Bleh.

April has so far been cold and chilly, 

with icy showers that knocked down daffodils' 

efforts to show off  their blooms.

The people of Indiana rose up in furor this past

week, when the Governor, a man who achieved the

office with backing from a narrow segment

of the state's population, radically conservative

and hell-bent on bending the state government

to suit their interpretation(s) 

of the Bible -- never mind the ol' "separation 

of church and state" bugaboo. 

Last year, the state legislators' efforts to enact

a ban on same-sex marriages was knocked down

by the Supreme Court. In a snit of revenge, 

a couple of those legislators wrote what is commonly called

the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA),

widely regarded as an effort to allow discrimination

on grounds of "religious conviction" against

members of the LBGT community.

Thirty legal professors told him it was a bad law.

 Several state corporations advised him that, never mind

just doing business, they would have difficulty 

recruiting the best people for their businesses. 

Travel and tourism would suffer. 

Saying it was "no different" than a similar federal law 

passed in 1993, Pence insisted he would sign it. And did.

With the NCAA Final Four basketball tourney

being held in Indianapolis this year, the commercial 

gloss was off the prestige of that event, and eyes were

focused instead on the efforts of a minority

of tawdry folks who want to keep us all mired in

their prejudices and fears. 

After days of bad press and downright acrimony, 

Pence finally got the message and requested 

that the law be fixed. A patch was written and passed

before the week was up. The governor had acted

solely for benefit of the small-minded constituency

he was used to serving as a Senator, and suffered the

outrage of a more reasonable, tolerant, and practical 

general population. He signed the paper. 

Then left town.

With the promise of some wonderful college

basketball to be played here, he decided he needed

to take care of some business in Europe.

Textured Tuesday: Warm Brick, Cold Glass

This old building has been restored and re-purposed and is a part 

of the NCAA complex along the Central Canal.

I remember it as having a coat of gray paint 

covering its warm bricks.

When Washington Street was re-routed, the building and 

the old bridge stood neglected for some time before

being made a part of the White River State Park.

I do like the contrast between the red brick and the

smooth blue glass that makes up the J.W. Marriott Hotel

in the background.

For me, this building is the structure that anchors the NCAA 

complex designed by Michael Graves. That is probably because

preserving the building was a requirement of the project, 

but it also meant that red brick was used in the new designs 

that followed, with arcs and curves to echo the windows,

as well as a structure that is broken up into related sections. 

While this seems to be a theme in Graves' work,
the varied colors and shapes of this/these buildings
give it more of a community feel, one made up of several
smaller structures rather than a huge monolith.