Indianapolis In the News

Slashdot is reporting that GenCon is filing for Chapter 11. For those who don't know, GenCon is a multi-day games exposition convention, where industry giants set up shop to display their wares and hundreds upon thousands of gaming enthusiasts gather to experience the latest role-playing, card and video games. GenCon is held in several cities through out the year, and for the past several, it has made a home in Indy.

And we all know that ginormous conventions mean ginormous revenue for the city. Downtown businesses prosper, jobs become available and everyone wins. While the early word is that this move will not affect the convention for its stay in Indy during August of 2008, it certainly bodes ill for future years. We'll have to see how this particular game plays out.

Hey, Indy made a national Top Ten list, yay! But it's for having crappy air quality, boo.

Blame Indianapolis' dirty air—attributed mostly to our dependence on the car—for the state's capital landing in the top 10 of the American Lung Association's most polluted American cities. The association today gave Indy a failing grade for particulates—soot and chemicals—in the air. The city received a D for ozone or smog pollution.
—Indianapolis Star, May 1, 2007

Here are a few things the Star article says we can do to reduce our impact:

• Carpool
• Fill your car with gas after 6:00 p.m.
• Urge funding for mass transit programs

I'd like to throw out another idea, swiped from a city nearby: a Green Roofs initiative. Check out the Chicago Green Roofs program to see how that city is working to improve air quality, lower heating and cooling bills, clean and retain rainwater, lower air temperatures, and more. I wish someone with power would be forward-thinking enough to bring an idea like this to our city—and to rise above the idea that clean air is a "Democrat vs. Republican" issue.

Here's an interesting tid-bit from the news, with a tag line reading something like this: A Lawrence police officer is suspended with pay as his department works to determine if he illegally arrested a man who shouted profanities at him..

Long story short - The man (or youth, depending on how you look at it), shouted the ever popular "F*** the police!" and went about his way. The officer followed the man to his apartment, asked him to step outside, and that's when the "incident" occured - the officer allegedly (I'm assuming) grabbed the man, wrestled him to the ground and arrested him for resisting arrest.

It's all pretty hazy, since, according to the news story, the officer changed his report as to why he followed the man to his apartment in the first place, and why he then eventually came into physical contact which led to the arrest.

I do however like the bit where the man is being charged with resisting arrest, when at the time, he was not being arrested. How does that work? Also, as the news story states, cursing or making obscene gestures at the police is protected as free speech. I'd say that sums up the question of "did the officer illegally arrest the man". I'd think so.

http://www.theindychannel.com/video/11309526/index.html

From CNN's Money section: "Indianapolis was, once again, the most affordable major housing market in the United States. The median home sold there, already low at $122,000 during the previous quarter, fell to $113,000 during the last three months of the year. With a median income of $65,000, 89 percent of the homes sold were affordable to the average family."

I can get away with poor grammar and spelling mistakes because a) I r blggng on teh innernits and b) I'm not being paid a salary for the tid-bits I post to good ole I of Scribe. But scanning the local "news" I just had to gape in astonishment at this...

"i've known ron for eight years, great guy and I've known and worked with him for eight years, even though from different sides. And we may disagree on some issues, I've known him pretty well. I can be there for him so that's what I'm going to do," said councillor Jim Bradford.

"If T thought that this had any validity or merit at all, I would call for his removal," said councillor Lonnell Conley.

This is cut and pasted directly from the copy as it appears (as of this writing) on WISH TV's website. Let's see... the obvious mistakes... two capitalization errors right off the bat and then... T? Who is T? Are they talking about a person? I know we call the President of the country "W". Or is that just a new way of typing a capital "i"?

Yeah, ok - maybe I should be talking about the topic of the story, but... come on folks. Check your work. It really detracts from the point of the story when the article looks like it'd been banged out by a cat on the keyboard. For the full story, click the hyperlink which follows this sentence.

http://www.wishtv.com/global/story.asp?s=5476090

According to the Holiday World Blog, the Holiday World amusement park in southern Indiana will be featured on The Colbert Report in the next few weeks.

Originally, the Comedy Central show was just interviewing park owner Will Koch, but then the show decided to send a crew out to film in the park as well.

Well that's what I think at least. Recently, good old Indianapolis Monthly jumped on the band wagon and covered GenCon - the yearly games and gaming convention that fills up hotel after hotel in Indy and draws hundreds upon thousands of people to our city.

Evidently, Indianapolis Monthly really doesn't care.

Continue reading "Indianapolis Monthly Hates Nerds"

Indianapolis has popped up near the top of a couple of city ranking lists in the news recently. First, we came in tenth on Forbe's list of "Best Places For Business And Careers" which compared the cost of doing business with job growth and education attainment to make its list of good cities to start a business or relocate for a new job. (Here's the complete list.)

And then recently we cropped up as number 14 on the list of Kiplinger Personal Finance's List of "50 Smart Places to Live." Cost of living, cost of housing, health care and crime were among their criteria for ranking the best places to live. (Here's the complete list.)

It looks like we're outdone by Nashville, Tennesee and Albuquerque, New Mexico on both lists. But it's interesting that we're a pretty desirable town for both businesses and residents. Bloomington and Lafayette also made Kiplinger's list.

Here we go kids. Just because "bad stuff" happens, doesn't mean that we have to abandon our basic common sense. But leave it to a Warren Township principal to suspend a student for trying to do the right thing in a classic case of policy turning into hypocrisy.

Continue reading "Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Intelligence for Warren Township"

At some point, someone probably passed around the link to you about Jonathon Sharkey, a self-proclaimed vampire and Satanist who, oddly enough, is/was/may-not-be running for governor in Minnesota. Part of his platform was his endorsement of impalement for terrorists outside the state house.

Which... you know... would probably go over pretty well considering the current political climate.

A few months go by and Jonathan fades from the public spotlight. I mean, what state doesn't have some nutjob trying to get into office? This nation has seen a chimp handler, wrestler and a barbarian as elected officials, so why not Vlad here? Well...

Continue reading "Vampire Governor and... Indiana"

In a move that smacks of ... of... sheer stupidity, here go our lawmakers once again trying to legislate reproductive rights. Senator Patricia Miller (R) is proposing legislation that would add the same sort of requirements that it places on adoption to the process of assisted reproduction. In otherwords, you would need to be married in order to qualify for assisted reproduction. And it's all for the "welfare of the children".

We're all smart. We can read the fine print here.

Continue reading "Indiana Takes Two More Steps Towards Facism"

... but not THAT religion.

Judge: Parents can't teach pagan beliefs

Quoting Kevin Corcoran from the Indianapolis Star:
"An Indianapolis father is appealing a Marion County judge's unusual order that prohibits him and his ex-wife from exposing their child to "non-mainstream religious beliefs and rituals."

Continue reading "Freedom of Religion..."

Someone please inform me.

While the masses of collective tissue that make up our state lawmakers debate things like... oh - I don't know - trying to find a way to raise money for a new stadium for the Colts, millions of dollars are being slashed from the budget for IPS via state and national initiatives.

Not only that, the state is looking into ways for parents to use state money to fund private school education. The provisions imply that if an IPS school is not up to snuff with No Child Left Behind, then parents may opt to transfer their children to a private school using state money. Do the children return to IPS once the offending school improves its scores?

Apparently not.

Does anyone else here think that this might lead to the utter abandonment of IPS schools? The private schools which participate in the program would receive the money that was intended for the public school in the first place. The public school would not have the means to improve itself and continue to spiral downward. Meanwhile, the private schools would most likely become just as crowded as a public school and face a similar decline in the teacher/student ratio.

Does this measure just apply to Kindergartens? Someone tell me how this helps.

There's probably some journalism rule I'm breaking in mentioning this, but IndyScribe has been in the Indianapolis news lately. A few weeks ago the IndyScribe team was interviewed for a story on local bloggers for INTake Weekly newspaper. And last week our pal Jen Bortel appeared in the IndyStar food section in a story about local food bloggers.

Hopefully that makes up for the very boring story I just wrote about shoelaces.

After being initially shot down in late '03, new smoking ban legislation is being discussed in the City-County Council with renewed fire. Last night Proposal NO. 45, 2005 (pdf) was introduced.

Continue reading "Smoking Ban Coming to Indy?"

Long-time Indy residents vividly remember when Tony Kiritsis wired a sawed-off shotgun to the neck of Richard Hall and held the police at bay for 63 hours in February 1977. Kiritsis defaulted on a loan and blamed Hall, a mortgage broker. The ordeal ended peacefully, but not before Kiritsis ranted profanity on live television in an impassioned speech. Expecting a climatic end to the speech, many network TV stations pulled the plug. Kiritsis gave up, but not before firing the shotgun into the air to prove that it was loaded the entire time.

Detailed review of the trial , and coverage in the Indy Star

IndyGo is adding two new diesel hybrid buses to their fleet on the first of February. This is in addition to the 5 they put into service back in August '03. Counting hybrid buses in our mass-transit strategy puts Indy into an elite club of only 18 cities in the US with this technology.

So, are these the same thing as the bio-diesel buses I have seen? The exhaust fumes from the bio-diesel buses smell like french fries.

I watched a bit of this on TV last night. The overwhelming message I got from it was our need for fiscal responsibility. The Governor is planning to either cut or flatten spending on our state programs. A couple of his major ideas for solving our problems poked through to the surface; reform property taxes and imposing a one time tax of 1% on people making more than $100,000 per year. See a full transcript of the State of the State Address. Here's a little of it to set the tone...

The state of our state is far from sound. The state of our state needs serious attention. The foundation is still firm, but major repairs are overdue.

How will this impact us in Indy?

Late Saturday morning, downtown Indy was hit by another underground explosion. This was the third in the past nine days. Three people were injured, no one died. Although the cause of the explosions is unknown, the Fire Department thinks they are related to the frequent freezing and thawing that has occurred over the past two weeks. It is believed the temperature changes are triggering electrical arcs that ultimately cause the explosions. A number of downtown businesses have been effected by the blasts. Read more about the latest blast in the Indy Star.

See a map of the explosions

The Indianapolis Star broke the story of the city's first homicide of the year. Daniel Baltarza Alejandres died in the hospital after being shot numerous time on the 28th of December. The crime took place near his apartment on the west side (map).

The IPD is still working on the 2004 homicide report, but 2003's is available online. 2003 followed the down trend established after the record-high homicide rates in '96 and '97 -130 homicides in each of those years (which if I remember correctly was on par with Washington D.C.). At the 2003 homicide rate, an Indianapolis resident was murdered every 4.5 days.

According to the Indy Star, Indiana State Police busted drug smugglers with 2,350 pounds of marijuana in a Northwestside neighborhood. The suspects used a truck that was made to look like a "well known mail courier" to avoid detection.

"Indianapolis' highway access can make the city appealing for legal and illegal business, said Indianapolis Police Sgt. Paul McDonald. "Unfortunately, we're a crossroads," said McDonald, who was part of the narcotics team that made the seizure. "It's an excellent place for business -- and for drug business."

Maybe InDOT should rename 465 to 420?

Indianapolis Police are looking for a disgruntled former beer delivery driver who, after being fired from his job, stole the delivery truck he drove and parked it on the west side of town. The trailer, which had contained 14,000 cases of beer, sat open for six weeks while people help themselves to the contents. Police discovered the location of the truck after someone attempted to sell a pallet of beer to a liquor store.

Police said they were surprised that there was still beer left in the truck when it was discovered on Wednesday.