the reality tunnel

I’m always a little skeptical about new businesses opening in Bloomington, but Amy gave Rachael’s high marks:

So I wanted to alert you to a couple of cool things going on in town
that haven’t received much press yet and a couple of venues/locations
that should probably be added to the Let’s Go! Calendar. One of them
is Rachael’s Café, located at 300 E. 3rd Street, 812 330-1882. Rachael
is a member of the Indiana GLBT community, a huge supporter of the
arts, and a complete and utter sweetheart. Everyone should meet her.

She’s got a mission statement, but I’ll just put the first part here.

“Rachael’s Café grew out of a desire to create a friendly, inclusive,
peaceful atmosphere for all. Our mission is to bring understanding,
education and acceptance over a cup of coffee.”

Rachael’s Café serves gourmet coffees and drinks, homemade soups,
salads, sandwiches and entrees. She loves ethnic foods and healthy
nutritional options. I’ve been working with her to develop a more
extensive vegan menu. I bake vegan treats for her and have convinced
her to work more with raw foods, live/slow foods (homemade) like
smoothies, kombucha and saurkraut. The best part is that she’s going
to start serving loaded vegan hotdogs and vegan chili dogs!!! (Can you
tell that I’m excited?) I’m quite sure that she’s the only business
doing this from here to Chicago. So basically, I’m stoked that there
will be a new late-night, cheap food destination in town. The café has
wireless internet, good lighting, lots of walls and a large floor
space, perfect for music, dancing, movies, art shows or pretty much
anything.

Here are the dates for upcoming things at Rachel’s Café (missed the
deadline for last month, but I’ll post them anyway)

March
THURS 13th Shalom Writers Circle – Poetry Reading, 7:30-8:30pm
FRI 14th Bob Dylan Talent Show & Friday Night Open Mic (hosted by Alan
Ginsberg), 6pm
TUES 18th Gretchen Clearwater (Democrat for Congress, Indiana – 9th
District) hosts a political discussion about the pros/cons of the
Clinton and Obama campaigns, 7pm
WED 19th Verbal Terrorism Poetry by Jada B, 7pm
THURS 20th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 22nd Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
THURS 27th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.
FRI 28th Friday Night Open Mic, 6pm
SAT 29th Babbling Banshee Dinner Theatre, serving @ 6:30pm, starting
at 7pm. Irish Stew and Boxters (Irish Potato Pancake) served.

Crystal made this month’s Let’s Go! calendar of Bloomington events and it’s awesome.  She included a lot of free films and lots of diverse events that span outside the punk scene.  She was kind enough to send me a scan of the calendar:

Link to full sized scan of calendar.

The yard signs that Chiara and I made are getting distributed this week as part of IU’s Arts Week.  I saw the actual signs last night for the first time,  I guess their appearance around town is going to be tracked using a google map.  Today, I’ve been listening to Zounds and the song Fear is another articulation of ideas I connect to these signs:

Sing a song of violence and listen for the sound
All the little soldiers start to come around
Start it with a rumour, a whisper in an ear
Suspision don’t take very long before it turns to fear
??? Said I need a reason, made of up and low ???
??? Feel what they’re fighting, just tell them where to go ???
Give the chance of glory, give the chance of fame
Give the boy an enemy, give the dog a name
Keep the factions fighting, start them off the school
Keep the factions fighting so you divide and rule
Football teams are splendid and fashion just a tool
Keep the factions fighting so you divide and rule

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us all apart

Frightened of the humans and frightened of their stares
Frightened of the poisons they pump into the air
Frightened of the chemicals they spray upon the land
Frightened of the power they hold within their hands
Frightened of bureaucracy and frightened of the law
Frightened of the government and who it’s working for
Frightened of the children who won’t know who to cope
With a world in rack and ruin from their technocratic dope, dope, dope

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us in the dark

Frightened of the humans, frightened of their stares
Frightened of the poisons pumped into the air
Frightened of the chemicals they spray upon the land
Frightened of the power they hold within their hands
Frightened of bureaucracy and frightened of the law
Frightened of the government and who it’s working for
Frightened of the children who won’t know who to cope
With a world in rack and ruin from their technocratic dope, dope, dope

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us in the dark

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us all apart

Frightened of the humans, frightened of their stares
Frightened of the poisons pumped into your air
Frightened of the chemicals spayed upon my land
Frightened of the power hold within their hands
Frightened of bureaucracy, frightened of the law
Frightened of the government who’s actions lead to war
Frightened of the children who won’t know who to cope
With a world in rack and ruin from their technocratic dope, dope, dope

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us in the dark

Fear can be a bum thing
A silly and a dumb thing
Fear can be the one thing
That keeps us all apart

One of the yard sign designs that Chiara and I submitted for the Your Campaign Here project, titled Keep Out All That I Fear was selected for production and distribution.

Link

Update: The IDS did a very, very short story on the Your Campaign Here project and Chiara was interviewed:

The first winning sign was a collaboration of two artists, Chiara Galimberti and Geoffrey Hing. Galimberti, an Italian native, said since she is not a U.S. citizen and therefore ineligible to vote, the contest was a chance for her to participate in the campaign.

“Just seeing all the debate, I thought it was a strong avenue for politics without being a part of it,” Galimberti said. “I’m an outsider, but I still have strong political ideas.”

Link to IDS article.Update: I saw this minimalist campaign sign on Boing Boing:

Link to Boing Boing post about the sign.

Currently, I don’t have any health insurance. I think this is true for most of my peers, and for many low-income people, whether they’re low-income because of lifestyle and career choices, like me, or because they lack the economic mobility to obtain incomes that would allow for jobs that provide health coverage or with incomes that would allow the purchase of individual insurance.

Currently, I have access to some medical care through the Monroe County Volunteers in Medicine clinic, which offers free medical and dental care, similar to what you would receive from a family doctor or dentist to residents of Monroe County who are below 200% of the federal poverty level (FPL). This is certainly a good resource, but I’m not sure how far the care extends for advanced procedures, or in the event of some kind of emergency or catastrophic illness or injury.

Indiana recently introduced the Healthy Indiana Plan which is state-subsidized health insurance for low-income Indiana residents. Again, to qualify for this, one must be a legal Indiana resident, between 19 and 64, and make less than 200% of the FPLwhich amounts to:

The cost of this insurance will be between 2 and 5% of the gross family income for qualifying people, and according to the HIP website, the coverage includes:

physician services, prescriptions, diagnostic exams, home health services, outpatient hospital, inpatient hospital, hospice, preventive services, family planning, and case and disease management.Mental health coverage is also included and is similar to coverage for physical health, and includes substance abuse treatment, inpatient, outpatient, and prescription drugs.

The HIP coverage is 3-tiered and structured like this:

• A POWER Account valued at $1,100 per adult to pay for medical costs. Contributions to the account are made by the State and each participant (based on ability to pay). No participant will pay more than 5% of his/her gross family income on the plan.
• A basic commercial benefits package once annual medical costs exceed $1,100.
• Coverage for preventive services up to $500 a year at no cost to participants.

This seems very Republican (relative to some of the rhethoric I’ve heard in the news about different suggestions for health coverage policies) in it’s design because of the inclusion of the POWER Account (which I assume is what I’ve heard called a medical savings account) and because the plan seems to be administered by two private carriers: Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield and MDWise with AmeriChoice.

I believe that coverage will be limited to around 30,000 people (due to limitations on funding) and the plan will be funded by an increased tax on cigarette sales, but haven’t confirmed this in the actual release of the plan.

Of personal interest to me is the fact that it seems that much of the plan information is accessed and administered via the Internet. All plan participants must have an e-mail account (or will be given one if they do not) and both carriers list “Community Resource Centers” with internet access as part of their “Enhanced Services”. I think that more and more social services are using Internet technologies because they allow for cost savings. However, I fear that the costs of home Internet access (particularly for people with bad/no credit), unfamiliarity or discomfort with using Internet services, and the restrictions on access to public Internet resources like libraries or community resource centers (hours that the facilities are open may not match work schedules, no childcare options) may make the navigation of social services more alienating for their users.

In any case, I’m going to apply for the HIP and blog about my experiences.

Link to HIP home page
Link to summary of HIP

Indiana University and IUPUI have an agreement with at&t Wireless to provide personal cellular services to students, faculty, and staff at discounted rates. Students receive an 8% discount on monthly rate plans. Employees receive a 12% discount.

Link

Enrollment to Start For New State Health Insurance Program - Newsroom - Inside INdiana Business with Gerry Dick:

Thousands of uninsured Hoosiers can now have access to affordable health care through the new Healthy Indiana Plan. Applications for the program will be accepted starting Monday.

House Republican Leader Brian C. Bosma voted for the legislation that created this program during the 2007 legislative session. “The Healthy Indiana Plan offers many working Hoosiers a solution to the high costs of medical care, and it could literally be a life-saver for some,” said Rep. Bosma.

“The HIP program provides basic coverage, including coverage for doctor visits and prescriptions, and it also helps subscribers make cost-efficient decisions when seeking medical care and purchasing prescriptions.” The application program begins Monday, Dec. 17, and coverage begins in January. To be eligible for the program, applicants must be between 18 and 64 years old, have a household income between 22 percent and 200 percent of the federal poverty level and must have been uninsured for at least six months.

Even though I have no religious or family connection to Judaism, my first years of elementary school were at a Jerome Lipman Jewish Day School.  Chinese food has always been a principal way that my Chinese-American father has connected with his culture and its consumption has definitely defined itself as a tradition within my family.  I’m always surprised and a little delighted at the scale that cultural mash-ups can take on. 

Hot Dogs From Column A, Pastrami Egg Rolls From Column B - City Room - Metro - New York Times Blog:

One paper, by Hanna Miller, even goes as far to say that Chinese food is the ethnic cuisine of the American Jew, arguing that they identify more with Chinese food than the Eastern European food of their immigrant ancestors. And two sociologists, Gaye Tuchman and Harry G. Levine, investigated the historical and cultural reasons for the Jewish Chinese culinary axis in their 1992 paper Safe Treyf [pdf].

So why is it that chow mein is the chosen food of the chosen people? Among the theories posited:

• Chinese food does not use dairy (unlike the other two main longtime ethnic cuisines in America, Italian and Mexican), so when many more Jews kept kosher, Chinese food was easier to eat.
• Chinese and Jews are among the two largest (if not the two largest) non-Christian immigrant groups, so they followed similar calendars. This is where Chinese food on Christmas may stem from, since Chinese restaurants were open.
• The Chinese use of garlic, rice and chicken were familiar to an Eastern European palate.
• Chinese food was not too expensive and involved family-style sharing.
• Chinese food represented a way to become cosmopolitan.
• Chinatown and the Lower East Side, where a significant number of the Jewish immigrants from around the turn of the century lived, bordered each other. Indeed, the Eldridge Street Synagogue, one of the oldest Jewish houses of worship in the United States, is now squarely in Chinatown these days. (It even has an egg roll festival.)

It’s so hard to find that something that seems as fundamental and universal to me, like public education, always gets viewed through a commercial context.

Report: South, Edgewood named best value schools: HeraldTimesOnline.com:

Bloomington High School South and Edgewood High School in Ellettsville have been named “Best Buy” schools by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce. Hoosier high schools that have excelled academically while providing good value for Indiana tax dollars were recognized last week by the Chamber of Commerce with the release of the ninth edition of the Indiana’s Best Buys report.

• Monday through Thursday: Noon - 2:30 p.m.
• Friday: Noon - 1:30 p.m. and 7 - 9 p.m.
• Saturday: 12:30 - 2 p.m.; 7 - 9 p.m. (Lunar Skating) and 9:15 - 11 p.m. (Night Owl Skating)
• Sunday: 3 - 5 p.m.

Link