Hoosier lore

One possibile recommendation of the governor's commission on government restructuring is consolidation of public libraries and the elimination of small and mid-size library systems. This has upset those in charge of the Westchester Public Library:

The Indiana Chamber of Commerce did a poll and, no big shock, found a lot of unhappy Hoosiers:

Indiana has the highest number of separately elected county officials in the country, all with separate taxing authority, the Chamber said, and over 76 percent said they favor a statewide overhaul of local governments if it means greater efficiency and lower property taxes.

Some 11 percent of those polled opposed an overhaul, while 13 percent were uncertain.

And I thought Indiana's alcohol laws were convoluted:

The state Senate's Law and Justice Committee is trying to liberalize beer sales in Pennsylvania.

Today it approved House Bill 1420, which would permit beer distributors to sell one, two or three six-packs of beer at a time. Currently, distributors can only sell full cases of either 24 or 30 cans.

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Don't know how Fort Wayne let Monroe County sneak in ahead of us to score this potential first:

Bloomington - A proposed ordinance in Monroe County could extend a smoking ban to include cars when children are present.  It's a relatively new idea across the country and is creating controversy in central Indiana.

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OK, I take it all back. Neil Young's "Southern Man" is a heartbreaking work of staggering genius compared with John Mellencamp's attempt to find meaning in Jena:

An all white jury hides the executioner's face
Is this how we are, me and you?
Everyone needs to know their place
And here we thought this blackbird was hidden in the flue

Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down

I don't have much to do with diet foods, but I've used Equal instead of sugar in my coffee ever since the stuff first came out. I drink so much of it that I figured it couldn't help but make me lose weight. This bad news may help explain why I have not exactly become svelte:

Everybody says this case, in which a judge ordered a defendant who had pleaded guilty to fondling a girl to go to the newspaper and admit he lied when he told a reporter that he had not fondled the girl, is unique. It's new to me, too, but I've been covering politics so long that I'm not exactly shocked that someone might not tell the complete truth to a newspaper. Something called the "Alford plea," which I had not heard of, is mentioned:

People have such a delicate way of putting things sometimes. The athletic director of Indiana State University, in announcing the firing of football coach Lou West, was a master of understatement:

It looks like Isiah Thomas can't help but bring embarrassment and controversy to whoever is stupid enough to hire him: 

I guess we should feel flattered that someone across the world thinks so much of a Hoosier that she reaches back here to steal his words:

AN ANALYSIS of a report written by the head of University of Sydney's Conservatorium of Music reveals that up to two-thirds of the text is identical to material drawn from speeches and documents from overseas sources.

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