Indy Digest: Oct. 20, 2025
After a weekend in which 7 million people participated in No Kings protests nationwide, according to organizers, today, I’m bring you another reason to be encouraged about the fight for freedom and free expression:
The kids get it, or at least some of them do. Students understand why freedom of speech is important.
Here are two stories. The first, from Iowa Public Radio, looks at a book club started by teens:
(Alice) Gooblar-Perovic was a freshman when she learned that thousands of books with sexual content, like The Handmaid’s Tale and Nineteen Minutes, were being pulled from Iowa classrooms to comply with the implementation of Senate File 496, which was scheduled to take effect at the start of 2024.
In response, she and her classmates, Aahana Gupta and Lydia Cruce, started a Banned Book Club. They borrowed books frequently found on “banned” book lists from the Coralville Public Library and met after classes ended for the day to discuss them.
Operating as an unofficial club, they were unable to participate in the school’s activities fair or advertise their gatherings at school — posters they hung were quickly taken down. Instead, they grew a small group through word of mouth. …
The group persisted. After the part of the law that affects school libraries was temporarily blocked by a federal judge, the Banned Book Club gained official recognition from the school. Now, as enforcement of the book restrictions remains frozen under a second temporary injunction, the club has 15 to 25 regular members and meets weekly to discuss books like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, The Color Purple, The Handmaid’s Tale and Fahrenheit 451 — some of the same titles that had been previously removed from the Iowa City Community School District’s libraries. According to Iowa City West High’s library catalog, the books have since been reshelved.
Awesome.
Next, we have a story about a fight against censorship that brought together two traditional college rivals.
Student journalists from Purdue University’s The Exponent went to rival Indiana University on Friday to deliver a special print edition in solidarity with the now out-of-print Indiana Daily Student, according to The Herald-Times.
Last week, IU administrators decided to suspend the print publication of the IDS and fired the director of student media, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused to censor an Oct. 16 homecoming edition of the paper.
Staff members from The Exponent distributed 3,000 copies of the solidarity edition around IU’s Bloomington campus. The paper’s front cover read, “WE STUDENT JOURNALISTS MUST STAND TOGETHER” and contained op-eds from the editors in chief of both newsrooms as well as reporting on the state of student journalism at both institutions; Purdue University ended its relationship with The Exponent this summer, and the university is no longer paying to distribute the paper or allowing it to use “Purdue” for commercial purposes.
“Both our publications have had their run-ins with their respective universities this summer and fall,“ Kyle Charters, publisher and news adviser for The Exponent, told The Herald-Times. “While we’re pretty significant rivals—and while I might not be rooting for their football team tomorrow—we do have something in common, and we’re happy to have that camaraderie.”
First Amendment advocates have blasted Purdue and IU for curtailing students’ free speech and censoring student journalism.
Yep, the students get it: They know the First Amendment is vital——and something worth fighting for.
—Jimmy Boegle
From the Independent
Masterclass in Direction: Even If You Didn’t See ‘Part One,’ The Bent’s Production of ‘The Inheritance, Part Two’ Is Can’t-Miss Theater
By Valerie-Jean (VJ) Hume
October 20, 2025
Part Two starts in 2017, and at one point in this play, a young person is flatly asked if he knows about the AIDS crisis, and he hesitantly replies, “A bit …” These words astonish those of us who lived through it and lost so many during that time.
Know Your Neighbors: Meet Matt Naylor, a Musician, a Coffee Farmer and the President of Well in the Desert
By Bonnie Gilgallon
October 19, 2025
Founded in 1996, Well in the Desert serves 80,000 meals a year to people, both housed and without homes, dealing with food insecurity. Matt Naylor is the organization’s president.
Hiking With T: The Willis Palms Oasis, Part of the Coachella Valley Preserve, Is Both Beautiful and Historically Significant
By Theresa Sama
October 18, 2025
Once you arrive and go inside these lush palm groves, you will feel like you’re in a jungle a world away from the desert surroundings of the Coachella Valley.
Double Derivative: ‘Black Phone 2’ Tries Something ‘Different’ … by Ripping Off Another Horror Franchise
By Bob Grimm
October 20, 2025
The follow-up takes the Grabber (Ethan Hawke), the serial killer from the original film, and tries to turn him into the new Freddy Krueger, stalking people in the dream world.
More News
• Greater Palm Springs Pride has postponed the inaugural Pride Equity Walk. It was slated for this coming weekend. A note from organizers says, in part: “This difficult decision was made to ensure we can deliver an event that fully upholds the integrity and mission of the Pride Equality Walk: a unified stand for LGBTQ+ visibility, rights, and full equality. Due to unexpected financial and logistical challenges, including recent changes that have impacted our promotional timeline, we have determined that our current resources are not sufficient to execute the high-quality, impactful event our community deserves. We believe taking this time to restructure and fortify our foundation is the necessary step to guarantee the Walk’s ultimate success. We are fully committed to this event and are already working toward a new launch. We will announce a new date for the inaugural Walk in 2026 soon.” The primary “unexpected challenge” is likely the arrest of William Rodriguez. He is charged with homicide following the hit-and-run death last year of Christina Barrington, 60, in Cathedral City. He’s the head of Silvercrest Advertising, which had been listed as the title sponsor of the Pride Equity Walk.
• The internet was REALLY messed up today. NPR explains why: “A massive outage at Amazon Web Services disrupted major websites and apps on Monday, in a show of how one company’s online infrastructure has become essential for many modern businesses to function. Amazon said it was fixing the problem but some disruptions were still ongoing as of Monday evening. Tech experts tell NPR the incident highlights just how vulnerable companies are to these kinds of outages. … Amazon reported ‘increased error rates and latencies’ starting around 3 a.m. ET that involved its facility in Northern Virginia. Users reported trouble with popular websites and apps including Duolingo and the online games Roblox and Fortnite. Financial service companies like Coinbase, Robinhood and Venmo also reported disruptions, as did the companies that operate the chatbots Perplexity and ChatGPT. Amazon said its main website was affected. United Airlines, Canva, Reddit and Flickr also acknowledged problems with their websites. The Associated Press, NPR and The New York Times’ games also said they had issues.”
• The state on Saturday closed down a portion of Interstate 5 during a live-fire exercise at Camp Pendleton, as part of the Marine Corps’ 250th anniversary celebration. The Trump administration criticized Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying the closure was unnecessary. Well … it was a good thing the freeway was closed. The Los Angeles Times reports: “The U.S. military exercise that shot live-fire artillery rounds over Interstate 5 on Saturday dropped metal shrapnel onto a California Highway Patrol protective services detail for Vice President JD Vance, agency officials said Sunday. The incident occurred shortly after the detail had escorted Vance to the Marine Corps event at Camp Pendleton. The CHP said that the shrapnel was from an explosive ordnance that was fired over Interstate 5 and ‘detonated overhead prematurely, striking and damaging a CHP patrol vehicle.’ A CHP motorcycle with the detail also was struck. The shrapnel fell in the area around the Las Pulgas Road onramp to the southbound Interstate 5 in northern San Diego County, which cuts through Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. The CHP protective services detail had been ordered to wait there after Vance had been dropped off.”
• Mpox is again spreading in California. CBS News says: “The first U.S. cases of a potentially more severe form of mpox without known travel were reported in California, health officials said this week. In a news release Thursday, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health confirmed an adult is now recovering at home after being hospitalized for a confirmed case of clade I mpox with no recent travel to areas the virus is typically found, primarily in parts of Africa. It was the second clade I case thought to be locally acquired, following a similar report by the Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, also in L.A. County, earlier this week. Compared to clade II mpox, which was the cause of the 2022 global outbreak and continued sporadic clusters in the United States, clade I mpox is more likely to cause severe illness and death, health officials say. Fatality rates for clade II range from less than 1% to 4% while rates for clade I range from 1% to 10%, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.”
• When Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC, people protested by cancelling their Hulu and/or Disney+ subscriptions. The New York Times reports that those cancellations had a large impact: “About three million Americans canceled Disney+ in September, up from a three-month average of 1.2 million, according to Antenna, a subscription research firm. Disney-owned Hulu had roughly 4.1 million cancellations in the United States, up from 1.9 million. … Churn, the entertainment industry’s dreaded term for the percentage of subscribers who cancel monthly, spiked to 8 percent for Disney+ and 10 percent for Hulu. (To compare, Netflix’s churn stayed the same for a 13th month at 2 percent. The churn rate is calculated by dividing the number of cancellations in a given month by subscribers at the end of the prior month.) In August, Disney said it had about 184 million subscriptions across Disney+ and Hulu. The Antenna report was not entirely negative for Disney. Cancellations were (partially) offset by a healthy number of new subscriptions. About 2.2 million people in the United States subscribed to Disney+ in September through either a paid plan or a free trial, a 10 percent increase from a month earlier. Hulu had about 2.1 million new subscribers, a 5 percent increase.”
• The president said construction of a new ballroom would not “interfere” with the existing White House. Today, we know he lied. The Washington Post reports: “Demolition crews on Monday began tearing down part of the White House to build President Donald Trump’s long-desired ballroom despite his pledge that construction of the $250 million addition wouldn’t ‘interfere’ with the existing building. Construction teams were demolishing a portion of the East Wing, with a backhoe ripping through the structure, according to a photo shared with The Washington Post and two people who witnessed the activity and spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe it. A cluster of people, including members of the Secret Service, stood on the steps of the Treasury Department to watch the construction unfold, said one of the people. Sounds of construction were also audible on the White House campus, although the project was not easily visible to the public given fencing on the grounds.”
• And finally … today’s recall news involves … frozen burritos! USA Today has the details: “M.C.I Foods Inc. has recalled thousands of pounds of frozen breakfast burritos and wraps over possible listeria contamination. The company based in Santa Fe Springs, California, recalled approximately 91,585 pounds of ready-to-eat breakfast burrito and wrap products containing egg that may be contaminated with listeria, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced on Saturday, Oct. 18. The frozen breakfast burritos and wraps were produced between Sept. 17, 2025 and Oct. 14, 2025, and according to the statement, they were shipped to foodservice intuitions nationwide. The announcement originally noted that the ‘Los Cabos, El Más Fino and Midamar brand products are included in the USDA’s National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs.’ However, the announcement was updated late afternoon on Oct. 20 to say the products subject to the recall were not part of food provided by the USDA for the National School Lunch Program.”
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