- Bloomington Recycles: Fact or Fiction?
- How public is our library?
- Interstate 69
- The Insider's Guide to the Outdoors
- Poverty
- Environment
- Community
- Who owns downtown?
Who owns Kirkwood?
-- The story
-- The list
Who owns the Square?
-- The story
-- The list
Alternative Features
The Monroe County Public Library Board of Trustees ended months of bitter debate on Aug. 20 when it voted 5-2 to start televising its monthly work sessions, every other month.
Bitter may be an understatement. Trustee Penny Austin said at an Aug. 13 board work session that coming to meetings makes her feel physically ill. She reiterated that point at the board’s regular meeting a week later.
At the work session, board President John Walsh characterized Trustee Randy Paul’s “behavior and tactics” as “selfish, narcissistic, disrespectful, dishonorable, unethical and detrimental.” He repeated disrespectful, dishonorable and unethical twice.
Board Vice President Fred Risinger shouted at Paul during the work session. He too restated his frustrations at the Aug. 20 meeting.
“I really feel like we’ve been pressured into this, and I resent it,” he said of a vote to have Community Access Television Services (CATS) broadcast the board’s previously untelevised work sessions.
It’s hard to think of a tragedy worse than that which befell Elena Veach last week. A talented teacher and wife of Bloomington’s New Tech High School principle Alan Veach, Elena, just 27, fell after giving birth to her son. A victim of genetics gone bad, Elena passed from a congenital heart defect; too soon, and too tragic.
But not without a legacy. For now Elena’s family is struggling to raise funds for which to pay her posthumous medical bills. Bills accrued during her life, due now that it’s over and because it’s over.
A bake sale of sorts, for the past health needs of a vibrant individual. Covering the obligations that she, in death, was forced to lay on the feet of her survivors. Here, in the most prosperous nation on earth.
Ask just about any citizen at the Recycling Center how long they have been recycling, why they do it and how they would feel if their recyclables weren’t being recycled, and you get remarkably similar answers.
“As long I’ve lived in Bloomington -- six years,” said Cathleen Paquet, while her friend Elizabeth Gibbs nodded in agreement.
Third in a series
“I think it’s important for our planet, to prevent massive landfills,” said Dale Hartkemeyer, who recently moved to Bloomington from Michigan.
The Next President's Own Words
In This Edition
August 24, 2008
News & Opinion
* Shouting at the library by Steven Higgs
* CIVITAS: This is not America by Gregory Travis
* Glass goes to Indianapolis by Steven Higgs
* George Orwell, George Ohwell by James Alexander Thom
* The propaganda model redux by Kevin Howley
* The insider's guide to the outdoors -- Part 4 by Gnome de Plume
* Build America so America works by John F. Penn
Arts & Culture
* A sad blues train runnin' by George Fish
Editorial Cartoons Archive
See them all -- Brian Garvey, Tom Tomorrow, Keith Knight
Back Issues
Read past editions of The Bloomington Alternative
06.15.08 - 08.10.08