Category Archives: Mark Kruzan

04/03/2015
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2015 FDR Gala, 2015 Mayoral Election, Baron Hill, Blue Dog Democrats, Chris Gaal, Darryl Neher, Dawn Johnsen, John Hamilton, Mark Kruzan, Marty Spechler

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Party On

Bloomington was the site of what can only be considered a Democratic orgy yesterday. Dems gathered at the Irish Lion at 5pm to pay tribute to and write checks for mayoral candidate John Hamilton. An hour later even more Dems got together at the Fountain Square ballroom to pat each other on the back at the annual FDR Gala.

As members of the party stretched their conga line the city block from the Lion to the ballroom, I was reminded of nothing more than my days as a randy, rowdy 22-year-old when my friends and I would bounce from party to party on a Saturday night.

Conga Line

Toeing The Party Line

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Only there were no guys wearing eyeliner or gals sporting fishnet hose (I ran with an avant garde club crowd back in the late ’70s and early ’80s). Led by that renowned fashion plate, former US Congressdude Baron Hill, the attire of the day was all business. The Dems mean business this year, having suffered a vicious ass-kicking nationally at the hands of the Republicans last fall. With Gov. Mike Pence’s recent pratfalls, party faithful suddenly are giddy with the possibility that the GOP just might piss away all its gains. Seemingly in the snap of a finger, 2016 looks like a resurrection year for the Dems so long as Pence et al keep stepping on their…, um, striped ties.

But first, there’s a mayoral election to get through this annum.

Hamilton and his wife, Dawn Johnsen, hosted their fundraiser at the Lion mere days before early voting begins (Tuesday, April 7th). The primary election day is Tuesday, May 5th. There’s a lot of dough to be spent between now and then. Hoping to draw more wallets out, Team Hamilton/Johnsen rolled in the heavy artillery of Blue Dog stalwart Hill.

“This guy,” Hill told the crowd after Hamilton intro’d him as a cross between his BFF and an elder statesman of rock ‘n roll (think Paul McCartney), “gets it.”

Whatever “it” is, the crowd responded, vocally at least. The number of zeroes they filled out on their checks has yet to be determined.

The currency at the FDR was less precise than dollars and cents. There, the Dems bestowed moral support upon each other. Everybody who was anybody in Bloomington Dem circles was there — save for the elephant who wasn’t in the room, Mayor Mark Kruzan.

Improbably, the mayor was a no-show. His AWOL-ness only struck me as I was leaving the Gala so I dashed off an email to one party big shot asking if it was merely my imagination. This person responded uncharacteristically tersely: “Mayor Kruzan was a top sponsor of the FDR Gala, but is keeping a low profile at events during primary season and focusing on his job at City Hall.”

This particular big shot knows full well a smart-ass like me would interpret this absence note as the pinnacle of political-speak, and so I have. My source may as well have written Kruzan “wants to spend more time with his family.”

The Mayor indeed is outgoing (ironic, considering he’s such an aloof figure) — his term ends the last day of this year — but, as far as the party is concerned, apparently, Kruzan’s out already.

I get the feeling some bad news will begin trickling out regarding Kruzan’s 12 years at the helm of this thriving, throbbing megalopolis. I’ll keep digging — hell, somebody’s gotta do it.

BTW: Whispers at the Hamilton affair have it that his opponent, Darryl Neher — Kruzan’s hand-picked guy — ought to downplay any connection with the mayor. The Hamilton camp sees the pairing as Neher’s soft underbelly. You know what? I agree with them.

Anyway, perhaps my favorite encounter of the night was with the city council’s District III representative, Marty Spechler. I rode up in the Fountain Square elevator with Spechler and a couple of young party supporters. We all intro’d ourselves to each other and one of the young guys remarked that he’s a faithful reader of The Pencil. Spechler looked puzzled. The following mini-convo ensued:

Me [to Spechler]: Don’t you read the Electron Pencil?

Spechler [still looking stumped]: I read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

Me: Well, I’m not that big yet.

Spechler’s look morphed from baffled to grateful, thanks to the elevator doors opening. I wondered for a hot moment if he’d try to dig up The Pencil when he’d get home before my good sense reasserted itself.

As promised yesterday, I stalked two very decent (morally and ethically), very capable figures to ask them what their political plans might be vis-a-vis elective office. One of them already holds county office but I’ve been sensing this character ought to think in grander terms. The other is unelected but nevertheless is a key player in party affairs.

Let’s start with the already-elected pol. I tapped Monroe County Prosecutor Chris Gaal on the shoulder and asked, point blank, “What about Congress, Mr. Prosecutor?”

Gaal: Huh?

Me: You.

Gaal: What?

Me: Congress.

Gaal: What about it?

Me: You. Congress. Why not?

Gaal [a lightbulb going off above his head]: You mean me, run for Congress?

Me: Yeah. You.

Gaal [without missing a beat]: You can quote me on this: I’d rather have a sharp stick in the eye. I love what I’m doing and I have big plans for this office.

That is, the one he already occupies. Fair enough. I believe him. Too bad. I could see Gaal giving Todd Young a run for his money.

The other person appeared equally as mind-blown by my Q. This person absolutely and positively denied ever even entertaining such a crazy idea. Now, I wasn’t meaning this person ought to run for Congress. Maybe something a little less ambitious, like county commissioner. Ixnay, the person repeated.

Me: Can I mention your name in tomorrow’s Pencil?

The Person [aghast]: No!

Again, fair enough. And again, it’s a damned shame.

Here are some pix from yesterday’s bashes:

04/02/2015
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2015 Mayoral Election, Darryl Neher, FDR Gala, John Hamilton, John Whikehart, Mark Kruzan, Monroe County Democratic Party, Two-mile Fringe, Writers Guild at Bloomington

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The Party’s Party

Monroe County’s Dems get together tonight for a pep rally in the ballroom at Fountain Square. The annual FDR Gala begins at 6pm and, per tradition, will feature all the players running for office this year. The mayoral contenders will be there as will dozens of party loyalists and current office-holders who aren’t up for election this time around.

Donkey

Donkeyshines Tonight

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I’ll seek out among the throng two party sachems whom I hope to grill about their plans. One I bet would make a fine candidate for US Congress as early as 2016. The other has a slightly lower profile  but is still an invaluable player in party affairs. This person would be a swell candidate for the Indiana Statehouse. I’ll pitch the ideas to them and see how they try to slip and slide out of answering. I’ll let you know what they say in tomorrow’s post.

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Part Of The Party’s Party

John Whikehart threw a house party for John Hamilton yesterday evening, illustrating the wedge the race for mayor has thrown into the Democratic Party here. Whikehart was outgoing Mayor Mark Kruzan’s deputy mayor. He quit the post in January and now is backing the opponent of Kruzan’s hand-picked candidate, Darryl Neher.

Also appearing at Chez Whikehart were Ivy Tech-Bloomington Chancellor Jennifer Vaughan, Waldron Center gallery director Julie Roberts, and real estate maven Trish Sterling.

In other Hamilton news, he’s throwing himself a fundraiser at the Irish Lion tonight at 5pm so there’ll be a Democratic conga line between that place and Fountain Square around six o’clock. Drivers, pedestrians, and crows beware.

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The Disappearing Fringe

One of Bloomington’s most curious citizens asks whatever happened to the two-mile fringe?

When Mayor Mark Kruzan came into office, the city’s planning and utilities depts. had plenty of sway over the ribbon of land surrounding Bloomington’s official boundaries. In the ensuing 12 years, the county has come to control more and more of that area’s development. In the same period of time, the words Bloomington and annexation have become estranged. My curious citizen interrogator sez tax revenues from some of the new housing developments in the former fringe might have helped the city weather its current financial dire straits.

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Writers Gotta Write

The Writers Guild at Bloomington has released its April schedule of events and one particular date caught my eye. For those of you wishing to get in on this often thankless but still weirdly rewarding writing racket, you ought to stop by the Monroe County Public Library Sunday, April 19, 2-4pm for a writing workshop on how to get your own personality down on paper — or, more accurately — the LCD screen.

The prob. with trying to write, as this three-plus-decade veteran of the keyboard clacking game has learned, is trying to find a way to write in a way that sounds like you speaking. Elementary schools generally beat the literary creativity out of us, ergo the need for creative writing programs in our universities. For instance, I’d been an obsessive writer as a young child, concocting ludicrous and imaginative stories about my classmates, teachers, school janitors, and neighbors until, for disciplinary reasons, I was compelled to write 1000-word punishment papers in the sixth and seventh grades. All of a sudden, I came to despise writing because of it. I didn’t get back into the act until I was in my mid-20s.

That old school horror story aside, our schools — especially in this day and age of standardization — labor to get kids writing in a dull, flat, unobtrusive, decidedly non-idiosyncratic manner. Don’t get me wrong, kids must be taught the basics — the standards, if you will — of grammar, usage, punctuation and all the rest. Only then can they be encouraged to violate those standards, strategically and tactically, in search of literary freshness and, well, art.

Anyway, we come out of school thinking we have to write in a certain style, aping some unnamed English country gentleman with a snifter of brandy on the table next to him and an iron rod firmly embedded in his backside.

That’s nonsense, of course. The best writing is that which causes us to hear in our imaginations a voice we’ve never heard before, a stranger’s voice, a fascinating, compelling voice that’s describing for us, naturally, a place we’ve never been before.

So if you feel the need to write, drop in to the workshop, “Jazzy, Snazzy, Bombastic, Shy: Putting Your Voice Upon the Page.”

Oh, hey, speaking of the Writers Guild, here’s a reminder: Board chair Tony Brewer will be creating Poetry on Demand tomorrow and Saturday at the Village Lights Bookstore‘s annual Poetpalooza in Madison, Indiana. The Pencil posted the Poetpalooza sked the day before yesterday.

And, while we’re at it, don’t miss the Writers Guild’s monthly First Sunday event, April 5, 3-5pm, at Boxcar Books, featuring readings by Tia Clark, Madelyn Ritrosky, and Tami Whiting.

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03/28/2015
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Bloomington Farmer's Market, Busman's Holiday, Mark Kruzan, Marty Hawk, Spillman Technologies

Hot Air

Got A Quarter For A Cup Of Coffee?

Amid all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the installation (or, more accurately, re-installation) of downtown parking meters a year and a half ago, one hugely important factor goes undiscussed. That is, the city’s finances.

Oh sure, City Council-ites and outgoing Mayor Mark Kruzan might tell us how important it is to control the day-long parking habits of all those pampered IU students living downtown in mini-palaces their parents have gifted them. And others might point out that it’s now ever so much easier to find a parking space around Courthouse Square.

But the sine qua non of the meter decision was, pure and simple, dough. Bloomington’s raking it in on a daily basis at a dollar an hour per parking space. Lest you think Kruzan et al are sitting in their throne rooms showering themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars in quarters, keep in mind that the city’s bank account just might be tapped out.

Panhandler

Can You Spare Two Bits?

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The Pencil hears a whisper that the city might be unable to pay Monroe County its share of the million-dollar-plus emergency dispatch center software that’s been in use since September. Way back in the summer of 2013, the city and the county signed an interlocal agreement to purchase a maintenance policy from Spillman Technologies, Inc. The company would keep the dispatchers’ computer programs purring for ten years in exchange for a cool 1.2 mill.

The county and the city share a high-tech emergency dispatch operation atop the new $9.5 million Bloomington Transportation Center.

A source with intimate knowledge of the deal says that the city cried poor when payment came due. Acc’d’g to this person, the city and county now are hashing out a payment plan; in other words, Bloomington wants to borrow the scratch from Monroe County — scratch the city supposedly was good for when the interlocal agreement was signed.

The Herald Times reported earlier this week that some in the county don’t even like the looks of the prepay deal in the first place. Monroe County Council member Marty Hawk, for one, told the H-T a million bucks was pretty much a scary sum to commit to w/o even knowing how Spillman will perform.

Meanwhile, my source added that a financial whiz from one of the city’s departments recently has done an audit of the city’s tax/expenditure activities and essentially came away from the chore shaking her/his head sadly.

Two things:

  1. Think of how much worse our town’s financial picture might be without all those quarters. 
  2. Do Darryl Neher and John Hamilton realize what in the hell they’re trying so hard to get themselves into?

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Sunshine? I’ve Heard Of It!

You know it’s spring when the city’s Farmers Market moves back outdoors. Well, it’s spring, at least acc’d’g to the calendar. The 2015 al fresco Market debuts a week from today, Saturday, April 4th, outside City Hall on North Morton Street.

And just to remind you what a kick the FM is, here’s some video footage of the Rogers boys’ band, Busman’s Holiday, shot by camera ace Duane Busick:

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By the way, that brightness you see in the video? It’s called sunshine. I’ve got a ten-spot to bet that we’ll see some of that stuff next Saturday.

For more from Duane Busick, go to his YouTube page.

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Go Dark

Hey, h/t to Linda Oblack for reminding us: Let’s all do Earth Hour tonight.

Turn off your lights, your devices, your mixers, your TV, your Hitachi wand, and any other thing powered by electricity from 8:30-9:30pm. Just a reminder of how much goddamned non-renewable energy we soak up every minute of every day.

Darkness

This Is What Darkness Looks Like

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Suggestions for what to do while the juice is off:

  • Put together a jigsaw puzzle
  • Do a crossword
  • Read a book
  • Listen as the birds retire for the night
  • Talk to each other
  • Have sex (w/o the wand, natch)
  • Contemplate
  • Meditate
  • Exercise
  • Take a nap
  • Write a letter

Do something other than suck electrons out of a wall outlet.

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03/11/2015
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2015 Mayoral Election, Andrew Guenther, Darryl Neher, IDS, John Hamilton, John Linnemeier, Mark Kruzan, Monroe County Democratic Party

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He Said, He Said

Was it a “gotcha” moment perpetrated by a Hamilton camp operative? Or did that Indiana University student who questioned Darryl Neher’s progressive credentials in Monday’s IDS do us all a service by exposing the mayoral candidate’s sneakiness?

The question has been raised: Is Darryl Neher a Democrat or a Republican?

I’d thought that was settled long ago. Apparently not.

IDS staffer Andrew Guenther zinged Neher Monday with a piece headlined “One Bloomington; Two Darryls” that calls into question the former Republican’s commitment to the Democratic Party. Guenther wrote that, contrary to repeated public statements by Neher, the current city council member continued to vote in Republican primaries through 2007 and bragged of voting for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election on a now-defunct Internet political forum.

“Darryl Neher,” Guenther wrote, “needs to answer some tough questions before he is ready to run for Mayor of Bloomington.”

The forum, assmotax.org, does not exist at this time and one former participant on it tells me it has been deactivated for some 10 years. The URL does not direct to an active page and a WHOIS search reveals no information about any current owner of the subdomain name.

Neher, acc’d’g to Guenther, has declared that he has “consistently supported and voted for Democrats” since entering graduate school in 1989. Neher’s vote for Bush in 2000 and his participation in six Republican primaries since that time belie his assertion.

“As we can see from his record,” Guenther concludes, “Neher is not [standing by his convictions]. We deserve progress. We deserve honest leaders. We deserve answers.”

As reported here yesterday, Neher addresses his party switch at many or all of his house party campaign events. “There it is: the elephant in the room,” Neher said to a group in the Renwick neighborhood Monday evening when someone asked him about his switch.

Neher 20150309

Darryl Neher [right] Listens To A Supporter

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Neher rarely fails to mention that he is progressive to the “core” and that his voting record during his four-year term as city council Dist. V rep demonstrates an unmistakable commitment to Democratic and progressive principles.

I contacted Neher yesterday for reaction to the IDS piece. He sent me a draft copy of his open letter to the Monroe County Democratic Party. Here it is:

To all Monroe County Democrats,

As I run for the Democratic nomination to become Bloomington’s next mayor, some people have asked for an explanation of why I switched party affiliation. I am happy to provide openness and clarity to this question. 

Am I a Democrat? Yes, I am a Democrat to the core. I actively chose to become a Democrat in 2008 because it is the party that represents my values.

Was I formerly a Republican? Yes. I was raised in small-town northern Indiana in a blue-collar Republican household, so this was my family culture. I grew up with a brand of Republicanism that emphasized fiscal responsibility, support for small community businesses, public investment in infrastructure, and a belief in volunteerism and serving the common good.

My personal history helps illustrate the transformation of my politics solidly into the Democratic camp. After life-changing service trips to Sierra Leone, West Africa and San Pedro Sula, Honduras during college, I entered graduate school at IU to study issues of race, gender, and social justice. I researched and wrote about the importance of re-writing our histories to reflect true multicultural impacts on our national identity.  And since entering graduate school in 1989, I have consistently supported and voted for Democrats for local, state, and national offices.

My political transformation accelerated between 1996 and 2006 while I hosted public affairs radio programming. I found myself increasingly critical of Republican politics. The erosion of civil liberties, implementing economic policies that punished working families, attempts to dismantle public education, and   a pervasive “anti-science” mentality made me question “Why am I here?” 

But perhaps a more important factor in finding my political home within the Democratic Party is my deep loyalty to my LGBTQ friends and colleagues. I struggled with how I could in good conscience align myself with a political party that consistently tells people I love that they should be denied so many rights because of who they are; denying my friends the right to marry the person they love, telling them they should silence themselves if they want to serve their country, and often denying them the beauty of adopting a child and providing that child a loving home was simply unacceptable.

I entered politics for the first time in 2011 and consider myself a public servant not as a politician. Our former Party Chair Rick Dietz certified me as a Democrat before I ran for City Council. Three former Democratic Party chairs joined my committee in 2011, and I feel the continued support of strong Democrats in our city on my mayoral campaign committee, including current Mayor Mark Kruzan, State Representative Matt Pierce, County Councilmember Shelli Yoder, and former Democratic Party Chairs Dan Combs and Pat Williams.

My track record on City Council also represents my strong Democratic principles. I am proud to have earned the support of all eight of my Democratic City Council colleagues who selected me to serve as the Council President for two straight years. I co-sponsored our Marriage Equality Resolution and was one of the first public officials to marry same-sex couples in our city. I supported resolutions against Citizens United and for Medicaid Expansion for the Affordable Care Act. I advocated increased funding for Planned Parenthood through my role on the Jack Hopkins Fund committee. I enthusiastically advocated for historic preservation, stood up for tenants’ rights, and voted for public funding of the arts and social services.   

I am a Democrat, I won an election as a Democrat, and I’ve governed as a Democrat. 

If you have further questions, please send them my way at Darryl.Neher@gmail.com. I hope I can earn your trust and support in the Democratic Primary for Mayor. 

Best, Darryl

After receiving this, I sent Neher a list of questions concerning the IDS piece and his party switch. Here they are:

  • What is the “Monroe County/Bloomington forum” the author refers to in paragraph 4?
  • Did you use the screen name “garvey” on that forum? What is the meaning or genesis of the term “garvey”?
  • Did you write that you supported George W. Bush in the 2000 election on that forum?
  • Did you thank voters for supporting you in your campaigns for city council on that forum?
  • Is (or was) that forum called assmotax.org?
  • If the forum was assmotax.org, was it customary for posters to state ideas and claim affiliations that they didn’t necessarily believe in so they could generate discussions on it?
  • Did you state ideas and claim affiliations that you didn’t necessarily believe in on that forum?
  • Did you vote for George W. Bush in the 2000 and/or 2004 presidential elections?
  • Did you vote in Republican primaries in 1998, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, and 2007?
  • In an earlier email to me today, _______ referred to the author of the op/ed piece as a Hamilton staffer. How does [s/he] know this?

For his part, Guenther is listed as a member of the IDS staff on the newspaper’s website. His articles seem to be more opinion-y, even verging on bloggish. I dug up a Facebook page for someone named Andrew Guenther who studies political science and psychology at IU and who lists his work as “Case Manager at Indiana University Department of Student Rights, Housing Assignment Support Staff at IU RPS and Director of Social Advocacy at IU Residence Hall Association.” This Guenther also mentions that he was a member of Indiana High School Democrats.

I submitted a list of questions to Guenther of the IDS. Here they are:

  • How did you get the idea to check the archive of the defunct website assmotax.org?
  • How do you know Darryl Neher used the screen name “garvey”?
  • Certain members of the Neher camp believe you are working for the Hamilton campaign. Are you? Have you ever? What is your relationship with John Hamilton, Dawn Johnsen, and/or the Hamilton for Mayor operation?
  • Do you have a personal stake in the upcoming mayoral election? That is, do you have a preference for who wins?
  • What is your role at IDS? Are you a reporter or an op/ed writer? Are you both? When you wrote the Neher piece in question, did you do it as a straight reporter or as an opinion columnist?

Hoping to cover all my bases, I submitted a few questions to John Hamilton. Here they are:

  • Does Andrew Guenther work or volunteer for your campaign?
  • Has he ever worked or volunteered for you in any political campaign?
  • Is challenging Darryl Neher’s credentials as a Democrat a strategy or tactic of your campaign?

Hamilton’s answers, in order:

  • “No, he does not.”
  • “Never has, so far as I’m aware.”
  • “No, neither I nor our campaign has a strategy or tactic of challenging Darryl’s credentials as a current Democrat — he was approved to run as one by the party in 2011 and won election and is serving as a Democrat on city council. I and my campaign do view different backgrounds in experience and policies of all the candidates, accurately described, as relevant.”
I’m hoping the other two get back to me with answers today.
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Openness

In other mayoral campaign news, I saw longshot candidate John Linnemeier engaged in a tête à tête in a public place with a very prominent member of Mayor Mark Kruzan’s cabinet this morning. I grilled the department head, asking why s/he was meeting with the candidate. This department head said s/he was meeting Linnemeier as a courtesy s/he’d proffer to any citizen. “I’ll meet anyone anywhere,” this person said. The purpose of their meeting? “To exchange ideas.” When asked if the department head was a supporter of Linnemeier, s/he said, “No.”
If all this is true, I think it’s pretty cool. The department head’s boss, Mayor Mark Kruzan, has thrown his lot in with Darryl Neher. In an earlier day and another, less enlightened place, such a meeting would be career suicide for the department head.
Linnemeier

John Linnemeier

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Anyway, Linnemeier stopped by my table to chat after his meeting. He said, “Everybody thinks I’m gonna lose. I’m gonna win! Give me a level playing field [he’s refusing corporate donations] and I’ll kick their asses!” Meaning, of course, his two Dem primary opponents and not the citizenry of Bloomington.
BTW, Linnemeier also says he’s got a secret weapon issue that he’s sure will gain him scads o’votes. He made me swear to secrecy “for two weeks.” Alright, my lips are sealed ’till then.
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01/25/2015
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2015 Mayoral Election, Bloom Magazine Book Club, Campaign Financing, Darryl Neher, Dawn Johnsen, John Hamilton, Mark Kruzan, Michael Koryta, Those Who Wish Me Dead

Hot Air

Read Koryta

I wonder how many people in this town know about the Bloom magazine book club.

Yeah, it’s a thing. Here’s the deal: Bloom, being bi-monthly, will announce a new book choice each issue with a get-together of all participants approximately two months down the road. The current selection is Michael Koryta‘s Those Who Wish Me Dead.

Book Cover

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Koryta, of course, is the local big-time novelist whose mysteries and suspenses have flitted onto the New York Times bestseller list now and again. He hangs out with bestselling author Michael Connelly and has garnered kudos from the likes of Stephen King, Dennis Lehane, and George Pellicanos. Here’s Koryta’s bibliography:

  • Tonight I Said Goodbye (he was 21 when this came out)
  • Sorrow’s Anthem
  • A Welcome Grave
  • Envy the Night
  • The Silent Hour
  • So Cold the River 
  • The Cypress House (optioned for film with Chris Columbus as screenwriter)
  • The Ridge
  • The Prophet
  • Those Who Wish Me Dead

Believe it or not, Koryta worked a bit as a private dick, interning with a licensed snoop a few years back. That’s how serious he is about his art. He began dreaming of becoming a novelist when he was 8 years old. He narrowed his ambition at 16 when he decided he’d write about crime. He sent a fan letter to Connelly, who later became his neighbor and pal. (Koryta also keeps a home in St. Petersburg, Florida.) Even after he became an honest-to-gosh author, he studied in a writing workshop run by Lehane down in Florida. He eventually worked his way up to teaching classes for Lehane.

Koryta

Serious Man

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By and by, Koryta branched off on a sort of supernatural tangent in his books. The detour’s success has been mixed at best: acc’d’g to services that measure such things, two of his paranormal books, Envy the Night and Silent Hour couldn’t even crack five figures in sales combined. No matter. “He’s a courageous writer,” Connelly told Wall Street Journal reporter Lauren Mechling for a 2010 profile on Koryta. Koryta insisted on trying his hand at ghostly stuff. “He was having a growing reputation and charting an upward trajectory [yet] he chose to take this risk,” Connelly said.

Koryta eventually became good enough in the woo racket to earn an initial press run of 35,000 for So Cold the River.

Thus far, five of Koryta books are in development for TV and/or film production and three of them have been tabbed among New York Times notable books of the year.

The first meeting of the Bloom mag book club will be Monday, February 9, 5:30pm, at Oliver Winery on the west side of Courthouse Square. That means you have two weeks to cop Those… and gobble it up.

Get reading.

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Loan Sharking

The Herald Times reports this morning (paywall) that Mayor Mark Kruzan has some $32,000 in his campaign war chest and he’s not even running in this year’s beauty pageant.

Neher

Neher: Hat In Hand?

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Betcha Darryl Neher’s pleased the mayor has endorsed him for the Democratic primary in May. “Say Boss,” Neher’s bound to whisper one of these days, “can you spare a grand or two? Y’know, just for expenses?”

Meanwhile, John Hamilton and Dawn Johnsen have been hosted powwows at their home, putting up coffee and tea for supporters and listening to them talk about local issues. And make no mistake: the power couple looked under the sofa cushions for spare change after the get-togethers as well.

Johnsen/Hamilton

Bloomington’s Future First Couple?

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Just wondering, will we ever see the day when election campaigns will be completely publicly financed? In fact, the feds first started pretending in 1971 that the body politic could foot the bill for those running for Prez. You know, the Q at the top of your annual tax form that asks, “Do you want $3 of your federal tax to go to the Presidential Election Campaign Fund?“

Let’s see, that was 44 years ago. Y’think my yearly three bucks counterbalances the hundreds of millions the likes of Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Boys pitch at the candidates?

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11/22/2014
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2015 Election, Barack Obama, Bob Goodlatte, Books, Impeachment, Mark Kruzan, Regina Moore, Washington Post

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Moore No More

So, now both citywide candidates for public office have announced they’re turning in their lunchboxes.

City Clerk Regina Moore yesterday sent out an announcement to all her supporters and pals that she won’t seek reelection  next November. She joins Mayor Mark Kruzan in planning for a life without headaches, handshakes, and harping constituents.

Regina Moore

Moore (David Snodgress/Herald Times Photo)

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I’ve got to imagine Moore must have grown a cauliflower ear from listening to so many friends and acquaintances try to weasel their way out of parking tickets over the phone. I can honestly say I never put the touch on her to spring me from the $20 fine — but I thought about it every single time I found that green envelope on my windshield.

Truth is, I’ll bet she’d have told me to take a hike. She was — hey, wait a minute: is — one of the finest public servants imaginable. What a couple, she and Don Moore, no?

I hope to see the two of them browsing in the Book Corner even more than they already do once she surrenders her keys to the City Hall office supply closet.

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What Barack Has To Look Forward To

The US presidential impeachment process really is simple:

  • 1) The House Judiciary Committee concludes that the President must be impeached
  • 2) The Chair of the Judiciary Committee sends Article(s) of Impeachment to the full House

Goodlatte

House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte

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  • 3) The full House approves one or more Articles of Impeachment by simple majority; this means the President has been impeached
  • 4) Now the Senate puts the President on trial; all 100 Senators will serve as the jury
  • 5) If 67 of the Senators (two-thirds of that chamber) vote to convict the President, another vote is held to either remove him from office or levy another form of punishment or censure on him

That’s it, kids. Oh sure, there are a gazillion little details interspersed: hearings to determine charges, votes to determine the rules of the trial, and so on. But these five steps are the process in a nutshell.

It’s so hard to get 67 Senators to vote one way on anything that doesn’t either enrich them or their campaign coffers that impeachment probably is — and will always be — used only to harass the President.

Certainly that’s what happened in 1998 when Bill Clinton was impeached. The Republican House couldn’t possibly have figured to get a Senate conviction on his fellatial (I just coined a word) crimes and misdemeanors but they loved — I repeat loved — dragging him through a four-year-long ordeal. (The first special prosecutor was appointed in January, 1994 to investigate the Whitewater financial affair and the death of Clinton lawyer Vince Foster; the Senate acquitted Clinton on unrelated charges in February, 1998.)

WaPo

●

I don’t know if Bob Goodlatte‘s (R-VA) Judiciary Committee will decide to consider Articles of Impeachment as its first act when the 114th Congress convenes in January, but I just know it’ll do so eventually. Goodlatte seems a tad, well, more sane than some of the more virulent Me Party-ists of the new, total GOP Congress. But the pressure’s going to be on him from the madman wing of the party to make Barack Obama’s last two years in office a living hell.

As if the first six years haven’t been already.

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Really Reading

Speaking of the Washington Post (look up), the paper has released its list of 2014’s 50 Notable Works of Nonfiction.

I plan, over the next few years, to read nine of the books. Wait a minute — over the next few years? Yeah.

See, because I peddle books, people think I read everything that comes in. I don’t. I can’t. No one can. And if, in some distance bookstore, another peddler says she or he does; know that s/he’s toying with the truth. Reading entails submerging one’s self in a book, savoring it, understanding it, being in it. Speed reading and other tricks of the hyper-caffeinated set do not, in my unhumble view, constitute reading.

Books

My Nightstand’s Under Here Somewhere

●

At least once a week, a customer’ll pull a title off the New York Times Bestseller list shelf and ask, “Have you read this yet?” Invariably I say no. And the cust. usually responds with a a look of pained shock. I wanna say, “Look, you want me to read one of Bill O’Reilly’s Killing… fetish books? Or Heaven Is for Real? Hell, I haven’t even gotten to Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist yet. Whaddya want from me?”

Anyway, throwing the list of nine in with the several dozen other books already waiting for me to devour, I’m being almost overly-ambitious by saying I’ll get to them in a mere few years.

That said, here are the latest nonfiction books that have gone into my reading queue:

  • The Bill of the Century by Clay Risen — about the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act
  • The Birth of the Pill by Jonathan Eig — the simple daily contraceptive pill was perhaps the most important development in the women’s rights story in the second half of the 20th Century
  • Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter — about Stuxnet, the first burst in the 21st Century’s cyberwar
  • The Divide by Matt Taibbi — I’ll read anything by Taibbi; here, he lays out in his trademark rational rage style how money buys justice in this holy land

Book Cover

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  • The Invisible Bridge by Rick Perlstein — a confession: I’ve already read it. Perlstein covers the years 1974 through 1976 in his series on the history of the conservative movement in the US
  • My Age of Anxiety by Scott Stossell — the author has scads of phobias (and so do I); here. he tackles them with candor and humor
  • The Nixon Defense by John W. Dean — the disgraced ex-president’s White House counsel gives the ultimate insider’s view of the tragi-comic scandal
  • The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs — Peace grew up in the Newark slums and went on to study molecular biology at Yale; he also was a nails-tough street thug who ran a profitable dope trade
  • A Spy Among Friends by Ben Macintyre — Brit spook Kim Philby bamboozled pretty much everybody in the intelligence community, apparently not a difficult trick

If you phone me and I don’t answer, it’s because I’m reading.

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11/20/2014
1 Comment
2015 Election, Andy Ruff, Darryl Neher, Dustin Hoffman, Elaine May, John Hamilton, John Whikehart, Katherine Ross, Mark Kruzan, Mike Nichols, Shelli Yoder, Steve Volan, The Compass Players, The Graduate, The Second City

Hot Air

Plastics

Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you. Just one word. 

Benjamin Braddock: Yes, sir. 

Mr. McGuire: Are you listening? 

Benjamin: Yes, I am. 

Mr. McGuire: Plastics. 

Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?

From "The Graduate"

One Word, Benjamin

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And so went perhaps the most famous exchange between characters in a Mike Nichols movie — or, for that matter, any movie made in the 1960s. The Graduate shot Nichols into the Hollywood firmament in 1967. It was his second directorial effort, following some pretty good success the  year before with Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

In The Graduate, he took an absolute unknown, Dustin Hoffman, who was short, whose look screamed his Jewishness, and who had a honker of monumental proportions, and turned him into the object of a bored, spectacularly gorgeous suburban housewife’s desires. “Mrs. Robinson,” he blurts to Anne Bancroft, reclining alluringly on her bed, “you’re trying to seduce me.”

“Huh?” she says, chuckling.

“Aren’t you?”

She was.

As much as The Wild Bunch, and Rebel Without a Cause in the 1950s, The Graduate defined the new, post-WWII youth generation. Youth — the word itself became almost a brand. Almost? Hah! Youth culture was sold like jeans, record albums, Pepsi, and sex — all of which which were inextricably tied in with the young.

The Graduate, when all was said and done, was about pointless, directionless rebellion. Revolution, as Abbie Hoffman once shouted, for the hell of it. Well, a mild revolution. A revolution waged from the safety of the revolutionaries’ backyards.

Adults were hypocritical, shallow, materialistic, hyper-status conscious, and, well, bad guys. The young were disaffected, alienated, and somehow aware of the over-30 generation’s sanctimonious affectations. Only they became so aware while lounging in the sunken swimming pools their parents had built for them.

Mike Nichols’ The Graduate was a work of genius. Not too surprising, considering he came from the star nursery that eventually became known as The Second City.

A bunch of then-current and former University of Chicago students and hangers-on started the Compass Players in Chi-town’s Hyde Park neighborhood in the mid-’50s. The Compass gang, including David Shepherd, Del Close, Paul Sills, Shelley Berman, Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Alan Alda, Ed Asner, Valerie Harper, and others, performed improvised commedia dell’arte skits at a local bar called The Compass. Nichols joined the group and met Elaine May there. The two quickly became lovers and co-performers. They formed a duo act and rocketed to fame far beyond that of the rest of the Compass people at the time. As the Compass Players morphed into The Second City in 1958, Nichols and May struck out on their own, eventually performing on Broadway together in “An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May” and winning a 1962 Grammy award for Best Comedy Album.

Nichols/May

Nichols & May

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Nichols has given us so much comedy — just check out his IMDb page — that he can be forgiven for marrying former Richard Nixon speechwriter Diane Sawyer.

One more thing. The final scene of The Graduate, as much else from the movie, has become iconic. The story goes that nobody knew how the movie would end. Nichols directed Hoffman and Katherine Ross to run out of the church where Ross’s character — coincidentally (or not) named Elaine — had left her fiancé at the altar. The two were to run down the street and eventually board a city bus. They dashed to the rear of the bus and plopped down, out of breath and sweaty, she still in her wedding dress and veil. Hoffman and Ross thought the shot of them, huffing and puffing, would be a brief one and they anticipated there would be another, closing shot.

Instead, Nichols instructed his cameraman to keep shooting. Hoffman and Ross sat in the back of the bus, wondering when they’d hear the word “Cut!” It wasn’t to come for long moments. The actors, puzzled, remained half in-character and half out of it, glancing around, the bafflement beginning to cloud their faces.

Only then did Nichols yell “Cut.” The scene was perfect. Nichols knew that the couple had no idea where they were going nor what they’d do when they got there. The quizzical looks that crossed their faces conveyed it better than anything they could have ever conjured as actors.

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Who’s Next

Judging by my unscientific, non-comprehesive, seat-of-the-pants survey of some of Bloomington’s most plugged-in citizens, this town’s next mayor may either be John Whikehart, former Ivy Tech-Bloomington chancellor and current deputy mayor under outgoing boss Mark Kruzan, or City Council member Darryl Neher.

This despite the fact that Whikehart is 65 years old and hasn’t made any public utterances about wanting the job.

One or two have even implied that Whikehart was brought into city government for the express purpose of succeeding Kruzan. This conspiracy theory has it that Kruzan knew he’d be getting out before being chased out, especially after the downtown parking meters hoo-ha, and wanted a trusted lieutenant to carry on after him.

Neher, on the other hand, seems a far more likely challenger for the throne.

See for yourself whose names are being bandied about:

Neher

Darryl Neher

Bloomington City Council, District. V. The smart money is on Neher to run.

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Ruff

Andy Ruff

Bloomington City Council, At Large. Another great bet to run, at least acc’d’g to knowledgeable observers.

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Whikehart

John Whikehart

Bloomington Deputy Mayor, former chancellor of Ivy Tech-Blooomington.

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Hamilton

John Hamilton

Ran against Kruzan in the 2011 Democratic primary. A risky bet — a good authority whispered into my ear a year ago that he’s not interested in running anymore. Then again he won’t have to run against Kruzan this time. Hmm.

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Yoder

Shelli Yoder

A good bet to run. She’s ambitious and, presumably, looking for a job with a higher profile than that of her current gig as 1st District representative on the Monroe County Council, the better to leapfrog into the US Congress seat she really wants.

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Volan

Steve Volan

Bloomington City Council, District VI. Don’t waste your dough on this bet. Tall Steve already has gone on the record saying he won’t run.

●

Some half a dozen other names have been floated as well. None of them is worth mentioning here. Note no Republicans have been mentioned. This is Bloomington — duh.

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11/19/2014
1 Comment
100 Most Significant Americans, 2015 Election, Geraldine Ferraro, Mark Kruzan, Sarah Palin, Smithsonian Magazine

Hot Air

List Mania

Smithsonian magazine this week released its list of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time. The mag divided the names into these categories:

  • Trailblazers
  • Rebels & Resisters
  • Presidents
  • First Women
  • Outlaws
  • Artists
  • Religious Figures
  • Pop Icons
  • Empire Builders
  • Athletes

Smithsonian Magazine

Ali, Lincoln & O’Keeffe Made The Cut

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Here are a few of the names listed:

Secretariat

Significant American?

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Go ahead, don’t be afraid to click any of the links. I, for instance, had no idea who Ellen G. White was.

Now, there are plenty of names that are sure to raise an eyebrow or two. Secretariat — the horse? And in the rest of the list, Robert E. Lee in Rebels & Resisters along with the likes of Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and Tecumsah? Bette Davis? Charles Manson? L. Ron Hubbard? And perhaps the biggest boner of them all, Sarah Palin as one of the First Women.

Think what you want about Palin, she wasn’t the first anything. The actual first major party female vice presidential candidate was Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984.

Of course, the point of such lists is to get people talking about them.

I love lists. I make them all the time. One of my little tricks as an aspiring writer was to make lists when I felt a bout of writer’s block coming on. The idea being even if I couldn’t write real, inspired stuff, I had to keep the brain/eye/hand connection going. Sort of like a baseball player taking batting practice.

Here’s a typical list:

Big Mike’s Five Favorite Albums/Discs of All Time

  • What’s Going On? Marvin Gaye
  • Bryter Layter Nick Drake

Bryter Layter

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  • Rhapsody in Blue, An American in Paris, & Broadway Overtures: from the original Gershwin Piano Roll accompanied by the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas, music director
  • Ingénue k.d. lang
  • Compact Jazz: Astrud Gilberto with Stan Getz
  • Pet Sounds The Beach Boys
  • Odessey & Oracle The Zombies

So shoot me: I couldn’t cut two discs from that list. Plus, don’t yell at me: Odessey was how the word was spelled on the Zombies disc.

How about this:

Big Mike’s Eleven Most Important Inventions of All Time

  • The electric lightbulb
  • The internal combustion engine
  • The electric motor
  • The microscope
  • The personal computer
  • The toilet

Toilet

Important

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  • The printing press
  • Gunpowder
  • General anesthetic
  • Plastic
  • Antibiotics

Go ahead, make some lists yourself. How about your favorite websites? Make sure to put The Pencil atop that one.

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Mayoral Matchup

Now that Bloomington bossman Mark Kruzan has announced he’s quitting his gig when his current term expires, the guessing game begins regarding the next victi…, er, mayor of this mighty metrop. I’ve put out the call for some of B-town’s finest citizens to tell me who they think may run for the office in 2015.

From WTIU

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I’ve already received a few replies and the lineup looks, well, eclectic. And doesn’t that fit Bloomington to a tee?

BTW: No I will not run for mayor, as some misguided souls have suggested. My skeletons shall remain safe and secure in my closet where they belong, thank you. Besides, I don’t even live within the city limits, although I can shoot a spitball across the border from my living room window.

Tune in here tomorrow when I list some of the other suggested names.

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09/23/2014
1 Comment
Anand Giridharadas, Anti-intellectualism, Anti-science, Bloomington City Council, Bloomington Parks & Recreation, Deer Culling, IFLS, ISIS, Jeff Hobbs, Lisa Winter, Mark Kruzan, Poverty, Racism, Susan Sandberg, Syria, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace

Hot Air

Oh, Those Deer Again

As mentioned earlier in these precincts, the upcoming deer cull (or, if you prefer, kill) has raised a lot of hackles around town. A private wildlife management company (or, if you prefer, hired assassins) will mow down a few of the cuddly but troublesome ruminants this fall. Some B-town residents are in favor of calling out the Air Corps and having them drop the A-bomb on the Griffy Lake area where the deer loiter. Others say, Hey, wait a sec, those little cloven-hoofed Bambis were here first so we should learn to live with them. All of them.

The argument has reached sniffy and huffy proportions at times. The city’s Parks & Recreation Dept. approved the cull plan earlier this year. The City Council followed up by waiving the city’s no-shootin’-o’-them-there-firearms ban. Mayor Mark Kruzan then vetoed the Council’s waiver. The majority of the Council sniffed, stuck to their guns (pun intended), and overrode his veto.

Bloomington Council

Bloomington’s City Council

●

One of our fave Pencillistas is Bloomington City Councilperson Susan Sandberg. She voted yea on the cull and has been dodging missiles ever since. And, like pretty much all political discussion these days, the rhetoric turned ludicrous. Some anti-cullers have suggested that the kill plan is symptomatic of this holy land’s love affair with guns and one or two have even suggested that recent muggings on the B-Line Trail just may be a direct result of the Council’s (and Sandberg’s) mania to solve our problems with firearms and violence.

Well, our gal got pushed over the edge by that. Sandberg took to Facebook the other day and huffed:

I just have to get this off my chest based on a subtle but false remark made in the last Council meeting. To equate gun violence against human beings with my position on responsible deer population management in the Griffy Woods Preserve to protect the ecology of other species is simply not acceptable. For all who follow my posts here, there is no one, I repeat NO ONE who is more horrified by senseless gun violence in America than yours truly. To suggest that those of us who support managing the over abundance of deer in Griffy is in any way related to a reckless gun culture or a direct cause of violence in Bloomington is irresponsible and untrue. I will not let that propaganda stand without respectful rebuttal. I’ve heard that some folks are out there saying that the recent violence on the B-Line trail is directly related to the City Council supporting lethal and humane methods of deer management in Griffy. Those two issues have nothing to do with each other and to spread that false line of thinking is offensive and absurd. I’ll be much more outspoken about this in public meetings if these false comparisons continue.

I, of course, leapt to Sandberg’s defense. Hell, she may be a Congressbeing or even the Governor one day and wouldn’t it be swell to have a friend in either the state’s or nation’s capital?

Like The Dude, Sandberg drew a line in the sand and would not let this (verbal) aggression stand, man.

From "The Big Lebowski"

This Will Not Stand

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Later on in the comment thread, SuSand hinted that some communiques from the anti-cull gang have been threatening and one or two have even characterized her as a Hitler. Susan Sandberg, I’ll say here and now, is no Adolph Hitler — she’s not even a vegetarian.

I spoke with another high-ranking official in these parts yesterday afternoon. Whadja think of SS’s smackdown of her critics the other day? I asked.

This high-ranking official eyed me for a moment and then responded, “When you take the job, you’ve got to accept the criticism that comes with it.”

I think my high-ranking official source is right. Therefore I advise S-squared to ignore the dumb bastards in the hereinafter. I’ll take up the sword in her stead. I’m no elected official so I don’t have to put up with anybody’s stupidity.

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Bomb Newark

Here’s a Wow! quote from the front page of Sunday’s New York Times Book Review:

There are places in America where life is so cheap and fate so brutal that, if they belonged to another country, America might bomb that country to “liberate” them.

That’s as powerful a statement as I’ve read in a big-time media outlet in I don’t know how long. Honestly, I can’t imagine how the line got past the NYT editors.

It is incendiary, it is dramatic, it is shocking, it is bold and, above all, it is true.

It’s the opening sentence in a review of the book, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, the saddest of possible tales about living in the slums of Newark, New Jersey. The book traces the life of the title kid who somehow succeeds despite being raised among gangsters, poverty, miserable schools, and the constant threat of violence. He found his way to Yale University where he majored in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. But Rob also had a daddy-o who was a dope dealer and who warned him off reading books because they’d make him soft. Rob eventually inherited his daddy-o’s drug business. Then he was killed.

Book Cover

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A NYT columnist named Anand Giridharadas wrote the review. Jeff Hobbs wrote the book. I suppose if you want to drive yourself into a deep depression, you’ll read it. On the other hand, there’s a lot about America that’s awfully depressing and it does us no good to ignore it.

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Boom Times

Just for the record, I’m four-square in favor of the pounding the US and its temporary allies are giving those ISIS boys in Syria and parts nearby.

Tomahawk Missile

Stock Image Of A Tomahawk Missile Launch

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People here and there are harrumphing that the whole ISIS scare is a false flag thing, that the US can’t be trusted to deliver us the truth since Iraq. It’s true Little Georgy Bush’s funtimes war against Saddam Hussein was based on pure, unadulterated bullshit. And that indeed should give us pause every time the leaders of this holy land try to sell us a bill of goods.

It doesn’t mean, though, that every utterance from every succeeding president is fraudulent.

The world needs to be wiped clean of ISIS.

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Science (Non)Fiction

Lisa Winter writes in IFLS about the Top 10 Unsolved Mysteries of Science.

That is, the most perplexing questions we haven’t been able to answer about the world — hell, the Universe — around us. Those who scoff at science (can you believe I’m actually writing these words in the 21st Century?) say, See, Science doesn’t know everything!

Correct. Science doesn’t know everything. Actually, science knows nothing since it’s a descriptor of a process rather than a person or group of people who, like, know things.

Those anti-science-ites like to say things like that to infer that not only does science not know everything, it really knows nothing. Evolution? Bah. Global warming? Puh-leeze. Childhood vaccinations? Never. That’s a lazy over-reaction on a par with those (as mentioned in an entry above) who think that because of Iraq, all American presidents lie about everything.

Bumper Sticker

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Well, presidents do lie and science — or , more accurately, scientists — are scratching their heads about any number of things. As Osgood Fielding III says in Some Like It Hot, “Nobody’s perfect.”

Here then, acc’d’g to Lisa Winter, are the most troublesome Q’s scientists face these days:

  • Why is there more matter than anti-matter?
  • Where is all the lithium?
  • Why do we sleep?
  • How does gravity work?
  • Where are all the extra-terrestrials?

From "The Day the Earth Stood Still"

Where Are These Guys?

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  • What is dark matter?
  • How did life begin?
  • How do plate tectonics work?
  • How do animals know where to go when they migrate?
  • What is dark energy?

When I was a little kid, I’d watch cars zip by on North Avenue on Chicago’s Northwest Side and feel frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how they could move. Nothing was pushing those cars; nothing was pulling them. The fact that they were zipping by seemed, to my little mind, impossible. Somehow, though, I knew it wasn’t impossible, nor was it magic. There was a reason, an explanation, a confidence that I’d eventually know.

Scientists today are like little kids when it comes to the aforementioned ten bogglers. No, science doesn’t know everything; it’s got a million questions.

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07/31/2014
2 Comments
Crowe Horvath LLC, Donna Slater, GMO, Herald Times, Mark Kruzan, Mother Jones Magazine, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Sue West, Taxes, Walgreen's

Hot Air

Help Wanted

So, the city’s hiring a bean counter to handle the 2015 upcoming budget. Acc’d’g to today’s Herald Times [paywall], Mayor Mark Kruzan et al have tabbed the Crowe Horvath accounting firm to slap a quick dough doc together in time for the City Council to review it in August.

Just to bring you abreast of the situ., City Controller Sue West took a powder in June after only a year and and half on the job. The Mayor characterized her leaving as a “life decision.” He said at the time that her absence wouldn’t affect the ongoing budget process because Deputy Controller Donna Slater, a CPA, was on hand and, per the M., “she doesn’t have that much less experience with budget preparation. We’re very fortunate to have Donna.”

Slater less than a week later threw her hands in the air and resigned as well. Eek.

CH Lanyard

■

Now Crowe Horvath senior manager Angie Steeno will draw up the draft budget. Slater (who’s staying on the job through Aug.) and city staffers already have been hard at work on it but the remaining work entails more than just dotting the i‘s. Crowe Horvath is a well-respected accounting firm with offices in 26 cities around the country. The outfit was started in 1942 by biz math geeks Fred P. Crowe Sr. and Cletus F. Chizek. By 1995, Crowe’d become one of the top 10 accounting firms, in terms of billing, in the US. After the usual series of  mergers and buyouts, Crowe Chizek became Crowe Horvath in 2008.

Steeno has previous experience with Bloomington: she handled some capital development issues for the Utilities Dept. back in 2011.

I dunno if it’s me, but ever since I arrived in this town in 2009, people entrusted with both the city and county’s cash have been dropping like flies. After learning about Amy Gertstein and Rhonda Foster’s alleged misuse of county credit cards and Justin Wykoff allegedly cutting himself sweetheart deals with Public Works contractors, I get the feeling local governmental finances are no more safe than if all B-town and Monroe County cash was simply parked on shelves in some photocopier room.

Cash

■

What with the potential for criminal charges, firings, and unexpected resignations, landing a job as a local pecuniary official might not be cause for celebration of late.

The mayor and the County Council promise us things are getting better. We’ll see.

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Tyson Talks Tough

So, I’ve been saying this for years but who wants to listen to me? Tons o’folks listen to Neil deGrasse Tyson, though, especially those usually on my side of the fence who believe in climate science and evolution etc. Mother Jones has published a vid wherein the King of All Science tells the anti-GMO crowd, essentially, to take a Xanax. He explains:

I’m amazed how much rejection genetically modified foods are receiving from the public. It smacks of the fear factor that exists at every new, emergent science…. What most people don’t know — and they should — is that practically every food you buy in a store for consumption by humans is genetically modified food. There are no wild, seedless watermelons. There’s no wild cows…. You list all the fruit, and all the vegetables, and ask yourself, is there a wild counterpart to this? If there is, it’s not as large, it’s not as sweet, it’s not as juicy, and it has way more seeds in it. We have systematically genetically modified all the foods, the vegetables and animals, that we have eaten ever since we cultivated them. It’s called artificial selection. That’s how we genetically modify things. So now we can do it in a lab, all of a sudden you’re gonna complain? …We are creating and modifying the biology of the world to serve our needs. I don’t have a problem with that because we’ve been doing that for tens of thousands of years. So chill out.

deGrasse Tyson

Fallen Idol?

■

Sorry, NdGT, there won’t be any chillin‘; the foodies who’ve seen this vid are having nervous breakdowns at this very moment trying to figure out what to think about you now.

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Cuban Wisdom

Indiana University alum and billionaire Mark Cuban doesn’t like the way corporations are trying to get out of paying US taxes now. Big outfits like Walgreen’s are moving their HQs to foreign countries these days so’s they can dodge their responsibilities to help keep this holy land running. Cuban sez:

If I own stock in your company and you move offshore for tax reasons, I’m selling your stock.

When companies move offshore to save on taxes, you and I make up the tax shortfall elsewhere.

Looks like he learned a thing or two at the Kelley School.

Cuban

Cuban

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