Hoosier lore

I hear you, sister:

Indiana House Democratic leader Parick Bauer writes in USA Today about his displeasure over the Indiana Toll Road deal. Keep your eye on the cards -- he deals one or two from the bottom of the deck. Though the state is leasing the road to a private consortium, Bauer keeps calling it a sale:

I like reporting like this, which tells us something we probably wouldn't know if we'd never been involved. If you get a traffic ticket, you've got nothing to lose by going to court:

Perhaps a lawyer could explain why this is a felony with $5,000 bond -- probably not because of the value of the items, a couple of Beanie Babies, or the location, a cemetery anyone can visit without breaking in. I'm not suggesting any sympathy for the woman. Someone who'd steal something from a grave would steal anything from anybody at any time.

I've met Evan Bayh -- nice enough fellow, astute politician (having people think he's a moderate, despite his voting record), in the normal intelligence range. But, come on. Anybody who writes about him this way needs to get a life:

Emerson Keller Elkins died 13 years ago but left a little something behind that will keep his name alive, his own personal time capsule:

Workers renovating the Indiana Memorial Union found a letter hidden inside a wall nearly 70 years ago, a message its writer said he didn't know would ever be read.

The letter, dated Jan. 15, 1939, mentions Hitler and Mussolini, conflict between Japan and China and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's problems with Congress.

I suppose this approach is worth the effort:

Health researchers investigating ways to tackle America's childhood obesity epidemic have a possible solution: heavier toys.

A study of the effects of giving children weighted blocks to play with found they burned more calories and had higher heart and breathing rates than when playing with lighter blocks.

Maybe this guy should be forced to put a sign in his yard that says, "I am a greedy, opportunistic jerk who got what he deserved":

The Indiana Supreme Court says a Munster man who leaned back too far and tumbled backward off the top row of gymnasium bleachers is responsible for his own fall.

Ah, the workings of the legal mind. John Stephenson, 42, is to die by injection after a jury convicted of him in the March 1996 shooting deaths of three people along a rural Warrick County road. Stephenson is seeking a new trial or new sentencing. Here is what his attorney says:

Just a reminder, as we get closer to our first Fourth of July with legal fireworks, to read all the police reports on Wednesday, after having stayed safely indoors all day Tuesday:

A Whitefish man was critically injured early Tuesday while allegedly using fireworks to blow up mailboxes with a friend.

I know you'll find this hard to believe, but alcohol was involved.