oh noes! i've been outed!

it's true. i have been exposed. journalist-patriot-blogger gary welsh has unmasked me and exposed my true identity to the world.

first, he brilliantly discovered my real name, after i tried so hard for so long to keep it a secret. i'm not sure exactly how he managed that feat—perhaps he looked at my threadless account, which i linked to last week, or maybe he read my name tag at that 2006 blogger meet-up.

then, he went on my flickr profile, which is so secret that i have a link to it in my sidebar, and dug up an old unflattering self-portrait i posted in 2007.

and the unkindest cut of all, he has publicly revealed my evil plot, or my "screed" as he calls it, which as he accurately describes "is essentially to attack anyone with pro-American, conservative views who is not in love with Barack Obama while warmly embracing the hate America crowd at every turn."

how will i ever show my face on the blogosphere again?

update: here's the really funny part (from gary's comments):

Downtown Indy said...

The really funny part is he's baffled by your brilliant discovery (his phrase). One that any amateur sleuth with access to google can discover in 30 seconds. Along with email, phone, address and the knowledge that Network Solutions thinks he owns one other domain name.¶

still waiting for the birth certificate...

shorter gary welsh: mark my words: barack obama may be extremely popular now, but someday, the american people will find out that he's a non-citizen, an on-the-DL coke-sniffing cocksucker, and a socialist with plans to destroy america. when that glorious day comes, the republicans will make a comeback. ¶

belated friday cat bending

i tried to post this a few minutes after midnight friday morning, but was unable to publish. anyway, not much blogging here this week to speak of, but what the hell, here's some cat bending:

this week's images feature the wordpad effect as applied to 8-bit indexed-color BMP files (created using photoshop). ¶

escape from it all (new shirt design)

check out my latest shirt design for threadless:

this is a reworking of my "escape" design, which was my highest-scoring submission to date. people seemed to like the concept, but i got some complaints that it was too small and square. i think this version is a major improvement in several areas. ¶

friday cat bending

this week's cat bending demonstrates the photoshop 6 truncation glitch, discovered by daniel temkin. more lilybending here. ¶

fighting for the right to mistreat animals

as cynical as i've become over the years, i'm still occasionally surprised by political developments. so while i'm not surprised at resistance to a proposed indiana bill restricting puppy mills, i am surprised at who it's coming from, and why:

Indiana Department of Agriculture officials have been working behind the scenes to defeat legislation that would crack down on abusive dog breeders by trying to discredit one of the bill's leading supporters.

Their target: the Humane Society of the United States.

Although the department has taken no official position on the legislation, it acknowledges it has highlighted the Humane Society's history of opposition to confined farming practices, common in Indiana, especially in huge hog operations where animals are raised in close quarters.

A document the agency distributed to lawmakers alleges the Humane Society's goal was the "abolition of all animal agriculture," a notion the group rejected Wednesday. Critics of the bill worry that it could lead to new restrictions on livestock.

so there's a bill to protect dogs from mistreatment, and these people are talking about livestock?

ignoring the question of whether these types of restrictions should be applied to livestock—some of them probably should, as operations such as CAFOs are bad both for the animals as well as for the environment—how does this make sense? dogs are raised as pets, not livestock, so how and why would laws pertaining to dogs be applied to cattle or hogs? the logic is strained.

but most disappointing is that a state government agency is secretly lobbying to defeat this bill. perhaps i shouldn't be surprised, considering that the man in charge is mitch daniels, who's always happy to sell out the environment in favor of business interests, but still i am. how appropriate, then, that the story comes out the day after earth day, fresh on the heels of yesterday's revelation that indiana fallss at the bottom of nearly every conceivable environmental ranking.

not only does mitch daniels not care about the environment; now we know he doesn't even care about protecting puppies from abuse.

update: becky skillman chimes in:

On Thursday, Lt. Gov Becky Skillman's office, which oversees the Department of Agriculture, said Gov. Mitch Daniels' administration backed the bill.

"We are definitely in favor of regulation and the ability to prosecute some of these bad actors and puppy mills that are out there," said Jay Kenworthy, Skillman's press secretary. "There's no effort to kill the bill. We just wanted to see a few changes."

here are some of the changes that have been made:

No limit to the number of dogs an owner can breed. No state inspections of commercial breeding facilities. No restrictions on how often a dog can be bred.

in other words, skillman was in favor of the bill, as long as most of its teeth were removed first. ¶

nice work if you can get it

when i was in high school, many years ago (my 15th reunion is coming up), like many aspiring writers i kept notebooks where i'd jot poems, short stories, song lyrics, and what have you.

most of these were naturally terrible, and i'd be ashamed to show them now. one such awful story involved a photo shoot being interrupted by right-wing censors. the "twist" if you can call it that was that the model in the shoot (naturally inspired by a fellow student i was crushing on at the time) was in fact modestly dressed, but still the photo shoot was censored because the model was so pretty that it was believed her smile alone would be overly titillating.

the story was stupid and corny; the twist not particularly clever. and it wasn't so much meant as a clever satire (which is wasn't), but more as an excuse to fantasize about a pretty classmate. so imagine my surprise at how things have changed since i was in school.

these days, a teenage girl in a swimsuit can get prosecuted for child pornography simply for posing for a photo if she's "posed provocatively"—which i take to mean if she's cute.

under the current (insane) interpretation of the law, "child pornography" is so impossibly illegal that teenagers can't even own mildly erotic photographs of themselves. a teenage girl who takes a photo of herself in a bra or bikini risks being placed on the sex offender registry for life.

but there is one loophole. apparently, the only people who are allowed to own "child pornography" are teachers and school administrators:

atrios quoted this passage on his blog, but i think he ended the quote one paragraph too soon:

Marissa and her parents joined a group of about 50 others at the courthouse. Before showing the photos, Mr. Skumanick explained his offer to the crowd, answering one father's question affirmatively, that -- yes -- a girl in a bathing suit could be subjected to criminal charges because she was posed "provocatively."

Mr. Skumanick told them he could have simply charged the kids. Instead, he gave them two weeks to decide: take the class or face charges.

He then told the parents and teens to line up if they wanted to view the photos, which were printed out onto index cards. As the 17-year-old who took semi-nude self-portraits waited in line, she realized that Mr. Skumanick and other investigators had viewed the pictures. When the adults began to crowd around Mr. Skumanick, the 17-year-old worried they could see her photo and recalls she said, "I think the worst punishment is knowing that all you old guys saw me naked. I just think you guys are all just perverts."

Mr. Skumanick dismisses the criticism, saying that no one could see photos of teens who weren't their own children.

no one, that is, except for skumanick himself, who no doubt has a copy of every racy photo his students have ever sexted to each other, and has surely seen them all multiple times.

now, i don't know if skumanick is the kind of guy who'd go home and touch himself while looking at all those photos of underage girls with their shirts off. i'd like to think that he's not. but i do know that if i were that type of guy, a job like skumanick's would be my dream job.

update: as john m points out in the comments, skumanick is actually the district attorney, so it appears that the best way to get your hands on lewd photos of underage girls is actually to work in the DA's office. though i'm sure school administrators do still get to see plenty of that stuff. ¶

friday lolcat blogging

it was wrong but i fixed it.

lowered expectations

yesterday: "Organizers expect about 8,000 people to protest excessive government spending tomorrow at the Indiana Statehouse."

this morning: "Organizers say they expect several thousand people to attend this afternoon's event in Indianapolis."

this afternoon: "Police estimated about 2,500 people attended the rally, though organizers claimed their numbers were as large as 9,000." ¶

the once and future flak

shorter every post ever by mike o'brien: hello! my name is mike and i'm a right-wing lobbyist and paid republican flak. on every issue, i agree 100% with governor daniels and disagree 100% with obama and the stupid democrats.

bonus shorter executive producer brady gibson: we want WRTV's capitol watchblog to be the first place on the web you visit for political news and debtate. that's why we now have three right-wing bloggers on our payroll compared to one left-winger. ¶

afraid to lead

mayor greg ballard's administration seems to have hit a low point today. not only did the indy star devote its entire behind closed doors column to his lack of leadership on the CIB bailout (printing a most unflattering photo alongside it), but the lead editorial was on the same topic.

but the unkindest cut of all must be that even ballard's top apologist, abdul hakim shabazz, is now criticizing him. this is quite likely the first time abdul has ever said so much as one word critical of the mayor, so this must be a watershed moment.

the question liberal blogs have been asking for months is now on everyone's lips: where the eff is mayor ballard? he loves to talk about leadership, but when is he actually going to show some?

the star editorial suggests one explanation:

Insiders in the Ballard administration say the mayor has been reluctant to push forward his own solutions out of concern that any assertiveness on his part might anger legislative leaders.

so the mayor is afraid to show some leadership because it might upset some legislators? is there a passage in ballard's book about this that i can quote ironically? because i can't be bothered to spend money on a copy of the thing. ¶

glitch aesthetic goes mainstream?

this, my friends, is the latest kanye west video:

KANYE WEST "Welcome To Heartbreak" Directed by Nabil from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

i don't know whether to be stoked that this shiz is on mtv now, or disappointed that the director is just another hollywood video director and not an underground glitch artist. (kanye should have hired this guy or this guy instead.) ¶

the idea man

shorter mitch daniels: i don't like the senate's plan for spending indiana's share of the stimulus money. we should instead spend that money on [mumbles inaudibly].

furthermore, i think building a casino in downtown indy to fund the CIB is a terrible idea. there are much better options, such as [mumbles inaudibly].¶

friday cat bending

it's been a while since i did any cat bending, and now i have a new cat, so here's some fun with the wordpad effect.¶

a voter by any other name

over in texas, they're debating a voter ID law. here in indiana, where we've had voter ID for a few years, we know that such laws are highly problematic. (the #1 problem, naturally, is that they're completely unnecessary, a solution in search of a problem.) yesterday, the texas house heard testimony about one problem that i haven't seen discussed elsewhere: not only do some people have names that may sound "weird" to american ears, but some names can't even be directly translated to the latin alphabet:

The exchange occurred late Tuesday as the House Elections Committee heard testimony from Ramey Ko, a representative of the Organization of Chinese Americans.

Ko told the committee that people of Chinese, Japanese and Korean descent often have problems voting and other forms of identification because they may have a legal transliterated name and then a common English name that is used on their driver's license on school registrations.

so what do you do if you have a difficult-to-spell name? back in the old days, the folks at ellis island would've just changed your name to "joe smith" and that'd be that. apparently, texas rep betty brown would like to go back to those days:

"Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it's a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?" Brown said.

Brown later told Ko: "Can't you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that's easier for Americans to deal with?"

pretty simple, really. if your name is in some crazy moon language and you want to vote here in america, just change your name to something american. steve is a good name. or frank, that's a good one. women can pick names like mary or lisa.

rep brown insists her suggestion wasn't racially motivated. she was only trying to address an identification problem. but let's face it: asians aren't the only people with weird names. so if we're going to make people change their names like we used to, we should do it across the board: eastern europeans, aboriginal descent, even blacks. i mean, what kind of a name is kanye west, for example? or, for that matter, barack obama?

just think of it: president steve obama! now that's a name change you can believe in! ¶

my gallery show opens this thursday

my first-ever solo gallery show—which i've alluded to in prior posts—opens this thursday (april 2) at 111 arts gallery in downtown muncie.

the show will feature nine databent prints and several poster-sized collages. all art will be priced affordably (nothing higher than $50–$60), because even in these hard times it's nice to have some cool art on your walls.

come on by and say hi! or if you can't make it thursday, my stuff will be up all month.

we has a new kitteh

meet our new kitten. she's a six-month-old blue tabby. we're calling her lily.

we just adopted her last night and she's still a bit shy, but she's also adorable.

still more IMPD embarrassments

seems like hardly a month can go by without at least one IMPD officer getting busted for doing something shady if not outright illegal. first there's this guy:

A Marion County correction officer was in court Friday facing newly filed charges of child molesting, incest and sexual misconduct with a minor.

Richard B. Alsup, 39, faces a dozen counts involving accusations of improper sexual conduct with a female relative younger than 16, lasting as long as two years. Alsup, who also was a reserve officer with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, told a judge he is on administrative leave from the Sheriff's Department.

The Indianapolis Star generally does not identify victims of alleged sexual assaults.

Alsup told police he had been having nightmares about having sex with the girl, according to a probable cause affidavit. He told an investigator "he didn't want to believe he could do those things to (the girl), but that he could not say those things didn't happen," the affidavit says.

it's a nightmare all right, but surely much worse for the girl he's allegedly molested.

then today there's this story:

The commander of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's North District is being stripped of his position in the wake of an investigation into moonlighting by off-duty officers, public safety officials said Friday.

Maj. David Allender -- one of 51 officers who worked part-time security jobs for a metal-recycling firm linked to allegations that its workers knowingly purchased stolen metal -- will be busted to his merit rank of captain and reassigned to new duties within a week, public safety officials said in an e-mail to The Indianapolis Star.

[...]

"Having gathered new information about the deployment of precious police resources in the context of competing demands for officer time by private employers," Newman wrote in the e-mail, "we were no longer confident that only (the public's) interests were being served at all times."

Newman said the department expects to soon name Allender's replacement.

Deputy Chief John Conley stressed that Allender's demotion "was not related to any scrap-metal investigation and has no criminal violations or implications."

Rather, Conley wrote, the change came because of "time management and management of resources that should have been designated full-time to the public."

allender's name had come up previously in earlier stories about the omnisource bust. and while he's not being charged for being an accessory to scrap metal theft—at least at this time—the IMPD apparently did find that his moonlighting at omnisource had corrupted him to the point that he scheduled his fellow moonlighters according to what was best at omnisource, not what was best for the city or for the police department.

when will the police scandals end? ¶

shorter post-revolt wrap-up

shorter gary welsh: despite what you may have heard, my speech totally rocked yesterday, and anyone who tells you different is a dishonest sellout.

shorter paul k ogden: i don't understand why reporters and liberal bloggers keep mocking my event, just because it lacked focus and a lot of the people there were fringe types and crackpots. they should thanks me—nay, exalt and praise me!

shorter melyssa donaghy: they laugh at us because they're scared!

bonus shorter indiana barrister comments:

shorter gary welsh: i don't care if abdul mocks me, because his radio show sucks.

shorter abdul hakim shabazz: oh yeah? well gary has bad taste in clothes.

shorter paul k ogden: i admit there were a lot of crazies in attendance, but surely everyone can agree that gary welsh is awesome.

shorter gary welsh: actually, my taste in clothes is impeccable. also, abdul is fat.¶

if they held a protest and nobody knew what it was about, would it make a sound?

so that right-wing protest, "revolt at the state house", was this morning. it warranted a whopping three-paragraph AP story. here's the story in its entirety (and yes, i'm going against my "no quoting the AP" policy):

An eclectic group of nearly 200 people gathered at the Indiana Statehouse today to show lawmakers that they are generally "fed up" with government.

Some at the rally held signs urging lawmakers to retire or be voted out of office. Others wanted to repeal property taxes or stop what they considered eminent domain abuse. Other signs supported a state immigration law and a revolt against socialism.

Speakers at the "Revolt at the Statehouse" event included taxpayer group leaders and community activists. Organizers said the focus of the rally was the frustration average citizens feel with government at all levels.

well, that sounds like a ragtag bunch. of course, saying the event's "focus" was "the frustration average citizens feel with government at all levels" is a nice way of saying what jim shella said: the event lacked focus.

shella's report is amusing: he plays it for laughs, finding a few fringe types and letting them embarrass themselves on camera. gary welsh, as is his nature, takes shella's criticism personally.

abdul, on the other hand, has no qualms about mocking gary by name, saying that when gary "screams" into a microphone, "he sounds like Godzilla on helium." abdul also writes that "At times it was hard to follow where it all was going. For the next rally, I'd try to stay a little more focused and have a more tangible universal theme that is easy for people to grasp."

compare shella and abdul's complaints with what i wrote a month ago:

i don't see this protest attracting a lot of protesters nor much media attention. the whole thing is too vague and ephemeral for tv reporters, who won't have a clue how to cover the thing. and in today's economy, i don't see the typical taxpayer getting too riled up about "the executive and legislative revolving door"—these days, people are more worried about just finding jobs and making ends meet. if this were a focused protest centered around, say, the mess at the CIB, i could see it being a moderate success. but a kitchen-sink protest of complaining about "corporate welfare" is doomed to failure.

of course, as melyssa loves to remind me, nobody reads this blog, so who cares what i have to say? ¶

the nerve of some people is better than others

shorter abdul hakim-shabazz: how dare the city's poor complain about being treated like second-class citizens?!? the city rightfully treats them like crap because they are crap. now shut up, you stupid poor people! ¶

zot

here's my latest databent illustration. like the arsonist, this is a computer illustration that uses glitched JPEGs for the textures.

both works, as well as many other pieces, will be part of my upcoming gallery show at 111 arts gallery in muncie. opening reception for the show will be april 2.

a study of presidential rankings

shorter gary welsh: obama is a worse president than bush, because making an inappropriate joke about the special olympics is clearly worse than dragging the country into an unjust war or indefinitely detaining innocent people. ¶

hey big spender

mayor greg ballard likes to portray himself—and by extension his administration—as being extremely frugal, as almost pathologically obsessed with cutting the budget. i've mocked him many times (and likely will many more) for his statements on the campaign trail that he would cut $70 million of "fluff" from the budget. and it's only going to get worse, as property tax caps will cause revenues to shrink substantially in coming years. not to mention that whole recession thing.

so it's puzzling to say the least that this guy has been chosen as our new airport CEO:

Airport Chief Executive John D. Clark III earned a reputation in Jacksonville, Fla., for being an anti-union spendthrift, cutting jobs while treating himself lavishly as he traveled the world.

He made separate business trips to Paris, London, Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo and Cairo -- four continents, all paid for by the airport and all within one year.

He once authorized $10,000 for a limousine in Paris for an airport board member and a lawyer, and ended up apologizing for it.

in addition to his lavish spending habits, clark also has a reputation for being hostile to unions and treating employees unfairly. he's also known for his battles with the jacksonville city council and neighborhood residents.

to be clear, clark wasn't chosen by ballard, but by airport authority head randall tobias. tobias himself is no stranger to scandal, having resigned from a federal post in 2007 after the revelation that he'd been paying for high-priced "massages" from prostitutes. perhaps the controversy surrounding clark seems like small potatoes to tobias, who has been shamed at a national level. but ballard loves to talk about leadership (and he'll talk anywhere they'll listen), and part of being in charge is taking the heat for those under you.

what we know about clark suggests he's everything that the ballard administration insists it isn't: wasteful, extravagant, arrogant, hostile toward the public, and a foe of transparency. so why is he being hired?

there is one bit of good news regarding his hiring, though: the people of jacksonville are ecstatic that he's leaving. ¶

journalists need their beauty sleep

shorter post-tribune ed board: there's a bill in the state house to extend indiana's voting hours to 8pm. while this would allow more people with day jobs to vote, overall it would be a horrible mistake, because then journalists like us would have to stay up two hours earlier on election night! ¶

motion to hold our horses on this liberal stuff

shorter senator evan bayh: i know my party controls the white house and both houses of congress, but that's no reason for us to move forward on our economic or environmental agenda. ¶

one county executive to rule them all

shorter star ed board: how dare the democrats in the state house defy us by not passing township consolidation?!? the only possible explanation is that they are evil, despicable people!

shorter gary welsh: i've been saying that all along! ¶

rage, rage against the saving of the daylight

shorter norman cox:

the fact that people are still arguing about daylight saving time pisses me off. i don't care if it doesn't save energy; i just want to be like everyone else! DST is the law now so DISCUSSION IS OVER.

update:
alternate shorter norman cox: if everyone else jumped off a bridge, you're damn right i'd jump too! now get out of my way and let me jump, whiners! ¶

update: tonight at big car

just a quick note about tonight's event at big car gallery:

turns out there won't be a stage at the top of the stairs after all, so i will instead be playing at short set in the main gallery (suite 215 i believe) sometime between 7 and 9 pm. the event is free, with lots of intriguing music, art, and video, so come check it out:

Listen: A Music and Video Experiment
Featuring video art and experimental music throughout the Murphy Art Center -- including Alchemy in Suite 3, Suite 4 next door and multiple spaces upstairs near Big Car.

Friday, March 6, 2009 at 7 p.m.- Midnight.

Big Car's First Friday show for March will feature a bevy of local, regional, national and international video and sound artists. All of the music will accompany video art projections. The night will include a show of Herron video artists in Suite 214 next door to Big Car (see artist statements below), a program of experimental videos from other local artists in Suite 3 and 4 on street level (J. Andrew Salyer, Laura Salyer, Jim Walker, Flounder Lee) and a Microcinema screening (FATELESS, Color + Modulation, SLIDE, Hub Culture Retrospectives: Antarctica, Independent Exposure: Asthmatic Kitty Records Edition 2008, The Collected Films of Ryan Jeffery) also in Suite 214.

The night's musical offerings in Suite 215 (Big Car's regular space) and in other nearby spaces include performances by Butler University's Ensemble 48 (playing a soundtrack to the silent film "Man with the Movie Camera"), Marck Ferrari, Ben Ishmael Revival, Shiny Black Shirt, Sea Krowns, Ensemble 48, Actuel, Playboy Psychonauts, Stallio, Sky Thing and Tonos Triad.

Also in the street level space that night, Big Car also hosts the installation "Unified Fields" that features the interactive music and art of duo Mana2 (Jordan Munson, Michael Drews). This installation is a collaborative composition combining elements from the works Unified Fields (Munson) and Deconstructions (Drews). Themes and gestures from each work interact both with each other and sonic and video material emanating from several interactive stations positioned in the room. These stations will involve both motion and color tracking technologies. During the event, live musical textures will be weaved into the sonic environment being generated.

The event is sponsored by Microcinema and is a partnership with the Toby at the IMA.¶

this friday at big car gallery

i will be performing at an interesting-sounding event this friday at big car in fountain square:

Listen: A Music and Video Experiment
Featuring video art and experimental music throughout the Murphy Art Center -- including Alchemy in Suite 3, Suite 4 next door and multiple spaces upstairs near Big Car.

Friday, March 6, 2009 at 7 p.m.- Midnight.

Big Car's First Friday show for March will feature a bevy of local, regional, national and international video and sound artists. All of the music will accompany video art projections. The night will include a show of Herron video artists in Suite 214 next door to Big Car (see artist statements below), a program of experimental videos from other local artists in Suite 3 and 4 on street level (J. Andrew Salyer, Laura Salyer, Jim Walker, Flounder Lee) and a Microcinema screening (FATELESS, Color + Modulation, SLIDE, Hub Culture Retrospectives: Antarctica, Independent Exposure: Asthmatic Kitty Records Edition 2008, The Collected Films of Ryan Jeffery) also in Suite 214.

The night's musical offerings in Suite 215 (Big Car's regular space) and in other nearby spaces include performances by Butler University's Ensemble 48 (playing a soundtrack to the silent film "Man with the Movie Camera"), Marck Ferrari, Ben Ishmael Revival, Shiny Black Shirt, Sea Krowns, Ensemble 48, Actuel, Playboy Psychonauts, Stallio, Sky Thing and Tonos Triad.

Also in the street level space that night, Big Car also hosts the installation "Unified Fields" that features the interactive music and art of duo Mana2 (Jordan Munson, Michael Drews). This installation is a collaborative composition combining elements from the works Unified Fields (Munson) and Deconstructions (Drews). Themes and gestures from each work interact both with each other and sonic and video material emanating from several interactive stations positioned in the room. These stations will involve both motion and color tracking technologies. During the event, live musical textures will be weaved into the sonic environment being generated.

The event is sponsored by Microcinema and is a partnership with the Toby at the IMA.

it should be a lot of fun—and it's free! i'm currently scheduled to play around 8:30-9:30 near the top of the stairs.

more information at bigcar.org. ¶

sunset over tax city

i finished this last night: another collage landscape similar to the one i posted last week. this one is also for the april show at 111 arts gallery and tattoo studio in muncie.

the right-wingers are revolting!

one of the drawbacks of doing most of my blog-reading using a feed reader is that i seldom read blog comments anymore, unless those comments have a feed of their own. in particular, this means i rarely read comments on blogger blogs (other than my own). and since blogger is the platform of choice for most of the local right-wing bloggers, that means i rarely read the comments on those blogs... and the comments are often where the wackiest stuff goes on.

because of this, i hadn't realized just how bad things had gotten on the local right-wing blogs. they are cracking up over the inept leadership of mayor ballard and the republican-controlled city council. i knew that gary welsh had turned on mayor ballard not long after the election, and i knew that paul ogden—a former commenter who now has his own blog—was also critical of the ballard administration. but i didn't know that melyssa donaghy—once one of the mayor's most vocal supporters—had finally turned on him as well. (i knew it would happen, and predicted it here more than once, but didn't know when. though i had noticed she wasn't coming around here and defending the mayor in the comments anymore.)

melyssa and paul are planning a protest at the statehouse for next month, calling it "revolt at the statehouse". apparently they hope to recapture some of the attention they got for the property tax protests of 2007. but while those protests were narrowly focused on an issue that had upset a lot of people, their new protest is vague and hard to grasp, spilling over a number of right-wing grievances:

The rally will focus chiefly on issues relating to corporate welfare, Indiana style "pay to play" politics, property tax reform, and the need for transparency and ethics reform. Particular topics are likely to include: "The Colts, Pacers & the Capital Improvement Board, "Pay to Play Politics, Indiana Style: Campaign Contributions & Government Contracts," "The Executive and Legislative Revolving Door," "Corporate Welfare – How Politicians Have Used Our Tax Money to Make the Rich Richer."

if you even know what all that means, you're probably one of the event's organizers. i don't see this protest attracting a lot of protesters nor much media attention. the whole thing is too vague and ephemeral for tv reporters, who won't have a clue how to cover the thing. and in today's economy, i don't see the typical taxpayer getting too riled up about "the executive and legislative revolving door"—these days, people are more worried about just finding jobs and making ends meet. if this were a focused protest centered around, say, the mess at the CIB, i could see it being a moderate success. but a kitchen-sink protest of complaining about "corporate welfare" is doomed to failure.

the press release for the protest is posted on paul ogden's blog, and while i was there reading it, i noticed a link in the blogroll to an anti-ogen blog. now, i must give ogden kudos for blogrolling his own haters. that takes confidence. the "ogden truth squad" is a ballard apologist blog devoted to attacking ogden (and by extension, gary, melyssa, and others). in other words, it's a pure drama blog: right-wingers attacking other right-wingers in defense of republican politicians. the drama itself is not as exciting as you might have hoped, but the fact that such a blog even exists is evidence of how much things have changed in recent months. not that long ago, greg ballard was a hero to all these people. now, he's hated by many, and the source of much bickering among his former followers. ¶

moonlighters

the indystar.com feeds seem to be busted today—clicking the links leads to a database error instead of a story—but if you can get around that, you might have read the story "IMPD supporters caution don't rush to judgment in OmniSource scrap metal case".

omnisource deals in metal recycling. monday, the company was raided for buying stolen scrap. it's no secret that thieves all over the city have been stealing any metal they can get their hands on and selling it for scrap. apparently they've been selling it to omnisource.

the surprise is that omnisource has hired 51 off-duty IMPD cops to work security. this is only the latest in a slew of stories that make IMPD look bad—corrupt, inept, or both—and the "supporters" story is a plea that we shouldn't rush to the judgment that those 51 cops were in on the scam. none of those cops have been charged with anything, supporters say. there's even a quote from the local FOP president stating that he's "confident" that none of those cops were involved in law-breaking.

common sense suggests that at least one of those fifty-one police officers running around the place should have noticed that some shady stuff was going on. so the idea that none of these cops were in on it fails the sniff test.

but it gets worse. i first read these details in today's star editorial:

The list of off-duty IMPD officers that OmniSource employed includes Detective Jason Prendergast, the department's lead investigator of scrap metal thefts. His employment by a company working in a field directly related to his on-duty responsibilities is an obvious conflict of interest.

Two years ago, Prendergast and Maj. David Allender, a district commander also employed by OmniSource, led an investigation into one of the company's top competitors in the city.

the top guy in charge of scrap metal thefts was moonlighting as a security guard at a company that was buying stolen scrap metal. why would prendergast even want to work security there? even giving him the benefit of the doubt and assuming he didn't know about the crimes there, how could he have thought it was a good idea? and even worse, why would his bosses agree to let him do it?

the investigation into omnisource has been going on for a year. top brass (including, we must assume, mayor ballard's office) have known about the investigation all this time. yet prendergast and others were allowed to continue moonlighting there. clearly something screwy has been going on.

mayor ballard, who eagerly seized control of the police department last year, steadfastly refused to comment on the story during a video chat yesterday with the star ed board. the ed board valiantly tried to get him to comment, but he refused. today's editorial takes him to task for being invisible on this issue, as he is on so many others. ballard's defenders will surely try to blame former mayor peterson and sheriff anderson, as they do whenever ballard is in trouble. (no doubt abdul is already working on his post blaming the prior administration.) but ballard is mayor now, and it would be nice for him to show some leadership on this issue (and a number of others). the man likes to talk about leadership. he wrote a book about it, and even teaches leadership classes to IMPD officers. but when it comes to actually stepping up and exhibiting leadership, he's nowhere to be found.

as tully wrote in today's column, ballard has no political instinct. he says he hates lame photo ops, but he doesn't seem to understand that one of the main ways politicians lead is by getting in front of a tv camera and showing people you're in control. and since ballard made it a point to take personal control over the IMPD, that only makes it more important that he get up there and say, "we're investigating, we hope none of our officers were involved in wrongdoing, but if they were they'll be punished." his unwillingness to do so is troubling.

we haven't heard the last of this story. this is shaping up to be yet another black eye for a police department that has had a lot of bruises lately. ¶

too little too late

i noticed that IHOP is trying to duplicate denny's' success by offering people a free short stack of pancakes today. it might even work—to a degree, but it surely won't be as successful as the denny's promotion for a few reasons:

1. they're offering less. denny's gave away free grand slams, which include eggs, sausage, and bacon. IHOP is merely giving away the pancakes.
2. they're getting less ad exposure. denny's advertised their offer during the super bowl to be sure everyone knew about it.
3. this won't be true for every market, but... i don't know where there is an open IHOP anymore! the one in castleton has been shuttered for months, and the one in downtown indy was recently demolished in order to build a CVS even though there's a walgreen's right across the street! (looks like there's one in avon, one near lawrence, and one near greenwood if you're really itching for a short stack.)

my wife loves free food—just yesterday we got free coffees at einstien brothers, and tomorrow we're going to denny's because we have coupons—but i'm not driving to avon just for a free short stack. ¶

the city reacts to ballard's bold vision of livability

a day has now passed since mayor ballard gave his state of the city speech (on a saturday morning, when the fewest number of people possible would be paying attention). so how are people responding?

"The biggest complaint I have as a resident is that livable isn't a goal," said Adam Kirsch, executive director of the Marion County Democratic Party. "It is the bare minimum the city should expect.

"The speech didn't provide a bold vision. It was just filled with a litany of minor accomplishments during his first year."

Republican City-County Council member Michael McQuillen disagreed, saying, "Livability is a big issue that will put Indianapolis a step above other big cities in this nation."

imagine... a city that's livable! it sounds far-fetched, i know—like something out of a grant morrisson comic book—but just try to picture it: a city where you can actually live! if ballard can somehow pull it off, then that would really put indianapolis a step above other big cities!

Ballard was asked after the speech if he thought he'd provided the vision his critics had found lacking.

"What I said today is not much different than what I've said the last eight to 10 months," he said.

in other words, no, not even ballard thinks he articulated a vision in this speech.

even the mayor's top apologist, abdul hakim shabazz, concedes that the mayor has no vision, but tries to spin it as a positive. "I think this city has enough of that 'vision' for a while," he writes. and for those of you who think abdul's opinion on ballard, who he has literally never criticized for any reason whatsoever, isn't worth the pixels it's printed on, abdul has this to say: you should listen to him because he was actually in the room during the speech. so there!

gary welsh has, in recent weeks, found something to write about other than his distrust of president obama: the troubles at the CIB. he was hoping for the mayor to say something of substance on the subject, and was naturally left empty-handed. paul ogden concurs, and promptly takes the opportunity for a shot at former mayor bart peterson.

amazingly, matt tully, who just the other day wrote a column begging the mayor to show some vision for god's sake, gave the speech a B. why? because ballard's delivery wasn't as embarrassing as at past speeches. apparently ballard's decision to skip meeting the president in order to practice his speech helped after all. perhaps tully's next column will explain why the speech was actually good despite not delivering on the stuff tully said he wanted. (to be fair, in today's tully's corner feature, tully takes ballard to task for skipping the obama meeting, so he's not completely soft on the mayor.)

at her latest blog, envision indy, jen wagner has been offering a detailed response to the speech, including fact checks, detailed rebuttals, and the full text of the speech. let's hope that envision indy sticks around longer than some of her previous blogs.¶

the high standards of livability

the indianapolis star, tired of giving mayor ballard a pass these past 14 months, has been begging him to articulate some sort of vision in this morning's state of the city address. after all, the mayor allegedly passed on the opportunity to meet president obama just so he could practice the speech.

i imagine they'll find the speech as underwhelming as i did.

so what's the mayor's vision for indianapolis? he wants to make us a "safe, livable city". hoo boy, don't throw out your back aiming so high! making the city livable is an awfully high standard to aspire to! (in contrast, former mayor peterson merely hoped to make indianapolis "world-class".)

now, i agree with the mayor's plans to add sidewalks and bike lanes. the city is sorely lacking in both (though the sidewalks would be more useful if we had a decent public transit system). but when sidewalks are the most exciting part of your plan, there's something wrong with your plan.

and of course, it wouldn't be a ballard speech if it didn't include at least a few minutes of griping about prior administrations. judging from his speech, you'd think bart peterson was the sole reason for the city's economic woes—not the nationwide recession or property tax caps that will only continue to slash the city's budget in the coming years.

if you were hoping for something resembling vision from the mayor, it's time to abandon that hope, because he ain't got it. ¶

photoshop city

in an earlier post i mentioned that for my visual art, i'm trying to get away from purely abstract work toward a style that's more representational, so i can hone my illustration skills. this applies somewhat to databending (i'll still do pure databending, especially when i discover new bending methods), but especially to collage work.

this is a piece called photoshop city that i made several weeks back—the first in a series of representational collages. if you can't tell from the photo, the skyscrapers are made of dialog boxes from photoshop 6. the background is acrylic paint. at 30"x20" it's too big to scan, so i'll have to settle for photos like this.

this piece and much more will be on display (and for sale) at my first-ever solo gallery show, coming this april to 111 arts gallery and tattoo studio in downtown muncie. i'm hoping to sell a few pieces at that show... if only because we're running out of wall space in our apartment for all my art.

indy star zen: redirect edition

i thought i was pretty much done with the indy star zen feature, but just when i'm getting out, they pull me back in:


i don't think i have the permissions to do that. ¶

back home again in indiana

hello there! a week has passed since last i blogged—a week of much vacationing—so here's what you missed.

monday it rained all day, which as you might have guessed wasn't the sort of weather we'd gone to palm springs for. so while we went out to eat, we didn't get to do everything we'd hoped. in the morning, we went to breakfast at pinocchio's in the desert, where we sipped bottomless glasses of champagne (technically sparking wine, but for $3.95 it was good enough). virago dined on lobster benedict and i jumped at the rare chance to enjoy a monte cristo. (monte cristos seem to have vanished off most menus by the early '80s.)

from there, we went to the palm springs art museum, figuring it was something indoors we could do while we waited for the rain to stop. naturally, the meseum is closed mondays, so off we went back toward the motel. we promptly got lost and ended up at the target in cathedral city. this was fortunate because we needed to buy some stuff there anyway. then it was back to the motel, hoping the sun would eventually come out.

it never did; the rain didn't stop until the evening, as we were on our way to a sushi dinner at kiyosaku. dinner was delicious but expensive. afterward we went to a local indian casino and played video poker for awhile.

tuesday (virago's birthday) we drove down to the san diego area, but first stopped at cabazon to see the dinosaur statues, which were featured in pee wee's big adventure:

as you can see in the photo, at some point ownership of the dinos passed to a group of creationists, who have put up signs proclaiming that evolution is a myth. we also spent a few minutes inside the wheel inn next door, where we bought some souvenirs.

that night we stayed at the famous hotel del coronado—quite a change from the motel 6 in palm springs. for dinner, we went to red lobster. (yes, there are red lobsters in indy, but we had a $45 gift card that paid for most of our meal.)

the next morning, we got up bright and early to enjoy some of the hotel's facilities before we had to go. first we had the fantastic breakfast buffet at the sheerwater, which has wonderful pastries, lovely quiche, delicious omelettes to order, and much more (even brie). it was even better than the breakfast we had at one south in downtown indy the morning after our wedding (though the waffles weren't as good).

then we went down to the beach to see the ocean and take some photos:

virago's hat purchased at target in cathedral city.


stAllio!'s hat purchased at the wheel inn.

alas, it was time to check out. we drove into downtown san diego to meet virago's dad at balboa park and visit the museum of man, where the exhibits were a striking contrast to what we'd seen in cabazon the previous day. on our way back to our car, we managed to get completely lost and walk around in a circle for 45 minutes. then we stopped by to see a couple of virago's relatives on our way out of town, before getting stuck in rush-hour traffic on the interstate. you haven't really been to southern california if you haven't gotten caught in heavy freeway traffic.

thursday was our last full day in the palm springs area, so we drove over to palm desert to see the living desert, a nature preserve and park where you can get amazingly close to all sorts of desert animals. we took tons of pictures there:

this wasn't in an exhibit—this was a wild rabbit who just happened to hop up within a few feet of us near the butterfly preserve.


you can walk right into the aviary where some of these birds live.

the park closes at 5 (it closes even easier during summer hours, when nobody wants to be out in middle of the desert), so we drove back to town and had dinner at the blue coyote grill. i ordered the ceviche, not realizing exactly what it is or that it's served cold. the portion of scallops was massive, but it was more sour than i'd realized it would be and so the meal wasn't as satisfying as i'd hoped. i blame my own ignorance for the misunderstanding, though the menu wasn't exactly clear, either. virago had the mahi-mahi, which was tastier, and was served with bland vegetables and a delicious potato chimi.

much to our surprise, a mysterious street festival was being held on the strip a block from the restaurant. we never did figure out the name or purpose of the street fair, but we took advantage of it, taking in the sights and buying a few souvenirs. if we'd known in advance, we might have skipped the restaurant entirely and just eaten street food from the vendors. oh well.

we ate well that week. the best meals we had were the aformentioned breakfast at the sheerwater, and a fabulous dinner at pepper's thai sunday night. pepper's was simply wonderful. i had the sole fillet (shoo shee—fried and served in red curry sauce); the fish was delightfully tender in the middle and crisp on the outside, and the sauce was delicious. virago had pineapple curry with duck and loved it, declaring the meal to be the best thai food she'd ever had. i wish we'd had the opportunity to eat there again before we had to leave.

we also had our share of fast food, from places we don't have in indy like del taco, el pollo loco, hot dog on a stick, and in n out. and on a few occasions, we enjoyed wonderful donuts from an asian-owned place called swiss donut, not too far from the motel. those donuts were much better than we can get in our neighborhood here on indy's northwest side.

friday we flew back to indy. both of our planes were late getting in. saturday we slept.

you can see all of our photos from the vacation here, or just the shots from the living desert here. ¶

greetings from palm springs!

we arrived safely in palm springs last night. the rental car folks gave us a free upgrade to a nissan 350Z, a sporty little two-seater that's possibly the nicest car i've ever driven (of course, i haven't driven that many cars in my day.)

our current motel—a motel 6—isn't quite as nice as the car. other than having a swimming pool and a bunch of tv channels, the motel has few frills. in fact, when we arrived our room didn't even have a bar on the toilet paper dispenser. (thankfully, the maids gave us one today.) but it's cheap and has wifi, so i can't complain too much.

today, virago's dad drove up from san diego to meet us. the three of us went out to breakfast, then over to the nearby town of joshua tree (where, despite what the song says, the streets do have names) and drove through joshua tree national park. check out our vacation photos here. the set will presumably be updated as we take & upload more photos. ¶

beautiful palm springs

that's where virago & i are going for our belated honeymoon! we leave this afternoon and will be gone for a week.

we're taking the laptop so we should still be reachable online, but i won't be hunched in front of the computer all my waking hours as i typically am. it's possible that i'll pop in here at the blog (or just upload some vacation photos to flickr), but don't count on it. ¶

be careful who you give the keys to your blog

popular blog boingboing has had a lot of guest bloggers lately. there's nothing wrong with that: if you pick the right people it can spice up your blog and take it in new, exciting directions. (note: this is my personal blog and mine alone. no guest bloggers here.) but you don't want to just let anyone be your guest blogger, because if you pick poorly, it could damage your blog's reputation. that's a lesson the boingboingers seem to be learning.

it turns out their current guest blogger, charles platt, is a global warming denier. overnight, charles wrote four posts in a row of climate change "skepticism". this caused an ashamed cory doctorow to follow up with his own four posts full of actual scientific information about climate change.

the result is that if, like me, you just woke up and checked your feed reader (or boingboing itself), you were overloaded with posts about global warming and climate change. and because of the descending chronological nature of blogging, my initial reaction was "why in the hell is cory going on about climate change today?"... that is, until i scrolled down far enough to start seeing charles's posts.

maybe next time the boingboingers will be more selective. ¶

lunch fail

we tried to go out for lunch today to get in on that offer of free grand slams at denny's, but to no avail. we hoped that going at 11:30 would be early enough to get us in, but there was a line out the door even then. we weren't about to fight for a parking space only to stand around in the show, so we shuffled on.

of course, the roads were a disgrace. (messy roads during the morning rush hour are forgivable, but by lunchtime there's no excuse for the roads to be as sloppy as they are now.)

we ended up settling on lunch at the local chinese buffet. food there isn't particularly good at the best of times, but lunch was worse than usual—half of what i ate was cold, or at least not hot. the one bright point of the meal was a dish labeled clispy chicken. i tried to get a photo, only to discover that my cellphone camera is fubar. fortunately virago had her phone with her.

anyway, congrats to denny's on what seems to be a successful promotion—no doubt many thousands turned up today for free grand slams. hopefully, for denny's's sake, some of those people will turn into repeat customers. ¶

new shirt design: the arsonist

i have a new t-shirt design up for voting at threadless:

this is a new style for me; i guess you could call it a databent illustration. but it's not an illustration that i made and then glitched; rather, it's an illustration created using bent JPEGs for the textures—the colors are really vibrant.

i think it came out quite well, but the threadless voters are fickle, so i'm curious to see how it'll score. i suspect it'll do better than my past submissions, but we won't really know until voting ends. (if it does poorly, i'll probably adapt it into a framed piece for a gallery showing i have in the works.)

so please check it out, and if you like it, register with threadless and vote! you can see the design in detail on flickr here. ¶

FSSA fails in its duty to help people register to vote

from the indy star:

When low-income Hoosiers turn to state social-services offices for help, they're supposed to get something more than financial assistance. They're also supposed to be able to register to vote.

But two national voting-rights groups say Indiana is failing that federally required responsibility, and, as they have done elsewhere, are threatening to sue the state.
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Project Vote and the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, say their November survey of nine Indiana Family and Social Services Administration offices in Lake and Marion counties found that none were providing voter registration forms to clients. Eight didn't even have the forms available, the groups said.

Nicole Kovite, a Project Vote official, said workers at the FSSA offices were unaware of the federal law that makes social-services offices -- along with Bureau of Motor Vehicle branches and some other public offices -- responsible for helping people register to vote.

a reasonable person would read this story and think, "hey, the FSSA should probably start obeying the law and help people register to vote!" so it should come as no surprise that gary welsh had a different reaction:

It's obvious what is going on here. These groups like ACORN operate as extensions of the Democratic Party. They are going to coordinate these efforts with the Obama administration to step up voter registration activities at welfare offices with the intent of adding more Democratic voters to the voting rolls. Democrats inherently are unable to separate the government's role in dispensing public benefits and partisan political activities. To them, the two go hand in hand.

sheesh! that guy became a caricature of himself months ago. if you've been wondering why i don't make fun of him as much as i used to, it's not because he's regained his sanity (far from it), but because half the time i don't even have the heart to read that drivel anymore. ¶

snowed in? grab a shovel

shorter DPW director david sherman: the city didn't botch its handling of this week's snow storm. on the contrary, our snow-plowing strategy is intentionally crappy. if you want your street plowed, plow it yourself!

no, seriously. check it out:

But the city's chief snow fighter, Department of Public Works Director David Sherman, calls it business as usual.

The city's snow strategy "is not designed to remove snow on all residential streets," Sherman said. "We've already done the streets we normally do."

With more than 4,100 miles of roads in the county, Sherman said, "we just don't have the capacity" to clear them all. And because massive snowfalls are rare in Indianapolis (to match this week's, you have to go back to 1996), it would not be practical "to build such capacity."

[...]

Sherman called on residents to take responsibility for their own streets and sidewalks.

"Get with your neighbors," he said. "Get some shovels and plows. There's a lot of people who just need to do it themselves."

let that be a lesson to you, indianapolis. get off your lazy ass and plow your own damn street. and if you don't like it, don't bother trying to take it to the mayor, because he's not even here:

Robert Vane, Mayor Greg Ballard's spokesman, said snowplow crews are working hard and making progress. Ballard could not be reached for comment because he was en route to Tampa, Fla., where he will go to meetings and attend the Super Bowl.

a man's gotta have priorities, after all. ¶

why those homeless donation boxes were doomed to fail

over the weekend, two more of those homeless donation boxes were broken into. this sad story is made all the more shameful because it was utterly predictable... and preventable.

the entire concept behind the city's homeless donation boxes is fundamentally flawed because of the way it dehumanizes the people it's supposed to help. give money to the homeless, the boxes say, but for god's sake don't look at them or speak to them. put a buck in this box and you won't have to deal with those dirty, smelly people. the mayor doesn't even want to look at them, and you shouldn't have to, either... but give them your money!

these mixed messages only serve to confuse people. the homeless aren't worth your time or attention—not only should you not have to deal with them, but you shouldn't deal with them! don't engage panhandlers as if they were actual human beings; just put some money in this box and those annoying poor folks will leave you alone!

it's no wonder that now these donation boxes are being broken into. the mayor is on record as believing that panhandlers are scam artists, addicts and drunks who live comfortable, cushy lifestyles without ever having to work because of saps who give them handouts. and from there, it's not much of a stretch to think that if panhandlers are all thieves and con men—and the official position of the city of indianapolis is that they are—then why do they need my donation? shit, i'm poor, too! i need that money more than those assholes do! where's my crowbar?

and this is why the program could never work. it treats the people that it's supposed to help like crap. the goal is ostensibly to help the homeless, but the basic assumptions behind the program are rooted in a lack of respect for the poor and homeless.

now the mayor is promoting a government consolidation plan that would give him control over poor relief. talk about a disaster in the making. ¶

daniels wants to eliminate funding for PBS, NPR

gov daniels continues to use the economic climate as an excuse to slash funding for programs that he and other republicans don't like. the latest example: his proposal to eliminate funding for public broadcasting.

The economic downturn has forced Public Broadcasting Service affiliate WFYI to lay off staffers and cut programs. Now, like public stations across Indiana, it may be forced to make further cutbacks under a proposal by Gov. Mitch Daniels to strip it of all of its state funding.

The state's support of WFYI (Channel 20), amounting to $517,000 this year, represents less than 5 percent of the station's annual operating budget. Despite that small share, every dollar the station gets from the state can help it bring in up to $8 in additional funding from foundations, corporations and individuals, its officials said.

Daniels' proposed budget, unveiled earlier this month, would cut spending in a number of areas, including $3.5 million from public broadcasting statewide.

Weak fundraising already has hurt public broadcasters across the nation, and many have had layoffs. State subsidies are threatened in many cases, according to Lloyd Wright, president and chief executive of WFYI. But, he said, he didn't know of any other state considering wiping out its support entirely.

given the state of the economy, it would be hard to argue with a proposal to cut funding for public broadcasting by, say, 10%. times are rough, after all, and some belt-tightening would make sense. but instead, daniels wants to eliminate that funding altogether, which suggests that his primary motivation to cut the funding isn't economic but ideological.

the ploy is reminiscent of mayor ballard's recent proposal to completely eliminate city arts funding—use a tight budget and harsh economy as an excuse to eradicate much-loved arts programs. like many of his bone-headed ideas, ballard had to backtrack from that proposal once word got out. here's hoping the same thing will happen to this terrible plan to strip state funding from local PBS and NPR stations. ¶

new state appointee is pre-scandalized

governor daniels made an appointment today that turns the traditional scandal timeline on its head. mark w everson has been appointed as the new head of the indiana department of administration.

everson has held a number of jobs: he served under daniels at the OMB, and he once was head of the IRS, but he's possibly best known for being head of the red cross—a job he lost in 2007 when he was fired for a sex scandal involving a subordinate. the red cross declined to name the subordinate involved, but the new york post and other outlets had no such qualms identifying her.

everson is the second person in the past year to be appointed to a local position after being involved in a recent sex scandal. randall tobias was appointed to head the indianapolis airport authority almost exactly a year ago. in 2007, tobias had resigned from a prominent federal position after it was revealed that he had solicited "massages" from a washington DC prostitute. ¶

media still repeating myths about clinton admin

i was reading this otherwise interesting wapo story about obama staffers adjusting from the ultra-modern campaign to the more primitive and restrictive white house environment, when i spotted this falsehood at the end:

But there were no missing letters from the computer keyboards, as Bush officials had complained of during their transition in 2001.

of course, this never happened—it was a myth dreamed up by bushies to advance the notion that "the grown-ups were now in charge"... and we all know how that turned out.

apparently the washington post isn't alone in propagating this myth. mark crispin miller notes that nbc and abc also repeated the lie with no attempt to point out that it's false. ¶

donation box fail

i knew mayor ballard's homeless donation boxes were a dumb idea, but i didn't see this coming:

One of the boxes installed Downtown for people to donate to the homeless has been vandalized.

The broken box was reported to the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department around 10:16 p.m. Wednesday, according to a printed police report. The box is on the south side of Monument Circle.

Police found pry marks on the box and discovered that the lock mechanism had been broken when the box was forced open. No money was found in the box.

In May of last year, several of the boxes were installed on Downtown corners in the first of a series of moves intended to discourage panhandling. The boxes were described as "tamper-proof" at the time.

many people had questions about whether the money donated at these boxes would ever reach actual homeless people, but i always just assumed the money would be mishandled by the city. looks like i overestimated the administration. ¶

oh frabjous day!

just a few hours ago, barack obama was inaugurated as the president of the united states.

it's still hard to believe this is really happening after the nightmare of the past eight years. truly this is a day for all of us (well, other than the crazies) to celebrate. ¶

movin' on up

shorter abdul hakim-shabazz: some people accuse me of turning my back on my fellow blacks once i became successful, but they have it all wrong. in fact, turning my back on my fellow blacks is how i became successful in the first place.

bonus abdul: it's hard to know what the most obnoxious thing about this post is. the smug attitude? the fact that he does his own call and response? ("truer words were never spoken," he pats himself on the back at the end.) the audacity of rerunning it every martin luther king day, as if to flip everyone the bird while be pretends to give them advice? no—those are all annoying, but worst has to be the complete lack of self-awareness:

Recently I had a conversation with a black friend of mine and she told me something I found was a bit disturbing. We were arguing over crime and how to deal with it when she told me, "Abdul, your attitude is typical of middle-class back folk." I asked her to tell me what that meant. She then went on to say as middle-class blacks tend to move up the socio-economic ladder, they forget their origins, and treat poor blacks the same way whites do. I have to say I was a bit taken back by all this, because I was being attacked for my status in life which I had no control over.

no, abdul. you weren't being attacked for your status in life. you were being attacked for your behavior. she wasn't complaining that you were middle class; she was complaining that you treat poor blacks the same way whites do (i.e., like shit). which is what makes the following sentence from later in the post particularly ironic:

I for one have no such guilt because there's a big difference between closing the door on people because of race, which has nothing to do with behavior, and having serious concerns about people who haven't learned how to honor the social contract, which does have a lot to do with behavior.

so abdul writes that people should be judged for their behavior rather than their race or class... but when people criticize him for his behavior, he gets defensive and pretends that they're talking about his race and class. funny how that works. ¶

forgive me, sire; i don't know what came over me

shorter matt tully: in my previous column, i briefly criticized my idol, governor mitch daniels... and then i felt so bad about it that i had to write another column praising him. i'm sorry, lord daniels! forgive my impudence! ¶

shorter state of the state

shorter mitch daniels: when i say that indiana is an "island of growth", i don't mean that indiana is doing well—i mean that every other state sucks balls. ¶

dear indy star: look up the meaning of "protect"

there's an unusual headline in today's star:

New proposal to ban gay marriage protects partner benefits

wow, really? the proposal bans gay marriage, but protects partner benefits? that's surprisingly progressive for an attempt to enshrine bigotry into the state constitution.

An effort to pass a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages in Indiana is being renewed, this time with new wording that supporters hope will sway critics.

Its supporters said the new version would prohibit civil unions -- which are already not recognized in Indiana -- without affecting domestic partner benefits offered by some employers.

wait, what? but the headline said...

In the past, the amendment has been opposed by businesses and universities in Indiana that feared it would conflict with their policies granting benefits to the partners of gay employees. They also worried the amendment would make Indiana seem like an intolerant place, hurting economic development.

Turner and Cheatham said the new language is identical to the wording of amendments in Wisconsin and Kentucky, and has not hurt domestic partnerships, domestic violence laws or economic development in those states.

note to the editors at the star: protect does not mean "not hurt". if i point a gun at your face, and then lower it, i'm not "protecting" you... i'm simply no longer threatening you. an amendment that protected domestic partner benefits would be one that, you know, specifically states that employers may offer domestic partner benefits. this proposed amendment does nothing of the sort. ¶

new backgrounds for a new year

i meant to have new blog backgrounds up on new year's day, but due to threadless designing and an ongoing home reorganization project, it didn't come to pass. but new backgrounds are up now, and in addition, new post borders!

the new backgrounds are based on illustrations i did for threadless t-shirt designs (if you haven't voted for escape and stickers on the wall yet, i'd really appreciate it). the new post borders use halftones (a fancy shading technique i picked up recently) and are much snazzier than the old sloppy hand-drawn ones. ¶

ballard on the poor and homeless: "we don't want them around"

more on mayor ballard's latest plan to sweep the city's poor someplace where he won't have to look at them:

Though advocates for the homeless questioned the effectiveness of such measures, the Republican mayor plans to ask the Indiana General Assembly to expand state law to include a 20-foot radius around any spot where monetary transactions take place.

Those spots would include parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands and charity donation boxes designed to curb panhandling.

Current law already prohibits people from asking for money near ATM machines and outdoor dining locations.

yes, it's already against the law to panhandle near ATMs. in other words, this law is completely unnecessary. (tangent: the AP stylebook specifically says not to use the redundant "ATM machine", but in the indy star's defense, i think they've laid off all their editors.)

"Anywhere money is transacted, we don't want them around," Ballard said.

Administration officials said they knew of no other city that had pushed its anti-panhandling laws this far. Panhandlers who sit quietly with a sign would not be affected.

ballard apparently wants to set the record for the city most inhospitable toward panhandlers. he'd probably have them all put in camps if he could... anything to avoid being reminded that some people don't live in cozy houses across the street from a golf course like he does. ¶

stickers on the wall: yet another shirt design

my third t-shirt design for threadless is up for voting now! it's called stickers on the wall:

this will probably be my last threadless submission for the time being, as i have too many other art projects i've been neglecting. (if you've been waiting for part 2 of the databending primer, sorry—i might get around to finishing it this month.) i'll probably return to t-shirt design sooner or later (sooner if the designs up for voting now do well), but right now i need to prioritize. ¶

ballard's vision: a city where he doesn't have to look at poor people

mayor ballard's crusade against the poor and homeless continues:

Mayor Greg Ballard will ask state lawmakers to broaden limits on aggressive panhandling.

He plans to ask the General Assembly to expand current limits on asking for money near ATM machines and outdoor dining locations to include a 20-foot radius from any spot where money is transacted.

Those spots include parking meters, vending machines, newspaper stands and charity donation boxes designed to curb panhandling.

i might be able to understand a moratorium next to ATMs, but parking meters? most of the streets downtown are lined with parking meters—so if this legislation passed, panhandling would effectively be illegal throughout much of downtown.

we already knew that the mayor would rather not have to look at homeless people. but don't we have more important things to worry about?

the economy is in shambles. the city budget is impossibly tight, and will only get tighter in the coming years. the city's murder rate—which candidate ballard spent so much time complaining about—went up in 2008. the city's police department—which he made a big deal about seizing control over—is once again mired in controversy. doesn't the city government have better things to do than obsess over how panhandlers make the mayor feel uncomfortable? ¶

more t-shirt news

1. there are only a few hours of voting left for my belt printed circuit board t-shirt design! if you haven't already voted for this design, please take a moment to sign up with threadless and do so:

2. i have another new design now beginning voting, titled escape. check it out and vote!

3. i'm now officially out of stock of black recycle your record collection shirts in size L. i still have XL, XXL, M, and girly M in black, and i still have all those sizes in purple (or lavender for girly). but some sizes i only have 2 or 3, so i recommend ordering now before i run out of those sizes as well. ¶

comic sans comics

this is a comic strip about comic sans... made entirely out of comic sans. even the panels are made out of lowercase L's. i was inspired to put this together by a threadless text-based design challenge, but i think it works better as just a comic strip than as a t-shirt. (i should have one or two text-based shirt designs up for voting somewhat soon.)

view large to see the detail.