Japan Beats USA in World Cup

OK, so the United States Women's Soccer Team lost to Japan in a shoot-out in the final match yesterday.

But, even if we're second, Indy comes out a winner with Lauren Cheney -- a Ben Davis grad -- on the USA team.

OmniSource Scores a Big Win

"If you're a multi-million dollar company represented by a politically-connected law firm, you can buy your way out of any serious criminal charge in Marion County," notes Paul K. Ogden on his blog today.

Yep, it's back to "business as usual" at OmniSource, where hiring off-duty cops gets them a free pass to deal in stolen scrap metal.

Middle Eastern Festival

Yum! It's almost time for the annual Middle Eastern Festival at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church, 4020 North Sherman Drive, Indianapolis.

Hours are 4-11 p.m. Friday (15 July), noon-11 p.m. Saturday (16 July) and noon to 5 p.m. next Sunday (17 July).

Your Indianapolis Observer goes for the food(especially the pastries!), but there's also entertainment, a marketplace, icons, books and beer and wine.

Admission at the door is $5 (then you buy St. George Bucks for your food etc.)

‘No sex, please, we’re Hoosiers’

Indianapolis alt-weekly NUVO is getting some complaints for this week’s “Sex Indiana-style” issue that includes a photo of Mr. Nude America. (Local TV news is all over the story, of course.) “I looked at the photo,” says NUVO web editor Laura McPhee, “and my thought was we’ve never censored the female body when we reproduce artwork and I didn’t see a need to censor it because it was a male.” She adds that the paper never received complaints when images of nude females were published.

From the Poynter Institute's Jim Romenesko. It's here.

Changes at the Library

This Indianapolis Observer was surprised to find out this week that library cards now have expiration dates.

At the Indianapolis Marion County Public Library, one must turn up at a branch -- in person and carrying photo identification with correct local address -- once every three years, in order to have a library card.

What's up with that? Not only is this whole expiration thing new (it's the first time that library cards have had expiration dates), but library cards expire faster than driver's licenses, which are valid for six years.

Why?

Indiana's Agritourism

Supporters of a new Indiana law aimed at protecting farmers and farm businesses from personal injury lawsuits say it could boost the state's agritourism industry, according to a report on IBJ.com

The law that took effect Friday (1 July) seeks to better inform people visiting fruit orchards, self-pick farms, animal exhibitions and other agritourism ventures of the dangers they might encounter at such sites.

The law calls for new signs to be placed at agritourism locations, warning participants of the risks involved, and thereby offering the proprietors of such businesses an additional measure of protection against possible litigation.

Super Bowl's "Clean Zone" Expanded?

Clean zone means a geographically defined area within a special event zone during a civic sponsored special event that no temporary advertising, signage, or structures shall be erected or transient merchant, vendor, or otherwise licensed activity may take place without the person or entity performing such activity first having received approval from the event sponsor and a limited duration license from the bureau of license and permit services.

As Paul K. Ogden notes: "So, a bar that has the fortune to be near Lucas Oil Stadium may not post a 'Welcome Football Fans' banner without having the specific okay of the NFL - for instance."

"Indy's bureaucrats...want unlimited power to make as big of a 'clean zone' as they choose. They could conceivably make the entire county a clean zone," he reports.

Say what?