Hoosier lore

The Indiana Supreme Court is letting Gary proceed with its lawsuit against gun manufacturers and distributors for providing guns they knew would end up in criminals' hands, thus encourgaing the "bad things are the fault of anybody with deep pockets" mentality. This is just fine with Paul Helmke:

The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, which represents the city of Gary in the case, called the state high court's decision today a landmark. Attorneys for the gun manufacturers could not immediately be reached for comment tonight.

Panicky Americans: Oh, God, this is the worst economy since the Great Depression, and we're all going to be standing in bread lines with holes in our shoes! Save us, federal government, please save us now! Hoosier seniors who actually lived through the Great Depression: Suck it up, you whining wusses. You ain't seen nothin' like what we lived through:

Badges? City Council members get badges that "are identical to the one that police officers use"? What could possibly go wrong?

Terre Haute City Councilman Ramon "Turk" Roman turned himself in to Terre Haute City Police just after 2 this afternoon.

[. . .]

According to police reports Roman is being charged with impersonating a police officer.

Police tell WTWO Roman was cut off by a driver on Wabash Avenue last month.

Things I read about in other Indiana cities are starting to remind me of Fort Wayne. In Indianapolis, for example, Lafayette Square is a mall said to be "struggling" (which I think is just a more polite way of saying "doomed"). It was the city's first enclosed mall, but it's losing three anchors and more than a third of its 1.2 million square feet of retail space.

Celebrate the good news:

The preliminary figures show 808 people were killed on Indiana roadways in 2008, down from 898 in 2007.

That extends a downward trend that began several years ago.

I wonder if it's possible to rehabilitate the image of "institutions," as in, "Let's do away with those awful mental institutions so those poor people can be treated in the community." Well, that one didn't work out too well, did it? Or there's, "Orphanages are such cold, heartless places. We must get children into families." Yes, foster care has worked out so much better.

So hoorary for the Indiana department of the American Legion for speaking out for the institution it has helped support for 143 years:

Do you realize what danger your neighborhood might be in if people aren't burping their one-potters? If not, you haven't been keeping up with the drug culture and the fascinating ways it keeps adding to the language.

A Marion man takes the idea that religion can make you better off in entirely the wrong direction:

A former church official has been charged with stealing more than $276,000 from church accounts and using some of the money to pay for a vasectomy, motorcycles and cars.

When those three auto executives flew in their private jets to Washington to beg for a handout, it immediately became a symbol -- of arrogance to some, of being out of touch with ordinary life to others. Now we have our own symbol in Indiana:

It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring

Bumped his head and he went to bed

and he couldn't get up in the morning

Rain, rain, go away, come again some other day.

If we get any more precipitation metaphors from the General Assembly, we're all going to feel like we've bumped our head. Here are the boys arguing about whether to spend the money the state has held in reserve: