Category: news features

Opinions, Analysis, Serious, Less Serious, Are You Kidding?

  • Atonement

    In a chapter of a book Mark White is currently writing, he addresses his thoughts on the principles of his work in trying to shake up longstanding practices in teaching the genetic code. Atonement is an old word, but it carries a simple meaning. Itmeans…

  • Is the genetic code still in IU’s DNA?

    Is the genetic code still in IU’s DNA?

    Indiana University had a hand in the discovery of the modern genetic code. More than a half-century later, IU is giving an icy response to entreaties asking questions about science moving forward and science education remaining static By Mike Leonard A story circled the globe…

  • This is What a Coup Looks Like

    Those Tatterdemalion Thugs By Dennis Reardon, guest columnist We have a munificently funded private Executive army invading the capitals of states that didn’t vote for Grifter-in-Chief Donald Trump. I refrain from calling ICE Trump’s Gestapo only because the Nazi Gestapo was a highly-trained and well-disciplined…

  • Bloomington’s Brad Meyer emerges as the Democrats’ best hope for the Ninth District

    He quit his job to do this By Mike Leonard Dee Owens was having coffee at Hive restaurant with her friend, Regina Moore, when she noticed another friend having a conversation with a gentleman across the room. ‘Who’s he?’ she wondered. On the way out…

  • The Bright Light of the Dark End of the Street

    Pioneering radio show turns over the reins after more than three decades By Mike Leonard When program host Bill Weaver announced his retirement from the WFHB show, “Dark End of the Street” in late December, fans and friends of the program all seemed to say…

  • Jewish Studies’ 180 flip

    IU’s sledgehammer approach to changing core values of the university is broader, deeper, and more impactful than many realize. Yet. By Mike Leonard Much of what is happening at IU is being carried out in the darkness behind the Sample Gates entryway of the Bloomington…

  • Happy October 7!

    You probably never knew what a cool birthday this is. It isn’t every kid who grows up in a place where his whole hometown throws a festival on his birthday. I grew up straddling U.S. 40, the Old National Road, in Greenfield, Indiana, and my…

  • You Wanna Boogie?Boogie Woogie Woogie With Me

    Singer/songwriter John Hartford made up that line, and you can drop it if you like at this year’s Bloomington Blues & Boogie Woogie Piano Festival. By Mike Leonard Hartford’s little ditty paid homage to the playful double-entendre tunes of jazz and blues and whatever your…

  • The decline of a great university

    The decline of a great university

    THE ACADEMY IS AN OUTDATED CONCEPT TO THE IU TRUSTEES AND STATE GOVERNMENT By Mike Leonard SUVs blowing through stop signs. Cars going the wrong way on one-way streets. Students playing drinking games with ping pong balls in their front yards. It’s “Welcome Back” time…

  • Mellencamp returns to the stage

    Mellencamp returns to the stage

    Four years after his last live gig, longtime Bloomington resident opens a mammoth new tour at the IU Auditorium Mellencamp shows no signs of slowing down at age 71. Courtesy Photo. In the four years since John Mellencamp took on concert tours across the U.S.…