Real News for a Change:The Best of The Bloomington Alternative is a 56-page compilation of what 14 of our regular contributors believe are some of the most compelling stories and cartoons since we started the publication. Most were published in the past two years, since we started the print edition, though a handful are from the Web-only days. In fact, the magazine was published to coincide with the two-year anniversary of our print edition.

Real News is a fundraiser that we are selling for $5 apiece, plus tax and shipping. To help the Alternative cause, please send a check, money order, credit card number or PayPal contribution of $6, and we'll drop one in the mail to you. You can send payment to: The Bloomington Alternative; P.O. Box 3523; Bloomington, IN 47402.

Below is my introduction to the magazine to give you a better idea what Real News is all about.

As always, thanks for reading and supporting the Alternative.

I do want to thank those whose financial support made Real News possible. They are listed at the end of this article.

Steven Higgs

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'Izzy, if you only knew'

I wrote those words this past weekend on a crisp, sunny spring day deep in the eastern Monroe County woods, perched by a flowing, seasonal creek, reading the first draft of this magazine. I was responding rhetorically to the late I.F. “Izzy” Stone, whose I.F. Stone Weekly served as an inspiration for The Bloomington Alternative.

From its inception, I have modeled the paper, as best I could, after Stone's Weekly, especially his refusal to compromise his journalistic independence. I contemplated a video clip of the iconic, anti-war journalist I discovered on You Tube as I penned my thoughts in a journal I keep on photographic sojourns such as this one.

“I really have so much fun, I ought to be arrested,” Stone said on the clip. “To have your own little paper, … to be able to spit in their eye and do what you think is right and report the news and have enough readers to make some impact is such a pleasure that you forget, you forget what you're writing about. … You're like a journalistic Nero fiddling while Rome burns and having a helluva a good time.”

I can't say that I ever forget what I'm writing about. But, as Stone said in another place and time, “governments lie,” and I spit in their eyes for it every chance I get. I do have enough readers to have some impact. And while I fiddle, Rome burns, from Bloomington to Baghdad to the North and South Poles. Inconvenient truths, indeed.

I believe it is self-evident from this compilation of what I and some of my contributors consider some of our best work that I'm also having one helluva good time.

Yeah, Izzy, guys like us ought to be arrested.

All that said, anyone who has ever been involved in the publishing business will attest that it's not all great fun. Sometimes it just plain sucks. But, with very few exceptions, the one consistent joy in publishing this paper has been the committed, creative souls I've had the pleasure of working with. I mean, come on, can you imagine a more inspirational bunch to work with than socially-conscious writers and artists?

As much as anything, that is what Real News is about. It's an opportunity to celebrate the contributions that the five dozen-plus journalists, thinkers, students and artists have provided me and my readers since I published the first edition of the Alternative in July 2002. Since that first e-mail edition, sent to a list of about 50 of my long-time readers, we've grown to more than 750 online subscribers and an estimated 10,000 readers of our print edition, which we launched exactly two years ago today.

We're only scratching the surface here, but what follows are 30 pieces that we consider to be among our best. Before we get to those, however, I want to tell you a little bit about these amazing human beings.

The first thing you should know about them is that, like me, they all do this on the side. We all have day jobs of one sort or another. And while I do pay them for their work, it's a pittance, nowhere near what they are worth. Trust me on that one.

In a town with a rich history of music writers, Lori Canada is rapidly taking her place among the elite. A Lawrence County native, she's a social worker by day, single mother and music lover by day and night, and her writing talents don't end at the musical scale. As you will see from her contributions here, she's written about a rich variety of subjects, for both the arts and news sections.

Steve Chaplin came to us by way of Andy Mahler, with whom he works on forest preservation and other environmental issues. Anyone who has read Steve's column, “The Alternative Table,” will grasp Andy's observation that he's an outstanding writer and one of the best damned cooks in this or any other town. And while Steve does know food, as promised when he started the “Table,” it's anything but a food column.

I knew Brian Garvey peripherally as an I-69 activist with Citizens for Appropriate Rural Roads before he asked if he could submit editorial cartoons. A graphic designer at the IU Art Museum, he's been contributing to the print edition from the beginning. And let's face it, the Alternative wouldn't be the Alternative without him. His incisive, creative observations on local, state and national politics make Page 2 one of the paper's most popular, I can guarantee.

I couldn't believe my luck when Alison Hamm e-mailed me a few months ago to say she had taken a job with the IU Office of Creative Services and was itching to do some outside writing. I've spent 11 of the past 20 years teaching reporting, writing and editing at the IU School of Journalism, and one of the highlights was having Alison as a student for two semesters in a row. She's one of the best.

I can honestly say that if it weren't for Thomas P. Healy, The Bloomington Alternative might not exist today. The veteran Indianapolis News reporter turned Branches publisher was the first regular contributor to the online edition four-and-a-half years ago, and his support, commitment and encouragement convinced me it would work, when I frankly wasn't sure. We didn't even know until a couple years ago that we went to the same high school in Indianapolis.

I tell my students that high on the list of journalistic pluses is being a lifelong learner, and with perhaps the exception of Greg Travis, I have learned as much from Millie Jackson's “Wellness” column as I have from anything we've published. A massage therapist by trade, Millie recently moved on to pursue other interests. It was a pleasure having her in the paper, and I know all our readers wish her well.

Of all the contributors whose work has filled the Alternative pages and screens since we started, Melissa McReynolds is the only one who was a friend first. I met her too through her I-69 activism when a mutual friend introduced us. Her work as a Red Cross volunteer and seemingly endless connections in the local art and faith communities produced stories that never ceased to amaze me. She left us to move back home to the Great Plains to be with family, but rumor has it she may be back for the summer.

As one who hails from a working-class background and sees Gene Debs as a great American hero, I was ecstatic when Tom Szymanski asked if I'd be interested in a labor column. Working men and women are the soul of this country, and it's no coincidence that America's demise is coincident with theirs. As Tom regularly points out in the “State of the Union,” it's cause and effect, pure and simple.

James Alexander Thom has been one of my inspirations since we spent an afternoon in 1989 outside his barn in western Monroe County talking for a story I wrote about him at the Bloomington Herald-Times. We agreed afterward that it was an interview in name only. It was really a bonding experience. Like Jim, I see Kurt Vonnegut as America's greatest living writer. And the fact that Vonnegut called Jim after reading his article “Semper Fou,” first published in the Alternative, is perhaps the greatest single compliment I've received on the paper. Kurt Vonnegut knows we exist!

Along with Healy, Gregory Travis is the other reason that I kept the paper going in the early days. He started writing “Civitas” within a few months of my launching the Web site, and I've probably gotten more feedback on his work than anything else in the paper. Intelligent, insightful, witty, brilliant are just some of the adjectives readers have used. I couldn't agree more.

And then there are the students, whose work I am perhaps most proud of (at the risk of sounding paternalistic). As with Alison, I've had the pleasure of helping nurture the skills and talents of aspiring young journalists like Lynndi Lockenour and Elizabeth Dilts in the classroom and the newsroom. The piece included here by Kelsey Peters was actually her final project in my reporting class.

And those three are, well, just a token representation of the dozen or so students who have worked directly or indirectly for us these past two years. Caitlin Brase, Erica Ballard, Kathleen Huff, Zak Keefer, Jordan David and Megan Whitehead immediately come to mind. And without the marketing and PR skills of Cathy Blumenfeld and Jessica Leary, this magazine wouldn't have happened.

There are too many others to list who have made the Alternative the community institution it has rapidly become, though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention John Clower, Kevin Howley and Megan Sharkey.

But even an abbreviated list wouldn't be complete without mentioning Karen Garinger, our chief copy editor. I've known her since graduate school, and I'd be embarrassed if I didn't have her looking over our shoulders every other week.

And then there is Lisa Morrison, who, in a few short months, has lent her business and marketing skills to the cause, transforming us from a business on the financial edge into an economically sustainable operation.

Izzy, if you only knew.

Steven Higgs
March 23, 2007

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Real News was made possible by the generous financial support from the following businesses and individuals.

Individuals
Lucille Bertuccio
Ledford C. Carter
Lorraine Farrell
Rob Fischman
Milton Fisk
Rob & Michelle Henderson
Harry Hopkins
John Irvine
Flora France Knable
Sarah Knott
Jeffrey Miller
David Nord
Tonda Radewan
Martin Rigby
Richard & Sherry Sammis
Bill Stant
Rob & Karen Green Stone
James Alexander Thom
Jeanne Walters
White River Central Labor Council
Charlotte Zietlow

Businesses
Brown County Weavery
College Mall Barber Shop
Drew Stocksdale C.M.T.
Friends of Art Bookshop (IU)
IU Credit Union
IU Art Museum
Jacobs School of Music
L.B.Stant & Associates
Plus 5/IBEW
Prima Gallery
Wandering Turtle Art Gallery & Gifts
Worm's Way