Without making any judgments about either cause, we can say that here in this letter to the editor we have a "pot calling the kettle black" situation:
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) recently made the news again by suggest-ing that the president have compassion on a fly that was bothering him.
[. . .]
Had any of these same people ever taken one step toward protecting other life — human life?
What do you know? Jerry Springer and I agree on something:
He says, "We've been doing this show for 19 years now and I'm really sorry for that. No one had any idea that it would last all these years."
And Springer can't help but cringe when he watches back his very first episode: "That was pretty pathetic but it's not as if it's got any better, it's still awful."
Maybe he should go b
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.
Could they please hype the downtown hotel a little more? This was almost too subtle for me:
The long-delayed construction of the Courtyard by Marriott hotel at Harrison Square officially began Monday with a groundbreaking overlooking the construction site.
Representatives of Fort Wayne city government, local lenders, civic leaders and White Lodging, the company building the hotel, gathered for the groundbreaking and expressed their enthusiasm for the project.
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:
There are those of us who still cling to the "celebrities die in three" myth because guessing who the third might be in any given triad is an interesting way to pass the time. We were cheated out of our game last week when Ed McMahon's death was followed so closely by Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson checking out within hours of each other.
The administration and Congress are trying to ram through as much as they can as quickly as they can -- the massive canp & trade bills and health care reform, for example, bills that will be so big and complicated that even those doing the voting won't know what's in them. So thank goodness for small favors:
You listen to "Thriller," and I'll listen to this.
The slope, she is slippery:
New York has become the first state to allow taxpayer-funded researchers to pay women for giving their eggs for embryonic stem cell research, a move welcomed by many scientists but condemned by critics who fear it will lead to the exploitation of vulnerable women.
Common sense breaks out at the Supreme Court:
Arizona school officials violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old girl when they strip-searched her on the suspicion she might be hiding ibuprofen in her underwear, the Supreme Court ruled yesterday. The decision put school districts on notice that such searches are "categorically distinct" from other efforts to combat illegal drugs.
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.
When I got back from overseas, I started dating a nurse here in Fort Wayne. Well, "dating" may be a bit strong, since I still had a year and a half to go in the Army and could see her only when I came home on leave. Anyway, it didn't work out, and I remember being hurt and angry and writing a blistering letter, telling her what a wonderful guy she was stupid enough to take a pass on, and slipped it under her door.
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:
City Council President Tom Smith: Let's try not to use our electronic devices during council sessions; people find it distracting and disrespectful.
Council member Tim Pape: Shut up and quite bothering me while I'm reading my text messages.
That's what he was doing, too. He even seemed amused that, during Smith's request, he got a text from a constituent expressing disapproval of such an unreasonable request:
Whoops! Looks like the 2012 presidential field just got thinned by one:
South Carolina's wandering governor, Mark Sanford, said today he had an affair with an Argentine woman and that was why he disappeared without telling anyone he went to South America."The bottom line is this: I've been unfaithful to my wife," he said. "I've developed a relationship with a dear dear friend from Argentina."
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.
