Hoosier lore

I've always been a little unclear on the thinking behind "hate crime" laws. Until police develop a mind-reading tool, they really don't know what anyone is thinking. That means authorities can only punish phsyical manifestations of that thinking, such as intimidation or vandalism, which are already crimes. So the fact that Indiana is one of only five states without specific hate-crime laws doesn't necessarily make us backward.

This is cute:

PORTAGE -- You'd better not say "#$%^&" or even "!*$)+" in the Portage clerk-treasurer's office.

The use of off-color language could cost you a pretty penny, or a quarter -- or even $1.50 if the word's deemed foul enough.

The employees in the City Hall office have been fining themselves -- and visitors -- since July for using curse words.

The city of Indianapolis has come up with an "innovative" way to fight crime. It apparently can't afford to beef up the police department, so it is putting surveillance cameras in "high crime areas":

Maybe there's some truth to the complaints of education officials that those who changed the graduation-rate formula did so to make public schools look bad. It's much easier to push a school-choice agenda if high schools are graduating only about 75 percent, as the new calculation says, rather than 90 percent, as the old one did. But couldn't it also be said that, using the old formula, educators were artificially inflating the graduation rate to make themselves look better than they deserved to? The response of the public-education establishment isn't encouraging.

Many studies have demonstrated a link between violent media, such as video games, and aggressive behavior in children. What if science can show there's a real, longterm effect on the chemistry of the brain, as a study by Indiana University hints at?

From a letter to the editor in the Indianapolis Star: "Roger W. Schmenner, associate dean of the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, wrote (My View, Nov. 6) that small and mid-sized businesses are "a driving force" in today's economy. I'd like to add that women-owned businesses are the leaders of that driving force." Women-owned?

Just when I think I'm in danger of becoming a total cynic, along comes a story that renews my faith in America and the simple virtues that made us great. Who among you hasn't yearned for the days when wide-eyed beauties would step before the microphone, adjust their crowns and assure us earnestly that they believed in world peace and ending hunger? Forget those empty-headed sluts in Playboy who said they valued sincerity and long walks on the beach? These were real American girls.

In the great Gary gun case of 1999, by which the city attempts to hold manufacturers and sellers liable for the misuse of weapons, I think the best opinion was rendered by Lake Superior Court Judge James Richards, who dismissed the Gary case in 2001, saying the city "cannot fault businesses beyond its jurisdiction for the crimes committed by others." But a judge has resuscitated the case, ruling that a federal law aimed at shielding the manufacturers and dealers from liability is unconstituti

If a plaintiff is already required to have his name and address on a sex-offendry registry, available to all Hoosiers, including in an online data base, how much more potential harm can for him can there be in not letting him sue the state anonymously?

If "three strikes and you're out" is a reasonable step, why isn't "two strikes and you don't get out early"? Donna Ellis says, reasonably, that if Charles Boney had not been released from prison early after he was sentenced for robbing her, his second conviction, he would not have been avaiable to take part in the slayings of a woman and her two children. Boney's lawyer is not so reasonable: