Before Linda Oblack, Chris Kupersmith, and Jeanne Leimkuhler could proceed with plans for a "journal of revolutionary thought," they had to decide just what the phrase means. Their conclusion was necessarily simple and powerful.

"Our mission is revolutionary," Oblack writes in the introduction to the premier issue of Tea Party: A Journal of Revolutionary Thought. "Our mission is to make people think."

A potent political movement organized around the new-terrain I-69 highway is the only force on earth that can kill outright this massive political and economic fraud being perpetrated upon the citizens of Indiana by Bayh-O'Bannon Democrats, former Hoosier Environmental Council Director Jeff Stant said in Bloomington last week.

Federal highway officials gave new meaning to the phrase "distorting reality" when claiming last week that a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement is not required for the so-called "hybrid route" for the proposed Interstate 69 highway through Southwestern Indiana.

News Release: Organizing a Political Movement Around I-69

Former Hoosier Environmental Council Executive Director Jeff Stant will deliver a speech on the subject "Organizing a Political Movement Around I-69" at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Monroe County Public Library Auditorium. This nonpartisan discussion on political strategies to stop new-terrain I-69 will be free and open to the public.

Former U.S. Congressman Jim Jontz didn't intend his impromptu remarks at Saturday's Citizens Action Coalition (CAC) Annual Convention as a prelude to this week's discussion by Jeff Stant on "Organizing a Political Movement Around I-69."

"Organizing is what all of us do when we take the pieces and put them together to be a whole," Jontz told CAC delegates gathered on the Butler University campus in Indianapolis. "… It's about taking the pieces from wherever we come from in this state, from whatever walk of life we come from, whatever organization we come from, and putting these pieces together to create the whole, which is the articulation in our political system of what it is that active people care about."

The dead cat left in the Monroe County Courthouse last week was intended to send a message about the county's failure to respond to concerns about dead animals in the county, according to an e-mail from a person claiming to have left the animal.

Ugly got a whole lot uglier this past week in Monroe County politics. Someone walked into the Courthouse and left a paper bag with a dead cat inside it on the floor outside the Commissioners office.

With the 2003 City Election season officially underway, Bloomington progressives should be wary of the euphoria that recent news events might induce. It's true that John Fernandez is out as mayor, almost. And it's official that Mark Kruzan is in, almost.

When the reverend Bill Breeden asked everyone gathered in the St. Thomas Aquinas School a couple blocks from the Governor's mansion in Indianapolis to form a circle, it took awhile. There was barely enough room in the elementary school cafeteria for them stand side-by-side around its perimeter. They had to squeeze.

The turnout for Saturday's Pre-Thanksgiving Pitch-In Lunch/I-69 rally had, as Breeden and the Hoosier Environmental Council's Andy Knott noted, exceeded all expectations. The group included Hoosiers from across generational, geographical, and political spectrums. COUNT US! had filled a chartered Rural Transit bus to carry Bloomington citizens to the event.

The State of Indiana is seeking a court order to prevent Monroe County Councilman Scott Wells from speaking publicly about his arrest and resulting physical injuries at the hands of the Indiana State Police.