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I’m used to technology, but sometimes it creeps me out. A while back, I was in a small conference room that had one of the newest small videoconferencing units crouched atop a massive monitor. I picked up the remote from the table to move it out of my way, and abruptly the unit came to life, swiveling about to stare at me. The monitor, until then comfortingly black, now had my picture on it. It was a flashback moment to…
Brugge Brasserie has the stuff glossy tabloid photos are made of-a hot new restaurant concept, a Hollywood actor-cum-restaurateur and a trendy locale. Brugge isn’t in Los Angeles, New York or London, however. It’s in Broad Ripple. The celebrity owner is Indianapolis’ own Abraham Benrubi, one of a group of childhood friends who are bringing what is possibly the Midwest’s first gastropub to the junction of Westfield Boulevard and the Monon Trail. Benrubi and Broad Ripple High School classmates Ted and…
The Indiana General Assembly is taking another stab at a bill that could make life easier for some insurance sectors by pushing products to market at a faster clip. A proposal that would allow Indiana to join a multistate compact for life insurance, disability, annuity and long-termcare products passed the Senate earlier this legislative session and awaits consideration in the House of Representatives. The bill died there last year. However, new state Insurance Commissioner Jim Atterholt thinks it has a…
Legal scholar Kenneth Crews is a man of many hats who toils at 12-hour workdays as the upstart Center for Intellectual Property and Innovation on the campus of IUPUI begins to gain momentum. The center, whose mission is to produce attorneys fluent in the burgeoning IP practice area, was launched in May under the auspices of the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis. The goal is to raise at least $1.5 million to jump-start a program that would grant…
A few reflections on the Department of Homeland Security and its Transportation Security Administration: The TSA declares it “has developed standardized security screening procedures for all airports. Therefore, you can expect that you will encounter essentially the same procedures at each airport you visit.” I doubt this claim. Note that my remarks are reserved, tolerant and most respectful concerning an agency that can arbitrarily deny me almost anything, including my freedom, in the name of national security. Consider my recent…
The price of crude oil hit $55 a barrel last week. The oil “experts” are all over the news predicting doomsday scenarios of economic ruin. Their concerns are that no new oil fields are being discovered, many of the oil-producing countries are run by kooks, fat Americans are buying bigger and bigger SUVs, and China’s thirst for oil is just getting whetted. All of these are valid and logical concerns. And Lord help us all if the Chinese take a…
The local daily recently had a story that revealed there are no statewide high school basketball legends in the making anymore. Players whose reputations were wellknown from Michigan City to Tell City long before their senior year in high school have gone the way of, well, single-class basketball. On top of that, as March Madness unfolds around us-with the NCAA men’s first and second rounds being played at the RCA Dome and the Women’s Final Four rolling into town April…
WASHINGTON, D.C.-Kim Allison wants people to think of one thing when they see her: Indianapolis. So she makes the rounds, on and off the clock, creating that connection. Whether she’s bowling or shopping, eating or reading, Allison has her hometown in mind-even though she’s living and working nearly 600 miles away. “We go to everything,” said Allison, who leads the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association’s two-person office in suburban Washington, D.C. “It helps keep our name out there.” Thousands of…
Bruce the Radio Pirate has left the building. Dr. Demento, Pop and Scratch and “The King Biscuit Flower Hour” are gone, as well. The hippie-sounding radio personalities and offbeat shows that were WKLUFM 101.9 moved out of the roughly 100-year-old house in Brownsburg five months ago when the station’s new owner, staff, music-and business strategy-moved in. But whether that strategy-to keep the smalltown station sounding small while it brings in big bucks-can work remains to be seen. And now WKLU…
New York-based Foot Locker Inc. is five times the size of hometown retailer Finish Line Inc. But an internal Foot Locker e-mail suggests that company’s CEO has become nearly obsessed with knocking the Indianapolis company off stride. The e-mail summarizes a three-day trip Foot Locker CEO Matt Serra and other top executives took to Florida last June to visit 36 of the company’s stores in the Miami and Fort Lauderdale markets. “Matt discussed the importance of hurting/putting Finish Line out…
The shareholders think Lilly should separate its chairman and CEO roles. Sidney Taurel currently holds both jobs and the title of president. The group wants an independent chairman. It’s one of six shareholder proposals on the agenda for Lilly’s April 18 annual meeting at its headquarters. The move would address “a leadership crisis at our company” created by the lack of access to affordable medicines, according to the proposal listed in Lilly’s recently filed proxy statement. Lilly’s board disagrees and…
Last week, Aprimo and North Carolina-based SAS Institute Inc. escalated an agreement they entered last October. What began as a cross-promotion partnership has led to an outright integration of the two firms’ software. Aprimo President and CEO Bill Godfrey is certain his deal with SAS simply means sharing the trail for a spell. Ever the entrepreneur, Godfrey’s eyes are on growing his firm large enough to conquer marketing’s uncharted territory single-handedly. But just as the untamed Old West gave way…
CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary Hail to the chief, a class act There’s not much call in my line of work to interact with the chief of police. And, in the case of outgoing Indianapolis Police Chief Jerry Barker, it’s been my loss. I came face to face with Jerry 18 months ago because of an extracurricular activity I was involved in. Nothing illegal, mind you. He and I were mates among 40 people in the inaugural class of the Diversity Leadership…
Saturday, Feb. 26, was the second-tolast day my boys, Austin and Zach, saw their stepmom alive. They didn’t see much of Pam that day. She and they slept late-Pam because she was ill with cancer, Austin and Zach because they’re teen-agers. Once everyone awoke, Zach had a six-hour photo assignment at the IU Natatorium. Late that afternoon, I took Austin to a movie, while my sister-in-law stayed with Pam. When we all returned home, we watched a video, discussed its…
A long-vacant downtown nursing home is about to find new life as affordable housing. The Indiana division of the Salvation Army plans to convert the Barton House on the northeast corner of Delaware and Michigan streets into 30 apartments for lowincome families and space for some of the organization’s programs. The Salvation Army purchased Barton House and Carpenter apartments, its neighbor to the east, for about $500,000 each in late 1999, said Maj. Dennis Strissel, the Salvation Army’s divisional commander…
By 1984, when the U.S. Supreme Court thwarted an attempt to prohibit consumers of Sony Betamax from recording television programs, music lovers already were accomplished at taping their favorite bands. A blank Maxell cassette, a tape deck, a turntable and a copy of, say, your buddy’s new R.E.M. “Reckoning” album provided the essential tools to copy the tunes without actually spending $7.99 on the record. Fast-forward two decades and the debate over whether technological advances have made it too easy…
Can government really create jobs? That’s a question candidates in the throes of a political campaign, whose rhetoric promises endless prosperity, will sometimes put to economists like me. My answer has always been that there is a lot our leaders can do to destroy jobs, but very little they can do to create them, at least in the short run. But recent events have caused me to reconsider this. Our government, or more accurately, the statistical agencies we employ to…
Indiana’s General Assembly reflects Hoosier values. It wants to make us more like other states. If others have daylight-saving time, so should we. This is called progress. If others have a Department of Agriculture, so should we. This, too, is called progress. The idea that we should differentiate ourselves from others, that we should find new solutions to problems, is not examined. Let’s look at House Bill 1008, which would create an Indiana Department of Agriculture. This proposal was given…
The annual cost of treating the secondhand-smoke-related illnesses of Marion County residents likely exceeds $16 million, a cost borne partly by businesses that provide their employees health insurance. Businesses also shoulder harder-to-calculate costs in the form of lost productivity and absenteeism, according to a 2002 study for the Marion County Health Department believed to be the best estimate yet of the local impact of cigarettes. But backers of the proposed City-County Council ordinance that would ban smoking in Indianapolis’ bars…
The second half of the General Assembly’s “long” session is now upon us, even though it doesn’t quite feel like it had closure to the first half. Unless you were in Florida or Arizona watching baseball’s spring training games, you are well aware of the House Democrats’ tactics that resulted in a lack of quorum on the final days for passage bills from their chamber of origin. The lack of a quorum meant more than 130 bills died ignominiously on…
