Hoosier lore

Could it be that those of us insisting that Indiana get in step with the rest of the nation on daylight saving time might have been wrong? Here is a definite case of real harm caused by DST:

You have to give Birch Bayh credit for his stubborn persistence. Political columnist David Broder writes that Evan's father is still at his crusade to do away with the Electoral College and institute a popular vote for president 40 years after his failed attempts to get the change into a constitutional amendment.

After replacing a ridiculous law (you can buy fireworks if you promise not to use them here) with a wildly unpopular one (make big noise all the time!), the General Assembly finally gets it right:

A lot of people are talking about the four contending designs for Indiana's new license plates -- here's the post at Fort Wayne Observed -- and you can go to the BMV's site and vote for your favorite. I think all four are kind of ugly, and I agree with Advance Indiana, which wonders why we even need new plates:

I wonder how they define "emergency"?

The Planned Parenthood of Indiana facility in Lafayette will be handing out free emergency contraceptives Tuesday.

Hurry, hurry, she's about to sober up?

Here's an easy prediction -- the blogosphere is going to beat the daylights out of Mike Pence over this remark:

We all believe individuals should be responsible for their own actions. Many of us deplore, to one degree or another, the trend today toward assigning blame to others -- the bartender who sells the drink, the firm that distributes the firearm, the company that manufactures the cigarettes that people make themselves sick with, driving up health costs -- in ways that dilute that individual responsibility. But what about people who know -- or should know -- they are contributing to the harm caused by others but go ahead and do it anyway?

The Indianapolis Star makes a good point. If the plan to save horse racing in Indiana goes through, we won't just have "slot machines at the tracks":

Perhaps we need to be careful not to expect tourism to boost our economy too much in the coming years. One of the state's top destinations is having troubles:

The town of Nashville provides a window to craftsmen and culture, but as Brown County celebrates its centennial as the arts colony of the Midwest and celebrates its founders, tourism has taken a downturn. The number of visitors has gone flat.

We don't mind a little scalping in Indiana; it's good, healthy capitalism, if a little blue-collar. But we gave it up for the Final Four, and now we might have to put it on hold for one more event:

The City-County Council has voted to make it illegal to scalp tickets to the Super Bowl, part of an effort by the city to bring the game to the city in 2011.