With only a day to spare, we finally have our Hoosier Teenager of the Year!
MUNCIE -- Police arrested a teenager as he was apparently preparing to urinate on a southside church early Tuesday.
Matthew Lane Stockton, 18, 3418 S. Juniper Lane, faces charges of public indecency and public intoxication, both misdemeanors.
[. . .]
Let's see. If the General Assembly allows us to have a gambling referendum, and we vote to approve a casino, that means we can start building by . . . Oh, wait. Gov. Daniels says not so fast there, boys:
I think we've gone as far as we should go. If we're not at saturation, we're approaching it. Now, here come other states more fiscally desperate than we are trying to get in the game. So, no expansion would make any sense to me financially or otherwise.
Just a follow-up to my reported intent last week to go see the new "Sherlock Holmes" movie. We did, and I enjoyed it very much. I would recommend it as an entertaining movie that doesn't pretend to be anything else. I sort of agree with Steven Barnes, who "really wanted to love this movie" and instead "just kind of liked it. A lot." Since I didn't have any particular expectations but also liked it a lot, I guess that makes my review a tad stronger than his.
There is a little justice in the world:
The good news for Senator Ben Nelson is that he doesn't have to face Nebraska voters until 2012.
If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.
Indiana and Indianapolis leaders are urging people to make New Year's resolutions this year that will help them get on solid financial ground.
Secretary of State Todd Rokita, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, Indianapolis officials and financial experts are urging residents to develop "financial fitness" goals for 2010. Officials say a financial fair Tuesday in Indianapolis will help people set up their resolutions and find ways to make them happen.
My brother Larry e-mailed me a photo he took of a ring-tailed cat, the first one he's seen since he's lived in Texas.
Tired this morning. I stayed up way beyond my usual bedtime, watching this on TV. Perhaps you caught it, too:
CHICAGO - Bears quarterback Jay Cutler and his offense were looking for a little redemption Monday night at Soldier Field.
They got it after Cutler threw the game-winning touchdown pass in overtime in the Bears' 36-30 victory over the Vikings.
Let's talk a little about a good sports story for a change, such as the magical year of the TinCaps, the Minor League Team of the Year:
Winning 100 games in a Major League regular season tends to be the benchmark for team excellence. The New York Yankees, for example, won 103 games in 2009 before marching on to a World Series title.
While many of us on the right are angry that President Obama is taking this country to hell in a handbasket, Prof. Kevin Howley of Depauw University is here to remind us that many on the left are unhappy that the journey is taking so darn long:
Fran Quigley is an attorney "working on local and international poverty issues." In an opinion piece for The Indianapolis Star, she says there are lots of other things the state could do instead of "handcuffing future generations" with a constitutional property tax cap and "cutting public education, health care for the disabled or other services" as a "last resort":
Like expanding the state's sales tax, which is our top source of revenue, to include more services.
It's the time of year when editors play the game of looking back and naming the top stories of the year. Which would you choose?
Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 13-year-old girl, in a letter to the "French intellectual" Bernard-Henri Lévy, is expressing his "overwhelming" graditude for all the messages of sympathy he has received "from across the world":
I'd hate to be a member of the Indianapolis Colts today -- either a starter who had to stand on the sidelines and watch it all slip away or a second- or third-stringer who heard the crowd's boos as he labored haplessly to contain the New York Jets yesteday.
Hell, I hate even being a Coltsfan today. When it became obvious the coaches weren't going to put the starters back in even as the Jets started racking up points, nervousness became a sinking feeling: They really aren't going to try to win this game.
Today's quiz: What's the sixth-largest city in Indiana?
Answer: Hammond. Its population (76,732) puts it between fifth-place Gary ((95,920) and seventh-place Bloomington (71,819). But if the suggested merger between Greenwood and White River Township in Johnson County goes through, Hammond and Bloomington are each going to go down a notch:
An Indianapolis Star editorial rightly calls out Sen. Bayh on health care reform:
Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is straining hard to paint himself as a fiscal conservative. It's disappointing then that he's prepared to vote for a bill almost certain to drive up the deficit in future years.
[. . .]
A state senator has a proposal that is both wrongheaded and pointless:
A state senator says he'll file legislation that would prevent Indiana schools from starting classes before Labor Day.
Poor Elkhart. How would you like to live in a place that became "a symbol of the economic meltdown"?
The Big Boys of journalism are still trudging there to find out how the little people of the heartland are weathering this turribul recession. Of course, they don't all see the same things. The Wall Street Journal reports that there are signs of hope as unemployment falls from 18.9 percent to 14.5 percent, with embattled RV makers actually starting to hire people back:
Things you never see at the high-end steakhouse:
WARREN, Mich. — A man who walked into a Michigan diner with a 5-inch knife stuck in his chest ordered a coffee and complained only about the cold weather.
The 52-year-old man, who has not been identified, called a 911 operator in Warren on Sunday night to ask that an ambulance be sent to Bray's, an eatery in neighboring Hazel Park.
Complained about the weather
Last year, my sister's intended trip to Fort Wayne to spend Christmas with me and mutual friends was thwarted by the weather -- you remember that lovely ice storm, don't you? So she came up the following week, and we celebrated Christmas on New Year's Day. That was such a good experience that we decided to start a new tradition, so we'll be celebrating the holiday a week late this year, too.
Wouldn't it be a wonderful Christmas if states really could get some power back
South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.
