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(03/06/12 2:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Bloomington gives back, and at a higher rate than the Hoosier and national averages. On Feb. 21, the City of Bloomington Volunteer Network released its first member agency survey, which collected data about volunteerism in the community.“We are always surprised and enlightened by how many volunteers are out here in Bloomington and how many hours they put in,” said Volunteer Network Assistant Director Lucy Schaich. Research released by the Corporation for National and Community Service, a federal agency, revealed an average of 34 percent of Bloomington residents volunteer, higher than the 28-percent Indiana rate and 26-percent U.S. rate. Bloomington had 24,264 total volunteers who completed 437,885 hours of service in 2011. “If you take the volunteers away, it really just isn’t Bloomington anymore,” Schaich said.Of the organizations surveyed, 83 percent consider IU student volunteers essential, very important or important to their operational success. “With 40,000 students right here in our community, they are the engine that makes our volunteer organizations go,” Schaich said. At Shalom Community Center, a day shelter for individuals experiencing poverty and homelessness, the daily volunteer circuit outnumbers the center’s regular staff by almost 4-to-1. It needs 26 volunteers to function on a daily basis. “When students are gone, we’re hurting. I call it our lean time. I always dread spring break because of that,” Shalom Director of Volunteer Services Pam Kinnaman said. The Volunteer Network is helping combat these lag times during vacations with its “Fill the Volunteer Gap!” initiative. “Volunteering during spring, summer and winter breaks is a huge help to these agencies who utilize volunteers to maintain their services year round,” Volunteer Network Director Bet Savich said in an email. Meagan Niese, development director for Habitat for Humanity of Monroe County, said her organization has an average of 1,600 volunteers every year. “Volunteering for Bloomington makes Bloomington a better place to live,” she said. “Not only do our organizations benefit, but our volunteers get a chance to come together and work with people who are maybe different from them and learn something along the way.” Schaich said the Network has suggested to its members that they develop better methods for tracking their volunteers’ hours to make compiling data an easier task.
(02/28/12 3:51am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>And then there were three — Top Ten Video, Plan Nine Film Emporium and Family Video. For a decade, signs of a third red scare have quietly crept into grocery stores, McDonald’s drive-throughs and gas stations across the nation. But it’s not a fear of communist infiltration that has video store owners biting their nails. For them, the Redbox revolution means an influx of 12-square-feet kiosks. And in Bloomington, doors have closed because of it. During the last five years, three Bloomington Blockbuster locations and two Movie Gallery stores disappeared, as did the Classic Pyx and The Cinemat before them. Two locally-owned video stores, Top Ten Video and Plan Nine Film Emporium, survived. Two years ago, Family Video, a company with more than 735 stores in 19 states, moved into the building where Movie Gallery had been previously located.The three businesses attract different demographics and offer various products at varying prices. However, their owners share a common value for friendly service and customer interaction — something they said a box or a website cannot offer. “That Redbox isn’t going to tell you, ‘I’m not going to charge you, even though your rental is two days late, because you come in here often,’” said Dick Wilson, who has owned Top Ten Video since 1987. He said his friendly relationships with his customers and that his business is independently owned allows him to write his own rules, instead of sticking to stringent, impersonal policies. Wilson and his store manager, David Deboer, know many of their customers by face, if not by name. Eddie Rainey, who has had a customer membership account with Top Ten since the 1980s, is on a first name basis with the employees. “It’s personable, and I just like coming here,” Rainey said. “I do not like Redbox at all. You can never find what you want. Here, you have a wide selection of movies, and you can come in and get the exact movie you want, and they almost always have it.” Although selection size is also a contributing factor to why Una Winterman rents her movies from Top Ten, she said that, more importantly, she wants to support local business. Winterman is cofounder of the Bloomington nonprofit Local First Indiana, an organization committed to supporting locally-owned, independent businesses in the community. “It affects all the shopping I do,” she said. “Generally, if you shop locally, it impacts the economy, really, in a key way.”A study published in 2008 by Civic Economics and Local First West Michigan determined that for every $100 spent at an independent, locally-owned business, $68 of it stays in the local economy — but the same amount of money spent at a non-locally owned business only injects $43 back into the community. Erin Tobey, the store manager at Plan Nine Film Emporium, said her employees have a soft spot for preserving and supporting local business, too. “I work here out of dedication to the media,” she said. “I think there’s definitely something to be said for just being able to occupy the physical space and pick up the physical boxes to look at and read the covers. People are comforted by being able to physically move from space to space. It’s so overwhelming to have such an abstract, unlimited selection like the Netflix library.”Tobey said because Plan Nine’s library is less mainstream and more alternative cult, horror and foreign films, they compete with the Netflix model rather than Redbox. In the last year, the business has implemented a program they modeled after Netflix. Their customers can pay a set fee each month — $15 per month for two rentals at a time or $20 per month for three rentals at a time — for unlimited access and no late fees. Tobey said 60 to 75 percent of their customers participate in this club. “We definitely had to evolve to compete,” she said. “I feel like our biggest competitor is Netflix and online streaming. Most of our success, I would say, is solely due to the loyalty of our customers and the soul of Bloomington to see our local businesses succeed.”Top Ten has also had to adapt to the changing movie market. “We’ve had to try to diversify,” Wilson said. For 10 years, Top Ten has sold an eclectic sampling of products to boost profits. Wilson sells cigarettes, soda, popcorn, candy, ice cream, phone cards and pre-paid cellphones. He said he sells 500 to 600 phones a year. Wilson said he hopes his cheaper prices and extended rental windows will give renters an incentive to drive to his store on South Walnut Street, rather than swing by one of the 15 Redbox kiosks in Bloomington. He said he read in an article that the average rental time for a Redbox DVD is 2.7 days. At $1.20 per day for Redbox DVDs, it is cheaper to rent from Top Ten, where their new releases are $3.74 for five days. All three businesses said being in a college town helps business. Both Family Video and Plan Nine are open until midnight, and Top Ten sticks around until two in the morning. “The late hours make the difference,” Wilson said. “We get the bar crowd.” But Redbox and Netflix are available 24/7, and that is appealing to a large demographic of Americans. According to an article in Home Media Magazine, Redbox rented 684 million DVDs and installed 5,200 new kiosks in 2011. It now accounts for 37 percent of the U.S. physical disk rental market. “Redbox is the fast, easy and convenient way to rent new release movies and video games,” Redbox Senior Public Relations Manager Kate Brennan said in an email. “Each kiosk holds more than 600 discs, representing up to 200 titles, including standard definition DVDs, Blu-ray Discs and video games, making Redbox a fully automated video rental store contained in 12-square feet of retail space.”Family Video store manager Heidi Zumkeller said movie companies are starting to implement policies that favor video stores because Redbox and Netflix have hurt their sales. Rental stores have a one-month head start. Companies such as Redbox and Netflix now have to wait 56 days after movies hit stores such as Walmart to rent them out. Video stores only have to wait 28 days.For students in a unfamiliar town, the most consistent rental place that exists across the country is Redbox.“If I ever rent, I go to Redbox because they usually have the new releases I want,” senior Alexa Zeller said. “It is just so convenient when you’re at the store to grab a movie on your way out.”
(02/27/12 3:06am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>There was no crowd cheering and no Big Ten championship to claim. They weren’t even wearing cream and crimson. During the weekend, a team of 11 Army Reserve Officer Training Corps cadets slipped into uniform to defend their Hoosier pride in the German Armed Forces Badge for Military Proficiency competition. Last weekend, IU Army ROTC hosted its sixth annual competition. More than 230 cadets from 32 schools across the Midwest flooded Gladstein Fieldhouse and Camp Atterbury, an Indiana National Guard training base in Edinburgh, Ind. IU is the only school nationwide where other schools congregate to compete against each other, said Lt. Col. Michael Ogden, director of military science and commander of IU Army ROTC. “It is just a way to have some competition for our cadets,” Ogden said. “They don’t get to go toe-to-toe on the basketball court or football field.” The German Armed Forces Badge for Military Proficiency is a military skills test open to any member of the Army. A foreign badge founded by Germany, it was made available to U.S. service members in 1972. Both German soldiers and members of their allied forces are eligible to compete for the high honor. “It’s important because it’s something different to meet another country’s requirements, to share something, to give something back,” said Sgt. Maj. Frank Zindel, the competition’s German Army liaison. “It requires skills these cadets are not usually doing during their career, and it’s interesting to see them compete in this environment.”The badge is awarded on three levels: bronze, silver and gold. Participants’ rankings depend upon their performance in the 10-kilometer road march and pistol shooting exercise portions of the weekend. But a participant can fail out of the competition if he or she is unable to complete a list of other tasks, too, including a 200-meter swim, 5-kilometer run, written first aid exam, long jump/high jump, shot put and 100-meter sprint. If a participant fails just one of the skills, he or she is eliminated for the weekend. “It’s challenging in a different way,” IU senior cadet Matt Dunaway said. Dunaway served as the cadet officer in charge of the weekend’s events, coordinating with the other 30 senior cadets in the program to plan the competition. He said he participated in the competition both his sophomore and junior years, failing his first time after running the Saturday morning 5-kilometer in freezing weather on sheets of ice. But he said he told himself, like many who fail their first time, “I can’t let the German badge beat me.” He passed his junior year. Now, as a senior with his badge, he sees the prestige in the accomplishment and the value of the competition. “It definitely requires you to push yourself mentally and physically,” Dunaway said. “It’s a great thing for everyone to participate in and something you can wear your whole life. It helps bring all these schools from around the U.S. together and gives cadets a chance to build camaraderie and talk about each other’s programs.” But the Hoosier team effort extended beyond the IU competitors. “Everything that happens this weekend is a direct result of our seniors,” Dunaway said. The group of 31 seniors prepared for the weekend for three months, coordinating registration, food, accommodations and volunteers to run the events. They also were responsible for compiling data on the badge status of each cadet throughout the weekend. “This gives every soldier an opportunity to show physical and mental strength,” Zindel said. “It is very well-planned and well-organized. Every time I am here, it’s fantastic to see all of these young cadets. It’s not easy to earn that badge, and these cadets are prepared for that.” IU team captain and senior cadet Derek Remlinger said he has been preparing his team for months by conducting the initial tryouts, planning workouts and selecting the final team. Under Remlinger’s guidance, the team ran together at the 5-kilometer and marched as a group for the road march, where they were required to carry a minimum of 35 pounds on their backs. “It’s for team support and motivation. You really try harder when people expect it out of you,” he said. “You have to be really well-rounded to compete. Everyone that makes it to Sunday are those really well-rounded guys you want.” Eight of the 11 competitors on the IU team made it to the Sunday road march at Camp Atterbury. Four finished with a silver badge, and four finished with gold. Zindel presented cadets who passed the competition with their German Armed Forces Badge for Military Proficiency at a ceremony Sunday afternoon. Western Michigan was the best team overall, claiming nine gold badges for their team. Of the 230 cadets registered for the competition, 149 advanced to Sunday. Eighty-nine earned gold, 27 earned silver and 33 claimed bronze badges.Although he had hit all five targets time and again in practice, on Saturday, senior cadet Steve Szrom missed the mark and didn’t advance to the track-and-field section of the competition. Instead, Szrom positioned himself by the long jump, giving remaining competitors, not just IU cadets, pointers on how to refine their technique. During the road march Sunday morning, he walked up and down the trail, encouraging each cadet he passed. Dunaway pointed out this was just another example of the spirit of IU Army ROTC.“It’s like Lieutenant Colonel Odgen always tells us, ‘Go out to be the best,’” Dunaway said.
(02/24/12 1:53am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Last week, the organic food market went transcontinental.On Feb. 15, the United States Department of Agriculture announced a new partnership between the U.S. and the European Union that would make the exchange of organic food products possible and affordable for both.Starting June 1, organic products certified in the U.S. or the E.U. can be sold in both markets. Currently, the U.S. and E.U. have their own sets of regulations for certifying food as organic. The new partnership makes these regulations universal in both.“What they did is called harmonization,” said Corinne Alexander, associate professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. “Policy experts and trade folk say that regulations create a barrier to trade, so any time you harmonize those regulations and make them equivalent, you increase the amount of trade.”The importance of these regulations for grocery store chains, such as Kroger or Walmart, is not yet known.“To negotiate a deal around any product that has additional levels of regulation is really complicated and, in general, takes much longer,” said John Elliott, Kroger Central Division public affairs manager and spokesperson. Elliott is a former U.S. diplomat who focused on economic and trade policy in Asia.“Any time you can have common standards, you ease and condense trade,” he said.Elliott declined to reveal how these new regulations might change market prices in Kroger stores across the country but said the regulations will increase the variety and availability in the market as a whole. Kroger has a sizable organic product selection, and Elliott said the company strives to buy local when it can.“We are a leader in the industry for local sourcing,” he said. “As much as we can, we buy local. It reduces cost for the customer. As part of our green sustainability policies, the closer we can buy to the consumer, the less fuel we use to transport the product.”Elliott said for Kroger and other large companies, it’s not always the source of the product but the way it is marketed among competitors.“If we can’t bring a product in from Spain or France now because of regulations, we can just bring it in from Guatemala or Chile,” he said. “This would just go into that same mix for additional opportunities for our staff to assess and compare market prices.”Alexander said the companies growing in Mexico or Guatemala — companies that produce organic products on a large scale — will benefit most from these regulations.“We’re in a world right now where there is a strong, persistent demand for organic products,” she said. “And there is a larger demand than U.S. producers can make.”She said states such as California, Florida and Michigan will be able to open export markets in the E.U., benefiting most from their large, food-based industries.But Indiana isn’t so lucky.“We don’t have very many organic farmers in Indiana,” she said. “The majority of them are small-scale and are selling directly to Indiana customers.”This means the new universal regulations won’t significantly change locally owned, private organic food stores one way or another, she said.“The small-scale organic farmer that is selling locally is not just selling an organic product but also a product that is locally produced,” she said. “There is that consumer that wants to buy organic because it is locally grown, and they are going to be loyal to the local community. There is a niche. Local is the one thing that can’t be taken away from these regulations.”Organic dairy farmers in Indiana could benefit from these regulations, especially since the only stipulation involves the use of antibiotics on organic animals. In the E.U., farmers are allowed to treat illnesses with antibiotics; in the U.S., they are not. U.S. dairy farmers can still export to the E.U., even though E.U. farmers who use antibiotics cannot reciprocate.The U.S. and E.U. organic markets are valued at more than $50 billion combined. Organic exports reached approximately $1.8 billion in 2010, and the USDA predicts that number will grow 8 percent annually in upcoming years.But Alexander said it takes a company three years to transition to become a certified organic food distributor, so it could take as long as five years before the market shows any significant changes.
(02/23/12 2:48am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Since Feb. 18, a display of 14 colorful Shiisa Quilts has brought pizzazz to the pale yellow walls surrounding the Wonderlab Museum of Science and Technology.In collaboration with the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show, Wonderlab Assistant Gallery Operations Manager Andrea Oeding asked Shiisa Quilts owner Janet Mease if the museum could host an auxiliary exhibit showcasing their quilts. Mease said she enthusiastically agreed.“We have an amazing amount of talent on this staff, so when she offered to do that, I was like, ‘You bet!’” Mease said. “We took over a really nice representation of some of the things we do and some of the funky things we do.”Shiisa is a local quilt shop in Bloomington.The shop doesn’t make its quilts for purchase, Mease said. At Shiisa, the only quilts on display in their store serve as examples and advertisements for its classes and workshops. “We don’t make them to sell,” she said. “That’s not the point. We make them as samples for the shop.” Shiisa will have a display at the Indiana Heritage Quilt Show, which is at the Bloomington Monroe County Convention Center each year. This year’s show will take place March 1 to 3. “The quilts make our walls look so much more friendly,” Oeding said. The Wonderlab display features 14 quilts lining the staircase to the upper level of the museum and flowing above a large fish tank. Each quilt has different color combinations, designs and shapes.Oeding and Mease said they hope the collaboration between the two entities will raise awareness about Shiisa Quilts and draw attendees from IHQS to Wonderlab. On the weekend of the convention, attendees can come to Wonderlab for free.Attendees can also enter for free if they wear their IHQS wristbands. On March 1, Wonderlab will theme its “First Friday” program around the quilt theme. They will have a workshop where participants will learn to sew and make their own tote bags. “That evening is a really good night to stop by,” Oeding said. “It’s a nice way to promote arts education and give people a way to be creative.”Admission is half-price, $3.50, for the workshop. Lara Moore, a Bloomington resident and mother of twin 5-year-olds, has been bringing her kids to Wonderlab for three years. “We don’t have enough math and science in schools today,” she said. “Wonderlab is exceptionally clean, well-kept and well-staffed. We probably come at least 40 times a year.”
(02/22/12 2:57am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After this school year, a graduation coaching program in three local high schools might be cut.The Franklin Initiative, a part of the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce, was created in the 1990s to bring the framework of Benjamin Franklin’s lifelong learning to the Bloomington community. However, one of the initiative’s most successful programs might disappear after this year. The Graduation Coach Initiative was created in 2007 to combat high dropout rates at Bloomington High School North, Bloomington High School South and Edgewood High School.“We wanted to develop a workforce that wouldn’t just have to stay rooted in one career their whole lives,” said Matt Wysocki, chamber director of workforce initiatives. “This program is a way to prepare the next generation of the workforce to be lifelong learners.” The Chamber provides one graduation coach for each school. These coaches are experienced social workers who function as members of the high schools’ staffs. “Public schools have changed,” Wysocki said. “In the last decade or two, with decreasing resources, it’s harder for counselors and social workers to focus on kids who need help the most.”School counselors are responsible for standardized testing and class scheduling in addition to their traditional duties. The coaches help pick up loose ends, dedicating their days to one-on-one counseling, monitoring grades and connecting with parents. They work with “at-risk” students who have low grade-point averages, poor attendance or low credit attainment.“I think it’s a really valid program,” BHSS Graduation Coach Drhea Townsend said. “As far as my current students go, they are really upset. If the program disappeared, it would eliminate a lot of individual one-on-one work, individual planning and individual goal-setting. My students are amazing kids. You can’t really spend that much time one-on-one without fostering a relationship of trust.”Through a $200,000 grant from AT&T, the schools incur no additional costs from employing these coaches, but students are able to benefit from the services, Wysocki said.Although the four-year grant expired in December 2011, another grant is temporarily funding the program through the end of the school year. Once that funding disappears, so will the program, and Wysocki said he thinks the “stellar graduation rates would drift back down,” too. In the 2010-11 school year, 194 of the 219 students in the program graduated or advanced to the next school year. Only 25 students dropped out, and 60 percent improved their GPAs. Since 2007, graduation rates have improved by almost 10 percent at BHSS and Edgewood and by almost 6 percent at BHSN. Although the Chamber is trying to find funding to continue the program next year, it is having a difficult time competing for grants. “We are actively seeking out grants, but a lot of grants are going to larger cities, urban cities,” Wysocki said. “It is harder for a small, relatively well-off community like Bloomington to compete with Philly or Cleveland.”He said the chamber is hopeful that AT&T will renew the grant, but right now, much is up in the air. The Franklin Initiative’s other programs, including career panels and job-shadowing opportunities for Bloomington middle-school and high-school students, will continue next year. “These are not just school issues or school concerns, but the concerns of the community as a whole,” Wysocki said. “We all have important roles to play in preparing the next generation of young professionals to live as successful and independent adults.”
(02/17/12 5:02am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Interfaith Winter Shelter is the one shelter where Ray Jordan feels comfortable laying his head. With volunteers such as Hildy Sherwin, 83, who greet every guest at the door, most of them by name, he’s with people who care. Interfaith is a temporary home where a pregnant 19-year-old, Tiffany, seeks maternal guidance from Violeta Chandler, an Interfaith guest and a woman who Tiffany and about 40 others call Mama V because she keeps them in line. It’s a faith-based organization in which volunteer Anne Jones said she strives to do God’s work with the guests she serves, but also where IU senior Jason Deer said he still feels comfortable lending a helping hand even though he doesn’t consider himself religious. It’s a welcoming environment in which people from different creeds convene under one roof to give and receive.Now nearing the end of its fourth winter season in March, Interfaith has grown from a one-church effort to a community-wide operation. The organization was born in a Trinity Episcopal Church vestry meeting in 2008. The Trinity congregation saw the community was in need of a winter homeless shelter because other shelters in the area were frequently at capacity, and it recognized it had the means to fulfill it. “The parish was ready for something like this, and it didn’t come overnight,” said Rev. Virginia Hall, Trinity’s assistant rector.The vestry decided to open the church’s Great Hall to homeless individuals in the community. It was to be a place where guests could get a good night’s rest seven days a week in a warm, safe and hospitable environment. Anne Jones, volunteer and trinity member, said the idea for a winter shelter had been talked about “since God was born,” but gaining the support of the parish was a challenge at first.The vestry wanted to make the Trinity Winter Shelter a low-barrier shelter, meaning it would require no breathalyzer test and would ask for very little personal information from the guests. The founders were criticized for this decision, and some even suggested a low-barrier shelter would only enable bad behavior. But the vestry ignored the doubters. “That’s the population that’s not being served,” Hall said. “They’re not at the place where they can make a plan to get out of homelessness, so punishing them by forcing them to sleep on the streets is counterintuitive.”The volunteer-based Trinity Winter Shelter opened its doors in January 2009, operating seven nights a week for three months.But the nightly grind to maintain a clean and safe environment became too big a task for Trinity to carry on alone. The mission seemed too important to abandon, so the church turned to its Bloomington faith community for help.Hall recalls inviting pastors from around town to a Saturday-morning breakfast after the winter shelter closed for the 2009 season. The Trinity vestry asked people to support the cause, and its prayers were answered.After forming a new board and renaming the organization Interfaith Winter Shelter, the community set to work developing a cohesive and fluid structure. Now in its fourth season, the shelter has four current physical sites that rotate responsibility throughout the course of a week: First United Methodist Church, First United Church, First Christian Church and Trinity Episcopal Church. But the community collaboration doesn’t end with the site sponsors. Although they provide the location for the rotating shelter, a handful of additional churches in Bloomington provide donations, volunteers, food and time. On any given night, about 12 to 15 volunteers filter in and out of the respective shelter site for three-hour shifts, working to set up check-in stations, sleeping mats, blankets, pillows, food tables and storage check-in.Volunteer Gayle Hart said she was looking for a way to expand her life last year, and through friends in her neighborhood and an article in the local paper, she discovered Interfaith. “I had time, and I just wanted to make more of a contribution to the community, and this fills a need,” she said. Now she is the food coordinator for the Trinity site Wednesday evenings. She has gone above and beyond to stretch her allocated weekly budget by partnering with local restaurants to provide hot meals for the shelter guests. Hart said the community has been overwhelmingly helpful. Chipotle, Darn Good Soup, Subway at College Mall, Pizza Hut on Pete Ellis Drive, Dominoes on South Walnut Street and Bloomingfoods–Food Works on South Washington Street have all contributed to the shelter this season.The City of Bloomington also contributes, giving Interfaith 50 percent off Bloomington Transit bus tickets so its guests can avoid the cold while traveling from shelter to shelter in the winter months. Shalom Center, which has been involved since the shelter’s inception, washes all the blankets and pillows from each site daily.Interfaith’s reach stretches beyond Bloomington businesses and churches. The organization trained more than 400 volunteers just this year, and about a quarter of them were students. “We depend on IU,” Hall said. “We depend on the larger community as a whole.” The shelter is open from Nov. 1 to March 31, and Hall said that by the end of the five-month season, volunteer fatigue is apparent. But it doesn’t stop them from coming back week after week, year after year. “I like helping people, and when I came here, it was the first time in the U.S. I had helped people in this sort of way,” IU bioinformatics masters student Tejaswi Koganti said. “I liked how everyone reacted and was really grateful, and I thought to myself, ‘Maybe I should do this every week.’”Many students who volunteer at the shelter use the quiet-hour shifts from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. and 3 to 6 a.m. to work on homework while they supervise the guests. For Trinity member Hilary Hamilton, volunteering is a way to use her nursing experience to give back to the community she loves. She and Rev. Connie Peppler, Trinity deacon, are registered nurses. Once a month, the women provide foot care for the guests. They wash and massage their feet, examine them for medical conditions associated with diabetes and hypertension, and even paint the women’s fingernails and toenails. “These people can’t take care of their feet as they could if they had a home,” Hamilton said. “It’s a great time to talk about their health and get to know them.”Peppler, the site coordinator at Trinity, said it’s about developing personal relationships and giving the guests the respect they deserve. “I really love the people,” Peppler said. “I mean, the guests, they are sort of like your children. You get to know their quirks. You get to know when they are having a bad day, their ups and downs. You get to know them and love them for what they are.”Universal respect is a common theme among the volunteers, and Jones said it is not their role to judge their guests’ personal decisions.“We’re not going to let our brothers and sisters sleep outside in the rain,” Jones said. “The time to help someone with drinking is not at nine o’clock on a Wednesday night.”The interactions among the guests and the volunteers is a testament to the genuine goodness that Interfaith represents. Chandler (Mama V), who has been in and out of homelessness for two years, said Interfaith has given the homeless community a place to congregate as a family. “I found a home,” she said. “I found a family. I fit here. I’m not happy being homeless. I’m not proud being homeless. But it makes me thankful for what I have. Homeless people are not bad. All that we want is someone to look at us and say hi and respect us.”
(02/14/12 3:47am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>You can’t buy a gallon of milk anymore in Dana, Ind. The grocery store is gone. So are the schools and the gas station. The few residents who stayed after business took over agriculture don’t have much to cling to anymore. They have each other, though — and their treasured identity as the hometown of renowned World War II correspondent Ernie Pyle. “When asked where Dana is, people here say, ‘It’s the hometown of Ernie Pyle,’” said farmer and U.S. Army veteran Phillip Hess. “That is the identity we have left. A lot of the other things are gone.” Since 1976, in their small town nestled among the cornfields of Indiana’s western border, Dana natives have preserved their Pyle identity through a museum in his childhood home. But in recent years, Dana residents have felt the pressures of fading historical fame. “A lot of people now would not know who Ernie Pyle was without some academic background,” Hess said. Pyle has been called history’s greatest war correspondent. He spent his childhood in Dana and pursued a journalism degree at IU. He left a semester short of graduation to start his newspaper career. He was a national columnist for the Scripps Howard news service, during which he developed a reputation for coverage of the Great Depression. He earned his highest recognition as a World War II correspondent while embedded with the troops. Pyle was a war hero to many, fighting from the front lines with words rather than ammunition. But in 1945, Pyle was killed by gunfire on a remote Japanese island. Pyle’s humble small-town upbringing was reflected in his work, and Dana embraced his memory and his mission. With the state’s help, Pyle’s hometown friends turned his childhood home into the Ernie Pyle Museum. The house was moved downtown and declared a historic site. From 1976 through the early 1990s, Pyle artifacts slowly filled it. Pyle was Dana’s hometown hero.“For Dana, it’s kind of a source of pride. The style of writing he did reflects the character of the community,” Hess said. So in 2005, when the state of Indiana began reducing funding to the source of their hometown glory, Dana natives took it personally. And in 2009, when the state announced it was severing all monetary support to the museum because of low attendance, Dana decided to fight back. After nearly three years of appeals to the state, Friends of Ernie Pyle, the non-profit group that supported the museum from its inception, gained ownership of the house in November 2011. But the museum they saved wasn’t given back to them in the condition they left it. Since the museum was Indiana’s property when the state severed ties with the building, it took an assortment of Pyle’s personal artifacts: his typewriter, passport, notepads, credentials, photographs, uniforms and hundreds of letters, Hess said. “We’ve got a lot of historical stuff, just not much of Ernie’s stuff anymore,” he said.The building that houses the IU School of Journalism is named Ernie Pyle Hall, and each year, professor Owen Johnson takes a group of students overseas during spring break for a class called “In the Footsteps of Ernie Pyle.” He also takes his students to Dana’s museum. “I think, from an outside perspective, visiting Dana can give people a little bit of a sense of where Ernie Pyle came from,” Johnson said. “Growing up in a small town like that certainly shaped his perspective, and it’s very important for outsiders to gain a sense of understanding. The Ernie Pyle museum has become a focal point of the community.” In an attempt to draw in more visitors, the Friends of Ernie Pyle renamed the museum the Ernie Pyle World War II Museum on Jan. 1. Because they will no longer receive state funds, the volunteers who run the museum will function with gift shop proceeds from years past — a total of $45,000 — and donations.“We believe that the location should be in Dana and that the story ought to be told,” Hess said. “And we will do anything to preserve that.”
(02/02/12 2:50am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>After competing and losing all four games in the first chess tournament of his high school career — including the last match to a 12-year-old — Bloomington City Councilmember Steve Volan said he was so embarrassed that he severed ties with the game he loved so much. “I was that chess club geek in high school,” Volan said. The tournament was just outside his hometown of Merrillville, Ind., where he graduated from Andrean High School in 1983. His 12-year-old opponent defeated him with a back-rank checkmate, a single-piece checkmate that Volan said is a “pretty humiliating” way to lose. He didn’t touch a chess piece again for two decades. But in 2000, Volan began searching for a way to work with kids and reconnect with his long-lost hobby. After ruling out volunteering with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program due to time constraints, Volan decided to start a chess club at Binford Elementary School in Bloomington. The first club meeting drew in more than 60 students, almost one-tenth of the student body. With the help of several other adults, Volan ran the school’s chess club for two years. In 2002, he decided he wanted to develop a scholastic chess curriculum and pitched his plan to the IU School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. He was rejected, so he took his chess curriculum to the School of Continuing Studies, which agreed to allow Volan to teach a one-credit, eight-week class through the University. “The original goal has always been to work with kids,” Volan said. “I’ve learned so much, and I’ve gotten much better at chess by learning how to teach it.”Ten years later, Volan is preparing to teach the spring session of COLL-C101: Introduction to Chess in the College of Arts and Sciences. The class is open to 40 students and is offered during the second eight weeks in both the fall and spring semesters. “When you enroll in the lab, you are enrolling in an in-class chess tournament where you learn to play with a chess clock and how to keep score,” Volan said. Class enrollment consists of a wide variety of students with different majors and skill sets, Volan said. Volan said chess is an intellectually stimulating game to learn. “My students realize they haven’t been fighting each other,” he said. “They have been fighting their own self-doubt, and the person sitting on the other side of the chess board is giving them the opportunity to test their own skills, and that is what it should be all about.”Volan acknowledged that chess is commonly perceived as a very intimidating game, but he said he hopes his class dispels that stigma. “It’s fun to learn, and that’s exactly what I’m going for,” he said.
(01/31/12 5:12am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>As a dual-citizen in the realm of Big Ten loyalties, Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller, a Republican, has experience reaching across party lines when it comes to his Hoosiers and Boilermakers. He received degrees from both IU and Purdue University — but his diplomatic approach to this college sport rivalry isn’t the only bipartisan movement he preaches. Zoeller spoke at Monday’s IU College Republicans meeting about the pressing need for today’s young people to revamp the political atmosphere. “The sport of politics has changed,” Zoeller said. “The inability of people to work across parties has left legislation, our work and Congress worse off in a lot of places.”Zoeller reached out to the College Republicans in mid-January, hoping to speak to both their organization and the IU College Democrats about his bipartisan message. College Republicans Press Secretary Kristen Cobb said the College Democrats were unable to attend because their weekly meeting was going on at the same time. Zoeller said he was disappointed both groups weren’t able to come together for his visit to IU and focused his talk on the importance of finding a central purpose in politics today. “You all have to do better,” he said. “You all have to reach out and find some common ground ... I think people in my generation have ruined politics. They have so poisoned what used to be a legislative art form.” Zoeller spoke of his political background, explaining the effect of his first job out of law school. He worked with then-freshman Dan Quayle in the Labor and Human Resources Committee to lower unemployment. They collaborated with late Senator Edward Kennedy, a Democrat, to combat unemployment. Zoeller emphasized the bipartisanship they exercised to turn an $11 billion bill into a $3 billion program “instead of just throwing out the whole thing.”Zoeller was raised in a predominantly Democratic family but found he was more comfortable with the ideals of small government that embody the Republican party.When Zoeller mentioned Indiana is among the 26 states suing the federal government about the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he received a resounding applause from the crowd of about 50 students. He said he doesn’t believe government should just throw money at programs and hope things work out, but he quickly turned the message back to one of compromise, saying “the government has a role, though, and you can’t walk away from the problems.”He spoke of his unique role in politics as attorney general and reminisced about his work with judges of both parties from across the state. “The oath of an attorney is to serve your clients’ interests above your own,” he said. “It’s almost a vocation, not just some occupation.”Zoeller wrapped up by challenging the students to invite the College Democrats to sit down, “not on opposite sides, like Congress,” to talk about the issues civilly.
(01/31/12 4:19am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With Super Bowl XLVI less than a week away, Gov. Mitch Daniels sent a message to people traveling to downtown Indianapolis that human trafficking will not be tolerated.On Monday, Gov. Daniels signed Senate Enrolled Act 4, a bill that will make it easier to prosecute and penalize individuals who engage in human trafficking.“The message we send today is ‘don’t try it here.’ Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis is where this practice ends,” Daniels said in a press release.In years past, human trafficking and child prostitution have posed a problem for Super Bowl host cities. Indiana lawmakers approved the bill, which is the first in the 2012 legislative session, in time for the 2012 Super Bowl, which will be held Feb. 5 in Indianapolis.The bill heightens penalties for individuals participating in certain types of human trafficking to a Class A felony, which is punishable by 20 to 50 years, and eliminates loopholes in current legislation that allow some forms of human trafficking to go unprosecuted.Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller was a key proponent of the bill. In summer 2011, Zoeller met with other attorney generals from around the United States in Chicago to talk about the issue of human trafficking and work to elevate and combat the issue in their home states. Zoeller came back to Indiana and reviewed the current human trafficking legislation, which inspired lawmakers to revise the current legislation.“I'm very complimentary of the legislature for resolving their differences over the past few weeks to get this passed before the Super Bowl,” Zoeller said.The new law also makes it a felony to sell or transfer custody of a child under the age of 16 for sexual conduct and grants prosecutors the ability to charge individuals who use force or fraud to promote sexual activity or the participation of children under the age of 16 in sexual activities, regardless of whether force was used or consent was given.“I am grateful to the governor for his steadfast support of this bill,” Sen. Randy Head, R-Logansport, said in a press release. “It is an important problem this week because of the Super Bowl, but on an ongoing basis because of its extent across the country. Now we have a better tool to fight it because of the hard work of a lot of people, and that is a great thing.”Rep. Greg Steurerwald, R-Danville, was the main sponsor in the House.Zoeller said preparation for the increased threat of human trafficking started far before the legislation was passed. Cab drivers, motel and hotel owners, and restaurant workers in downtown Indianapolis have been trained to be on the lookout for illegal activity.An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 men, women and children are trafficked illegally into the U.S. each year, according to the Initiative Against Sexual Trafficking.
(01/31/12 4:17am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>In hopes of increasing the earning capacity for residents of the greater Bloomington area, United Way of Monroe County is offering a Free Community Tax Service (FCTS) for the second consecutive year to those who qualify. “It fits right in with one of our main goals, which is to increase the earning capacity of people in our area,” said United Way Community Engagement Director Jennifer Hottell. The FCTS program, which was originally implemented by the City of Bloomington, provides free tax preparation and electronic filing of federal and Indiana tax returns for low- and moderate-income residents and students.In addition to providing general assistance to residents, all the program volunteers are IRS-trained to assist those who are eligible to receive tax refunds from the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). According to the IRS website, the EITC is a refundable federal income tax credit for low- and moderate-income working individuals and families. Congress originally approved the tax credit legislation in 1975 to offset the burden of Social Security taxes and provide a work incentive. Qualifiers must meet a list of requirements and file a tax return even if their earned income does not require them to file a return.“This is not a new program. It’s actually been around since the ’70s,” said United Way Community Initiates Director Ashley Hall. “About 20 percent of people who are eligible don’t take advantage of the credit. All our volunteers are IRS-certified, so you are going to a tax site where you’re really talking to experts.”Last year, 106 people volunteered with the program and helped file more than 950 tax returns free of charge. “People should be getting all the money they are entitled to without the promise of refund anticipation loans,” Hall said. Those involved with implementing the program are volunteers who attend a two-weekend training course in tax law and software, she said. Eight tax assistance program sites are in Monroe and Owen counties for 2012. This year, a mobile site will travel to Broadview Learning Center, Stone Belt, St. Paul Catholic Center and LifeDesigns, Inc. Daniel Huntley, the FCTS site coordinator at the IU Maurer School of Law and a law student in the school, said this will be the third year he has volunteered with the program. He said his knowledge of business law has enabled him to put theory into practice and help the community at the same time. “In class, often, you are taught the theory of how taxes work and the theory of customer service and working with people, but it’s a whole different story when you sit down with Free Community Tax Service clients,” Huntley said. “A lot of these folks need the money they will get back in their tax returns, and it’s a lot of fun to help them out.”Huntley said the sites are prepared to help undergraduate and graduate students who are filing independently for the first time or who have started a family and need guidance. Super Saturday events will be geared specifically toward students from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. March 3 and 24 at the Kelley School of Business.In addition, services are available in Spanish through El Centro Comunal Latino.“There are a bunch of different sites all over, and a lot of them are run by students here,” Huntley said. “We are always looking for more volunteers.”
(01/30/12 5:49am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For most people walking around downtown Bloomington at noon Saturday, movement was just a means to keep warm in the brisk January cold — but about 20 locals bearing rainbow flags and a nine-member band marched through town with a more personal purpose. On Jan. 28, members and supporters of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community had their first Bloomington PRIDE Walk in conjunction with the city’s annual PRIDE film festival. Bloomington resident Keith Romaine organized the walk. He serves on the film festival steering committee and said this is something they have been wanting to do for years. Romaine, who has his Ph.D. in African Art and teaches at Ivy Tech Community College and IU-Purdue University Columbus, said his passions for LGBTQ awareness and art motivated his involvement in the PRIDE activities. “I am really committed to creating spaces for people to celebrate,” he said. “It’s in traditional African art where art is a part of the celebration.”The walkers gathered at noon at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater, where the march began. One IU student, wearing a FCKH8 zip-up sweatshirt, walked hand-in-hand with his boyfriend, rainbow flags in their opposite hands. “Fuck Hate” (FCKH8 is an organized campaign dedicated to ending gay bashing.The crowd was lead by the Jefferson Street Parade Band, a group of musicians in Bloomington that plays at weddings, concerts and clubs.“We just hope to make a little noise and be seen,” Band Director Ben Fowler said. Their upbeat tunes and high-energy music drew attention of passers-by and inspired some marchers to break out in dance. The marchers walked west on Kirkwood Avenue, weaving through Showers Plaza and ending on the steps of City Hall. Couples danced while others subtly swayed to the music and talked. The group met in the City Hall lobby for coffee before heading into the cold for the trek back to the Buskirk-Chumley. Buskirk-Chumley Director Danielle McClelland said they strive to make their PRIDE activities inclusive to all people, regardless of sexual orientation.This year’s film festival theme was “The Politics of Pride,” so the steering committee thought it was only appropriate to conduct a parade in the traditional sense of a gay rights march. McClelland, who joined in the dancing at City Hall in the Showers Building, said they hoped the parade would bring more visibility for PRIDE into the already gay-friendly community. “On one hand, people may feel in their day-to-day lives that they are accepted by their friends and neighbors,” she said. “Our day-to-day existence here is protected, but that’s only a shadow of what full equal rights in the state and in the nation should be.”McClelland said she and Romaine both hope to make the parade an annual event, although it will largely depend upon weather. Following the walk, participants were invited to attend a matinée showing for the PRIDE film festival. McClelland said the festival draws in about 2,000 people every year from across the nation. This year, the festival ran from Jan. 26-29 and showed 34 films about the politics of pride. The IU GLBT Alumni Association’s Celebration Weekend happens during the film festival, as well, which McClelland said draws people from all over. She said the Bloomington PRIDE film festival even attracts participants from large cities because it is such an intimate, community-oriented weekend. A PRIDE Dance Party at the Buskirk-Chumley wrapped up Saturday’s events, although the festival continued Sunday.Couples spanning many generations took to the stage at the Buskirk-Chumley to dance late Saturday night into early Sunday morning. DJ Action Jackson played pop hits.Robin Tala, a Bloomington native who was back in town from Oakland, Calif., visiting family, marched in the walk Saturday too. He said regardless of how open-minded a community is, there can always be improvement. “I have seen many small groups with beautiful ideas catch steam and grow,” he said. “This is exactly what I love about Bloomington. This is the only place in the Midwest where something like this could happen.”
(01/26/12 5:07am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>With phase one of the repairs and renovations on Wildermuth Intramural Center coming to a close in late February, the building is on track to open this summer. Construction crews have made a number of improvements since the roof fire in late July 2011, which caused severe smoke and water damage to the intramural basketball courts, indoor track, ceiling and interior structure. Jackie Puterbaugh, associate director of Campus Recreational Sports, said she understands the frustration of students and staff who were expecting the project to be completed by now. She said when they were forced to close the facility to repair the fire damage, RecSports and the University seized the opportunity to implement several additional renovations to improve the existing space.“This is probably the only time this is going to be done for years and years and years, so we might as well do it right,” she said. “Everyone really is working so hard to get things done as quickly as possible.”In late July, Mark Land, associate vice president of university communications, told the IDS the repairs would be complete by mid-September 2011. But the extensive water damage to the basketball courts and indoor track are forcing repairs to extend into the summer. Puterbaugh said the first phase of repairs is almost complete. Construction and repair crews have replaced the damaged roof, cleaned and repainted the ceiling and interior beams a crisp white and restored the historical yellow brick walls that frame the almost-85-year-old building. The process of installing new lights is halfway done, and the broken windows on the west wall have been filled in with an insulating foam. “It wasn’t just a simple clean-up,” Puterbaugh said. In addition, RecSports paid to sandblast the staircases leading to the upstairs gym and have begun installing 10-foot-by-20-foot panels along the north and south walls of the lower gym. These panels will feature RecSports programming and intramural advertisements.“We have been looking for a way to promote our programs and add a little color to the space,” Puterbaugh said. Once the crews finish installing the new lights, the next phase of repairs will begin. The University will replace the five southern-most basketball courts and renovate the five north courts. After the courts are finished, the crews will put a new tartan finish on the indoor track and separate the courts and track with a 5-foot clear wall. The clear wall will replace the existing white-and-red barrier, and it “won’t obscure this cool building,” Puterbaugh said.“Everyone has come together to make the best of a bad situation,” she said. “A tremendous amount of work has been done in the last six or seven months, and we have worked very hard to make sure we can still offer great programs.”RecSports has created several new intramural sports, including inner tube water polo, to give students an opportunity to participate in activities while the courts aren’t available.
(01/26/12 3:44am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>A year after its inception, hYPe used its monthly professional development event to get local young professionals excited about non-profit involvement.hYPe, Helping Young Professionals Excel, is an initiative of the Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce to provide networking and professional development opportunities for people ages 21-40. “We want to help those involved further their own skills and improve their own businesses,” Chamber President and C.E.O. Christy Gillenwater said. The event Wednesday marked the one-year anniversary of the organization. “Get hYPed and Get Involved” was at KRC Banquets and Catering.Keynote Speaker Cullen McCarty, an IU alumnus, is the executive vice president of Smithville Communications, Inc.McCarty said it is important to get involved in the local community and find a purpose in giving back. “You have to know what your passions are, but you also have to know what your boundaries are,” he said. “You have to decide what it is you want to accomplish, and if you only volunteer for one, it’s not going to hurt you.” Shayna Martin graduated from IU in 2004 and has served on the hYPe steering committee since last January. “We want to become that go-to YP organization in the community,” she said. Wednesday’s event was IU graduate student Chad Carwein’s first experience with hYPe. Through his Service Corps Fellowship program in SPEA, he is required to participate in professional development activities. “I thought it was really well organized, and I would have loved to mingle more,” he said. “At first, to me, it was a surprise in a sense that so many young professionals decided to stay in Bloomington, but now I understand.”
(01/25/12 4:26am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>For more than 20 years, a coalition of local advocates, prosecutors and law enforcement officers has been combating domestic violence in Bloomington. Since 1990, the Monroe County Domestic Violence Task Force has been meeting on a monthly basis. Its focus is more about creating an open forum for discussion than anything else. “Communication is always difficult across sectors,” said Toby Strout, Middle Way House executive director. “Different institutions have different ways of doing things.”Middle Way House, a domestic violence and rape crisis center in Bloomington, is one of the organizations on the task force. Strout said the task force brings the advocacy perspective to the table in meetings and conferences. “When it comes to advocacy organizations, natural tensions between enforcement and advocacy are bound to exist,” she said.But when Middle Way proposed the idea for a task force in 1990, it wasn’t necessarily because of a problem between the two entities. Strout said there was just room for improvement. “We were headed toward a coordinated effort, and a task force seemed just the way to go,” she said. “After 21 years, my evaluation of it is that it’s been good, and if anything else, it’s been keeping us talking to each other. We have a better understanding of each other now.”Beverly Calender-Anderson, director of Bloomington’s Safe and Civil City Program, serves as the administrative liaison with the task force. It meets at noon the third Friday of every month at City Hall, 401 N. Morton St. “The goal is to coordinate information, training and open communication between providers,” she said. “We knew if we all were at the same table, each agency could better explain why they do what they do. With open minds, it just made for better communication and better service to the clients.”Calender-Anderson said the group has evolved since its inception. When it was first conceived, the task force served to bring advocates, enforcers and lawmakers together to promote collaboration and communication. The task force organized annual conferences to promote awareness, working to shed light on each aspect of the problem. Last year, the task force provided lethality training for local law enforcement. “The lethality assessment tool was developed so when an officer walks into a situation, he or she has a checklist to assess the possibility of it becoming lethal, or deadly, or an even more dangerous situation,” she said. Monroe County Sheriff’s Office Detective Sgt. Brad Swain has been a member of the task force for eight years. He said it has bridged the gap of understanding between advocacy and enforcement.“I think, from my experience, it’s likely they do a good job of raising awareness that domestic violence does exist,” Swain said. “In my 26-year career, law enforcement has evolved to being proactive to prevent these things from happening.” This year, the force’s annual conference will be directed toward the city’s faith-based community because a church or religious home might be the first place domestic violence victims turn to, Calender-Anderson said. Each meeting, a different agency is responsible for creating the agenda, which Calendar-Anderson said brings different perspectives. “There have been tensions time to time over the years, but I think we have to accept tensions as inevitable in this work as long as we respect each other,” Strout said. “We could serve as a model ... our ability to hold it together. It’s easy to say, ‘This is too difficult, this is too uncomfortable.’”But Strout said this has never happened. Everyone keeps coming back. She said the force’s influence can’t be measured in numbers or crime rates because an increase in awareness usually only means an increase in reports, not a decrease in domestic violence. “People are still learning, but eventually we will be able to say, ‘Isn’t it time that we reduce it?’”
(01/19/12 4:29am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>At 78 years old, John Barbour is a man made for the hills of Hollywood. His golden-brown skin, shiny jewelry and blue-and-brown pinstripe suit allude to his early pursuits in gambling, acting and stand-up comedy. But the passion in his raspy and convincing voice reveals the second half of Barbour’s life, the half consumed by conspiracy theories that have baffled America for almost 50 years.Wednesday, Union Board presented Barbour’s 1992 documentary “The JFK Assassination: The Garrison Tapes,” followed by a question-and-answer session with Barbour. The film features Barbour’s exclusive interviews with late New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was ridiculed for his investigation into the CIA’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The questions surrounding who shot Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963, are infinite, and Kennedy-themed literature has lined bookshelves for decades. But Barbour dismissed these accounts; in his opinion, there is no such thing as conspiracy theories, only an abundance of facts. And he said the facts that convinced him came from Garrison’s book: Lee Harvey Oswald was involved with members of the CIA, and the CIA killed Kennedy. In 1970, Gallop polls indicated that more than 80 percent of the public believed Oswald didn’t act alone, if at all. But only 22 percent thought there should be another investigation, Barbour said. “How do you say your mother’s not a virgin? It just sounds ugly,” Barbour said. “How do you say your leaders are murderers? It just sounds ugly. When it’s obvious, it sounds ugly.”Garrison published “Heritage of Stone,” a book that spelled out what he found during his investigation into the CIA. In 1979, the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that four shots had been fired at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, vindicating the potential for conspiracy theories. In 1980, Barbour invited Garrison to come on his hit NBC show “Real People,” Garrison was on film for three hours, and Barbour said it was “… the most frightening, exhilarating, terrifying three hours I have ever spent in my entire life.”When Barbour tried to make a documentary, critics ran amuck, and he lost “Real People” in the early 1980s.Finally, in 1992, Barbour released the documentary. It won the 1993 San Sebastian Film Festival award the same day Garrison died.Since then, Barbour has traveled the globe, answering questions about the documentary at film screenings. However, his documentary has never aired on public television in the United States.But Barbour said he is less concerned by money and more motivated by educating people about what he thinks truly happened in 1963.Barbour talked about the injustice of the 24-hours news coverage of recent wwmurder cases, involving Casey Anthony, O.J. Simpson, Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.“Those murders were tragic,” he said. “But they only affected one person. The murder of John Kennedy changed the economy, changed our foreign policy, changed our political structure. … I guarantee you, if we had cell phones or the Internet on Nov. 22, 1963, there would be at least a dozen prominent Americans hung or shot for the murder of John Kennedy.”
(01/17/12 3:40am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The diverse crowd that gathered at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater in downtown Bloomington Monday night represented a dream come true for the man who inspired the event. In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the City of Bloomington sponsored “Affirming the Legacy,” a program laced with messages of community service and colored with tones of soulful praise. IU Professor Keith McCutchen accompanied the crowd on piano as they opened with the first and last verses of the song “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”Lee Hamilton, keynote speaker and director of the Center on Congress at IU, spoke of his personal encounters with King in the early 1960s, recounting his memories of King’s modest appeal and charismatic personality. “Because of him, this country is more free, more fair, more just,” Hamilton said. “He stirred our conscience as very few have ever done. He became the single most auspicious figure of protests and hope this country has ever produced.”Hamilton then challenged the audience of students, community members and political representatives to delve deeper into what King’s legacy truly means. “He was a far more complex person than I have at least understood,” he said. “There is a danger in remembering him that we lose the complexities of the man and his interdictions.”Representing the Monroe County Board of Commissioners, MCBC Vice President Iris Kiesling asked those in attendance what legacies they were leaving and challenged all to start a new service legacy in the name of King. Music was woven throughout the program with performances by A Men, a local all-male a capella group, which sang “Round Midnight” by Thelonious S. Monk and “Blackbird” by the Beatles. Fifteen members of the IU African American Choral Ensemble performed pieces they have been working on in class, including “I’ve Been Buked” by Hall Johnson. “It’s really special because we don’t just have vocal performance majors, but all sorts of majors,” said doctoral student and ensemble member Johanna Moffitt. Although Mayor Mark Kruzan could not attend due to illness, Beverly Calender-Anderson from the City of Bloomington Community and Family Resources Department presented the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Award to Chancellor John Whikehart from Ivy Tech Community College. Whikehart was honored for his efforts in civic engagement at Ivy Tech in Bloomington. “John Whikehart does not only talk the talk, he walks the walk,” Calendar-Anderson said. IU President Michael McRobbie offered remarks about the University’s continuing efforts to promote diversity on campus, but said “we must acknowledge there is still much to be done.”
(01/13/12 2:59am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Chad Roeder is making recycling even more eco-friendly for downtown Bloomington residents.His 4-year-old business, Bloomington Pedal Power, has partnered with the City of Bloomington and the Monroe County Solid Waste Management District to open the Downtown Recycling Center located at City Hall.Roeder started Pedal Power in 2007 to make recycling easier for downtown businesses because the city does not offer curbside pick-up for buildings with more than four units. He and three part-time employees pedal across town, picking up recyclable goods and delivering them to drop-off stations.Their goal is to facilitate sustainable living through eco-friendly pedaling. In the past three years, Pedal Power has collected over 700 tons of recycling in Bloomington.“If just a few guys riding bikes can make that big of an impact, what could 100 do?” Roeder said. In an attempt to answer his own question, Roeder is now presenting his “experimental approach to recycling” to residents, pedestrians and cyclists of Bloomington through the Downtown Recycling Center. The city provided the space for the business, which occupies part of the west end of the Showers Plaza parking lot, near 10th Street by the B-Line Trail. On the 80-by-35-foot plot is a small office powered by solar panels, a utility shed to hold supplies and four 8-by-22-foot roll-away recycling bins. Many downtown businesses and apartments lack easy access to recycling, which city Sustainability Coordinator Jacqui Bauer said is a drawback of recent downtown improvements.“It really has become more practical to help our downtown residents live more sustainably,” she said. The center is still under construction but has been up and running for about a month. Although Pedal Power has been successful, with an average of 100-150 drop-offs each week, Roeder said the cooperation between agencies is notable. Roeder and his co-workers take metal and aluminum to Bloomington Iron Metal. BIM drives the remaining recyclables to Hoosier Disposal, where the paper is shipped to paper mills and plastics and glass are shipped to Indianapolis. “It’s as if we are inverting the paradigm of recycling hauling,” he said. Roeder said a downtown recycling center has been a goal of Pedal Power since its inception. One group that both the city and Roeder hope to reach is the IU student population living in off-campus housing. Roeder said the student population in downtown Bloomington has increased during the last eight years. Roeder said he believes many students come from communities where recycling is built into the infrastructure and expect the same programs from Bloomington.Sophomore human biology major Jared Opoien said, in his hometown of Fort Wayne, his family recycles regularly. In Bloomington, he lives in the Colonial Crest apartments west of Memorial Stadium. Neither the city nor his landlord provides recycling services.“I am all for recycling. Any chance I get, I do,” he said. “The first step is being informed, and I will totally drive mine downtown now that I know.”
(01/12/12 4:58am)
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Lilly Endowment Inc. has presented IU with a $33 million grant to expand the Kelley School of Business and renovate the existing facilities, President Michael McRobbie announced Wednesday. This is the largest grant the Kelley School of Business has received in its 92-year history and one of the largest ever received by IU. The grant from the Lilly Endowment, along with nearly $27 million in private donations from alumni and strategic partners, will allow expansion construction to begin shortly after graduation in May 2012. The building will be named after IU alumnus James Hodge for his $15 million donation to the project. “The project will be paid for without a single dollar from tax dollars or student money,” McRobbie said. The new area of the existing building will feature 20 new classrooms and study areas designed to facilitate technology-based learning and collaboration among students and faculty. These new spaces will contribute 71,000 additional square feet to the pre-existing 140,000-square-feet, 46-year-old structure. The additions will wrap around the current building, jutting out about 40 feet toward 10th Street, with a new entrance area at the corner of 10th Street and Fee Lane. Upon the addition’s completion, classes will move to the new facility, and renovation will begin one floor at a time on the current structure, McRobbie said. Planning for the project began in 2005, and both the expansion and renovation are expected to reach completion within three years. Kelley Dean Dan Smith gave the opening remarks at the press conference to a crowd of students, faculty and the renovation team, commenting about the importance of education and philanthropy. He also spoke about IU’s appreciation for the Lilly Endowment, saying the University cannot find anywhere else where “generosity is more visible than in our partners at the Lilly Endowment.”Sara Cobb, Lilly Endowment vice president for education, also spoke at the conference.“We are pleased that the new facilities funded by this grant will help secure the Kelley School’s standing as one of the nation’s leading schools of business,” Cobb said. Since 2000, the Lilly Endowment has donated $775 million to IU, including gifts to the Maurer School of Law, the Jacobs School of Music and the IU libraries.Gifts have also been donated to many educational areas, including student scholarships, information technology, philanthropy and economic development, McRobbie said.Smith said the expansion and renovation is not about bricks and mortar. The building is an enabler for future student learning and economic development across the state, she said.Smith said the goal is to create a “highly engaged and technology mediated learning environment.But the brick-and-mortar aspect of the project will give Kelley the space to accept 400-500 more students once the renovation and expansion is complete. The 20 additional classrooms will feature collaboration areas in the back of the room for after-hours study and planning time.It will provide state-of-the-art technology for Kelley students, including real-time video chat capabilities with guests from across the state, country and world. In addition to the extra classrooms, the expanded area of the building will feature a room overlooking the Arboretum for teleconferences and rooms designated specifically for out-of-class work time. These collaboration rooms will have 40 high-tech conference tables. The Indiana Business Research Center, which is currently housed above the Chase Bank in the square downtown, will be relocated to the new space as well. “We expect this building to be used and used heavily,” Smith said. “We want to see this building used almost 24/7.” Student representatives from leadership organizations and committees within Kelley were invited to attend the highly anticipated press conference. Sophomore Julia Lamorelle, a direct-admit marketing and international business major at Kelley, attended the conference as a representative from the school’s volunteer organization Civic Leadership Development. Lamorelle said she loves Kelley and already views it like a home where she feels comfortable studying and collaborating with classmates. “I definitely think being able to come here 24/7 will make it a lot easier to collaborate with students internationally. It seems like it will be like a second library,” she said.