising taxes, something other states have already done, and to prevent the need to dip into the state reserves, which totaled $1.3 billion at the end of last fiscal year. Without these spending cuts, the governor’s office said the reserves will have dried up by next August. These latest cuts should save the state $300 to $400 million over the next two years, the governor said.So individual state agencies are finding all sorts of ways to cut costs; some are renegotiating contracts, some are condensing office space and others are cutting staff. Here’s a look at how a few agencies are making the cut.Department of CorrectionsOriginal 2009-10 state appropriation: $600 millionCurrent 2009-10 state appropriation: $540 millionUp until a few weeks ago, the Department of Correction’s payroll system automatically paid its employees five hours’ overtime. With a new method of keeping correct track of actual clocked hours, spokesman Doug Garrison said the agency will save about $5 million. In addition, all new facilities and expansions have been delayed. The department was planning new facilities in Miami and Wabash, which Garrison said are still needed. The state is lacking beds for offenders, and the number of inmates is growing by 4 percent each year. There hasn’t been a new facility in six years.“The commissioner has said before that, in a number of ways, that we’re bulging at the seams,” Garrison said. “We’re near crisis levels.”Garrison said the agency is still looking at ways to cut costs, including to what extent the furlough program will be used by staff.“We’re doing our best with what we have.”Indiana Arts Commission2009 state appropriation: $3.75 million2010 state appropriation: $2.9 millionThough Daniels reduced all state agency budgets, the Indiana Arts Commission is still waiting on further word before it decides where to cut. Unlike other state entities, the Arts Commission is governed by a 15-member board that makes all final decisions. Executive director Lewis Ricci said the commission might not know until mid-December what their specific cuts will be.But Miah Michaelsen, staff liaison for the Bloomington Community Arts Commission, said arts programs around the community will no doubt be affected by the cuts. Though the Bloomington Commission is self-funded, Bloomington does receive money from the state commission through grants. Michaelsen said there’s a chance the grants already awarded might not receive the full amount.“We may be called upon to help fill the gap,” she said. “There’s no doubt it will affect us. We kind of have a wait-and-see attitude right now. It’s going to have ramifications on us.”Department of Child Services2009 state appropriation: $193 million2010 state appropriation: $184.8 millionThe Dept. of Child Services is committed to keeping all of their case workers and staff, so spokeswoman Amy Miller said the department is looking into administrative reductions like travel expenses and supply costs.“We’re having conversations with partners to see if there are any ways we can cut costs there,” she said. “But first and foremost we want to keep children safe.”Family and Social Services Administration2009 state appropriation: $1.9 billion2010 state appropriation: $1.87 billionInternal cuts will total $13.6 million for the Family and Social Services Administration’s required reduction.Spokesman Marcus Barlow said the agency is co-locating offices, meaning they’ll use one office for two different purposes. They’ll also be renegotiating contracts with vendors and reducing Medicaid reimbursements by 5 percent. Because hospitals who treat Medicaid patients sometimes aren’t reimbursed completely now, the reduction could potentially bring up problems.But Barlow said hospitals are unique in the supplemental payments they receive; he said they can recover 75 percent of the reductions through the federal government.“In the last few years, when times were good, we have done a lot to increase the amount hospitals receive in Medicaid reimbursement,” he said. “But now we have to cut back a little bit.”Department of Education2009 public school appropriation: $5.9 billionScheduled 2010 public school appropriation: $6.5 billion Luckily, public school funding comes directly from the state, so the latest budget reductions within the Department of Education won’t affect Indiana’s schoolchildren. But department spokesman Cam Savage said reduced state revenue could potentially affect the promised appropriations to each school.While the department is reducing office space to meet budget, which will save $2 million over the next 10 years, Savage said schools receive 48 percent of state revenue, and the legislature voted for a 1.1 percent funding increase this past year.“Because it’s half of the budget, we’ve encouraged schools to be mindful that if state revenue continues to come in below estimates, that it’s possible schools may not get that increase the legislature voted for them this year,” Savage said. “That decision hasn’t been made yet. This is a time when state revenue is not meeting expectations and we’re one of few states that have not cut education. We hope not to have to.” The Monroe County Community School Corporation is already suffering from previous funding hits based on decreased enrollment. Tim Thrasher, comptroller or financial supervisor, said the corporation lost about $130,000 this year when enrollment fell by almost 300 students. Coupled with the fact that schools might not receive their full funding this year, Thrasher said the school system is struggling.“We’ll need to reduce our expenditures by at least $2 million a year, and our general fund budget is 90 percent personnel salary and benefits,” he said. “When we need to make cuts of that magnitude, we don’t have much choice but to reduce our staff.”Thrasher said the new charter school Bloomington Project accounted for about 100 of the lost students, but the corporation is still trying to account for the rest of the missing students. As for the staff reduction, Thrasher said a lot can be done through retirements and resignations.
(11/03/09 4:24am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It seems as if the house hasn’t been winning lately.The highly regulated gaming industry brings in more than $1 billion to the state annually, but a faltering economy and strict tax structures have slashed profits and placed some gaming entities, specifically the racetrack casinos, in a complicated situation. Gambling is Indiana’s third-largest source of revenue, trailing only behind sales and income taxes, but Americans have cut way back on recreational spending. A survey from the American Gaming Association found 60 percent of Americans had spent less on casino gambling. That, along with increased competition from neighboring states, have the two racetrack casinos calling for parity: an equal playing field with French Lick, Indiana’s only land-based casino, and the 10 riverboat casinos, which have different regulations. “These facilities are well run, they have positive cash flow, but it is not enough to cover our debt load and ongoing tax payments,” said Jim Brown, general manager of gaming at Hoosier Park Racing & Casino in Anderson, Ind.Hoosier Park’s parent company, Centaur LLC, defaulted on a $13.4 million loan payment last week, and the company is currently working to restructure its debt. But Brown said the heavy restrictions on racinos don’t add up to a successful business model. * * *Last year, Indiana was second only to Nevada in casino tax revenue, and gaming makes up around 7 percent of the state budget. The taxes feed a number of state funds, including the Build Indiana Fund, Teacher’s Retirement Fund and the General Fund, and the two racinos alone account for 1,400 jobs. Collectively, they bring in more than $205 million in revenue, $51 million of which goes to the state.Hoosier Park became Indiana’s first racetrack casino when its owners tacked on a 92,000-square-foot gaming facility in June 2008. The state required a $250 million licensing fee each from Hoosier Park and the state’s other racetrack, Indiana Downs, when each added casino gaming to their facilities, and they were required to invest a minimum of $100 million in the construction project. The taxes were determined from a forecast of the racino’s future revenue, a number that Brown said is hard to pin down.“That is a matter of conjecture on many people’s parts without getting to an actual number,” he said.In addition, the racinos are limited to 2,000 slot machines and are only allowed electronic games as opposed to live tables. They’re also required to pay fees to the horse racing industry, as well as 1 percent of their profits to French Lick as an offset to their competition, something Brown says is “more political than anything.” The French Lick payment “sunsets” in 2012 unless legislators vote to renew it, which Brown said is unlikely.“That is what has led to the situation we are in now,” Brown said. “We simply do not cash flow enough to meet the debt load that was created by the $250 million licensing fee and the investment.” The racinos also lost a subsidy from riverboat admission taxes when they opened their own casinos. The subsidy amounted to $27 million a year: $17 million to the horse racing industry and $10 million to the racetracks. The situation is sort of a catch-22: The racetracks opened casinos to compensate for a decline of interest in horse racing, but by opening the casinos they lost a major source of revenue in the subsidy.“The racing industry has long seen its golden days die and that’s throughout the country and throughout the world,” Brown said, though he stressed that racing is still a relevant industry and an integral part of Hoosier Park, which was also Indiana’s first racetrack. * * *In all, 47 percent of the racinos’ revenue goes to the state, compared with 38 percent of riverboat casinos’ and 29 percent of French Lick’s. The difference is mostly due to royalties paid to the horse racing industry – the racinos’ gaming tax is several points lower than those of some riverboats.Still, Indiana racinos pay the highest effective tax rates in the Midwest, and they’ve been petitioning for a change from the Indiana General Assembly’s Gaming Study Committee. Sen. Luke Kenley, R-20th District, is co-chairman of the committee and said the group has heard testimony from the racetracks, casinos and riverboats but has yet to decide on any sort of recommendation to the House and Senate.“Whether or not someone introduces a bill on this is open for discussion,” Kenley said.The committee last met Oct. 19, discussing the issues of out-of-state competition as well as concerns with horse racing fees and French Lick payments. Out-of-state competition has been a concern, Kenley said, since Ohio has approved casino expansions and Michigan has recently added tribal casinos. In fact, competition within the casino business is so high, it’s often referred to as “cannibalization” by industry workers. Because a casino can attract such a far-reaching customer base, the game is extremely territorial and a new casino can be a major controversy.Indiana casinos in the Lake Michigan area attract 68 percent of their patrons from out of state, and 64 percent of patrons at Ohio River casinos are from out of state. “If you add more gaming facilities that are in the same geographical area as our facilities, it’s not realistic,” Brown said of trying to increase profits. Mike Smith, president and CEO of the Casino Association of Indiana, said the recession, coupled with the tax structure and competing facilities created the “perfect storm” for the racinos. Smith said the legislature will have to make some sort of change if the racinos are to survive.“It’s probably not going to be successful for the state of Indiana,” Smith said.As far as solutions go, Brown said the Gaming Study Committee didn’t seem interested in what he thought were the best solutions, so he and the rest of the company have since switched tactics, presenting facts and dilemmas and allowing the committee to decide for themselves what the best plan of action is.* * *Although the racinos have been clamoring for some help from the government, Brown said they realized what they were getting themselves into when they accepted the terms to start up operations.“We’re not placing blame,” Brown said, noting they would not have opened a casino in hindsight. “This will go down in history as the way not to set up a business model.”Sen. John Broden, D-10th District, is a member of the study committee and said although legislators see the problem, the racetracks were aware of the stipulations before opening the casinos.“I think there is a commitment amongst committee members to look at various options, to look at casinos and racinos, in order for them to compete with surrounding states,” Broden said. “There probably needs to be some modifications made or tax incentives provided.”Some sort of restructuring is likely because of the state’s heavy dependence on gaming revenue. But Broden said it might not be wise to rely so heavily on a fluctuating industry. “I think that’s what we’re hearing right now. It’s not exactly a stable source,” he said, noting the potential competition from neighboring states. “It’s not stable in the sense that it’s always under threat from other states. That’s something that’s very real.” Yet the general consensus is that, with a recovering economy and a little tax relief, the industry and the racinos will survive.“I think it’s realistic to brace ourselves for some level of falloff in revenue,” Broden said. “But they’re not going broke and they’re not losing their heads, and they’re still pulling a strong base of customers, and they’re still making a profit.”
(10/08/09 12:29am)
UFO sightings aren't just for country bumpkins.
(10/08/09 12:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In the early morning of Feb. 25, 1942, a massive, amorphous object hovered over Los Angeles, prompting a blackout as well as an intense bout of anti-aircraft shelling from the U.S. Army’s 37th Coast Artillery Brigade. Three civilians were killed by artillery shells.The first abduction to go public was in 1961, when Betty and Barney Hill claimed to have met aliens and experienced lost time after seeing a white, drum-shaped object hovering in the sky over U.S. Route 3 as they traveled home from vacationing in Canada.In 1995, London-based media producer Ray Santilli released what he claimed was an alien autopsy film shot at the Roswell Army Air Field shortly after the famous 1947 crash. Santilli later claimed his film was a reproduction of a genuine alien autopsy film he was shown.— Compiled from ufoevidence.org and “Eamonn Investigates: The Alien Autopsy”
(10/08/09 12:14am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Twenty-three-year-old Debbie Kauble had just arrived at her friend’s house one evening when she received a panicked phone call from her mother telling her to come home immediately.Kauble had noticed a strange light out by the pump house before leaving the home on Indianapolis’ southeast side that she shared with her parents and two children. But the light was gone by the time she walked outside to leave, and though she noticed the garage door open, she had dismissed it.Returning home, Kauble walked out to the garage to investigate. Armed with a shotgun, she found the family dog cowering under a truck. The shotgun wasn’t loaded, but Kauble was relying on appearances.The garage was empty, and Kauble was about to turn back when suddenly her body temperature sky-rocketed. Confused and uncomfortable, she started in the direction of the door when something thudded into her chest. Frozen, Kauble dropped the gun as an intensely bright light enveloped her and her entire body started to vibrate.The TakenThat was June 30, 1983, a date that remains burned into Kauble’s mind. Though it was one of the most recent extraterrestrial experiences that she’d had, the event unleashed a flood of memories, dreams and incidents that slowly trickled back into her consciousness. Kauble is the first one to beat the skeptics in saying many of her experiences might be nothing more than dreams; however, the events of that night are fact she said.Whatever hit her in the chest in the garage Kauble can only describe as “a bolt of lightning.” Standing in the blinding light, Kauble said it felt like an existential experience. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is what it feels like to be dead,’” she said.The light stopped after a moment, but Kauble still couldn’t move. Then something yanked her right shoulder, and she felt a “hot poker” stuck into her ear. A voice from someone she could not see remarked on how unfortunate it was that she had felt pain.Kauble’s vision was still popping from the light, though she could dimly make out six child-like figures running around in the yard. Out of the corner of her left eye, Kauble could see a white egg-shaped object and a white ball of light moving slowly up and down. “I didn’t want to look at it, but I didn’t want to not know where it was,” she said. The next thing Kauble remembers is standing on the patio and hearing her mother call her name. She had completely forgotten everything that had just occurred, but the next morning she woke up with her eyes swollen shut. A run to the emergency room referred them to the ophthalmologist’s office across the street, where the doctor informed Kauble her corneas had been severely burned.For months following the incident, Kauble was a wreck. Her hair thinned, her gums bled, rashes broke out, she ran fevers for no reason and developed life-threatening allergies. Her dog ended up losing all of her hair too, and died within a couple months. “I always connected, in my mind, whatever happened to me that night to her dying,” she said.It wasn’t until an eight-foot-wide, perfectly round mark appeared in the backyard that the memory of that night, along with countless other experiences, started to beat down the door of Kauble’s subconsciousness.“From that point on, when I looked at that mark in the yard, I started remembering things years earlier that I had blocked out,” she said.The ExpertsKauble, who now lives in Kokomo, eventually got in touch with UFO researcher and author Budd Hopkins, who flew her to New York and put her through every test imaginable: EEGs, CAT scans, lie detector tests, hypnotherapy and psychotherapy.“I was just like, ‘Just give me a pill. Tell me I’m crazy. It’ll be alright, I can deal with that,’” Kauble said.But Hopkins never delivered that verdict.In fact, there was no logical reasoning offered to Kauble. Common explanations like childhood trauma and sleep paralysis were never even mentioned. The researchers’ only diagnosis was post-traumatic stress disorder.Jerry Sievers, director of the Indiana chapter of the Mutual UFO Network, said Kauble’s case was one for the books. Indeed, several books were written about Kauble as well as her mother and sister, who started uncovering similar experiences in their pasts. Hopkins wrote the first book on Kauble, titled “Intruders: The Incredible Visitations at Copley Woods.”Sievers was one of the first researchers to work on Kauble’s case and said that there needs to be an explanation to these stories, no matter what you believe. “I saw a need to help these people cope with whatever this is,” Sievers said. “Whether you attribute this to extraterrestrials, which a lot of them do, these people want to tell their story.”Sievers has been involved with UFO and extraterrestrial phenomena since high school, eventually working his way up through the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena as a field investigator, then switching over to MUFON. He said early fall is one of the peak times for UFO sightings.“Very few are hoaxes that we’ve worked on – less than 1 percent,” Siever said. “As far as all of them being extraterrestrial, I don’t believe that. Eighty-five percent of what’s reported is just lights in the sky.”Thomas Bullard, who works in technical services at the Herman B Wells Library and has a Ph.D. in folklore from IU, studies abduction phenomena. Though he’s devoted the majority of his life to extraterrestrial research, he said the only evidence they have are stories like Kauble’s.“When you have to depend on anecdotal evidence, you’re never going to get anything that’s very convincing to science,” Bullard said. “You’re not going to get anything that’s really very reliable for the most part. Even the most rabid ufologists have realized all along that, at most, 20 percent of the reports might be something genuine. Most reports come from honest people who have just mistaken what they’ve seen in the sky.”Others, Bullard said, suffer from sleep paralysis, a condition where a person is half-awake but essentially still dreaming. As a result, the dreams take on a more physical dimension, with the sleeper feeling physical pressure, smelling odors and inventing other experiences.”“The two hemispheres of the brain are usually in sync, but they can get out of sync, and one recognizes the other hemisphere as an external presence,” Bullard said. “Sometimes you get this thoroughly hallucinatory experience.”The HybridBullard is familiar with Kauble’s story because of how long her abductions went on and also because a rather unusual story eventually unraveled once she was placed under hypnosis.Kauble found out she was pregnant after one of her experiences and naturally assumed her fiancee was the father. But when her doctor estimated the due date, Kauble noticed something wrong.“I’m doing the math, and it doesn’t add up,” she said. “I told him, ‘What you’re telling me is not possible. It’s too far back.’”But since there was no other logical explanation, she forgot about it until she woke up a few months later feeling strange. She had yet another experience again while baby-sitting her sister’s children. Falling asleep to Bob Newhart, Kauble felt a soft touch on her back that startled her, then put her to sleep instantly. She woke up in her niece’s bed.“I couldn’t shake this weird feeling that something was wrong,” she said.Another doctor’s visit informed her that the fetus was gone. Although doctors told her incidents like this are somewhat common, Kauble said years later in her dreams aliens introduced her to her daughter – who was half-human, half-alien.“You can draw your own conclusions,” Kauble said. “I know I was pregnant, but I still consider the dreams as dreams.”Kauble had several incidents with the hybrid child, including one at her apartment in broad daylight. Sitting on her patio, Kauble noticed a pair of feet under the fence around her yard and was shocked to see a young girl with white hair and an enormous, blue eye through the slats. The girl disappeared before Kauble could get closer.“I always felt in my mind that that was her,” she said. “But I can’t prove it.”It’s been about 10 years since Kauble’s last experience, but others are still reporting events and strange sightings every day.“There is something uncommon about these stories in the sense that they seem to be coherent,” Bullard said. “People who don’t really know anything about the subject tend to tell the same sort of story. People who go to different investigators with different agendas and different approaches still manage to tell the same sort of story.”Although Bullard believes there is something underlying these incidents, he acknowledged that hard evidence of extraterrestrials is lacking.“Nothing has ever turned up that is utterly out of this world,” he said. “It doesn’t have ‘made on Mars’ written on it; it’s not some alloy that we know nothing about or anything like that. We don’t have any videotapes, security tapes of alien press gangs going out to get their nightly quota of abductees.”The Activity:Kauble's case isn't exactly
recent, especially since it's been nearly a decade since her last
experience. But there have been several other alleged extraterrestrial
incidents around the state in the past year, and though their causes
have mostly been ruled conventional, some people aren't buying it.In
Bedford last September, residents were baffled at the site of three
bowl-shaped crop circles that had appeared overnight in a private
field. Though their appearance was eventually attributed to a downdraft
of wind, the sight was enough to keep passing motorists blowing up the
police switchboard."This type of grass is easy to do that with," Bedford police dispatcher Mark Duncan said. "It was some kind of hay, really
thin. It doesn't take much for the wind to drop it straight down."Some
of the indentations were over 100 yards in diameter, Duncan said. But
since the crop circles were far from perfect -- oblong and "randomly
done" -- the alien factor wasn't a serious consideration.Kokomo
experienced a burst of strange aerial activity in April 2008, as a
sound like an explosion rocked the town one night. Witnesses described
seven to nine lights jetting across the sky as one formation. Following
the boom, witnesses reported thinking a plane had crashed.Kauble
had been working as a field agent for MUFON at the time, and began
investigating. She downloaded over six hours of police scanner
recordings, which included traffic indicating the police thought a
plane had crashed, too. Kauble said reports from officers about the
supposed plane crash could be heard on the scanner, saying things like,
"We have an aircraft down" and "I am at the only known debris
field."Kauble
also gathered evidence from witnesses in the area, who reported seeing
multiple military vehicles tearing into the area of the alleged crash
site, gouges in the fields, scorched cornstalks, and ripped up roads. "People
were reporting multiple lights in the sky, a large disc-shaped craft
with rotating, red lights around it, as well as an acrid smell of
burning metal in the air," Kauble wrote in an article for paranormal
magazine The White Crow. "We also had reports of an octagon-shaped
craft with blue lights around the edges, that tipped up on its edge
immediately before shooting off into the night sky. This is identical
to reports coming out of Stephenville, Texas within daysof the Kokomo
Boom incident, if not hours. Several people, including me, reported an
intense, bright, yellowish flash immediately before the explosion.
There were eyewitness reports of debris burning and falling from the
sky immediately after the explosion. There were even a couple of
unrelated individuals that reported seeing a damaged saucer-shaped
craft attempting to leave the area, being chased by F-16s."The Indiana National
Guard initially denied being in the air that night, but later recanted
and issued a statement taking responsibility for the disturbance,
saying there were pilots training in the area when they shouldn't have
been.But neither Kauble and Sievers believe it. Sievers said
his radar evidence absolutely disproves the National Guard's story;
there were UFOs on his radar that night that were separate from the
F-16s.
"There's more to that story than what they're saying," Kauble said.The
event was featured on both The History Channel and the Discovery
Channel. Both Kauble and Sievers both believe something more happened
that night, but whether it was of alien origin is a different story.
Bullard said just because something is "unidentified" doesn't
necessarily mean it's from another planet."Does it confirm space visitors?" he said. "Well, that's pretty hard to say."
(08/27/09 3:52am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Department of Health and Human Services has released guidelines to combat the spread of the H1N1 flu in preparation for the upcoming flu season.The guidelines are targeted specifically at college campuses and mostly call for maintaining hygiene and facilitating isolation when a person falls ill with the virus. The guidelines suggest universities relax absentee rules to make it easier for sick students to stay home and also to suspend classes in the event of a serious outbreak.“We released it now, in August, to allow schools to prepare for the flu season,” said Candice Burns, spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “They present action they can take now and strategies they can use if the flu is more severe than the spring and summer.”University Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson also suggested reviewing grading procedures to accommodate any illnesses.“You will also want to consider a range of alternatives (depending on the circumstances) for evaluating students’ performance in the event of widespread absenteeism or a significant interruption,” she said in an e-mail to faculty.Although cases on IU’s campus have been limited, Hanson encouraged faculty and students in research and creative activity groups to develop “contingency plans” for absences caused by an outbreak.“The federal Centers for Disease Control and the Indiana State Department of Health now expect that the H1N1 flu will be more widespread this fall and will have a significantly greater effect on normal activities during the upcoming regular flu season (and possibly earlier),” Hanson said in the e-mail.The guidelines suggest several ways to isolate the spread of an H1N1 case, including instituting a “flu buddy scheme” in which an infected person limits interaction to only one other person. “The guidance put a menu of strategies to keep facilities open while reducing spread of flu to faculty and staff,” Burns said.IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre has yet to read the guidelines, but said the University has a committee in place that monitors the situation daily. The University already handled two cases of H1N1 in late May.“President McRobbie and especially our health staff and risk management staff have been carefully following guidance that is coming from our federal government and state health officials, and we’re pretty confident that we’ve got a system in place here in Bloomington to stay on top of this situation and quickly identify any H1N1 cases that might arise,” MacIntyre said.He also mentioned that all residence halls, staff and students have been given careful instructions on what to do if a case surfaces.Regular flu vaccines are available at the IU Health Center, and MacIntyre said the H1N1 vaccine will be available as soon as it comes in.Burns said the virus spreads the quickest among people six months to 24 years old, which is why the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is recommending that people younger than 25 be one of the first groups to receive the vaccine when it becomes available in October.Other groups at risk include the elderly, pregnant women and people with children, especially children under six months of age because they are unable to receive vaccinations themselves.MacIntyre said that in the event of an outbreak, any decisions affecting the University, including suspending classes, would have to be carefully weighed.“These are judgment calls, and there is a lot of guidance now from HHS,” MacIntyre said. “That committee will be monitoring the situation daily and will make a recommendation to President McRobbie any time there’s a question.”
(11/07/08 3:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana Senate Democrats voted State Senator Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, as Democratic floor leader Wednesday.Simpson was unanimously elected by the Democratic caucus.“It wasn’t a surprise because we had talked to the members of our caucus, and they had voiced their support,” she said.Simpson said she already knows what is expected of her because she has served as the assistant Democratic floor leader since 2006. As the floor leader, she will assist in committee assignments and serve as the spokeswoman for the caucus in negotiations with the rest of the General Assembly.“Everyone should have two priorities in the next upcoming session, one of which is the budget,” Simpson said. “The second priority is to do everything we can in our power, in a bipartisan way, that will add to the economic recovery of Indiana. I’m concerned with protecting homeowners.”State Senator Tim Lanane, D-Anderson, said he agrees that because it’s a budget year, both the budget and the economy are at the top of the Senate’s list. Lanane will replace Simpson as assistant Democratic floor leader.“Obviously the economy is number one,” Lanane said. “How can we promote an economy that’s good for the environment? That’s something you’re probably going to see across the nation.”It seems Indiana is more concerned with solutions to problems than party affiliation, Simpson said.President-elect Barack Obama won Indiana on Tuesday, the first time the state’s electoral votes went to a Democrat since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. But Hoosiers also re-elected Republican and incumbent Gov. Mitch Daniels.“Voters of Indiana have shown a propensity to split their ticket,” Simpson said. “They’re saying they want a bipartisan solution to problems.”Simpson has spent her life in state government and doesn’t plan changing that anytime soon.“I enjoy state government, and I don’t see federal government as a step up at all,” she said. “State government, to me, is closer to the people, and we’re probably involved with issues that impact people’s lives more than Congress.”
(11/05/08 7:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>INDIANAPOLIS – Republican Mitch Daniels has once again been crowned governor of Indiana.
Daniels, who was first elected in 2004, beat out Democratic candidate
Jill Long Thompson and Libertarian candidate Andy Horning to win the
governor’s seat. Long Thompson and Daniels were close in the polls at
one point in the campaign, but Daniels pulled ahead in the end,
defeating Long Thompson in a landslide victory.
Daniels held his election night rally Tuesday at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis.
Following a video extolling Daniels’ achievements, the governor entered the crowd to thunderous applause.
“Before we get started, I need to alert all you bargain hunters to an
amazing opportunity,” Daniels joked, holding up a “Ditch Mitch” bumper
sticker. “They’re offering a once-in-a-lifetime clearance on these over
at the other headquarters.”
But Daniels thanked his opponents for their competition.
“They are people who love this state,” he said. “They campaigned
aggressively and sincerely. I want to tell them both – Jill, Andy – we
appreciate you, and we wish you all the best in whatever comes next.”
Shortly after Long Thompson’s concession speech, Lieutenant Gov. Becky Skillman fired up the crowd with praise of Daniels.
“Elections are about identifying challenges, proposing solutions and
effecting change,” Skillman said. “This past four years big change has
come to Indiana. ... Hoosiers acknowledge that today, and we’re just
getting started.”
Skillman said she and Daniels are already looking to the future of Indiana business.
“If you know Mitch Daniels, you know his mind is already at work. The
wheels are turning,” Skillman said. “He is America’s public official of
the year, and he is ours for four more years.”
Prior to Daniels’ win as governor, he had never before held an elected
office. He did, however, work with President Reagan and serve as chief
of staff to Sen. Richard Lugar.
Long Thompson is a former Congresswoman who served three terms in the
U.S. House of Representatives and also as the U.S. undersecretary of
agriculture.
Murray Clark, the chairman of the Indiana Republican Party, addressed
the crowd in light of the information that Daniels had won.
“Let me thank you all from the bottom of my heart for all you’ve done
for Republican candidates, including Senator McCain and our current and
next governor Mitch Daniels,” he said.
Supporters both young and old came out at his election night rally at
Conseco Fieldhouse, including everyone from teenagers too young to vote
to seasoned factory workers.
“He likes the average man. He takes care of us like we take care of him,” supporter Wayne Brown said.
Brown worked at Oxford Automotive in Greencastle, Ind., before it
closed. He met Daniels when he sent him an e-mail asking him to visit
the plant. To his surprise, Daniels and his entourage showed up hardly
an hour later. Brown said they’ve been friends ever since.
Abby Fivel and Cydny Audia, 17-year-old high school students at Brebeuf
Jesuit Preparatory School, also came to show their support.
“He’s done a really good job with his past term as governor,” Audia said.
Both students said they see this as an introduction to politics and also important to their future political decisions.
“I’m in government right now, and I’m just getting into politics,” Fivel said. “It’s still important even though we can’t vote.”
Daniels promised Hoosiers that though the campaign has ended, it didn’t
mean he would stop working hard to improve Indiana. As he wrapped up
his speech, green balloons bearing the slogan “Mitch Daniels for
governor” fell on the crowd of cheering supporters.
“This is less an endorsement than an instruction,” he said. “This is less an award than an assignment.”
(11/03/08 7:51pm)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Indiana might historically like its presidents to be conservative, but when it comes to its governors, it’s long been a swing state. Hoosier gubernatorial history is rich in representatives from both sides of the political scale, and the switch of power happens frequently. The two governors elected before Republican incumbent Mitch Daniels were Democrats – Frank O’Bannon and current Sen. Evan Bayh, both two-term governors. Before that, Republicans held the office with a pair of two-term governors of their own – Robert Orr and Otis Bowen.This year’s gubernatorial election pits Daniels against former Congresswoman Jill Long Thompson, a Democrat, and Andy Horning, a Libertarian.The IncumbentDaniels, first elected in 2004, is attempting to keep Indiana’s tradition of two-term governors alive by running for re-election. “We’re confident because the governor does a great job, and Hoosiers appreciate that, but we don’t take anything for granted,” said Cam Savage, communications director for the Daniels campaign. Daniels might have the incumbency advantage, but he doesn’t have much experience in elected office. Prior to his election, Daniels served as chief of staff to Sen. Richard Lugar and was senior assistant to Ronald Reagan, but he had never run for government office before.Not surprisingly, the focus of his campaign is the economy and job creation. Since Daniels took office, unemployment has increased from 5.6 to 6.2 percent, but it also reports 30,000 new jobs have been added to the state, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. He has proposed permanent caps on property taxes and also a program called the Automatic Taxpayer Refund, which would refund any taxes that exceed the amount needed to maintain a balanced budget. Boasting the first gubernatorial endorsement ever from the Indiana Chamber of Commerce, the economy seems to be one of Daniels’ strengths with voters.“One of the factors has been the governor has put Indiana back on strong fiscal footing,” Savage said. “When he first got here Indiana was deep in debt. Since he’s been here we’ve balanced the budget every year.”PROFILE: Mitch DanielsThe ChallengerLong Thompson has fought aggressively to be elected governor, a position she can add to an already lengthy list of political office positions. She served three terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 1995 for Indiana’s 4th Congressional District. After her tenure in congress, she worked as U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture from 1995 to 2001, where she worked to create jobs in rural communities.“She has a track record of job creation and job development,” said Jeff Harris, communications director for Long Thompson’s campaign. “There’s a philosophical difference between her and Mitch Daniels.”Long Thompson’s economic plan includes pooling health insurance costs for businesses and reforming the tax code. Her popularity with lower-income residents is evident through her endorsements from the United Auto Workers, Indiana State Teachers Association and United Steelworkers.“We’ve run a very grassroots, scrappy campaign,” Harris said. “Those issues are really resonating with Hoosiers as we travel the state. We feel very good and that we’ll be rewarded with that.”PROFILE: Jill Long ThompsonThe LibertarianLibertarian Andy Horning has been chasing public office for eight years now. He ran for governor in 2000 as a Libertarian and then for Congress in 2004 as a Republican. His current bid for governor centers on a return to constitutional standards and smaller government.“What government is supposed to be is a junkyard dog, and you should keep it in the junkyard,” Horning said during a gubernatorial debate on Oct. 14 in Bloomington. “Get mad. You should insist upon law because nothing else restrains politicians.”His stances on certain issues could be considered extreme to some, like his belief the United States should return to the gold standard. He said he believes that child protection services should be abolished and those duties be reallocated to other existing officials. But to some, Horning is a refreshing break from the tired views of Democrats and Republicans. He is particularly popular with students.“Ideology really does matter, law does matter. Your actions have a bigger impact than you think,” Horning said during the Bloomington debate. “Look at what politicians have been promising versus what actually happens. We shouldn’t let this sort of thing continue where they make promises they can’t possibly keep.”PROFILE: Andy Horning
(11/03/08 5:32am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU is listed as the third-highest contributor to Congressman Baron Hill’s campaign on the donor-tracking Web site OpenSecrets.org, but IU spokesman Larry MacIntyre said this is misleading.State universities are forbidden to endorse political candidates, but on this Web site, donors are grouped together by place of employment.MacIntyre clarified further that the University as an institution did not contribute to Hill’s campaign.“The University does not take any position or support of candidates,” he said. “It’s misleading, because it’s not correct – it’s not IU; it’s employees of IU. It’s unfortunate that it’s misleading.”Political candidates are required by law to publicly list any donations of $200 or more, and Web sites such as www.OpenSecrets.org allow users to look up the individual contributors by name, state, zip code or employer. Fundrace.org even lets users pinpoint donors on a map listing their home address.OpenSecrets.org reports that IU faculty and staff collectively donated $11,794 to Hill’s campaign this term. As a result, IU is listed as Hill’s No. 3 donor. IU is not listed as a top contributor for Republican candidate Mike Sodrel.Massie Ritsch, communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics (which runs OpenSecrets.org), defended listing all IU employees as a single entity. He mentioned links at the bottom of the page describing the methodology used to analyze the donations as well as a disclaimer in red which states “the organizations themselves did not donate.”He said sometimes users overlook disclaimers, and the organization does “get a handful of calls” every year from universities and lawyers asking for an explanation.“It is important to tally contributions by colleges and universities as a whole because it adds up to a lot of money,” he said.The education industry, comprised of universities and research institutions, is the ninth-largest donor to federal politicians, Ritsch said.MacIntyre said every employee has a constitutional right to contribute to a candidate of their choosing if they wish to do so.
(11/03/08 5:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU has a reputation for being a strictly liberal community, and campaign donations from faculty members do little to contradict that.Public records Web sites listing donations made to political candidates show a strong lean toward the Democratic side in presidential and congressional races. According to www.OpenSecrets.org, IU employees made more than 200 donations to Barack Obama’s campaign, totaling $109,443 at press time. In comparison, only 10 donations were made to John McCain’s campaign, totaling $4,350.At the local level, donations to Democratic Congressman Baron Hill’s campaign total $11,794, and the incumbent and candidate received single donations of up to $2,300 from IU employees.The only employees who donated more to Hill than IU employees are those of Verizon and AmeriPAC.The Web site lists no donations to Hill’s opponent, Republican candidate Mike Sodrel, from IU employees.Every candidate is required by law to publicly list any donation of $200 or more.“I’ve supported Baron Hill because he’s got the right positions on all the issues,” said adjunct professor Matt Pierce, who is also a state representative. “Mike Sodrel, who has run against him over and over again, has been nothing but a rubber stamp to President Bush.”Pierce is the state representative for District 61 in the Indiana House of Representatives and is also a visiting lecturer in the IU Department of Telecommunications. He donated $1,000 to Hill’s campaign, the same amount he contributed to Hill last election in 2006 to fight Republican candidate and then-incumbent Mike Sodrel.“That year I felt like I had to give till it hurts,” Pierce said. “Cheney and Bush had put millions of dollars into (Sodrel’s) account.” That year, President Bush visited Indiana for the incumbent Sodrel’s campaign rally.Financial support for Republican candidates from IU employees in general is a little more difficult to find. But Sodrel’s campaign manager Ryan Reger remains optimistic about IU’s conservative population, such as the IU College Republicans. Sodrel spoke to the group on Sept. 15 at the Indiana Memorial Union.“We have a really good student base,” Reger said. “The IU College Republicans are really active.”Leslie Lenkowsky, professor of public affairs and philanthropic studies, regularly donates to Gov. Mitch Daniels, having given $400 in the last two years. He also donated to the Greater Indianapolis Republican Finance Committee and to the McCain campaign.“You have to buy media time and pay for various kinds of staff,” he said. “That’s a problem with our system. You have to be able to raise a sizable amount of funds.”IU law professor Ken Dau-Schmidt fully believes in the value of financial donations. Dau-Schmidt donated $5,000 to current Monroe County prosecutor Chris Gaal when he was first elected in 2006. Gaal ran against then-prosecutor Carl Salzmann, whom Dau-Schmidt wanted out.Still, Lenkowsky emphasizes that money isn’t everything when it comes to getting involved with politics.“In a democracy, all citizens ought to be involved in the political process in one way or another,” Lenkowsky said. “In our system, making contributions is one way, but it’s not the only way. You don’t always win, but at least you’re contributing to a good debate.”