When Gov. Mitch Daniels told the Washington Post last month that he "will now stay open to the idea" of a 2012 presidential bid, Indiana's scourge became the nation's. Americans who worry that environmental exposures to industrial chemicals can lead to chronic illnesses and diseases like autism, asthma and cancer should be on alert:
Mitch Daniels is not your typical laughing-stock Hoosier politician, like Dan Quayle or Evan Bayh. He poses a serious threat to human health and the environment.
This is the time of year when classroom responsibilities overwhelm my journalistic passions, and my writing tends to be more reflection than exposition. And let me tell you, nothing spurs reflexive contemplation like finding yourself in polar opposition to someone whose life work has profoundly influenced your own.
In my case, that someone is Dr. Philip J. Landrigan from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, whose research at the Children's Environmental Health Center there first caught my attention in the late 1990s when I was a senior environmental writer at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM). When I began exploring the links between toxic pollution and autism 17 months ago, a 2006 study Landrigan co-wrote titled "Developmental neurotoxicity of industrial chemicals" was the first link that Google produced when I searched for "autism and environment."
Nearly a year and a half later, I am persuaded that mercury and/or other chemicals in vaccines are among the industrial chemicals that caused the autism epidemic of the past two decades. I do not believe that vaccines caused the epidemic, but my work has convinced me that neurotoxins in them contributed to it. And in some children, they did cause autism. The question for them isn't whether, it's how, and it demands an answer.
This is the second of two columns that explore the relationship between popular movements and the news media. Read Part 1 -- "Made for each other."
If the Tea Party movement is the spoiled stepchild of the American news media, then the 911 Truth movement is the mad woman in the attic of U.S. journalistic culture.
As I suggested in my previous column, the Tea Party's notoriety and popular appeal is fueled by press coverage that is, by turns, wildly enthusiastic and wholly uncritical. In contrast, American news workers have long ignored, shunned or ridiculed the 911 Truth movement. Likewise, relatively few international news outlets have taken the 911 Truth movement seriously. Until now.
As anyone who has walked the halls of the U.S. Capitol can attest, the hairstyles of male politicians oftentimes rival Stonehenge for implausible construction.
Perhaps it is easy for me to say, since I don't have to brandish my own rapidly receding hairline on C-Span, but Indiana voters seem to be treated to more than our share of toupees, hair plugs and comb-overs elaborate enough to make Donald Trump blush.
But, if hair provided the window on the political soul, the true look of the moment would be the faux-hawk.
News Release
Citizens Action Coalition
Two leading Indiana citizen/environmental groups -- Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana and Concerned Citizens of Scott County -- filed as joint interveners in Liberty Green Renewables Indiana LLC's request to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC) for declination of jurisdiction.
Liberty Green is requesting that the Commission decline to exercise any jurisdiction over the construction, ownership or operation of, or any other activity in connection with, the Scottsburg Renewable Energy Center -- stating in the petition to the IURC that "encouragement of this type of facility by its declining to exercise jurisdiction over Petitioner will be beneficial to the State of Indiana."
In the request, Liberty Green LLC claims that the Scottsburg Renewable Energy Center will specifically generate electricity from woody biomass, a renewable, environmentally benign and energy efficient resource.
Notwithstanding John Mellencamp's paeans to its small-towns, Indiana's reputation as a rural state just isn't that well supported by its demographics. For instance, although Illinois has a population of 13 million people, to Indiana's six, the vast majority of the Illini population is concentrated in the immediate area of Chicago.
Take out Chicago, Aurora, Elgin, Joliet and Waukegan and Illinois' population drops to 5 million people. Take out Indianapolis and its surrounding cities, and the population of Indiana drops only to four-and-a-half million, just half a million less than Illinois.
Now factor back in the greater land area of Illinois (53,000 square miles (again, removing Chicago and its environs from the calculation)) versus that of Indiana (33,000 square miles (not counting Indianapolis or its satellites)) and you get a population density of 95 people per square mile for Illinois versus 136 for Indiana.
Editor's note: This is the first of two columns that explore the relationship between popular movements and the news media. Read Part 2 -- "The 911 Truth Movement: Debunking the official story."
Last week, two competing narratives surrounding the economic stimulus package dominated the news cycle. Not surprisingly, the Obama administration characterized the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act as an unqualified success. On Wednesday, President Obama declared, "One year later, it is largely thanks to the recovery act that a second depression is no longer a possibility."
Taking to the airwaves and the Internet, Republicans challenged Obama's version of the story. For instance, John Boehner (R-Oh.) issued a "report" titled "Where are the Jobs? A Look Back at One Year of So-called 'Stimulus,'" wherein the House Republican leader claims that the recovery act is "chock-full of wasteful government spending."
Democrat Evan Bayh is exiting the U.S. Senate in the same capacity he has served the past 12 years -- an embarrassment to his constituents, his party and an affront to democracy.
The Indiana senator's surrender will be remembered for two sound bites: He said he has loved serving Hoosier citizens, but he doesn't like Congress anymore. Less noticed but far more newsworthy was the antidemocratic manner in which he announced his retirement.
Bayh's claim that he loves serving the people of Indiana was a jaw-dropper for anyone remotely familiar with his political history. As a neophyte reporter at the Bloomington Herald-Telephone in 1986, when the son of former Sen. Birch Bayh was elected Secretary of State, I quickly learned what Evan Bayh was about -- Evan Bayh, and Evan Bayh only.
News Release
Allison for County Council
County Recorder Sam Allison has filed to run for Monroe County Council, Seat 4.
"I have had a great term as County Recorder, and I am so grateful to so many people for that," said Allison. "Now it is time for another challenge, the challenge of overseeing the finances of a County that has been adding nearly 1,500 new residents per year to its population. And we sure do have a lot of challenges, due to the bad decisions coming out of Indianapolis."
Decisions, Allison said, that threaten Monroe County's quality of life.
"We have a state government that is intent on slashing funds for our core public services. Education, parks, public safety, libraries -- these things have made Bloomington great. Now they are all on the chopping block. But even though teachers will get fired under the State's current proposal, it also appears that there are billions of dollars available for an I-69 that we absolutely do not need and an FSSA system that has absolutely failed. This is absurd. Downright absurd."
They're clean! They're green! Or so the industry PR boasts about biomass power plants. If anything, the opposite is true.
Biomass is any substance that isn't a fossil fuel and is arguably organic. Wood waste is one of the primary fuels that biomass incinerators burn. Wood waste includes industrial wood waste (like shipping pallets and sawdust), which is often contaminated with toxic chemicals and plastics that form dioxin, the most potent carcinogen ever studied, when burned.
Biomass power plants aren't built in white, middle-class neighborhoods but in urban neighborhoods populated with poor people of color. Other prime locations are poor, rural areas, such as Crawford County, in southwest Indiana.
