So, I’m thinking about university presidents. It seems that my old alma mater is in the news. Not much news comes out of Terre Haute or from Indiana State University, as compared with Ball State or Purdue or IU or IUPUI. But it seems that ISU is looking for a new university president. Lloyd Benjamin III was president when I was in college there. I graduated in 2002, and from what I remember, there wasn’t much action behind him. I mean, he wasn’t the president where there was a lot of news behind him. Not to say that he didn’t do anything, I’m sure he was a busy man. It’s not a job that I would particularly want to have. But to help them find the right guy for the job, the university has hired a consultant. ISU is paying this consultant a maximum of $90,000 with up to $20,000 in “incidental expenses associated with the search.” According to the board president, he knows it’s a lot of money, but he wanted the assurance that they’d get the best candidates for the job. Hell, I can find you a president for that kind of money. Was this job as a consultant posted on Monster.com? Why didn’t I see it? Is $110,000 really necessary to find a new president? That kind of money would almost pay for four full ride scholarships. But then again, that would be giving back to the students, and that just couldn’t possibly be. Ok, I know, it probably comes out of different budgets. Like, there is $12.47 allocated to students and $1 trillion allocated in spending on frivolous whims. So, ISU’s getting a new president. And I hope they get what they paid for.

: Indiana State University, Lloyd Benjamin III, university presidents, consultants

So, I’m thinking about people who bite children. This is the most bizarre story I’ve heard in a while. A couple took their young son to the newly-named Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital (at St. Vincent’s) to have a blood test run in lieu of the recent lead paint fiasco. While they were there, she explained to the nurse that her son was autistic. The nurse all of a sudden leaned in and bit the kid on the neck!! (I guess we’ve got a regular Dracula on our hands.) Then what gets me is that the nurse just laughed it off and said something like, “Oh, that’s just a playful bite. He’s not hurt. We did that at the group home I used to work at.” If I were the kid’s mother, I would’ve had to hit the lady right then and there. I would’ve risked an assault charge of my own. I have a real problem with using biting as a means against anyone. (There are some people who believe that if your child has a problem with biting, then you should bite them back. They are so wrong.) How can anyone bite a child? The mother said that there were two sets of upper teeth marks (as if she bit him twice) and one set of lowers. I would be concerned with infectious diseases. (I believe that they gave the child antibiotics.) I’m still flabbergasted. Who in their right mind would think this is ok?? I think she might need to have a psych evaluation. Luckily, the woman has been fired from Mid America Labs. The parents are turning this into a criminal act and have filed assault charges against the woman. (I fully back the parents on this one.) I hope the woman gets charged, does time, pays a bunch of fines, has probation, is stripped of her nursing license, and can’t get another job near children or incapacitated adults. It just makes me sick that she was laughing at the fact that she’s been biting people for a while. Maybe she can ask the judge if she can do her time in Transylvania.

: biting children, Mid America Labs, Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, St. Vincent’s Hospital, assault charges, assaulting a child

So, I’m thinking about S-CHIP. S-CHIP stands for State Children’s Health Insurance Program and is designed for families who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but don’t make enough to be able to buy private insurance. The House passed the bill, with support from both Democrats and Republicans. The Senate is expected to vote for it later this week. However, the President has already said that he plans on vetoing the S-CHIP bill. This is a terrible mistake (I’ve don’t even think I’ve done something that dumb when I was drunk. Don’t forget the time he also vetoed stem-cell research.). Passing the S-CHIP bill would mean that Indiana would get an additional $17 million to go for doing something good for someone else (as opposed to padding your own pockets or destroying other people’s countries). Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) says that S-CHIP will also help to bring everyone else’s health care costs down as well. I just don’t understand how you can veto a bill that would give health coverage to children. I mean, these are the leaders of tomorrow! We’re talking about the children of people who work full time, but their jobs don’t offer them benefits and they don’t pay enough to be able to buy your own (which should be illegal as well). I worked one of those jobs: it was a special education assistant in a middle school. (How is it that in high school they told me with a college degree, I’d make more money? And how is it that when I got my degree, I was only making $8.13/hr working in a “professional” job?) I know what it’s like. And even when we got health coverage from my husband’s job, they still scheisted us out of all our money. Is this just the President’s ploy to keep the poor poor and the rich rich, to help maintain a gap between him (and his rich friends) and the common man? Or is it that he’s a cold-hearted bastard, a modern day Scrooge? I choose C: All of the above.

: S-CHIP, President Bush, vetoing bills, House of Representatives, Senate, Evan Bayh, children’s health care, health coverage, Medicaid

So, I’m thinking about hiring hitmen. (Not me, personally.) Recently, a woman who was a mother going to school at IUPUI to study crime scene investigation hired a hitman to kill her soon-to-be ex-husband. It was quite planned out: $1500 up front, and $1500 when the job was finished. (She was supposedly using her student loan money to pay for the hit.) She met the hitman in a park to set up the plan, giving him detailed schedules with directions and photos. When she met with the hitman again, it was so that the hitman could tell her that the job was done. However, there was a huge surprise: he wasn’t a hitman at all. He was an undercover cop. And the whole reason for the hit? She didn’t want him to get custody of their 3-year-old child. Well, as prosecutor Carl Brizzi says, the irony of the situation is that now she won’t get any custody. I guess the woman’s boyfriend told the husband about the hit, and he alerted the necessary people. She’s a dummy. I hope she gets a long time in prison. Here she is, not wanting her husband to get custody (maybe because her husband was once charged with battering his wife, but was aquitted), but it’s her that’s the crazy one in the relationship. It’s all about how selfish she is. She was only thinking about herself because if it was really about her child, she wouldn’t have done that. No matter how much she couldn’t stand her husband, that is still her child’s father. Now she has a long time to think about the impact of her selfishness on her child and her husband. What was she thinking? How is she going to explain this to your child? Oh, I’m sorry, honey, I tried to put a hit out on your father, but my plans were foiled. If it wasn’t for my meddling boyfriend, I would’ve gotten away with it.

: hiring hitmen, crime scene investigators, dumb criminals

So, I’m thinking about cell phone etiquette. I can’t live without my cell phone. I have my life in it. But there are some things that irritate me about how people treat their phones and their usage. Today, I was waiting in line at Starbucks, and there was a woman in front of me talking on her cell phone. She wasn’t talking very loudly, but she barely stopped talking long enough to even order. I think it’s rude to the cashiers. Then she was still on the phone after I had ordered and was fixing my drink. How antisocial are we becoming that we can’t even stop talking on our cell phones long enough to order a drink or pay for our groceries? Whenever someone calls me, I always tell them, “Can I call you back in 2 minutes? I’m getting ready to pay.” Last week, I was at Wal-Mart and there was a woman who was talking really loud on her phone, so that everyone could hear her conversation. I really don’t care. And what’s worse is that she was having an argument with whoever was on the other end. Why can’t you take it outside? Why couldn’t she just say, “You know what? I’m not having this conversation right now.” There was a time that we kept our dirty laundry at home, but nowadays, it’s aired out for everyone to see, and they feel like it’s their right to. And another thing about cell phones that irritate me is 1) when people have annoying ring tones, and 2) they let their phones ring when they don’t want to talk to whoever is calling. I don’t mind when people have songs for their ring tones (I have “Daydreaming” by Lupe Fiasco/Jill Scott), but the ones where there are weird sounds and stuff are dumb. Over the summer, I was waiting in line at the gas station, and this woman was behind me who had one of these “weird sounds” ring tones, and she obviously didn’t want to talk to them, so she just let it ring. Well, they just kept calling, so I had to listen to this for 5-10 minutes. Why can’t you just either put your phone on silent or answer it and say, “I don’t want to talk right now.” It just irritates me. And I don’t trust the camera phone thing. I love my camera phone and love to take pictures of my daughter to send to my mom. But there is a paranoia that comes with them in the fact that I don’t trust other people with them. (I still think that my husband and I are probably on some anti-interracial couple website, stemming from an incident in Chicago two years ago.) Cell phones are a good thing, but with them come a responsibility and a consideration for other people that it seems that most people don’t get. So, the next time you use your phone in public, remember this: 1) change your ring tone to something less irritating, 2) not everyone wants to listen in on your conversations, 3) don’t have arguments, 4) be careful what you’re taking pictures of.

: cell phone etiquette, cell phones, camera phones, cameras in public

So, I’m thinking about Muslims in America. The Indianapolis Int’l Airport plans on building foot basins for Muslim cab drivers to wash their feet before their daily prayers. (The majority of airport cab drivers are Muslim.) I certainly don’t have a problem with this, but there’s no question that pastor of Hope Baptist Church, Dr. Jerry Hillenburg does. In fact, he titled his sermon yesterday “No Tax-funded Foot Washing Sinks: Stop Caving In To Islam.” He claims that the funding for this project is paid by taxpayers, but airport officials claim that it’s actually being paid through airport ticketing fees and rent from the tenants. Now, I was born and raised a Christian, but it’s people like him that are the reason why I don’t go to church anymore. I’m tired of Christians acting like they are so holier-than-thou, but then they don’t practice the teachings of Jesus Christ (which is the basis of the religion, isn’t it?) It seems a little two-faced and double-standardish. Many of our original colonies were founded because of religious persecution in Europe. In fact, the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 was “passed to promote religious freedom as a US foreign policy and to advocate on the behalf of the individuals viewed as persecuted in foreign countries on the account of religion.” So, basically, by standing up publicly and stating that it’s wrong to provide Muslim cab drivers with foot washing basins is in violation of a federal law. Am I correct? I mean, nowadays, just talking about terrorism in public can get you arrested, so why hasn’t he been arrested for violating the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998? Shoot, why don’t they just arrest him for being “misguided?” (Is that a law yet?) They wouldn’t even need to use the wiretaps (“legal espionage”) that they’ve deemed to “make us feel safe” (whatever). All they would’ve had to do was sit in on his sermon. But then again, maybe you’re only free if you are white, male and Christian.

: religious freedom, Muslims in America, Christians in America, International Religious Freedom Act of 1998

So, I’m thinking about the Jena 6. IUPUI had a demonstration today in support of the Jena 6, a group of six (high school) black males from Jena, Louisiana, who are in jail on charges of attempted murder because they beat up a white student. What started the altercation is that there is a tree at the high school that some white students claimed as theirs, so they hung nooses in the tree to scare away the black students. The white students only got suspended, while the black students got arrested. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. I’m not condoning the actions of the black students in beating up the white guy, but I think it needs to be dealt with fairly. (The black students could’ve formed a sit-in and sat under the tree anyways, using a non-violent demonstration.) But why aren’t the white students charged with a felony hate crime? Who could possibly think that hanging nooses in trees is appropriate? And why would the school even condone it by slapping them on the wrist and letting them go? Don’t tell me about how they were suspended. That’s a bullshit move on the school’s part. (You know what this all comes down to: it sounds to me that all of the leaders are probably part of the
White Males with Money That Are Part of the Good Ol’ Boys Network.) And see, this is exactly what people are talking about: a lot of people have been talking about Louisiana’s (and the South’s) racism since Hurricane Katrina. They want to paint these black students as “well, that’s how they act, always fighting people.” But if they weren’t provoked by hanging nooses, then it wouldn’t have escalated to the degree that is did. You know this is all a bunch of crap. I feel like we’re back in the 1930s. This is completely unacceptable. And frankly, I’m ashamed that this is still going on in the United States in 2007.

: Jena 6, IUPUI, racial tensions, hate crimes, Louisiana

So, I’m thinking about drunk boyfriends. In Evansville, a man was drunk and climbed down the chimney of his girlfriend’s house because she locked the door and told him to go away. Well, needless to say, he got stuck. The fire department came, and then they called the police department because she wouldn’t get out of the way of the fireplace. (She got a misdemeanor for disorderly conduct and interfering with a firefighter. She said, “I told them to leave him in there and let him die.”) Well, they got the man out and took him to the hospital. But when he got out, he went back to the house to apologize and was met by her standing on the porch throwing a garbage can and bottles at him. Wow… I’m not sure if you could make this stuff up. This almost sounds like a story that Jeff Foxworthy would tell. I was always told that there is a reason for everything, and I suppose the reason that Rednecks are important is for my own entertainment. Maybe they are here to make my own problems seem trivial. And I thought I had dated some weirdos, but at least they never tried to climb down my chimney. Most of them at least figured out that when I never answered my phone, it was over. I’m sure Santa Claus is sitting up in the North Pole thinking to himself, “Damn, now I’m going to have to think up some other way to get in. The Rednecks have taken over my method.”

: stupid criminals, rednecks, Evansville

So, I’m thinking about traffic congestion. The Texas Transportation Institute released a study that stated that Indianapolis-area drivers spent an average of 43 hours sitting in rush-hour traffic in 2005. They also stated that 26 gallons of gas were wasted, which is equal to about three weeks worth of gas for the average U.S. resident. I know my husband has to use I-465 to get to work and back; it’s the easiest and a straight shot. And it’s a great way to get across and around the city. This also goes for I-70, I-65 and I-69 around and in the city as well. Maybe we should have express lanes like in Chicago, where if you are getting on the expressway and not planning on getting off for a while, then you can use that, and leave the local lanes for people who are getting off only in a few stops. But what really would help with traffic congestion would be better, efficient, affordable public transit. I think IndyGo needs to expand their services to have more buses and more routes (that stop within a block of all apartment complexes) and to include elevated “EL” trains or monorails that link parts of the city. (There is already a monorail downtown that links the hospitals together.) I would even like to see a train system to bring in people from the suburbs. This would not only bring people into the city, but cut down on the number of cars on the road and the amount of pollution because of it. I know this all costs money, but I think if some of these ideas were put into play, then it would make Indianapolis a much better city.

: traffic congestion, wasted time, wasted gasoline, IndyGo

So, I’m thinking about coffee shops. When I went to college in Terre Haute at Indiana State University, I often frequented the local coffee shop, called the Coffee Grounds (located on Wabash, near 4th or 5th St.). I loved that coffee shop. My last year, I took four literature classes and a linguistics seminar class. Needless to say, I had a lot of reading to do, along with a lot of papers. I would take my books and materials there to the Coffee Grounds and sit there for 2-3 hours doing my work. I would usually see someone I knew. And it was locally run. Sometimes they would have jazz there in the evenings. But now, I live in Indianapolis, and I’m surprised that as big as this city is, there aren’t as many locally owned coffee shops around. I want a place where I can go get a latte and sit and read my book for a couple of hours. I know of the Abbey downtown, but I don’t want to drive 25 minutes downtown and then fight for parking and such. Why isn’t there anyplace up here on the northside? You would think that there would be someplace like that up here somewhere along 86th/82nd St. Maybe I just don’t know where to look. But I suppose I’m still left with Starbucks. It’s nice to know that there are 17 Starbucks within 5 miles of where I live. I’m ok with that, but it has that “corporate” feel to it. And most of them are very small. (And actually I think that they tend to over-roast their coffee.) That’s why I like the Starbucks at Willow Lake West (across the street from Brebeuf Jesuit HS). It’s large inside, much larger than most Starbucks I’ve been to. And the people are nice. I’ve also been to the café inside of the Borders at Keystone at the Crossing, but sometimes I don’t like to battle the traffic. So, maybe someone will read this and either start a local coffeehouse or at least tell me where one is.

: Starbucks, locally owned coffee shops, locally owned businesses