Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

How stupid are these people?

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

They spent the last eight months firing professionals and replacing them with ideologues.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

You are here: Home / Justice / LGBTQ Rights / Gay Rights are Human Rights / Oddly Enough, I Have Been Boycotting Indiana My Whole Life

Oddly Enough, I Have Been Boycotting Indiana My Whole Life

by | 341 Comments

This post is in: 

You’d think these troglodytes would learn that the rest of the world has moved on and won’t stand for this kind of discrimination anymore:

In the wake of Gov. Mike Pence (R-IN) signing a law that essentially allows discrimination against gay and lesbian people in the state, companies are starting to consider pulling their business from the state.

Though Pence has tried to insist that the law is about “religious liberty” and not discrimination against LGBT discrimination in the state, that doesn’t seem to wash with many in the state — including the Chamber of Commerce, which has said the law will bring unwanted attention to the state. Many high-profile companies and entities that host major events in the state are starting to reconsider their business.

may-boycott-indiana-638x478

The thing that makes a boycott of Indiana so easy because of this awful bill Pence signed is that no one really wants to go there anyway. And everyone I know who lives there is trying to get out. Indiana is a place you have to go through or fly over to get somewhere desirable (ie: Not Indiana). It’s part of that drive from hell from Columbus to Indiana where you don’t have to turn the steering wheel for hours and find yourself singing to yourself, holding your eyes open ala A Clockwork Orange, and just basically doing anything to stay the hell awake so you can GET OUT OF THE GOD DAMNED STATE. The icing on the cake of the trip is Indiana’s parting gift, Gary, the sweaty, dirty armpit of middle America, a drive through which is like running into a truck-sized pothole full of industrial smog, baked bean farts and indiscriminate gun fire.

And I say that as a West Virginian, which is an oft maligned state.

Reader Interactions

341Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    I also have never been to Indiana, although a long time ago, I met a lovely, politically progressive couple from Indianapolis.

  2. 2.

    burnspbesq

    the rest of the world has moved on and won’t stand for this kind of discrimination anymore

    Has it, really? Give me ten minutes and I bet I can find at least five other states where similar legislation has been introduced, starting with Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas.

  3. 3.

    Violet

    How many other states have passed similar laws? Is Indiana the first one? Or is there something particularly bad about this law compared to other similar ones that is getting it so much attention?

  5. 5.

    Baud

    @burnspbesq: As with abortion, Justice Kennedy is the only thing standing between us and a reactionary social throwback.

    All he asks in return is death to Obamacare.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @Violet: This confused me too. The law is written very squirrelly, but it could be read to allow a defense to a private discrimination lawsuit under state law based on an allegation that nondiscrimination burdens the exercise of religion.

  7. 7.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @burnspbesq:

    Arizona’s governor vetoed their similar legislation after an outcry from corporations and the CoC. I think Georgia’s was withdrawn before it came to a vote. Which other state successfully passed this legislation before Indiana did?

  11. 11.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I grew up in the Chicago area and spent most of my childhood summers in central Michigan, so I kind of had to go through Indiana (Gary! Looking at you!), but to the extent possible since then I’ve tried to make it a brief pass-through rather than anywhere I would spend time in. As I mentioned last night, I think, in a related thread, I’m already looking at alternative routes to take me from Atlanta to southern Illinois later this year, without having to run the risk of buying gas or eating a meal in Indiana.

  12. 12.

    Tree With Water

    “It’s part of that drive from hell from Columbus to Indiana where you don’t have to turn the steering wheel for hours..”. That sounds like driving across Nevada. West to east or north to south, it doesn’t matter. However, the desert is a mysterious place that I never mind driving. I once crossed the entire state driving through rain showers all the way, and the word kaleidoscope doesn’t begin to do justice to its beauty. And Gary, Indiana is nothing like you describe. I know because The Music Man is a favorite film of mine.

  13. 13.

    burnspbesq

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    The bill that Gov. Brewer vetoed was an amendment to legislation that passed, and that she signed, in 2012, so Arizona is on the list.

    I’m not as sanguine as you seem to be about the legislative process in Georgia. There is nothing of which I am aware that prevents the sponsors of the bill that was derailed by a “poison pill” amendment from being reintroduced.

    And if you notice (apparently you missed it the first time), I did use the word “introduced,” and that choice of word was not accidental.

  17. 17.

    shortstop

    Gary, eye-burning and sneeze-inducing as it is to drive through, votes solid Democratic. West Virginia, not so much.

  18. 18.

    erlking

    I lived in Indiana for 6 years. Moved there from San Francisco for an ill-advised stint in grad school at a university known for its football team, the Battling Stereotypes. Gary, Indiana is a clapped-out post-industrial hellscape so fucking ugly that you can go blind looking at it too long and the town I lived in had never recovered from the closing of the Studebaker plant. No word of a lie. Some great people live in the state but not enough.

  19. 19.

    delk

    The Indiana Dunes are very beautiful. The only place that goes from sand dune to hard wood forest in such a short distance.

    My older brother may have been conceived there.

  21. 21.

    columbusqueen

    Right on, Cole. When I drove from Columbus to St. Louis for a wedding in “04, I flew through Indiana. Not a place to linger in my judgment. Why anybody lives in Indy when a short move would get you to Columbus is something I just don’t get.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    I’ve made that trip from Columbus thru Indiana a few times. Unfortunately, not a forgettable waste of time and energy. Mark Twain said
    “If the world comes to an end, I want to be in Cincinnati. Everything comes there ten years later.”
    I bet he couldn’t think of anything this nice to say about Indiana.

  24. 24.

    PaulW

    I drove through Indiana on a road trip to Chicago from South Florida, for a library convention back in 2000.

    I thought I had seen the flattest earth ever with the Everglades, just this horizon-wide swamp with sawgrass as far as the eye could see. But that did not prepare me for the length of I-65 through Indiana. The second we left Kentucky, we hit flat. I mean flat scenery. Flat roads, flat towns, flat grass, flattest flat ever. The only bumps were the overpass bridges.

    Nothing noticeable at all along the interstate. Nothing in the way of a scenic stop on the route. Even the Loop around Indianapolis was unmemorable: I don’t recall seeing a damn thing taking the 465 beltway except standard traffic. Just… blah. Blue sky meh, whatever.

    I think people live in Indiana for some reason or another. But I don’t think I’ve ever met any of them. I only know Indiana by reputation: as the one state that drew the largest KKK membership in known history. Mississippi, eat your heart out.

  27. 27.

    Wally Ballou

    @columbusqueen: Heh, my brother lives in Columbus and his in-laws are in Indy. I’ll have to share this with them.

    For myself, the first thing that always comes to mind when I think of Indiana is Cary Grant getting attacked by the crop-duster in North by Northwest. That, and Frank Burns being from Fort Wayne.

  28. 28.

    HinTN

    @burnspbesq: Georgia’s tilt at this windmill went Tango Uniform when a Republican from Hotlanta offered an amendment that stated that the bill would not contravene discrimination laws and the water carrier for the bill immediately moved to table it because the amendment would “gut the bill.” Woops

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    @erlking:
    Had a friend who lived in IN. Stopped at his house and his daughter came over. Ten minutes later, which was ten minutes after we met, we announced to dad that we were going to get married as it was love at first sight. One of the best gags ever pulled. So yes some good people live in IN. Some.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @burnspbesq:

    It seems silly to hang your hat on the word “introduced” when what people are pissed about is that Indiana seems to be the first state where the governor signed the legislation into law. If you’re going to insist it’s all about what’s been introduced and not what’s been passed, then California is on record as being in favor of shooting GLBT people in the head since someone filed a ballot initiative to allow that.

  31. 31.

    HinTN

    @delk: I was introduced to smoking pot there by some new Indiana acquaintances. Nice place and nice people!

  32. 32.

    Karen in GA

    I have a mother in Indiana. (What? Yeah. Adopted. Found the bio-parents 20 years ago.) Spent a long weekend in Elkhart meeting her for the first time. The visit went well, so for obvious reasons I have good memories of the place.

    Otherwise, though, I’ve never heard anything about the state that makes me think “wow, that sounds nice.”

  33. 33.

    FlyingToaster

    @burnspbesq: I just read the language for Connecticut, Rhode Island and Illinois, and they’re strictly regarding interactions with government agencies. Nothing about civil procedures involving discrimination.

    RFRA Perils

  35. 35.

    jharp

    Protest tomorrow in downtown Indianapolis. I will be there.

    If you’d like pictures I would be happy to send some.

  36. 36.

    Tree With Water

    @PaulW: I felt much the same way the first time I flew back east (SFO-Dulles). I could not believe the length of time it took to fly over the checkerboard that is the midwest. I admit to have given little thought to the natives as I gazed down, but my admiration was certainly increased for the American pioneers who settled and crossed it.

  37. 37.

    BGinCHI

    Those of us who grew up there and left have, generally, nostalgia mixed with contempt. I could never live there again, but there are things about it that are lovely. It’s a state that has produced all kinds of great people, from Cole Porter to Oscar Robertson. But like so much of America it is mired in backwardness and religious intolerance.

    Let’s just be glad Mike Pence and the IN GOP’s slip is showing here. Seeing their true colors is valuable.

  39. 39.

    HinTN

    @shortstop: Drove through on the freeway in summer of 1969 with Windows open (no a/c) and felt like I had smoked too many packs of cigarettes. Never went back.

  40. 40.

    Howard Beale IV

    What was truly mind-blowing was when I was listening to BBC World Service some law prof from the University of Indiana was stating that this law was just putting Indiana on par with the rest of the states.

    O RLY?

    The very fact that he signed the legislation in private tells you all that you need to know.

  41. 41.

    mdblanche

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    then California is on record as being in favor of shooting GLBT people in the head since someone filed a ballot initiative to allow that.

    That someone is a lawyer from Orange County. Hmm…

  42. 42.

    shortstop

    @FlyingToaster: In fact, the “But 20 states’ legislation is EGGZACKLY THE SAME AND UR HERO BILL CLINTON SIGNED THIS INTO FEDERAL LAW!!!!!!!” argument is today’s already fully debunked right-wing attempt at fending off the righteous outrage at Indiana’s law, which, of course, has no real parallel in other states’ legislation (introduced, passed or signed into law, for those who can detect the difference). Burns might have used some of his five minutes to avoid falling heavily for the usual wingnut tropes, but then he wouldn’t be our Burns.

  43. 43.

    FlyingToaster

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): Everything except the Region* and Jeffersonville** is close to Indy. Well, Elkhart is closer to Chicago, but I believe the TollRoad has died.

    *NW Indiana near Chicago. Gary, Marion, etc.

    ** Just across the river from Louisville.

    I only lived in Bloomington for 8 years (IU student/grad student, yes), but I spent a lot of time traveling around the state. There are pockets of genuinely wonderful people. There’s also a plethora of places like Martinsville and Carmel.

    I used my education to find work in Boston. Heh.

  46. 46.

    shortstop

    @HinTN: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, you can’t leave the windows open. Even with them shut (we have to go this way to get to the Dunes, South Haven, Saugatuck, etc.), you can feel your eyes and respiratory tissues stinging.

    But again, I’d just like to remind people that the folks working those mills and plants and dying obscenely early deaths from cancer for which their employers are paying extra-large bucks to avoid legal responsibility…vote Democratic. They are not, like West Virginia miners, happily complicit in their own screwing because they hate black people more than they love themselves.

  48. 48.

    kindness

    That’s so funny to hear John talking smack about Indiana as a West Virginian. You Go dude. Myself I’ve only passed through Indiana on the Thruway a couple times. John Mellencamp lives there and they stole the Colts from Baltimore. So not squat really.
    What I find funniest is the righties that get all bent out of shape at the prospect of losing money from boycotts and act like they are the ones being discriminated against. Go figure. Fits the pattern though. These states are doing this through the law from the 90’s that was supposed to protect religious practices (peyote), and turning it on it’s head using that law to justify discrimination. I’ll be damned, eh?

  50. 50.

    lonesomerobot

    One of the very interesting things about the law is the part (section 4) where they define a “person” as: “an individual, an association, a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a church, a religious institution, an estate, a trust, a foundation, or any other legal entity.”

    So yes, in Indiana, a church is now legally a person.

  52. 52.

    BGinCHI

    @FlyingToaster: You hit it on the head: Martinsville is a place that probably even scares the Klansmen and Carmel is where whiteness goes to get bleached.

    Awful.

  55. 55.

    satby

    @shortstop: a lot of them are black people. When Gary went majority African American, the disinvestment was swift. And now everyone blames Gary for being a shitty place, when you couldn’t get funding to keep it nicer if you tried.
    Not that it’s easy to keep things nice downwind of steel mills.

  56. 56.

    lonesomerobot

    For the record, the major differences between the Indiana RFRA and the Federal RFRA:

    1) The Indiana bill defines religion so broadly and without scope that it gives any person permission to discriminate, based on the person’s “sincerely held religious belief, regardless of whether the religious belief is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief.” [section 3] – so read that last phrase again, “regardless of whether the religious belief is compulsory or central to a larger system of religious belief” – because what it means is no matter if your religion actually says there is a problem, [or if your beliefs are even followed by anyone else] you can choose to discriminate. This language is not in the Federal law. Therefore, I could make up a religion that only I follow and be a total asshole to people, and now it’s codified in Indiana that my Assholiness is protected, or I could say I’m a Christian but not really act like a Christian at all;

    2) The Indiana bill codifies corporate personhood (and now also for religious institutions, estates, trusts) in Indiana. Also language not in the Federal law. From section 4 of the Indiana bill: “‘person’ means an individual, an association, a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a church, a religious institution, an estate, a trust, a foundation, or any other legal entity.” ANY other legal entity is now a person in Indiana.

  57. 57.

    shortstop

    @Karen in GA: OMG, nuns in pre-Vatican II threads. Wimples! There’s no helping some people.

    So a bunch of Franciscans, an Orthodox Jew and a few winger guys in business suits? There’s no punchline to that joke.

  59. 59.

    shortstop

    @satby: I know it. I just hate always hearing people blaming the victims when they talk about Gary. It wasn’t the workers who made that place a hellhole.

  60. 60.

    eemom

    I once worked at a small deecee law firm founded by a good liberal Indiana man who ran for Congress twice in his home district — some Indianapolis suburb — and lost.

    I have now completed my list of positive associations with Indiana.

  61. 61.

    jl

    @Karen in GA: I read it was a private signing. Pence is so damn proud of the bill that he did it in his office out of public view, with an invited audience.

    As I noted yesterday, Pence was on the radio and said there was no big public policy controversy or wave of legal disputes that prompted the bill, but they just passed it because…. (?) it would clarify things.

    I guess so little real disputes over actual incidents in the state over the issue, he could not even make up the usual fictions and BS that the voter suppression types do for their voter ID bills.

    I wonder whether that will affect the legal challenges.

  63. 63.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Karen in GA:

    Um, what situation are those nuns picturing they will be in that they would be forced to provide some kind of public services to GLBT people? They don’t look like they have a lot of contact with the outside world, frankly.

  65. 65.

    kindness

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): some asshole filed a paper saying he was going to file that amendment. He would still need to gather signatures to get it on the ballot. Thankfully Kamela Harris said she would ask the state Supreme Court if she could toss the application being that it is lunacy. I like Kamela way more than Gavin Newsom. Gavin seems to me to be a DiFi clone.

  66. 66.

    jharp

    @Karen in GA:

    No. You are not alone. I have seen and saved and passed that picture around.

    Very creepy.

    Just what Pence and Indiana Republicans were and are thinking still mystifies me.

    Do not get it at all.

  67. 67.

    Warren Terra

    When the GOP passed a union-busting “Right-To-Work” law a few years back, one of the big auto makers rewarded them by shutting down a big, longstanding, highly regarded plant in Canada and moving that line to Indiana (I forget the precise details). So, yeah, some rape-and-pillage types see reasons to go to Indiana, because it’s a place to exploit people.

    Other than that, not so many reasons to remember the place exists.

  69. 69.

    Warren Terra

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):
    As I understand it, California has laws intended to make it very easy to begin the initiative process; so long as someone can fill out the forms without glaring errors, it’s hard to prevent their proposal from moving on to the signature-gathering phase. This is what the anonymous kill-the-gays asshole has taken advantage of. Their proposed initiative has precisely no chance of making it past the subsequent hurdles and getting on the ballot – it’s too blatantly unconstitutional – but it’s not completely clear there’s a legal way to stop them printing official signature-gathering forms. This isn’t really an endorsement by the state that their proposal is valid.

  72. 72.

    Botsplainer

    I work in downtown Louisville, right across the river from Jeffersonville/Clarksville. There are some neat things immediately across the river, but the place becomes culturally ugly about 5 miles from the riverbank.

    My personal favorite part is Falls of the Ohio State Park.

    fallsoftheohio.org/index.html

    For God-denying, Jesus-hating, Christian-persecuting atheists who demonically embrace the Satanic lie of evolution and an old Earth, the exposed fossil beds are yet another opportunity to mock sincere people of faith for their authentic expression of heartland beliefs and values. Crinoid, sponge and fish fossils abound…

  75. 75.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    One of my coworkers offered to bring in his “cornhole” game, which turned out to be a homemade beanbag toss game. He said that “cornhole” was what his cousins from the Midwest called it.

    I said, “These cousins of yours, they’re from Indiana, right?”

    He said, “Yes, they are. Wait, how did you know that?”

    I said, “It’s Indiana.”

  76. 76.

    stickler

    As stated above, there are a few great places in Indiana. I spent about eight years there in grad school, too, and got to visit a few. The area south of Bloomington is pretty, forested, rolling hills — very scenic. …Except for the towns. Little pink houses, all of them shotgun shacks, missing a bunch of shingles and rusty screen doors hanging off their hinges. Empty storefronts, abandoned gas stations, road signs swiss-cheesed by bullets.

    Coming from the Pacific Northwest, I found Indiana (again, not Bloomington, but pretty much the rest of the state) extremely unpleasant. And the climate! The only decent season is autumn; all the other seasons suck — hard. Ice storms in the winter, almost no spring, muggy, awful summers. Oh, August in Indiana: 85% humidity, 85 degrees outside at noon, 85 degrees outside at midnight, horseflies and chiggers and God knows what else. And when it’s not 85 outside all the time it’s 95.

    Oh, and the drivers: I thought when I first arrived that turn signals must be an option on cars that Hoosiers were too cheap to buy, since NOBODY uses them. For a while in the ’90s they had license plates that had the word WANDER in all-caps on it. Indiana drivers evidently took (take?) that as a driving command.

  77. 77.

    Botsplainer

    @shortstop:

    So a bunch of Franciscans, an Orthodox Jew and a few winger guys in business suits?

    Are you sure they’re Franciscan? Carmelites wear brown, too.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Elkhart Indiana, where every RV ever built (or so it seems) in the history of mankind. that’s kinda nice, if you’re into RVs anyway.

  79. 79.

    scav

    The pre-emptive warnings to other states by large corporate entities considering similar, as well as statements directed at Indiana are heartening.

  80. 80.

    JPL

    @HinTN: A dem had offered the amendment the night before and it failed. The republican is a former demorcrat who jumped ship, and he offered a similar amendment and it passed.
    The republicans are going to meet Monday and try to get it passed before the session ends Tuesday. It’s doubtful but still could happen.
    Dragon Con has already threatened to pull out and that is a big convention.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @Warren Terra:

    Oh, I realize we’re being trolled and there’s no way in hell the prop is going anywhere. My point is that any idiot can introduce anything, and any bunch of idiots can pass it, but it takes a special kind of idiot to sign it into law. Pence is exactly that special kind of idiot.

  84. 84.

    scav

    @Violet: Well, if a church is legally a person, does it now follow that they now have free speach protections and their campaign dollars are now legally in the ring in Indiana?

  86. 86.

    Mike in NC

    If Gary, Indiana wants to claim the title of America’s sweatiest, dirtiest armpit, it’s up against some very serious competition.

  87. 87.

    Donut

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Ummmm…if you think you need to go through Indiana to get to Southern Illinois from Atlanta, you’re doing it really wrong.

    If you’re in Atlanta, take I-75 to Chattanooga, then pick up I-24 and head across Tennessee up through Eastern Kentucky to Paducah, which is right on the IL border. From there you’ve got relatively easy access to any place you need to go. No need whatsoever to go anywhere near Indiana. It’s about 100 miles to the North.

  89. 89.

    patrick II

    @satby:

    I grew up in Highland, IN, a town immediately to the West of Gary. When I was a kid, the steel companies along Lake Michigan ruled. You couldn’t get lost at night because all you had to do was look at the glow in the sky from the open-hearth furnaces from miles away to know where the lake front was. I worked a summer at Inland steel in East Chicago, which at the time employed over 30,000 people in good union paying jobs. There was also Youngstown, Bethlehem, and U.S. steel, plus others. The U.S. steel plant was the largest in the world at the time. Anyhow, Inland steel went from over 30,000 employees then to about 6,000 the last I heard. Some reductions were because of foreign competition but more because of the move away from open hearths and increased automation of the steel making process. The U.S. steel plant in Gary has had similar reductions, and the may of the black population who’s earlier family members moved from the south to work there, and the small businesses supported by steelworkers, lost their jobs and their income. Gary today looks like Berlin after WW II, but with worse architecture, the people are desperately poor, but really have no place to go. The republicans who run the rest of the state don’t care and give as little support as they can. I know Gary looks like a hellhole, but I can’t really feel anything but sad, and not quite so dismissive, of its current state.

  96. 96.

    Donut

    @raven:

    I’m just saying if you want to avoid Indiana, that is not too hard. Not the best route from a time management perspective. I’d not argue that point. ?

  97. 97.

    RSA

    @lonesomerobot:

    From section 4 of the Indiana bill: “‘person’ means an individual, an association, a partnership, a limited liability company, a corporation, a church, a religious institution, an estate, a trust, a foundation, or any other legal entity.” ANY other legal entity is now a person in Indiana.

    As a side note, and I don’t know how reliable this is, I remember reading a journal article long ago that said one of the reasons for treating corporations as artificial persons was because of all the other laws in place–including definitions of criminal behavior–that were specific to persons. Our system isn’t set up to make global changes very easy, in that all those laws would need to be changed to bring corporations under the same umbrella, but if we pretend that corporations are persons… (Any programmer will recognize this as a huge hack.)

    Indiana might now face the “law” of unintended consequences. Are there any laws that unexpectedly apply to churches and such, now that they’re persons?

    Obviously, IANAL.

  99. 99.

    Hungry Joe

    I lived in Evansville, Indiana, till I was 10, when we moved to SoCal. My mother still likes to say that Indiana is a nice place to be FROM.

  100. 100.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    @raven:

    I think Siubann is trying to get in the general direction of Carbondale rather than Chicago, at least to start with. And then that drive up the middle of the state till you get to U of I — campus, corn, cows.

    (edited ’cause I forgot a word)

  101. 101.

    shortstop

    I had never heard until yesterday that “Indiana is the raised middle finger of the south.” But yes. Yes.

  102. 102.

    Bobby B.

    Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin will unify to form one Grand Super State. We’ll call it Wiscondianois, or Shitland, whichever is more convenient.

  103. 103.

    jl

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    Guardian Liberty Voice (I have no idea what that is) has a good article on the lawyer who filed the initiative. He seems to be a religious social conservative from Huntington Beach who tried to get an initiative on the ballot in 2004 to assign Bible for English classes in public schools.

    California Lawyer Sends Proposal to Kill All Gays
    Guardian Liberty Voice
    Read more at guardianlv.com/2015/03/california-lawyer-sends-proposal-to-kill-all-gays/#gO2Gyo6oDFdjHcRe.99
    guardianlv.com/2015/03/california-lawyer-sends-proposal-to-kill-all-gays/

  104. 104.

    Dissatisfied Customer

    The great Hoosier fabulist George Ade said it a century ago — “A lot of smart young people have come out of Indiana. And the smarter they are, the quicker they come out.”

  105. 105.

    FlyingToaster

    @BGinCHI: Martinsville was where the Greyhound stopped halfway between the 7th Street Depot [gone now] and Indy Airport. It was a genuinely scary place for us non-WASPs.

    I learned about Carmel when they tried to have all the Indy rock stations lose their licenses by complaint-bombing the FCC.

    I may bitch and whine about Watertown, and the nanny state here in the Commonwealth, but Indiana? Jeebus.

  107. 107.

    raven

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone): She’s retired, probably doesn’t matter how long it takes. I’ve made the run from Georgia to C-U and Chicago many many times over the 30 years I’ve lived down here and time generally mattered to me.

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    Having visited someone in Gary, can say without a moment’s hesitation that it is paradise compared to Bayonne, NJ.

  116. 116.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: sorry, beans doesn’t start with a “c”, so it doesn’t count.

    Folks are ripping on where other people live with merciless comments. In the other thread, they are showing no mercy toward Tommy, who said something dumb and then dug a hole several hours ago. Or maybe it just feels like hours ago.

  117. 117.

    delk

    Back in the ’80’s my ex and I were vacationing in the Yucatan and we met this older gay couple from New Orleans. Ex-New Yorkers. One was a retired cop and the other was the piano player for Pete Fountain.

    The following year they came up to visit us in Chicago. The piano player asked about Gary, Indiana. He had always wanted to go there because of the song.

    He imagined wide lawns, and white picket fences, town hall, and outdoor band gazebos. He had no clue.

    So, ninety minutes later, decades of fantasy crashed into reality. Poor guy. Really had no clue. Was crushed. Had to get over to Michigan City, Indiana, the nearest gay bar for him to knock back a few.

  118. 118.

    Linnaeus

    Eh, I’m not impressed by state (or region) bashing. All too often, it’s an exercise in self-congratulation.

    It’s one thing to say, “well, I lived there and didn’t care for it”, or “I prefer [somewhere else]”. But to characterize a place like Indiana as one of Dante’s circles of hell, where no one decent would live (with the “some of my best friends are…” exception) really doesn’t get us anywhere. If we want to see positive change in Indiana (or anywhere else in this country, including where you might live) then it seems to me that the progressive thing to do is support the efforts going on there to the best of your ability.

    It’s the same thing when folks go on about “fuck the South” or “we should have let them secede”. Look, I get as frustrated as anyone else here about the difficulties of getting this country going in a progressive direction and I’ve certainly been guilty of expressing that exasperation in various ways that maybe weren’t the best. But in the end, every place in this country is worth fighting for.

  122. 122.

    Pogonip

    Somebody said you should live in Clumbus Ahia rather than Indiana. Never lived in Indiana, but I wasn’t thrilled with Columbus, mainly because everyone else was. The population has WAY outgrown the road system and it takes forever to get anywhere, especially in presidential election years; both parties seem to have a rule that “the candidate shall make every effort to arrive in town during the height of rush hour.”. Never live in a “battleground” state if you can help it. Columbus also has miserable weather, tropical in summer, arctic in winter. And of course there’s the football idolatry associated with THE Ohio State University. If you do move to Columbus, bring a car, you’ll need it. Public transportation ranges from poor to non-existent.

  123. 123.

    Stacy

    I spent 2 weeks every summer at my grandparents in small town Warren, IN through the late 1970′-80’s. The town was about 5,000 people about 45 minutes from Ft. Wayne. My grandparents neighbors were a gay couple who were antique dealers. Their euphemism for them was “the boys” but they never said a bad word about them and accepted them in their, obviously, Republican town. Hard to believe things are worse now.

  125. 125.

    Mary

    The Montana House (large R majority) just late this afternoon rejected the We Don’t Serve Your Kind Bill on a 50-50 tie vote. There was great, intelligent, passionate debate from diverse Ds. Such happy news I had to share it with you.

  127. 127.

    NotMax

    @delk

    When worked at a summer camp, we always had several counselors from other countries. Also had a once per summer counselor show, which was usually a gentle roast.

    Anyhoo, one year had a counselor from Yugoslavia (name changed below for obvious reasons, but very close and same number of syllables) whose moniker was substituted in a celebratory parody version of “Gary, Indiana.”

    Not easy to keep singing Vlado Stavrobejic in place of Gary, Indiana, allegretto in 2/2 time.

  128. 128.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @raven: See how it all got started? Hardly an unprovoked lack of mercy, from my point of obstructed view.

  131. 131.

    Corner Stone

    @WaterGirl:

    In the other thread, they are showing no mercy toward Tommy, who said something dumb and then dug a hole several hours ago.

    I’ve been watching hoops and stayed all the way outta that thread because it was just too good. I didn’t want to get in the way of what people really wanted to be talking about.
    Which oddly enough seemed to be about Tommy having group sex and finding dead bodies everywhere.

  132. 132.

    JPL

    Definitely OT but has anyone seen The Honourable Woman? It’s a British spy film that can be streamed on Netflix and is definitely worth watching.

  133. 133.

    Culture of Truth

    My ancestors once lived in Indiana. Drove by the ancestral homestead once. It was a shithole.

  135. 135.

    different-church-lady

    My only memory of driving past Gary, IN many years back is thinking, “I’m pretty sure the sky isn’t supposed to be that shade of green.”

  139. 139.

    the Conster

    Born and raised in Massachusetts (YAY), where we’ve had same sex marriage for 11 years and it’s a non-event. We have the lowest divorce rate in the country. The negative energy around being gay in Indiana and other places – Mind.Blown. Loved Indiana Dunes, but it’s not the ocean, which we have here without all the bigoted bullshit. The weather sucks as much there as here too, so bring us your gays, your liberals, your hippies, and you won’t miss a thing. The lights are on and everybody’s home. Fuck Indiana.

  142. 142.

    Chickamin Slam

    Cole you are right about wanting to leave that state. I ran into a couple at a volunteer function. They had moved out of Indianapolis and were having a hell of a time trying to sell a house he had rebuilt there, their first house together as a couple. “It’s in a good part of town.” I think he wanted $129,000 for it. He and she were however loving their new lives on the West Coast. “It’s great here!”

  145. 145.

    Violet

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I’m guiltier than anyone on that thread. Don’t really care because I stand by my statement that if he thinks she’s guilty I’d be interested in hearing his reasoning for why. None has been offered other than “dead body in the house,” “a lot to answer for,” and “Just saying….”

    @satby: At this point it’s kind of taken on a life of its own. I mean, who doesn’t want to know if the rules for group sex require dead bodies in your own house? Important stuff!

  146. 146.

    mdblanche

    @WaterGirl:

    Folks are ripping on where other people live with merciless comments. In the other thread, they are showing no mercy toward Tommy, who said something dumb and then dug a hole several hours ago. Or maybe it just feels like hours ago.

    It’s still Groundhog Day I see.

  148. 148.

    Linnaeus

    @raven:

    Yeah, that too. I mean, there’s certainly a lot of stories that deserve more coverage than they get, but a crash like that is going to make headlines.

  152. 152.

    Corner Stone

    @Karen in GA: Well, I don’t think you have to. But if they’re in your house and all…I mean…at that point isn’t it just being polite?

  155. 155.

    Corner Stone

    Zags blew out UCLA. All non group sex party people and/or dead bodies need to be watching the Lville NC State game.

  157. 157.

    Baud

    @Corner Stone: Right. If I were dead in someone’s house, I’d be offended if they didn’t have sex with me.

    Just like if I were alive in someone’s house.

  161. 161.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Violet: As I believe I mentioned, there oughta be a rule book or manual or etiquette guide or something

  162. 162.

    GregB

    The photo-op for the bill signing was priceless. That shark-eyed dolt Pence surrounded by the cast of The Name of the Rose, Witness and Sister Act.

    In the words of Indiana’s favorite son, Dan Quayle: We’re going past to the back.

  164. 164.

    Corner Stone

    @satby:

    so long as no one dies. Bella doesn’t want to have to answer for that.

    Not my problem as it’d be her house. I’d just be doing some drugs, maybe partying with some sluts and another men and lo and behold! A boddy!
    Boom! Shackles applied.

  168. 168.

    skerry

    Lucky me. I get to visit Indiana in June for my nephew’s graduation. From Carmel High School. I really can’t boycott or my mother would never forgive me.

    When I was a teenager in the ’70s, Martinsville’s McDonald’s used to have a plaque “commemorating” the Klan headquarters.

    I was on a plane to California within a week of my graduation from Purdue. Never went back except for family functions. One brother never left (lives in Carmel now). The other left and then went back. I’ve never regretted my decision to leave.

  169. 169.

    mai naem mobile

    Being from Arizona, I’m glad its a different state that’s being boycotted. Also too, I think a similar bill was vetoed by Jan Brewer in AZ. I don’t think Gov. Douchebag has.vetoed it yet. I would like to think Mr. Businessman would veto a bill like that. I believe we’re one of the NCAA sites next year and I’m pretty sure that would be gone if AZ passed a bill like this. Our hospitality industry is just beginning to recover from the recession btw.

  174. 174.

    jackmac

    I’ve lived my whole life in Illinois and have never had ANY compelling reason visit Indiana except to drive through it.

  175. 175.

    Little Boots

    they’ll get over the homophobia eventually. it’s the corporate dreariness that will remain, pretty universally throughout this country.

  178. 178.

    ASV

    Indiana describes itself as the “crossroads of America,” so even they know that everyone there is just trying to get somewhere else.

  179. 179.

    Violet

    @Corner Stone: Not sure I agree. If that’s the case it’s a pretty thorough case of it, covering all angles in case anyone does any background research.

  180. 180.

    seaboogie

    When I was a teen I temped in an electronics warehouse in Toronto with a few folks who were refugees from Hungary. The women wore odd orthopedic looking lace-up open-toed sandals (that hipsters wear now), they invested in gold jewelry from a mail order catalog, and Fort Wayne was their idea of utopia.

  181. 181.

    scav

    @GregB: I’m afraid when I saw the photo I saw a lineup of poster children for The March of Dimes Moral Cripples Campaign.

    Now I’m wondering why Tommy seems to find it unimaginable that there might ever be a dead body in his house. Just Saying. Must be a part of that Lake Woebegon Downstate where all republicans are reasonable and bodies die elsewhere, inevitably and necessarily far away from all innocent people and their deeded properties.

  186. 186.

    Corner Stone

    @Violet: There are gaps. And it’s easy to put forward simple check boxes.
    But, I mean really. The well repeated tropes I could list if I wasn’t thinking about pizza and sex with dead bodies. Maybe not in that order.
    Jews, military brat, frats, hazing, asshole clients being told off, rando misogyny, reasonable republican parents who cry when people don’t vote. And just ultimate tone deafness again and again when all it claims to want is some kind of enlightenment.
    It’s either AI or performance art.

  187. 187.

    myiq2xu

    There are 21 states that have adopted a state version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act:

    Alabama (state constitution amendment)
    Arizona
    Connecticut
    Florida
    Idaho
    Illinois
    Indiana
    Kansas
    Kentucky
    Louisiana
    Mississippi
    Missouri
    New Mexico
    Oklahoma
    Pennsylvania
    Rhode Island
    South Carolina
    Tennessee
    Texas
    Utah
    Virginia

    The Indiana law is almost identical to the federal RFRA signed by Bill Clinton.

  188. 188.

    beth

    O/T but Rachel Maddow just showed black rubber bracelets that say “Free Eric Holder” that she says Justice Department employees have started wearing to protest Lynch’s confirmation vote being held up. Well done, Justice employees. I applaud you.

  190. 190.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Corner Stone: I’ve been thinking along those lines as well, but it just doesn’t quite listen – no pun intended.

  191. 191.

    Little Boots

    wonder if we can just stop with the confirmation shit. or give a time limit. this shit has not worked for decades.

    one month, up or down.

  195. 195.

    Tommy

    @raven: Wish you’d take me fishing. I got a few people pissed at me today about Amanda Knox. When there is a dead body in your house you might need to think about the decisions in your life.

  196. 196.

    Little Boots

    @myiq2xu: @myiq2xu:

    oh it all just reeks of miscegenation laws. temporary, silly, and doomed.

    but maybe there’s more to it. we are prone to hysterics in this country.

  199. 199.

    Corner Stone

    @Tommy:

    When there is a dead body in your house you might need to think about the decisions in your life.

    Like maybe investing in renting a woodchipper?

  202. 202.

    JPL

    @Tommy: I did not see your comments but I assume that you know they arrested someone that Knox didn’t know. He pleaded guilty for a lesser sentence. They had his prints and dna all over the place. He’s in jail. College kids are stupid but that doesn’t mean they commit murder.

  204. 204.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Tommy:

    When there is a dead body in your house you might need to think about the decisions in your life.

    You didn’t answer my question in the previous thread. I’ve had 3 dead bodies in my house. Do I need to think about the decisions in my life?

  205. 205.

    Little Boots

    anti-corporate is what we need and what will never happen, until the collapse. hillary is corporate, and I’ll probably vote for her. everyone is corporate. it’s the air we breathe and it’s polluted but we can’t escape it.

    it’s like slavery in the ancient world. unavoidable.

  206. 206.

    JoyfulA

    @OzarkHillbilly: Elkhart, a lovely town, also made musical instruments when I went there looking for commercial buildings to mortgage. I think we did a modest apartment building there. Nice, straightforward working-class people I could relate to.

    Everything in the north I saw, like Michigan City and the Dunes, were attractive.

    But Indianapolis was kind of dull, and the project we were supposed to look at in Carmel, a retirement home, made me desire never to retire, particularly not in Carmel.

    Plus the state is so flat. A lot of streets come equipped with gutters, which look odd and are supposed to give any water a place to wind up and roll away. I’m sure there’s a good reason, but still.

    I have similarly visited Richmond, Oshgosh, and Grand Rapids, should anyone want my out-of-date pronouncements.

  207. 207.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @columbusqueen: The Indiana State Police don’t seem to have a real problem with people doing a steady 85-90mph on their way through the state either.*

    *Anecdote, not data.

  212. 212.

    scav

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): You should see the lineup for my cousin and aunt’s murder. My great-grandmother, great-aunts and uncles, cousins, parents, cousins of multiple degrees removal, myself, we all lived in that flat. I might get off on a technicality as I was only about three and couldn’t sign the lease, but mr great-grandmother owned the place Freehold so. . . tricky bit was how she raped my aunt but hey, geographic and legal proximity clearly dictates she managed it somehow.

    Apparently I come from good partying stock though. Bring on the Mogan David, that was definitely her tipple of choice.

  217. 217.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Tommy: But my feelings are hurt that you didn’t answer my question. Just sayin.

  222. 222.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Corner Stone: There was a guy in Connecticut who did that. Cut up his (dead) wife, froze the parts, put them through a woodchipper which he discharged into an abutting lake.

    The thing that got him was that he returned the woodchipper to the rental place too clean. That aroused suspicion.

  224. 224.

    Tommy

    @Baud: I got bad glasses the other month or two. Got “good” glasses the other day and the world is a more beautiful place for it. I can see ….

    Watching Ancient Aliens on History Channel. So over-the-top it is amazing in a good way. If you have not watched it, please do. I just learned the Jews, the Template Mound, aliens.

  228. 228.

    Baud

    @Tommy:

    Getting new glasses is good news. Between work and Balloon Juice, I feel like I’m destroying my eyes sometimes.

  231. 231.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: When my kitty stands on my chest in the morning to wake me up and then shows me his rear view? Even that’s better viewing than CSI:Cyber.

  232. 232.

    Little Boots

    it is kinda funny. the place I get to come and talk to myself. which is okay sometimes.

    why is the 40-hour work week sacred? people were celebrating that on the floor of the Senate not too long ago. they were using it as a cudgel against obamacare, but it’s weird, and nobody noticed the weirdness. why 40 hours a week? why is that the commandment?

  235. 235.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Holy shit. That murder was in Newtown. Adam Lanza’s home town.

    They never put that in the tourist brochures.

  236. 236.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: That makes twice that you’ve used the term chicks lately. Have you been cheating on us and hanging out with another crowd?

  238. 238.

    Corner Stone

    @satby:
    All I do is win, win, win no matter what
    got money on my mind I can never get enough
    and every time I step up in the building
    everybody hands go up
    and they stay there
    and they say yeah
    and they stay there
    Up down, up down, up down
    ‘Cause all I do is win, win, win
    and if you goin’ in put your hands in the air
    make them stay there

  243. 243.

    Little Boots

    and as long as I’m ranting, part of me wants Hillary to GO BIG, but I’m not even sure what that means. GO BIG how? overthrow the national security state? not likely. make the RICH pay? pay what, and again, not likely.

    Stick it to the Pentagon? really? anyone think that’s gonna happen.

    stick it to Wall Street? oy, what, again.

    what would you like to see the next president of the united states do, that any president of the united states has the slightest possibility of actually doing?

  247. 247.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: I thought it was Corner Stone, but where do you stand? I was going to use another expression, and thought better of it.

  248. 248.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: oops, maybe i wasn’t clear. My kitty is the good housekeeper I mentioned; that was my polite way of saying he keeps himself clean.

    And no, I’m pretty sure that shaving the cat’s ass is not high up on Cole’s “fun” list. But I do like it as a figure of speech.

    Are you feeling better today?

  249. 249.

    Tommy

    @Baud: I didn’t think I really needed glasses. I am 45, I don’t need them, much less bifolds. I bought the super cheap glasses. They never “worked” for me. I now spent $600 for a pair. The ones I just got in the mail. The glasses work for me. I joke I almost started to cry putting them on, I could see so clearly. Everything just worked!

  250. 250.

    MomSense

    Jesus, I leave balloon-juice for a few hours and this shit happens. Putting on my sternest mom voice. This is why I tell you kids not to have group sex parties. It’s all fun and games until the dead bodies turn up. Oh and watch what you do with that thing or you’ll poke someone’s eye out.

  251. 251.

    shortstop

    But really, why aren’t we questioning the life decisions of the dead people? They’ve gotta be, oh, 40, 50 percent worse than the life decisions of the people whose houses they’re found in.

  252. 252.

    Woody Peckerwood

    This is actually great.

    People can vote with their feet and their dollars. As a libertarian, it’s a lot better solution than the full force of government forcing individuals to think or act a certain way.

    It’s good news, (you) people.

  253. 253.

    Little Boots

    there were causes in past decades. I don’t think we have big causes now. we have a few candidates and a few ideas. but we are kind of lost in the world.

    it’s unfortunate.

  254. 254.

    jomike

    @SiubhanDuinne wrote:

    I’m already looking at alternative routes to take me from Atlanta to southern Illinois later this year, without having to run the risk of buying gas or eating a meal in Indiana.

    I-75N to I-24W to I-57N. Shorter, and I-24/57 are rarely congested, ditto the Ohio River crossing at Paducah.

  257. 257.

    Little Boots

    we have snark, and I like snark, but I don’t know what we really want. I don’t know what I want.

    not this crappy society we’ve created, but not sure what I want to replace it.

  268. 268.

    MomSense

    @Corner Stone:

    Ok that was funny, especially for a Mainah. You can put anything in those chippers and good glasses or no it’s a beautiful thing to see.

  269. 269.

    KS in MA

    @Little Boots:

    I would like the next president of the United States give some serious thought to (1) how to foster the creation of some serious jobs in this country, including in manufacturing and in rebuilding infrastructure, and (2) how nations can work together to regulate multinational corporations. For starters.

    ETA: Oh, and (3) how to make voter registration effortless and voting damn near mandatory.

  271. 271.

    Tommy

    @Baud: A local place many miles from where I live. They did a lot of things above the eye exam. How I read, would use my glasses. The place was amazing. Heck I have Nike glasses, who ever knew they made glasses. But they do and they fit. I am a small male and I didn’t want the glasses overwhelming my face, they don’t.

    Everything is clear. When I went outside and took them on and off, I could see the world was a prettier place. I almost started to cry. The world was a more pretty place!

  278. 278.

    Tommy

    @Baud: Yes. Years ago I bought an expensive pair of Nikon sunglasses. The world looked better through them. Now what I have, what I will wear every day is doing the same. Pretty happy about that.

  279. 279.

    Karen in GA

    To an extent. But predictable. There was a kid in my 7th grade creative writing class who, when told to be descriptive when writing about things, rather than mentioning color, texture, condition, etc., just added brand names. That was the first thing I thought of, right out of the gate.

    ETA: Best-timed comment EVER!

  280. 280.

    Baud

    @Tommy: Do you only have one pair though? Glasses wear out pretty quickly, especially if you have to wear them all the time.

  284. 284.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: Lady can do as she wishes. Heck I might find myself with her and another men. No issues with that. But a dead body showed up in her house.

  291. 291.

    Tommy

    @Baud: Only one pair. I am anal about keeping this or that. Totally anal now about my glasses. Worse case I can get them fixed for 15% of the costs. Best I got.

  292. 292.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone:

    But a dead body showed up in her house.

    Did it just walk in? I mean, wouldn’t that make it more of a zombie than a dead body?

  297. 297.

    Tommy

    @Corner Stone: I pissed off a few folks here last night on this topic. I’ve done some fucked up shit in my life but a dead body was not one of those things. A dead body in my house, shit you got to be doing things I can’t wrap my mind around. Dead body. Let me say that again, dead body in your house.

  299. 299.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Did it just walk in? I mean, wouldn’t that make it more of a zombie than a dead body?

    It’s the lack of agency that makes this whole deal so bizarre.
    Wait a second…

  300. 300.

    columbusqueen

    @Pogonip: @Omnes Omnibus: Sigh–unlike the prick cops of Ohio. Actually got busted for speeding 8 miles over the limit right before I left Ohio on that ’04 trip.. Knew then why truckers call us “the Big Nut.”

    But both times I crossed Indiana, I did go 85 without seeing a single cop. It’s the one good thing about the damn state.

  301. 301.

    Karen in GA

    @Tommy: I’m thinking elaborate troll, but I’ll ask for a fourth time just to see what you come up with (if anything). If there’s a dead body in your house, there’s little to no evidence that you were involved, and someone else is arrested, tried, and convicted of the murder, what exactly do you have to “answer for”?

  302. 302.

    Gin & Tonic

    My issue with Woody Allen movies has always been that he’d take something funny and stretch it to a point (to my taste) well beyond funny, and then still keep running with it.

  305. 305.

    satby

    @columbusqueen: They do catch speeders fairly often, but they enforce in waves. I think it’s just because it’s a heavily traveled semi-truck route and the troopers tend to look more for trucker speeding and infractions than auto ones.

  306. 306.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Omnes Omnibus: Hell, I sure don’t, and I’m only doing part time consulting at the moment.

    @Baud: I only have one pair of Nike glasses for distance as I usually wear contacts for distance and read with dime store +1.5 over them.

  307. 307.

    Corner Stone

    @Tommy:

    A dead body in my house, shit you got to be doing things I can’t wrap my mind around. Dead body. Let me say that again, dead body in your house.

    Dead bodies everywhere!
    Dead bodies everywhere!
    Dead bodies everywhere!

    All Korn lyrics aside man, I am just not sure what kind of messed up sex parties eyes wide open style you have been to.
    I, for one, have had someone die in my arms. They weren’t naked, nor post coitus as far as I know, but they still just as dead now as they were then.
    It’s a weird night when I feel like reading balloon-J that I have lived a sheltered life.

  313. 313.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone: Let’s see… People of my age cohort who died at parties without murder being involved… Len Bias. Olivia Channon. Arguably Kurt Cobain…

  314. 314.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Mnemosyne (tablet): I thought you meant from announcing scores from the Appalachian judge!

    @Tommy:

    Let me say that again, dead body in your house.

    Since you’ve come back to the topic, let me ask again: I’ve had 3 dead bodies in my house. Do I need to think about the decisions in my life?

  318. 318.

    Violet

    @Tommy:

    I pissed off a few folks here last night on this topic.

    The thread you are referring to was from earlier today, not last night.

  322. 322.

    NotMax

    @Tommy

    Jeez Louise, man, stuff happens. And stuff happens that is outside our direct control, action or intervention.

    Let it be.

  323. 323.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Corner Stone: When your first friend is murdered, it changes you in a way that the next do not, although you are always sad. All were in my cohort, across the spectrum of proximity.

  326. 326.

    Corner Stone

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s a good question, actually. One night after I was an adult and having dinner with my dad and step-mom we talked about environments. My dad had been drafted into Vietnam for 67-69 and actually served in the DMZ for Korea. So he had some real twitchy reactions to some shit after being basically 30 seconds away from some real deal annihilation shit.
    I told him, quite casually, that I had been shot at over a dozen times growing up, and been told on more than one occasion I, specifically, was going to die.
    He didn’t take that very well, as can be imagined.

  330. 330.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Corner Stone: I didn’t mean to imply that it was and I can certainly understand not wanting to find that out about one’s child. The “Why the hell didn’t I know anything about this at the time?” feelings would be rather uncomfortable.

  333. 333.

    HeartlandLiberal

    As a Hoosier of 30 years this year, now retired, and not planning to leave Bloomington, one of the most diverse and liveable cities in America, home to Indiana University, one of the greatest United States public state universities, I am particularly depressed that the state’s electorate have put these yahoos in control in the legislature, and elected our mobile vegetable, Mike Pence, as governor.

    Anyway, here is what I posted on my personal blog dedicated to political and related issues, which I have not bothered to post on for six whole months, I had become so despondent at the directions in our national politics and morals.

    Indiana’s Disgusting “Right to Discriminate” Law
    Posted on March 27th, 2015
    by xxxxxxxx in Civil Rights, Congressional Fail Number Nth, Indiana, Racism, Religion, Republican GOPosaur Party, Rule of Law, Separation Church and State

    The following comments were sent today to IN House Representative Matt Pierce (D), Indiana House District 061, and to IN Senate Representative Mark Stoops (D), Indiana Senate District 40. Similar sentiments have been send to Gov. Pence. As a member of the ACLU, I will also be expecting that organization to be suing the Hell out of Indiana ASAP, if they want to continue to get any dues payments from me.

    The recently passed and signed legislation, which can only accurately be described as the ‘Right to Discriminate in Indiana Law’, is a travesty, and unconstitutional on its face.

    Freedom of Religion does not mean imposing your specific religion and belief system on other citizens in the secular world.

    I am encouraging every organization doing business with Indiana to stop doing so. No conferences. No conventions. No tourism. No moves of business to this state.

    I worked with Indiana Athletics as IT Director for 15 of my 25 years with IU. I am contacting the NCAA to insist that no regional or national championships every again be held in this state if this law is allowed to stand. I am encouraging the NCAA to evaluate moving their home office out of the state.

    This is a law allowing homophobes, bigots, and racists free reign to discriminate.

    In Texas in 2012, a White man sued a grocery store because, as he claimed in a law suit, his “Creed”, his religious beliefs, would not allow a Black man to bag his groceries.

    This disgusting, unconstitutional law, signed by Gov. Pence ( in secret, the utter coward and hypocrite), permits such an action.

    Anyone who voted for this law has no understanding or concept of what Freedom of Religion is, or what the civil rights guaranteed under the Constituion mean.

    I am disgusted, and ashamed to be a citizen of the Hoosier State at the moment.

  335. 335.

    J R in WV

    @Little Boots:

    Dude! Where were you when we were talking about group sex, and dead bodies, and partying?

    I missed your valuable input to the crucial B-J trhead of this week, how can you not be guilty of something if there’s a dead body in your house? And after group sex, maybe? Or maybe not, maybe just regular sex with one or two people involved. And a party. But still, that dead body!!!

    What to you think, Lil Boots? Guilty or what?

  336. 336.

    Cervantes

    @HeartlandLiberal:

    Thanks for sending those comments to the named individuals.

    Bloomington, one of the most diverse and liveable cities in America, home to Indiana University, one of the greatest United States public state universities

    Seconded.

  337. 337.

    Cain

    I grew up in Indiana, and I loved living there. Of course, I lived in West Lafayette, a college town and the whole place is one big liberal area. As an Indian, we had our hindu festival celebrations, or even religious stuff, where? In the basement of a church with support of the Pastor. How’s that? :-) Heck, the Pastor used to come down and say hello! All the black kids in our high school were the popular kids, and they had an enormous number of friends. As a brown person I was never once discriminated against and I never felt that I was some outsider. It was just a great place to grow up. I love that town, I loved Lafayette too. I never cared much for the rest of Indiana in general, but I do love the people. We had soem great educational institutions here.

    It’s just too bad that wingnuttry has taken over the place. They had a good brand of conservatism that I liked. :/

  338. 338.

    Cain

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    My brother is planning to retire from California to Indiana. This probably says more about my brother than I care to admit.

    What it means is that he’ll be able to afford a large amount of land and get whatever he wants thanks to whatever real estate money he’s built up in California. It’s not too crazy. But God, who the hell wants to deal with Indiana winters?

  341. 341.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Cain: Yeah he could get the same deal in Michigan only on a pretty lake somewhere. If you’re going to move to that part of the country, I’d pick West Michigan purely on scenic/recreational amenities, which it has, rather than IN, IL, or even OH, which have far fewer of said amenities. I grew up in West Michigan so I’m a little biased but have lived in other parts of the upper midwest including Springfield, OH, and Champaign, IL. Champaign is a nice college town but if you think Indiana is flat, wait ’till you get to downstate IL. Downstate OH has some roll, though not much, so it’s a little nicer but has nothing that compares to the Eastern shore of Lake Michigan. I will say the people in Champaign were fun – down to earth, sense of humor, easygoing and friendly but there’s nothing to do outside of town except watch corn grow.

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