Hoosier lore

Most of the stuff I've read about "Public Enemies" makes it sound either like another Hollywood romanticization of criminal thugs or a boring biopic without much character or depth. But Roger Ebert liked it a lot more than most of the other critics seemed to:

Michael Jackson's death lures one of the Big Boys from the Los Angeles Times, who otherwise would probably never consider getting within 100 miles of Gary:

Michael Jackson fans are convening all over the world to mourn a superstar.  But to residents who gathered this afternoon near his childhood home in Gary, Ind., Jackson was a once-beloved neighbor.

Worry about what you serve your kids in your own home, not about what they might get at the new McDonald's that just opened up, say IUPUI researchers in Indianapolis:

It was found that the addition of fast food restaurants to neighborhoods did not have a significant impact in children's obesity rates. Restaurants located within one tenth of a mile from home were associated with slight elevations in obesity rates within certain high school ages.

Good grief. In an MSNBC/Elkhart Truth tearjerker, we read in the first four paragraphs about how hard the recession is on Angel Rodriguez. Finally, in the fifth paragraph, they get around to telling us what we'd already begun to suspect:

"Us illegals, we don't have unemployment," said Rodriguez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico City. "If I had unemployment, I wouldn't have had to give up the trailer."

If Hoosiers had voted for Jill Long for governor instead of Mitch Daniels, this man would have been our lieutenant governor:

Dennie Oxley Jr., a former state legislator and last year's Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, avoided arrest on alcohol-related charges early Friday by telling police he was serving in the General Assembly, according an Indianapolis Police report.

The opening Wednesday of "Public Enemy," the new movie with Johnny Depp as John Dillinger, seems to be renewing Hoosiers' fascination with the romanticism of Depression-era gansgters. This AP story captures the flavor:

While everyone's been talking about health care and arguing over what President Obama should or shouldn't say about Iran, cap & trade is sneaking up on us. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wants it introduced tomorrow and passed before the Fourth of July recess. This is a bill that has grown from 900 pages to nearly 1,200 just in the last few days, and they're still making changes. It's doubtful many legislators will have even read the thing before they vote on it.

Transpo, the South Bend public bus line, didn't have a policy about what ads it wouldn't take, except that it would deny space for ads deemed "controversial," which was thought to be constitutionally challengeable on grounds of vagueness. So it felt compelled to let atheists put up a bunch of ads, which upset everybody.  So now it has a new advertising policy:

Reportedly, they will deny ad space for the promotion of "cigarettes, churches, politicians, guns or porn."

State legislators have gotten themselves into a tight corner. They have only until June 30 to pass a budget during the special session or risk seeing much of state government shut down. The House and Senate have each passed a version of the bill, so they now have five days to reconcile the two. You'd think they'd be feverishly meeting at all hours of the night and day to make sure they don't blow the deadline. But House Democrats apprarently have more important things on their minds:

It's nice to learn that public officials in northwest Indiana still take their civic responsibilities seriously:

Former Mayor Robert A. Pastrick owes East Chicago damages totaling somewhere between $3 and $108,998,876.30, say attorneys in the landmark civil racketeering case against the legendary Northwest Indiana political boss.