The Kinsey Institute chose not to dignify minister Douglas Wilson with a protest when he gave a talk in Bloomington described as a two-part lecture called "Sexual by Design," the first half Creation Sexuality and the second Redemption Sexuality. His April 13 speech in IU's Woodburn Hall included a commentary on Alfred Kinsey's ideas and activities.

Though the Kinsey Institute chose silence as the appropriate response to Wilson's presence in Bloomington, IU students and members of the larger community thought Wilson's views were too repulsive and dangerous to ignore. About 75 people gathered outside Woodburn Hall with signs lauding diversity and condemning hate, with some wearing "Out and Proud" buttons and either carrying or wearing rainbow flags, the symbols of LGBTQ liberation. The group walked over to nearby Ballantine Hall, where Wilson spoke.

Last November's pepper-spray attack on nonviolent University of California Davis (UCD) students resulted from poor leadership and lack of communication among campus police authorities and university leaders, according to a University of California task force report released on April 11. The report condemned the actions of the campus police officers and their use of excessive force against student demonstrators.

According to an April 11 KTVU article, Lt. John Pike and other campus police authorities who doused a line of seated student protesters with pepper spray used canisters larger than campus police officers were authorized and trained to utilize. The incident drew widespread public condemnation, and many called for UCD Chancellor Linda Katehi's resignation. The report provided findings about the incident along with a set of recommendations to prevent future clashes.

"Our overriding conclusion can be stated briefly and explicitly," wrote former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso and the report's co-authors, according to an April 11 Chicago Tribune article. "The pepper-spraying incident that took place on Nov. 18, 2011, should and could have been prevented."

News Release
Anonymous IU Students

Early Monday morning, several anonymous IU students concerned about the climate-related death toll of their campus’ coal-fired heating plant dropped a massive 30-foot-x20-foot banner over the two-story bridge of the Kelley School of Business on Fee Lane. The banner, which was dropped intentionally within eyeshot of the campus’ coal plant, read as follows: “CLIMATE CHANGE KILLED 315,000 PEOPLE LAST YEAR ALONE. IU HAS BLOOD ON ITS HANDS.”

The students responsible for the banner cited this alarming figure from a study released in 2009 by the Global Humanitarian Forum, a non-profit foundation presided over by former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan. This landmark publication, entitled “The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis,” found that every year approximately 315,000 people die prematurely due to weather-related disasters and environmental degradation (such as deterioration of arable land) associated with anthropogenic climate change and that by the year 2030, “the lives of 660 million people are expected to be seriously affected.”

• Environmental movement losing due to strategic failings
• Westinghouse pushes nukes, despite acknowledged hurdles
• Monsanto voted biggest 'Corporate Fool'
• Pesticides responsible for killing bees
• Salmon dying off in Lake Huron, Lake Michigan
• 1,000 antinuclear activists march in Vermont
• Six finalists vie for Indianapolis Prize
• Indiana Recycling Coalition holds 23rd annual meeting
• Former treatment plant operator plea bargains for polluting
• EPA administrator in Paris for OECD meeting

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  Read The Greene Report archive on The Bloomington Alternative.

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On a sunny and unseasonably warm Wednesday afternoon, March 21, some 100 people gathered at the Bloomington Courthouse Square to honor Iraq on the ninth anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation and to express their demand for diplomacy, not war, with Iran.

The rally was sponsored by the Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, the Just Peace Task Force of Bloomington's Unitarian Universalist Church and the Bloomington chapter of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

Poverty is increasing worldwide, but it doesn't affect everyone with the same intensity: it hits women and children hardest.

In response to dire poverty faced by women around the world, the People's Movement Assembly launched the World Courts of Women on Poverty, to be held this spring in four U.S. cities -- Oakland, Louisville, Detroit and Philadelphia.

A working group of Occupy protesters is planning a conference in Philadelphia during the week of July 4 when elected delegates from across the country will gather to draft and sign a petition for a redress of grievances against Congress.

Michael Pollok, an attorney who advised the Occupy protesters arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge last October, co-founded the working group called the 99% Declaration Working Group.

In the days since the U.S. Green Party's (GP) Feb. 1 announcement that two candidates - Dr. Jill Stein and comedian Roseanne Barr - had filed the necessary paperwork to meet party requirements for its presidential ballot, the Massachusetts physician has emerged as the odds-on favorite. Even Barr, who insists her candidacy is serious, accepts Stein as the nominee apparent. On Feb. 2, the National Journal reported a Barr tweet:

"I will run until the convention in July in Baltimore - I fully expect Jill Stein 2b the nominee & I will support her, but til then - I'll serve."

More than 400 Occupy Oakland demonstrators and a number of journalists were arrested in a violent confrontation on Jan. 28 when protesters attempted to convert a vacant building into a community center. Several hours later, a group of protesters separated from the crowd and entered City Hall, allegedly vandalizing the inside of the building.

The events were part of a demonstration called "Move-In Day," a plan to use the indoor base of Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center as headquarters for Occupy Oakland protesters to hold General Assemblies and for shelter during the winter, according to occupyoaklandmoveinday.org. The police response to the protesters' efforts entailed using tear gas, bean bag projectiles and flash grenades to disperse the crowd, according to a Jan. 30 Democracy Now! article.

"They are more interested in protecting abandoned private property than they are the people," Occupy Oakland member Maria Lewis said on Democracy Now!

Adbusters Magazine, the Vacnouver-based online publication that helped launch the Occupy Wall Street movement, posted a tactical briefing on its website on Jan. 25 calling for 50,000 protesters to participate in a showdown in Chicago at the May NATO and G-8 summits.

Titled “Tactical Briefing #25,” the post was an international rallying cry for radical revolutionaries around the world to participate in a month-long occupation against the backdrop of the international summit. Among those it sought were the "redeemers, rebels and radicals." The briefing encourages peaceful civil disobedience and summons a spirit reminiscent of the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago that resulted in a police riot.

“On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO for a month,” Adbusters.org’s briefing read. “With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.”