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(04/17/12 2:28am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington area parks have been experiencing greater traffic than is usual this early in the season, said Barb Bunbar, operations coordinator for the Bloomington Parks and Recreation Department. “I would say we’re looking at 60 to 70 percent more use of the parks than we usually have this time of year, easy,” Bunbar said. Bunbar attributed the early increase in park-goers to the unusually nice weather, such as the several weeks in March when it was 70 or 80 degrees. “It was crazy,” she said. “It was almost a month ago we were having that.”She said the higher traffic has caused some challenges for the parks department. She said they’ve been receiving calls from community members about the park facilities. “We’ve had a lot of people calling us, wondering why restrooms aren’t open, but they pretty much opened up the same times they always do,” Bunbar said. “It’s just the weather. It jumped on us so quickly.”She said the extra staff employed during the summer months didn’t even start until April 9, despite the high traffic. The department has about 12 full-time, year-round employees who take care of the parks and facilities such as restrooms at the parks. The parks department also has 50 seasonal staff workers who do seasonal work. They do the extra work required during the summer months. But Bunbar said state budget cuts have caused some changes that made the extra volume this year especially difficult. “We had some serious budget cuts, and that hit hard on our seasonal staffing,” she said. “We had to look at starting them later and letting them go a little bit sooner.”Another issue that has arisen due to the nice weather is a rise in vandalism at Bloomington parks, Bunbar said. “We’ve been fighting graffiti everyday,” she said. “We’re dealing with graffiti on artwork, on the walls. It’s been very, very bad this year. It’s hard on our crew because they work so hard to keep things looking nice.” She said they have been working with police to try and curb this issue. “We track all our vandalism, where it’s at and the time we spent correcting it,” Bunbar said. “It takes lots of labor hours, as well as cost in product that we use.”Even though work began early this year compared to most, Bunbar said the true parks season is yet to come. They expect attendance to stay strong.“It’s definitely up,” she said. “It’s significantly up this early in the year.”
(04/16/12 2:11am)
Charges were released by the IU Police Department in regard to protestor
Sebastian Modes disrupting Doug Wilson's "Sexual by Design"
presentation.
(04/12/12 12:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Bloomington Animal Shelter is currently ranked No. 1 nationally in a competition with 104 other shelters to win $100,000 from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The qualifiers for the actual competition take place from now until April 16, and anyone age 13 and older can vote for the shelter once per day, said Laurie Ringquist, the director for Animal Care and Control in Bloomington, the organization that oversees the shelter. Ringquist said right now, the Bloomington shelter is ranked first in the qualifiers to enter the competition. “There’s multiple steps to the process,” Ringquist said. “The end of it is the actual challenge, and the challenge itself is in the months of August, September and October.” If the Bloomington shelter qualifies, its employees will work to save at least 300 more lives, Ringquist said. Every shelter that manages to do this — through more adoptions, rescues and other tasks — will automatically get $5,000.The shelter to save the most lives during the specified months wins the grand prize of $100,000. Ringquist said the shelters are in the voting phase, in which community members must vote to keep their shelter in the running. “The top five vote-getters in each of the five regions go into the challenge,” she said. Then the next 25 vote-getters are entered, as well, regardless of region. This means 50 shelters total will make up the competition in August. People can vote by going to the website bloomington.in.gov/animalshelter, Ringquist said. “Right on that page that you land on, there’s a big logo that says, ‘Vote,’” she said. People can also go to votetosavelives.org and pick the shelter from a list of those entered or vote on the Bloomington shelter’s Facebook page. Ringquist said one important thing for voters to know is that the first time they vote, the ASPCA will email them to confirm that they are people rather than robots or voting machines meant to skew results. “You have to confirm that email the first time you vote,” Ringquist said. “After that, you can just vote every day.”Ringquist said the shelter already has some plans for what it will do with the money, if it is to receive the grand prize. “Part of our shelter is very old and is in serious need of some renovations,” she said. “We could use at least some of the money to renovate some of the areas, making it more pleasant and healthier for the animals. We would probably use some of it to promote adoptions.” Ringquist said the community’s response was pleasantly surprising for the shelter and that they found it incredible to currently be doing so well in the rankings. “Right now, we are No. 1 in the country, which is amazing,” Ringquist said.
(04/10/12 3:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s mating season for endangered Indiana bats, and the local stretch of Interstate 69 that’s under construction is going to have to work around that. Cher Elliott, Indiana Department of Transportation media relations director for the I-69 project, said the project had factored the mating season into initial schedules for the construction. “In order to not disrupt the migrating and mating seasons of the Indiana bat, we cannot cut down trees larger than three inches in diameter between April 1 and November the 15th,” Elliott said. “That’s when they leave the caves from the winter and then migrate south to their nesting areas and begin mating.”During these months, the bats burrow beneath the bark of larger trees in Monroe County and surrounding areas, where they mate, give birth and raise their young. Scott Pruitt, Indiana field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said his department worked with the I-69 project leaders to lessen the effect on the bats.“Everyone’s been very upfront and aware of this,” Pruitt said. “That’s been part of the planning process since day one.”Elliott said the I-69 workers tried to remove all the trees they needed removed before April 1. “We identified all (of those trees), and then we worked with the property owners to make sure that we either owned the property or we had some sort of agreement in place where they allowed us to go in and cut the tree down,” Elliott said. “Now, there may be an instance that once we get into the construction part of it, we recognize that we need that tree down. We can’t do that until after November the 15th. But one tree here or one random tree there is not going to impede the project, either.”The highway will cut through many Indiana bat foraging and mating areas, Pruitt said. He said that in the short term, the bat population will suffer. “Short term, the bats that are in the right of way where the trees are being cleared will have less foraging area, so there will be a diminished reproductive rate for those maternity colonies,” Pruitt said. “It’s over a thousand acres for this section of the road. That’s a thousand acres less that’s available for them.”In the long term, the I-69 project workers are planting more trees for the bats and purchasing already forested territory to preserve it.“Long term, the plan is that an equal amount, and then, in fact, more is being planted and protected,” Pruitt said. “Once those are trees and become a foraging base for the animals, there won’t be a long-term impact.”Elliot said that during the next few months, construction will continue in different ways.“We’ve had a very mild winter and very light rain so far this spring, so they’ve been able to stay on schedule or ahead of schedule and things are going very well, and we look forward to the same success in section four,” Elliott said.
(04/05/12 1:08am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Tax season is drawing to a close, and all taxes need to be filed by April 17 this year. For many students, this might be the first year filing taxes alone, but Peggy Hite, accounting professor in the Kelley School of Business, said taxes seem more complicated than they are.She said most students earn a low enough income that now is the time to learn the basics of filing taxes.“Do it now while it’s easy because once you get more complicated transactions, your taxes are only going to get more complicated,” she said. This is because people, as they become older, begin to pay mortgages or take out loans beyond student loans, and those taxes are often calculated differently, Hite said. She also said it’s beneficial for students to do their taxes themselves while they’re in school because there’s a lot of free assistance available. “What we have on most campuses are these VITA programs,” Hite said. “We had one on campus this spring. They’ll help you do it and push the button, and you’ll get an eFile.”VITA stands for Volunteer Income Tax Assistance program, and it’s available for low-income members of the Bloomington community, including college students, for free in various locations throughout Bloomington.Ashley Hall, community initiatives director for the United Way of Monroe County, which oversees the local VITA program, said it’s a useful resource for students and Bloomington residents alike.“Basically, it helps low- to moderate-income level applicants with their taxes for free,” Hall said. “It’s for folks who are working but maybe aren’t making that much money.”Hite also said she’s sometimes found students don’t bother to file taxes because they think they aren’t making that much money and that it’s not worth it. This, she said, is a mistake. “Students, a lot, I think, just let it slide,” Hite said. However, for those who don’t file after earning any income, that tax will still be owed every year, plus interest on every year going forward until the tax return is finally filed, Hite said. “That’s considered fraud when you never report,” she said. Although the campus branch of the VITA program is now closed for the season, several locations will remain open until April 14. The nearest one to campus is at the Monroe County Public Library at the corner of Kirkwood Avenue and Grant Street.There is also a self-service help center, which is open from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays through April 12, located at 450 S. Landmark Ave.“You’re able to work on your taxes yourself, but there’s someone there to answer questions,” Hall said. So far, Hall said, turnout has been good at the VITA site and that people are still welcome to use the service. “We had a great year last year,” Hall said. “We filed over 900 returns just at the VITA site, and we’ve already surpassed that.”
(04/04/12 2:39am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The warm weather and mild winter this year might make for a rougher-than-usual allergy season this spring, according to weatherchannel.com and Barbara Moss, a health educator at the IU Health Center.“This has been a special allergy season in that it occurred so rapidly with spring and summer descending upon us all at once,” Moss said in an email. “There has also been a record high pollen count this year, so both students and staff have been pretty miserable. One staffer described the plight of some as ‘horrific’ with some suffering who never had allergies in the past.”The Weather Channel ranked Bloomington’s tree pollen levels as “very high” for the past several weeks and several upcoming weeks.Sophomore Wajid Zacir has spring allergies and said they are now beginning to affect him for the year.“I just end up taking medicine before it even starts,” he said. “I just have a huge bottle of Claritin at home.”Zacir, who is originally from India but now lives in Dubai when not in Bloomington, said he has definitely experienced a difference in allergies since coming to IU.“Between Dubai and Bloomington, it’s a lot better in Dubai because we don’t have spring, we just have summer and winter,” he said.Allergy season is not yet in full swing, but pollen counts in other states are already breaking records, according to the American College of Allergies, Asthma and Immunology. Whether Bloomington’s pollen count will break records this year remains to be seen. Zacir said time will tell whether his allergies will worsen.“So far, not too bad,” he said. “But I mean, I don’t know yet.”Moss said IU students are welcome to visit the health center if they suffer from allergies.“Students or staff can either make an appointment or walk in to see a clinician to receive an exam and discuss their particular symptoms,” Moss said. “The practitioner can prescribe over-the-counter or prescription nasal sprays, eye drops, lung inhalers or allergy pills as appropriate. Most commonly, an over-the-counter medicine such as Claritin or Allegra could be prescribed.”
(03/30/12 1:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In 2014, normal civilians will be able to take trips into space due to changes in the U.S. National Space Policy and changes in NASA’s research goals. According to a report from Reuters, commercial space travel is expected to become a billion-dollar industry by the end of the decade. Brian Tanner, owner of Spaceport Indiana, a launch site and research center based in Columbus, Ind., plans to be a part of this industry, which he said is not new.“I think a lot of the problem we have in the commercial space industry is we haven’t done a remarkably good job of marketing the fact that these things are going on,” Tanner said. “People still see them as us talking about, ‘Well in the future, someday we’ll have this opportunity.’ That’s not the case.”This travel will happen independently through various businesses around the nation and from different spaceports, such as Spaceport Indiana. NASA recently lost much of its funding due to budget cuts by the federal government. NASA is now making the shift from expensive launches for everyone — scientists, universities, etc. — to more specific goals.“In laymen’s terms, NASA’s going to get out of the repetitive launch business,” Tanner said. “They’re going to basically do astrobiology, deep-space and interplanetary research, putting Hubble telescopes up, those kind of things. In our case, we’re taking over the responsibilities of all the other research projects.”This includes high-altitude balloon launches and experiments involving near-space phenomenon at Spaceport Indiana specifically. Spaceport Indiana is part of an international group of spaceports that operate independently from NASA. While some spaceports in the United States are funded by tax dollars or collaboration between the government and industries, Spaceport Indiana is one of two spaceports in the nation that is completely privately owned.Tanner explained the spaceports and new space travel industry as similar to the interstate system when it began. “If you go back and think about Eisenhower and the interstate system that he created in the ‘50s, what you see from that is the spaceports become the off-ramps for what I call the interspace system that gets you from one place to another,” Tanner said. He said like off-ramp areas on the interstate, the spaceports could become an economic hub for the area. He said he thinks this is possible for Columbus in the next decade. “Anywhere there’s an on-and-off ramp or a spaceport, it becomes an economic development, a workforce development,” Tanner said. “Just like when you get off the off-ramp on a highway, you see the gas station and the hotel and the restaurant, you find the same kind of supporting services at spaceports.”Tanner said Spaceport Indiana currently only operates unmanned flights. These are paid for by businesses, universities and a variety of other customers. But Tanner said Spaceport Indiana is working on its infrastructure so that, in 2014, it will be ready to receive and launch manned civilian flights.He said different businesses around the country are already booking these flights. “Vehicles have already been built,” Tanner said. “In fact, some of these companies have already sold as many as 500 or 600 tickets for $200,000 apiece to basically go take a ride in space for 90 minutes.”Tanner said these flights will definitely occur, and space travel is not a thing of the distant future. “It’s not just feasible. It’s a fact,” Tanner said. “It’s going to be happening in 2014.”
(03/28/12 3:35am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>On March 21, a rabid bat bit a resident of Teter Quad, said Mark Land, associate vice president for university communications.The student was sleeping when the bat bit him. Land said the student then woke up, shook the bat off in the hallway and went back to sleep. Later that day, the bat was captured alive by Teter staff and sent to the Indiana State Department of Health for disease testing. It died on the way. On Thursday, the bat was determined to be rabid.Land said even before the official declaration of rabies, the bitten student had gone to the health center to have the bite examined. As soon as it was determined the bat was rabid, he began rabies vaccinations, as did his roommate, as a precaution.How the bat got into the dorm room remains a mystery, Land said. “We very quickly launched an investigation,” Land said. “We wanted to make sure there was no bat infestation.” No infestation was found in the dorm or in the trees surrounding Teter Quad. Land said no holes or tears were found in the window screen in the room. “We didn’t see anything obvious,” Land said. “The student’s room has a screen in it, and the screen wasn’t torn. We looked around to make sure there wasn’t any little opening in a wall or a pipe or whatever. We probably will never know at this point.”Teter residents received an email Tuesday alerting them to the situation and urging them to visit the IU Health Center if they came into contact with a bat or even woke up with a bat in their room, said Diana Ebling, medical director of the health center.“You do want to act as soon as possible and as soon as you know you might be at risk,” Ebling said. “Typically, it’s someone who’s been bitten or if they’ve been touched or scratched by an animal with rabies.”As for the state of the bitten student, both Land and Ebling said they could not comment due to confidentiality.“I would just say everything is fine,” Ebling said. Both Land and Ebling emphasized the rarity of the situation but also the need for students to be proactive in preventing any sort of contact with wild animals.“This is the first documented rabid animal in Monroe County in over 30 years,” Land said. “We sent a note to everybody in Teter telling them what happened and educating everybody with a little common sense. You know if you see a bat in the dorm, don’t pick it up. Don’t approach it. You just don’t know.”
(03/26/12 12:36am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In front of a crowd of children and their parents, Stephen Gurney pulled an alligator out of a cooler. Many gathered in a conference room at WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology on Saturday, gasped and then laughed as he held the small creature up. Children gathered on foam mats in front of Gurney’s stacks of cages and coolers while parents watched from chairs behind. Parents snapped photos as the kids all leaned forward to better inspect the alligator. This animal wasn’t for touching, but later, when Gurney took out a rabbit, skunk and tree frog, among other animals, the kids rushed forward to poke and prod the animals.Many of the animals were foreign to the kids, but for WonderLab in downtown Bloomington, a live animal show such as this is routine. “Throughout the year, we do live animals for shows maybe three or four times,” said Staci Radford-Vincent, program and outreach manager for WonderLab. “So generally once a quarter, and then for spring break, we do a bunch at one time.”Gurney is part of the group Indiana Wild. He said he brings his animals to birthday parties, church programs and facilities such as WonderLab to do themed shows. The theme for this show was nocturnal animals. Gurney said he hopes these shows educate as well as excite his child audiences. “I hope they learn some things about some of the animals,” he said. “I always educate about animals because I’m a teacher.”During the week, Gurney teaches in Fort Wayne. He joked during his show about walking around his classroom, teaching addition and subtraction with his ball python Beatrice wrapped around one arm. Gurney said some of the animals donated to Indiana Wild are wild, while others are purchased from zoos or elsewhere. “They all have a story,” Gurney said. “So it’s not really one spot where we get things.” Gurney’s show was hands-on, with kids interacting one-on-one with the animals. Radford-Vincent said WonderLab prefers this hands-on style. “Hands-on is really the best way for kids to learn because the experience becomes personal, and it becomes very relevant to their life when they can interact with what they’re learning about,” she said.Radford-Vincent said the show is of interest both to kids who aren’t usually exposed to animals and to those who are very interested in animals.“For some of the kids, they get to see animals that they’ve never seen before and touch animals they’ve never gotten to touch before,” she said. “For other kids who are highly interested in animals, it’s just incredibly exciting for them to come and really see these animals and get to share some of their knowledge. I think it’s a really unique experience.”
(03/25/12 11:43pm)
Stephen Gurney show a hermit crab to children during Wild Wildlife: A Live Animal Show on Saturday at WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and Technology. The event featured various types of nocturnal animals.
(03/23/12 3:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Suzie Lipps, principal of Martinsville West Middle School, was in her office the morning of March 25, 2011, when two shots rang out just down the hallway.“A staff member came into the office and told me she heard something that could’ve been a shot,” Lipps said. “When I saw the teacher’s face when she ran into the office, I knew it wasn’t just a disruption in the hallway. I knew it wasn’t just books falling. I knew it was something really horrible because of her face. “She just had this expression of ‘I can’t believe this.’ Then I ran out the back door to where that was, and the student was there, in the exit or in the little hallway, crumpled. The shooter had already run.”Lipps raced back to her office to make three phone calls: one to 911, one to the victim’s parents and one to Martinsville Superintendent Ron Furniss. Furniss was driving to work when he received the call from Lipps. Immediately, he changed his destination. “I went directly to West and joined in with the police officers who were there,” Furniss said. “I think for all of us, you don’t expect it to happen in your district.”It’s been one year since the shooting in Martinsville, in which 15-year-old Michael Phelps shot another student, Chance Jackson, also 15, and fled the scene, only to be caught and taken by police a short time after. Lipps said that, since then, the community as a whole has struggled to heal. With the Ohio school shooting several weeks ago, she said all of the Martinsville community members were thrown back to the incident from last year. “When I started seeing the images on television and online, the images of Ohio students, staff, family, everybody working together through the tragedy, automatically, it put us into recall to remember that spring morning last year in Martinsville,” Lipps said. “We’re still haunted with the question why.”Furniss said the event shocked the small community. “This is a good town and never had it happen before,” Furniss said. “I think any adult, certainly any educator, would tell you that’s the worst possible thing that could have happened in our district. It kind of destroyed our innocence.”Lipps said every member of the Martinsville community has had to find his or her own way to come to terms with the event.“I think the biggest challenge for everyone’s different,” Lipps said. “As educators, our biggest challenge throughout the crisis and still today is allowing everyone to heal and then move forward.”The shooting last year occurred just before the state-mandated ISTEP. Lipps said that, despite the incident, the school administration had no choice but to push forward with the test and with other end-of-the-year events. But they had to balance this need to move forward with the need for discussion about the event. “It’s hard to walk that line,” Lipps said. “It’s hard to keep everyone on track and say, ‘Hey, we have ISTEP next week, and our school’s splattered all over the news.’ Obviously, in a situation like that there’s all sorts of criticisms from various groups, but you just have to know as a staff we did everything we could.”Lipps said that at the end of the year, the school still had its honors celebration. Students organized fundraising events for the victim and his family, and they presented checks to the family. From there, Lipps said, Martinsville West Middle School made some policy changes to make sure such an event doesn’t happen again. For example, since the shooting incident occurred in a hallway where all of the students used to enter at the beginning of the day, the students have now been sectioned off into specific areas before classes start. Bus students go in through one entrance and stay in the gymnasium until the first bell rings. Students who walk or are dropped off at school go in through another entrance. “Our 600 students are split up, basically,” Lipps said. School administrators also had a 10-foot fence built around the school so that strangers cannot come and go from the campus. Another significant change is that a police officer is now present at Martinsville West Middle School at the beginning and end of the school day to oversee students. “Every morning, at 6:45, we have a police officer on our grounds until 7:45,” Lipps said. “He moves from school to school to make periodic checks. Then, at the end of the day, he’s back at West Middle School for the bus students and the walker students to leave until the school’s property’s cleared.”Furniss said the police presence has helped make students and parents feel more secure and that they’re good for students to be around. “They’re good people, first of all, they’re good models,” Furniss said. “Secondly, it never hurts to have an extra pair of eyes there. I think it gives everybody a sense of well-being.”Although many things can be done to prevent situations such as this, the Martinsville community recognizes that it could happen again, Lipps said. “We’re not going to say this is never going to happen in Martinsville again because it happened once,” Lipps said. “You know, people think that if you live in a small town it’s like Candy Land. Everything’s smooth and easy and comfortable. And we do have a bond, and we do have a sense of family, but it doesn’t mean that someone can’t be troubled and we can’t have a problem.”Lipps said Martinsville is continuing to heal and that the community’s thoughts and prayers go out to all in Ohio who were affected by the recent school shooting there. “It’s never going to go away,” Lipps said. “It’s a part of who we are, and I think it makes us stronger. All the compassion in the world to those Ohio people for us because we were there.”
(03/22/12 1:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When a tornado blew into southern Indiana towns last year, Jeremy Leming of Greenwood, Ind., and his dog, Gryce, were among the first to respond and look for the missing. “I started search and rescue with search dogs in 1999,” Leming said. “I joined the FEMA task force in 2001, about four or five months after 9/11 happened.”In 1999, Leming was given his first dog, a German shepherd. He said becoming a search and rescue dog trainer happened by accident. “We were given typical puppy obedience class,” Leming said. “As I was walking into class one day, I heard one of the instructors talking about his search and rescue dog. And I interrupted his conversation and said, ‘Excuse me, did you say you have search and rescue dogs?’”Leming said hearing about search and rescue dogs in Indiana shocked him.“You usually think of out West or in the mountains, that type of thing,” Leming said. “And he said, ‘Yeah, as a matter of fact, you could bring your puppy out, and we’ll see how he likes doing that type of work.’ From that point on, I knew immediately that’s what I needed to be doing.”The dogs are used mainly in disaster situations, such as the tornado and wind destruction that can occur in the southern half of the state during tornado season. But Leming said he’s taken dogs as far as New Orleans to search for survivors in the rubble of hurricanes, such as Gustav and Katrina.“We bring all of our equipment down to make sure that we’re self-sufficient for at least three days before we’d need backup or supplies or fuel or anything like that,” Leming said. “We go down, and we look for people that are lost, trapped in a collapsed structure, that type of situation.”Leming is currently taking a break from the search and rescue work and is working with basic obedience training with people’s pet dogs. He is also training dogs in the sport of Schutzhund, a breed suitability test for German shepherds. He said he hopes to return to search and rescue work in the near future, mostly because he misses the bond between him and any of his search and rescue dogs.“It’s a bond that almost is so tight, it’s almost like mind reading,” Leming said. “The dog responds to you sometimes before your command even comes out of your mouth because you spend so many hours working obedience, off-leash control, agility, all sorts of work.”Leming said this closeness is something most people never experience. “You spend that much time working with an animal, you know each other so deeply and intensely, that I guess that’s the only thing that would come that close is someone that you’ve been married to for a long time,” he said. He said this bond is by far his favorite part of what he does.“Spending the time getting to know the animals, spending that much time with them and getting to know them that well, is definitely the biggest reward of all of it,” he said.
(03/07/12 4:44am)
With 62 sugar babies on campus, IU is No. 17 in the nation for number of
collegiate sugar babies. New York University is No. 1 with 185 babies.
This data was compiled by counting the number of .edu domain names used
by babies on the site seekingarrangement.com, the leading sugar-baby
website.
(02/29/12 5:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The new Indiana Youth Group license plate, which supports gay, lesbian, queer, transgender and questioning youth in Indiana, might be eliminated after its unveiling just weeks ago. Legislation has been proposed in Indiana that would take these plates off the market, along with nine other plates for smaller organizations, said Mary Byrne, executive director for Indiana Youth Group. “Last Wednesday at the committee meeting, there was an amendment made by the chair that, number one, took away everyone’s license plate that was approved last year,” Byrne said. “Number two, took away any organization’s license plate that didn’t sell 1,000 plates. Then, it set out that from now on, it’s going to be the legislature that votes whether or not an organization can have one.”Dennis Rosebrough, deputy commissioner for external affairs of the Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles, said that, as the law stands, 2,000 plates must be sold for more than four years for any specialty plate’s production to continue. This number breaks down to only 500 plates a year, rather than 1,000.As of Feb. 27, he said, 413 of the Indiana Youth Group plates have been sold. “Under the current law, we accept applications through March 1 and then, if they are approved, then the license is issued for the following year,” Rosebrough said. He said the Bureau of Motor Vehicles does not take part in legislative proceedings, including the one that is challenging the Indiana Youth Group plate.The members of Indiana Youth Group, without question, feel the current amendment is targeting them specifically, Byrne said. As it reads now, the amendment does not apply to “government or quasi-government, and college or university” plates. It eliminates license plates that did not sell 1,000 plates in 2011, and it states no further production can continue for groups that didn’t meet this amount.Byrne said this legislation means no new groups that applied will be allowed to have plates this year. “There are 59 organizations that have specialty license plates,” she said. “So they’re going to drop 22, even though we have a contract that was just signed by everybody in the administration. And the weird part about it is, too, that the benchmark has always been 500. So those 12 organizations that have been dropped because they don’t have 1,000 have no notice whatsoever.” Byrne said an earlier, more specific bill targeted the Indiana Youth Group because the organization stands for gay rights. The bill was too narrow, she said, as it clearly targeted them, and therefore did not pass. She said the new bill makes no attempts to curtail applications in the future, but it’s temporary, only applying to the new plates this year, which is the year Indiana Youth Group became the first organization with a specialty plate to support GLBT people.“There’s nothing else in the bill that puts any extra requirements or criteria that, in the future, would decrease the number of organizations,” she said. Byrne said the reasoning the state has given for this new amendment is that the plate program is “a burden on the state” and “a hardship for the state police.” She said both arguments do not make sense. Rosebrough said specialty plates cost an additional $40, $25 of which goes to the organization and $15 of which goes to the state. “The state’s making money on us,” Byrne said. “And the other thing that they’re saying is, it’s a hardship for the state police. They’re all unique, no matter what the little symbol on the left is.”She said police scanners should be able to read any plate without difficulty, making that argument invalid. “There’s no one else who is targeting the Zoo or Special Olympics or the Marine organization to take their plates away,” she said. “It’s just us.”Byrne said the plates were going to be a source of revenue for the nonprofit group. Although the group can reapply next year, it then takes a year for the plates to go into effect, so they would be without this revenue for two years. “It’s going to be devastating to our budget, which we’ve already set,” Byrne said. “It came out of nowhere.”
(02/24/12 1:56am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Laura Jacoby knew something was different about her young son, but no one would listen to her.“Originally, we had taken him to the doctor because we had a lot of problems with him wandering off, and he’d been thrown out of preschool,” Jacoby said. “When we’d talk to him ... it’s like he didn’t understand. He didn’t know what we were doing.”Her son Jackson, now age 7, wasn’t like other kids. He had developmental and speech delays, and he seemed to be off in his own world. Jacoby turned to doctors. “The first psychologist we went to basically looked at him, watched him play for 15 minutes and said, ‘Oh, he has ADHD. Come back when he’s in first grade, and we’ll give him medicine,’” she said.Jacoby said she knew that diagnosis didn’t quite fit, and she began to do research of her own. “I was looking something up on the Internet, and I started reading through a bunch of signs, and I thought, ‘You know, as much as I don’t want this to be a problem, a lot of these are a lot more familiar than I want them to be,’” she said.She was looking at signs of autism.Now, partially due to rising autism rates, doctors are working to improve and narrow its definition. The current manual in use for diagnosing autism is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, and the upcoming fifth edition will contain a new definition and parameters for autism. As the definition stands in DSM IV, autism is roughly divided into three groups based on severity. The new definition would not be divided as such and would focus more on sensory processing problems.In the past several decades, autism rates have risen drastically. In 1930, the rate was essentially zero. Now, autism occurs in one of every 100 children, according to a National Survey of Children’s Health study. Mark Blaxill is a leading expert and advocate for autism awareness in the United States and co-author of the book “The Age of Autism: Mercury, Medicine, and a Man-Made Epidemic.”“After 1990, the rate of autism exploded, and many times. Ten-fold, a hundred-fold,” Blaxill said. “We were at zero less than a century ago.”According to an article published in Science Based Medicine, much controversy has occurred about whether vaccines are linked to autism. However, some researchers believe the rise might be because of autism’s broadening definition, rather than autism being caused by the environment. Blaxill said he believes the evidence points to an environmental cause — more specifically, mercury exposure. “If you wanted to design a drug to cause autism, mercury would do that effectively, and we’ve seen that in animal models,” he said. He said mercury can come from anything from certain immunizations in pregnant women or children to mercury present in the environment as a result of the Industrial Revolution and coal burning. One of Blaxill’s daughters has autism, and he said her diagnosis drove him to delve into the world of these disorders. “When my daughter was diagnosed in 1988 ... I did everything I could to get to the front of the line, and there were long lines for the appointments, to see every expert and specialist I could find,” Blaxill said. But he encountered a problem, he said. “Very quickly, I had meetings with some of the world experts, and it was pretty apparent pretty quickly that the only thing they were interested with me was money,” Blaxill said. “They had really nothing to offer except for the ability to place a label on your child.”Jacoby experienced similar frustrations. Everyone kept trying to reassure her nothing was amiss, she said. “Our pediatrician ... he was looking for major signs, and it was a little more subtle than that, than a 15-minute visit when you see the doctor,” she said. “You’ve got one side pushing and saying you want to get him help as soon as possible, and you’ve got the other side pushing saying, ‘Oh, he’ll grow out of it,’ and you feel caught in the middle.”Both Jacoby and Blaxill said it was hard to know where to turn after the diagnosis was reached. “We didn’t know really who to go to or who to ask,” Jacoby said.One Bloomington-based organization, the Indiana Resource Center for Autism, is trying to bridge this information gap.“It has a mission to do research as well as training, as well as disseminating information to folks,” center representative Marci Wheeler said. She said that, with the upswing in cases of autism, the center has become busier. “We get many more inquiries, phone calls, emails, people visiting, asking for information, saying they feel their child may have this, so they want to look into diagnosing,” she said. She also said the increase might have been caused by better diagnosing methods. “The people were out there, and many of them were getting seen, but they might have been with a different label,” she said. However, those labels could be changing again. The movement to possibly limit and change criteria for autism is leaving some parents afraid their children might be cut out from the help and benefits available for their disorder, Wheeler said.“Are people going to be misdiagnosed because there won’t be a category that they fit?” Wheeler asked. She said she didn’t have an answer. Blaxill said that with autism, it’s a struggle between the “crazy parents” and the scientists, who decide matters such as labels. “The medical community is defensive in ways that are just beyond comprehension,” Blaxill said. “It’s the crazy parents against the white-coated experts who have science on their side, and that’s a bold-faced lie.” Jacoby said she had to fight physicians at times and try different routes to get answers for her son. Then, once she had answers, she said she felt as if she was already behind on treatment. “By the time you know there’s something wrong, you feel that you’re behind because they’re like, ‘You have to do all this stuff as soon as you can,’” she said. “And as soon as you get someone to listen to what you’re saying ... you already feel guilt because you’re already behind.” She stressed that concerned parents need to keep pushing and trust their instincts. “If you really think there’s something wrong, and you’re not getting the answers you want, try and find a different way to get those answers,” Jacoby said. She also said her son is doing better than he was, now that he has been diagnosed and is being treated accordingly. “It takes longer, and it takes a lot of work, and it doesn’t always go at the pace you want,” Jacoby said. “It does get better.”
(02/22/12 5:22am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The country’s eyes may be on the presidential primaries this spring, but in Indiana, two Republicans and a Democrat are gearing up for a fight for two-term Gov. Mitch Daniels’ office.The gubernatorial candidates are making rounds of the state in an effort to win voters. Republican candidate Jim Wallace and Democratic candidate John Gregg were in Bloomington on Tuesday, and they discussed with the IDS some of the issues they think are most important this election cycle. Republican candidate Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th District, contributed to the discussion via email. What do you think is the biggest issue this election cycle?John Gregg (D): It’s jobs. It’s jobs. I’ve been doing this since January of last year 24/7, and that’s all people want to talk about is jobs. If they’re our age, your age or anything in between, that’s all they want to talk about. Any time we spend one second in this nation talking about anything that doesn’t have to do with jobs, it’s wasting time.Mike Pence (R): Jobs. No question about it, and after that, education. As governor, I will focus like a laser on job creation and helping make our schools among the best in the nation.Jim Wallace (R): It’s job growth and economic development. A high-schooler who has just graduated looking for an opportunity instead of college, or you’re a fresh college graduate, or you’re somebody mid-career or even retiring looking for transitional employment. By a margin of 8-to-1, Hoosiers are much more concerned with that.What would be the first thing you focus on or do if you are elected?Gregg: We’ve got great opportunities in the energy business. When I see those wind farms, I want to know why those aluminum blades are not made in Indiana. We make aluminum. I want to know why that steel shaft holding everything up isn’t made in Indiana. Most of that stuff comes from Europe. Why aren’t we making those here? We’re a manufacturing state. We also are traditionally an agricultural state. How can we go to sustainability and also green? How can we add jobs in this area? How do we go from the traditional automobile and steel and still do that, but then go to the advanced manufacturing? These are things we need to do.Pence: Job creation and making sure our kids have a great education.Wallace: There’s two things that are at the forefront of our agenda. The first is expanding something called the EDGE credit, which is called the Economic Development for Growing Economies (Tax) Credit. The second is something I’m really excited about, particularly because I have kids in college, the PRIME credit. It’s something we’re introducing that stands for the Public Research Investment Management Employment Credit, which would create a special credit for graduates of our higher universities. We’re one of the few states that don’t already do that, and if we want to retain our best and brightest folks from our schools ... that’s one clear and easy way to do that. Not costly at all to do that.Why should a college student vote for you?Gregg: I have a son who’s a sophomore in college. ... I’m a former college president myself. We talk about jobs. I think that number one, the whole idea of jobs if I was sitting here as a college student would be, “Am I going to be able to get a job that pays well enough to pay off my debt? Am I going to be voting for someone concerned enough with the availability and accessibility of college? Am I voting for someone who wants to see us work together on some of these opportunities that have to do with the environment?” There’s a big difference in the vision I have for Indiana than my likely opponent. My likely opponent is one from the top down, where they run it out of Washington, they run it out of Indianapolis. My idea of a vision is from the bottom up. I think that the students that are coming into college ... seem to have a greater awareness of the problems facing us. I think they’re kind of tired of people just fussing and fighting for the sake of fussing and fighting. Pence: With a son attending college here in Indiana, I am very much aware of the need to make college affordable for Hoosiers, find ways to help students complete their degrees on time and then help them find a good job once they graduate. As governor, my focus will also be on making sure there are plenty of employment opportunities in Indiana for our college and university students so they can give back their talents and help make Indiana an even better place to live and raise a family.Wallace: I have, as I mentioned, two children in college ... and this is what I do. I focus on economic development for folks entering the job market. My entire career’s been focused on creating jobs and economic development ... and I would think as a student nowadays, it won’t do anybody any good if we don’t have jobs.
(02/22/12 2:54am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The new ImagineBloomington initiative kicked off Tuesday. The program includes workshops and surveys in which residents can help shape the city’s future. From this feedback, Scott Robinson, transportation and long-range manager for Bloomington, said officials will devise a plan for Bloomington’s future. “We’ll kind of craft a vision statement,” Robinson said.He said the project is currently beginning and that officials hope to receive more comments about what people like and don’t like about the city. The entire process will take about five years to go into full effect.“Some of the feedback that we’ve received so far is about the downtown,” Robinson said. “They think it’s a great downtown.”Katie Bannon, zoning and long-range planner for Bloomington, said the workshops will be available for all residents to participate in and will run in various locations for about 90 minutes.“We’re going to start by just getting people’s general ideas,” Bannon said about the workshops. “We hope there will be some commonalities.”The workshops will take place in neighborhoods around the city and at schools. A list of all locations is available at, bloomington.in.gov/imaginebloomington. People unable to attend workshops can fill out surveys or participate in forum discussions online, Bannon said. Bannon and Robinson said they hope IU students will give feedback even though many are temporary residents. “We always wish there would be more student involvement,” Robinson said. “They’re not really plugged in. They’re about half the population of the city, and they do play a huge role.”Bannon said the city has set up tables on campus to survey students and talk to them about the good and bad aspects of Bloomington. She said she hopes students will participate because, even if they are visitors, they will likely return at some point to visit their old school. “It really is important what you think,” she said. “We want to be sure what you return to is what you enjoyed most about your time here.”
(02/21/12 1:23am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s 1 p.m. on a Sunday, but inside Jake’s Nightclub, it might as well be Saturday night. The lights are low and warm, and two women walk onto the raised stage, one in a tight, black leotard corset and heels, the other in a long, blue sequined dress and elbow-length red gloves. Rhinestones stud the base of the second woman’s false eyelashes.Music starts, and the two women stop to stand next to each other on stage. The corseted woman begins to take off the other woman’s gloves with her teeth. This is the dress rehearsal for the Bloomington Burlesque Brigade, the city’s only burlesque troupe. The two women — who go by the stage names Vixen Vajazzle and Scarlet Nopantson — will perform in shows at 10 p.m. and midnight Saturday at Jake’s Nightclub. Doors open at 9 p.m.The Brigade was founded in 2009, but the group it grew out of was founded in 2001 by Jada B the Emcee. Jada B said the original group, called Verbal Terrorism Productions, was founded in reaction to 9/11. “When you bomb a place, it’s theatrics,” Jada said. “So we were like, what pushed these people to go to such extremes? And what kind of other theatrics could you use to get your point across?”The group was originally a poetry and performance group. Jada said she thought about bringing burlesque into the mix, but was hesitant. “Bloomington was, like, not even ready for that at that point in time,” Jada said. “And there wasn’t the infrastructure, in terms of people.”In 2009, Jada received the chance she needed to bring burlesque to Bloomington. “The health center was actually doing this thing called Sex Week,” Jada said. “They knew that I did stuff around town. ... They asked me to do something for Sex Week, an artistic event. I think really they were thinking really small, but they said, ‘We have a lot of money.’ And I said, ‘Oh, really? I would like to do a burlesque cabaret.’ They were on board.”The event in 2009 was a huge success, Jada said, and the official Brigade was born from that event. Scarlet said she knew Jada for years through the queer community in Bloomington, before she joined the Brigade. She said burlesque is a much different experience than other performances she has participated in. “I’ve been performing in different ways for a while,” Scarlet said. “But burlesque is a lot more satisfying than acting for me because I get to control so many different aspects that I couldn’t before.”She found she could control her own costumes, choreography and concepts for her routines, Scarlet said. The women also typically purchase these items themselves. Although they are paid a bit for their performances, Scarlet said, for the most part, the women work regular jobs during the day. “We have full-time jobs, most of us,” she said. Vixen also took a while to join the Brigade. She said she spent time debating whether to join. “It takes a lot of nerve to get up there and perform your art that way,” Vixen said. “First, I started stage kittening, which is where you pick up clothes after the performers. So, I did that for a while and kind of worked my way into it.”During the dress rehearsal, Scarlet said she still gets nervous before shows, but not as much as before her first performance. “The nerves never go away,” she said. “But the first one’s just, ‘Don’t freeze up,’ ‘Oh my god, are they going to cheer for me? I hope they cheer for me,’ and ‘Oh my god, I’m getting naked.’”Although burlesque shows consist of skits, singing and other performances, nudity and stripping are often part of the show. Scarlet said the nudity doesn’t bother her as much now. “It’s really empowering to have people yell and clap for you and genuinely enjoy what you’re doing,” she said. “It’s a sexual type of performance, and people are looking at your body, and I think it’s nice to be appreciated.”Vixen said she also still gets nervous before shows, but that she finds yoga helps her, as well as deep breathing. “I don’t think the nerves ever totally go away, and that’s really part of the fun of it,” she said. “It’s an adrenaline rush.”For the show this Saturday, Jada is trying to ease the performers’ nerves with the dress rehearsal and by making sure everyone has the routines down. Jada said their events typically draw about 200 people per show. She said of those 200, 100 are a result of Jada’s recruiting and advertising, 50 come from the girls’ recruiting and the remaining 50 are completely new customers.Vixen said many of her friends know she does burlesque as a hobby. “Most of my friends know and have been very supportive,” she said. “My family knows and has been supportive.”Then Vixen laughed. “But it’s not usually the first thing I discuss with someone,” she said.
(02/15/12 2:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When she was in school, Ruth Hickman didn’t know she would end up with the job she has today, mostly because, at the time, her job as Monroe County’s election supervisor might not have existed. “There probably wasn’t one,” she said. “But as elections got bigger and populations just increased ... that’s a lot of stuff to keep track of and a lot of parts.”Monroe County has almost 95,000 registered voters. Hickman, along with County Clerk Linda Robbins, is in charge of registering voters and delegates for elections. With the upcoming elections this year, her office has been especially busy.“During a presidential year, or a year where there might be registration drives, then they might accept huge volumes of registrations, and then they enter them into a statewide voter registration system,” Hickman said.She said she has been especially busy this past month.“I think I had probably more than 200 filings here and there this last filing period,” she said.Filing for the May 8 primary election ran from Jan. 11 to Feb. 10.Another major component of what her office does is register delegates, the people who actually cast votes in elections on behalf of the voters. Her office registers delegates to the state conventions, where, for example, delegates will vote for the Republican candidate Indiana will vote for to run nationally.She said that, given the numerous Republican candidates fighting to run in the national election, there has been more interest in being a Republican delegate, as these delegates will get to help decide who gets the party nomination for the presidential election. “They’re filing to be a candidate to be a delegate to go to the state convention,” she said. “They like the idea that their name appears in writing on a ballot with a presidential candidate that they’re supporting.” Hickman is not new to working within the election process. She has worked in the voter registration office for five years and assumed the post of election supervisor last year. “I’ve been involved in the election process for a long, long time,” she said. “And really, this was the only part I hadn’t been involved with, and I thought, ‘Well, why don’t I give this a try?’”She said she worked in the office during the 2008 presidential election.“The general election of 2008 was amazingly crazy, and I just loved every minute of it,” she said. “There’s just an incredible amount of parts. And the amazing thing is, there’s an incredible amount of people who volunteer, there’s an incredible amount of people who are paid a stipend, and yet they come back year after year.”
(02/15/12 2:16am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>It’s Girl Scout Cookies season. This means the traditional Thin Mints, Samoas and Tagalongs are once again for sale. Although this year marks the 100th anniversary of Girl Scouts of the United States of America, there are some changes. Girl Scouts have decided to take their cookie sales into the future by using technology. If people are having problems locating cookies, said Deanna Potterf, the media contact for the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, there’s now an application to assist them. “They can register where they’re having Girl Scout Cookie sale booths,” Potterf said. “They upload that information into this online tool, and then that information is put on our Girl Scout Cookie app. (Consumers) can search and look for Girl Scout Cookies being sold in their area.”The app is available for smart phones, and it’s free. It’s called FindCookies, and a user can either use his or her current location or enter a city, state or zip code to locate cookies. The app will then provide a list of registered cookie locations, along with the hours Girl Scouts will be there and directions. It can also be used to see where cookies will be up to a week ahead of time. “Last year was the first kind of big year for the cookie app, and it’s been really popular this year,” Potterf said. “We had an increase in sales last year.” There’s another possible increase, as well — in price.Girl Scout Cookies prices can vary based on where the cookies are being sold, and there is no real national regulation in that pricing, Potterf said. “There’s nothing really governing how much a package of Girl Scout Cookies costs,” she said. Different councils regulate different geographical Girl Scout areas. “Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, we serve 45 counties in Indiana, 41,000 girls,” Potterf said. “We are chartered by Girl Scouts of the USA.”In this region, which includes Monroe County, Girl Scout Cookies are being sold for $3.50.But in the north, the price is different. Julie Somogyi, the director of integrated marketing and communications for the Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, said their cookies are being sold for $4 a box.She said their own board members decided on this price by evaluating their geographic area, and that the price depends on which vendor the cookies are being bought from. “There are actually two licensed Girl Scout Cookie bakers,” Potterf said. “And they’re licensed by our organizations. One cookie baker is called Little Brownie Bakers.”This is the vendor used by the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana. The second vendor is based in Richmond, Va., and is called America’s Best Cookies, Potterf said.Prices from these two vendors might vary, causing the overall price to change. “It depends on which of the two vendors the council elects to go to,” Somogyi said. “We have Thin Mints across the board, for example. There are, I believe, four cookies that both vendors must provide, and then they can round out with a couple of different options.”Despite variations in cost — and despite the present economic conditions — Potterf said they’re expecting sales to increase this year once again, as they did last year. “Right now, what we have as far as facts is initial orders,” Potterf said. “Initial orders were up. We were up in the amount of Girl Scout Cookies that were sold, and we’re hoping that cookies will be up again this year.”Potterf also said all proceeds from cookie sales, aside from paying the vendors, stay in the community.