Former Fort Wayne Mayor Paul Helmke, now president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, is deeply disappointed in his home state:
Helmke's organization recently awarded Indiana just six out of a possible 100 points on its annual state scorecard ratings, which judges each state's gun laws by awarding points for specific categories.
Though I lived only eight years in "The Region," I became very familiar with the kind of "Mom always liked you best" paranoia prevalent in northwest Indiana. Tucked away in a corner of the state, just around Lake Michigan from those mountains of conceit Illinois and Michigan, it was easy to think the rest of Indiana didn't know much or care about us, indeed that we'd get screwed every time we dealt with the downstaters. I knew a lot of people only had never been to Indianapolis and were only vaguely aware of the state capital.
Just whittlin' away here while the world goes by faster and faster. First there was Earth Day. Now, for those with short attention spans:
Icons including the Great Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and China's Forbidden City will be plunged into darkness on Saturday as millions take part in "Earth Hour", a rolling grassroots movement aimed at tackling climate change.
We ran a George Will column today that mentioned one possible positive outcome from the health care debacle:
During the Democrats' health care monomania, the nation benefited from the benign neglect of the rest of their agenda. Now the nation may benefit from the exhaustion of their appetite for more political risk.
Breaking up is hard to do, Muncie version:
A Muncie man spread his own feces across his girlfriend's apartment and then headbutted the woman in the face, breaking her nose, according to police reports.
Brett Bryan McDonald Sr., 45, 2213 E. Memorial Drive, Apt. 24, faces preliminary charges of burglary, domestic battery, theft and criminal mischief.
Quick, who is the highest-paid state employee in Indiana? Certainly not the governor, who gets a paltry $95,000; he's not even in the top 3,000 when it comes to base salary (4.5 percent or 3,601 of the state's 80,161 employees make $100,000 or more) No, not Purdue University President France Cordova; she makes $450,000 a year. Indiana Supreme Court justices get $151,328 a year. Give up?
Once upon a time, burglars checked out obituaries in the newspaper to find out who would be at funerals so they'd know which houses to break into and when. It's comforting to see that, though technology might change, human nature stays the same:
A New Albany woman claims a man who added her as a friend on Facebook burglarized her home Saturday after she posted a message that she and her fiancee would be out for the evening.
From an editorial in the Richmond Palladium-Item:
Monday's announcement by Cabon Motors was not the really big news we are all anxiously awaiting, but to the extent that it is the latest step toward what we hope will be federal approval of a $310 million loan request, we are happy with it.
This is more than a little scary:
An East Chicago businesswoman got a hefty tax return this year -- nearly $300,000 -- but federal officials say the money belongs to her clients.
Francesca Foster, 32, and Rosetta Yvonne Buchanan, 35, face charges of stealing information from about 60 clients to file false tax returns, according to a criminal complaint filed Friday in the U.S. District Court in Hammond.
As noted here earlier, because of Indiana's get-tough-on-crime policies, our state led the nation in the percentage increase in prison population last year, but our legislators won't spend money to add more bed space. That combination (or a judge's order) could lead to the same result here that fiscal problems have brought to the West Coast:
Lord knows I hate sticking up for Joe Biden, but too many people are making way too much of his latest verbal mishap. Especially annoying are those who say he somehow ruined what should have been a momentous occasion:
Experts weigh in:
The Goshen College national anthem controversy has made USA TODAY:
"I am not in favor of the college's decision to play the anthem," said Marlys Weaver, 22, a senior from Goshen and editor of the college newspaper. "Images of war run throughout all the verses of the anthem, and Mennonites, as pacifists, work with active and involved non-violent options."
Today's chicken-or-the-egg question: Does being involved in politics make one arrogant, or are arrogant people drawn to politics? Case in point, the Terre Haute city councilman who decided to take the law into his own hands:
Jury selection for 74-year-old Ramon "Turk" Roman is set for March 29 in Greencastle before a special Putnam County judge because a Vigo County judge has recused himself from the case.
Our hyperpartisan divide is starting to spill over into everything. A Hoosier pervert pleaded guilty to posting an obscene message on a 17-year-old female's MySpace page, the and the judge got creative:
As part of his punishment, the judge ordered him to walk up and down Main Street in Petersburg, Ind., wearing a sign of shame.
The sign read, “I sent an obscene message to a minor, and I am truly sorry.“
What a great defense -- the "my affections were not alientated, I was always a cheater" argument. Cynthia Shackelford sued Anne Lundquist, the mistress of her husband Allan, under North Carolina's odd "Alienation of Affection" law for the breakup of her 33-year marriage and was awarded $9 million by a jury:
Enough with the trivialities of health care, the deficit and unemployment! Let's talk about something really important:
I hate giving The Journal Gazette attention so early in the week, but its Political Notebook writers brought up something too good to pass on. It seems Gov. Mitch Daniels challenged some reporters' cultural literacy when he said the General Assembly had played defense more than offense in what turned out to be a "Hippocratic session":
Ah, well. Health care has been reformed, and I feel better already. But "Obamacare" doesn't have quite the ring of "the New Deal" or "the Great Society," does it? In the weeks to come, we're probably going to get as tired of hearing all that's wrong with the package as we got tired of hearing about the ups and downs of its congressional progress.
On ABC this morning, they were babbling about President Obama's "full-court press" on health care reform, and I wondered how many others were using that figure of speech.
We love the little animals, and we are acitivists! So we shall raid the evil mink farm and set some of God's creatures free! What could possibly go wrong?
Police said they are still searching for those responsible for the break-in at the farm in Frankenförde, which resulted in the release of 4,000 minks last Sunday evening.
