The Oz Fest is calling it quits. No, not that one. The other one, the one you never heard of:
CHESTERTON, Ind. - The organizers of an annual Wizard of Oz festival that attracted thousands of fans of the classic 1939 film to watch parades of costumed characters say this year's flood-plagued festival was their last.
The Thanksgiving good:
More than 200 volunteers showed up at the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission on Thanksgiving Day.
[. . .]
The volunteer coordinator with the Fort Wayne Rescue Mission said that there was a huge increase in the number of people coming out to help this year, and a lot of those were families volunteering together.
And the bad:
So, they want to extort a fee from us for getting around the way we want to so they can use the money to force us to get around the way we don't want to:
MUNSTER, Ind. - A mass transportation organization wants Indiana residents to pay a "green" fee of $10 on each car and truck on the road to help promote mass transit options.
At least the BMV is smart enough to know when to back down:
The state Bureau of Motor Vehicles has ditched a new rule that prohibited the mention of God on personalized license plates.
The rule, which took effect Nov. 6, had drawn protests from people who for years had bought license plates with sayings that included
Another sign the economy is really in the tank -- when even the nerds can't be counted on the feed their obsession:
Just what we need -- more encouragement for the "Ah know mah rahts" yahoos:
A new informational video on the Indiana Supreme Court's Web site is intended to help people who want to represent themselves in court.
The 46-minute video, "Family Matters: Choosing to Represent Yourself in Court," is aimed at helping people represent themselves in cases such as divorces, mortgage foreclosures, protective orders and small claims.
Indiana University has demonstrated how to beat the rap: Slap your own wrist, then no one else will have to:
You know times are tough when you can't even afford to die:
So, like a lot of family members faced with funeral expenses, especially in these tough financial times, Mrs. Pickett was taken aback at the cost of laying her mother to rest.
"A very, very simple cremation, no urn, just a plastic box, guest book, memorial cards," she says, listing the expenses, which she tried to keep low.
Don't you hate a certain kind of snitch? Not the witness who cooperates with police and helps bring a criminal to justice. Not the whistleblower who brings government corruption to light. I mean the petty kind of snitch who does it out of pure meanness. The goody two-shoes who was always running to the principal's office. The office troublemaker who listens in on conversations, then tattles to the boss. The neighbor who tries to win a running dispute by calling code enforcment.
I haven't read "the Perks of Being a Wallflower," the epistolary novel of teen angst from the 1990s, so I have no idea how good it is. It got a four-and-a-half star rating from the 1,269 amazon.com readers who reviewed it, but Publishers Weekly was a little snippy, describing it as a "trite coming of age novel" with a protagonist it is hoped will eventually find a suitable girlfriend and "increase his vocabulary."
