“Bloomington is at a crossroads — culturally, civically, and economically,” says writer Sean Starowitz, assistant director of the arts for the City of Bloomington. Touching on all of these is our bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure. While many people say they want a friendlier biking and walking town, “the car dominates its urban fabric and infrastructure.” Click here to read the full story.
“Everything inside me — starting with my name, Vauhxx — spoke to me and said I had to speak up,” says Vauhxx Booker, spokesperson for Bloomington’s Black Lives Matter. He also spoke with writer Michael G. Glab about his family’s deep-rooted American history, his shy childhood, and his potential plans for public office in Bloomington. Click here to read the full story.
Letting one political party define election districts has converted our representative government into a plutocracy, write Jim and Tomi Allison. The result of gerrymandering is legislators choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their legislators. Next week, several groups are convening in Bloomington to organize a rally later this month at the state capitol. Click here to read the full story.
Rape kits contain evidence collected during hospital exams of the survivors of sexual assault. Nearly half of the more than 5,000 untested rape kits collected in Indiana are considered “backlog,” but a new Indiana law could make tracking easier — especially for survivors. Writer Haley Miller and photographer Nicole McPheeters take a look at the process. Click here to read the full story.
The premise of our healthcare system without the Affordable Care Act? If you can’t afford healthcare, you don’t deserve it, writes Rob Stone, a local physician, healthcare activist, and one of the founders of Hoosiers for a Commonsense Health Plan. Stone and others are fighting to protect Hoosiers from this “medical caste system.” Click here to read the full story.
Advocacy group Friends of Lake Monroe wrote a letter to Limestone Post in response to the article “Property Rights, Public Good, Campaign Contributions” by Susan M. Brackney. In the letter, they argue that the article did not go far enough to address the public’s need for clean water, among other issues. Read the entire letter here.
A bill introduced in the Indiana House this year would have limited local governments’ ability to regulate such things as logging on private property, even if, for example, the logging threatened to damage Lake Monroe. But it isn’t just about private property vs. public good, writes Susan M. Brackney. Special interest groups and campaign finance play a role, too. Click here to read the full story.
Last year, IU research associate and policy analyst Luke Wood wrote an article in LP about a potential clash between Indiana’s moderate Republicans and the Trump administration. Now, with the Indiana primaries over, he looks at how the Trump era has affected Democratic politicians and voters in Indiana ahead of the 2018 midterm election. Click here to read the full story.
Politics, like theater, relies on the relationship between the stage and the audience, writes LP columnist Jennifer Pacenza in her Behind the Curtain preview of Church & State. The latest production of Jewish Theatre of Bloomington puts this relationship center stage in a “funny and heartrending play with a powerful message about God, guns, and politics.” Click here to read the full story.
Concerned Scientists @ IU, a group of 850 local scientists and allies, has submitted a public comment to oppose the EPA’s proposed repeal of the Clean Power Plan. The EPA’s case for repeal, the scientists say, is based on “unconvincing legal arguments, without appropriate consideration of the scientific evidence for human-induced climate change.” Read their comment, as well as the proposed repeal, here.
They’re a centuries-old assault on our environment, but eradicating invasive plants requires more than pulling them out by the roots — especially since big box stores still sell them and red tape in the governor’s office still allows those sales. Writer Susan M. Brackney explains this weedy predicament, and how people can help. Click here to read the full story.
Several diverse groups have mobilized in recent months to oppose logging in Yellowwood State Forest. The resistance comes to a head this week, as forest advocates, including hundreds of scientists, are asking Gov. Eric Holcomb to call off the plan to cut down trees in Yellowwood’s backcountry and old-growth forest areas. Click here for the full story and how to get involved.
