What can you find in this week's Isthmus? Highlights from the latest issue follow:
- Meet the winners of the second annual Isthmus Indie Awards, which honor local independent businesses, giving props for sustainable practices, leadership and innovation.
- Judith Davidoff takes a closer look at a state decision to remove race as a criterion for funding a college grant program.
- Joe Tarr tells us more about Mahlon Mitchell, the firefighter leader who might take on Walker.
- Ruth Conniff applauds the failure of a charter school bill.
- Jay Rath checks in with UW Cinematheque, which is expanding into various campus screening rooms.
- Jay Rath reports on efforts to preserve 70-year-old murals in the UW's biochemistry building.
- Linda Falkenstein reviews Lorine Niedecker: A Poet's Life, a new biography of the Ft. Atkinson versifier.
- Rich Albertoni profiles sisters June and Jean Millington, who founded the pioneering, all-female rock group Fanny.
- Jessica Steinhoff previews an upcoming show by the Sweetback Sisters, the group that brings country twang to Brooklyn.
- Dean Robbins laments the demise, after this season, of NBC's awesome Chuck.
- Scott Renshaw says the biopic J. Edgar doesn't get at the FBI director's humanity, and Kenneth Burns says the religious dramedy Higher Ground can't get a handle on its tone.
- Raphael Kadushin finds a lot to like at Palmyra, with or without tajines.
- Marcelle Richards makes cranberry sauce the (brandy) old-fashioned way.
- Linda Falkenstein find out what's cookin' at Madison SOUP, where micro-grants are dished up along with the vittles.
- Jason Joyce parses Joe Paterno.
- Tell All tells off Herman Cain and Kim Kardashian.