Hoosier lore

I guess not everyone is as excited as I am about having a Starbucks close by. I can appreciate the town of Nashville wanting to "keep the chains out of downtown" to preserve its small-town feel, but, really. Anyone who has been going to Nashville for 20 or 30 years has to have noticed the same thing I have -- it's getting increasingly harder to find authentic crafts by actual local artists, but just about every block has several stores full of cheap crap from Taiwan.

I've written before (in connection to the journalists' shield law sponsored by Indiana U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar and Rep. Mike Pence) about the reluctance of some to welcome the citizen journalists of the Internet into the press community. Now it's a state issue, too. House Bill 1067, introduced by Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield, would close birth and death records, which are open to the public under current state law.

Indianapolis has picked "Catch Me If You Can" as its latest One Book-One City subject, which seems like a pretty lightweight choice. Here's the list of 25 finalists, which had a few that seem more likely to generate lively discussion.

Looks like Gov. Daniels' call for more local-government control is the big deal I thought it was. Here's the Indianapolis Star's report:

Under the plan, local governments could merge and consolidate without legislative approval, a hurdle which has slowed Indianapolis Mayor Bart Peterson's ambitions to consolidate police and fire responsibilities in Marion County.

When I read that the Indiana Senate opened its session with a moment of silence -- OK, 20 seconds -- I didn't think much of it. But apparently it's a symbol of everything that's wrong with this country, all of it caused by our spineless aquiesence to out-of-control courts:

The governor is already releasing some details of his plan to let local units of government have more control. The plan will be in House Bill 1400, which hasn't been posted by the state, so we don't know what the specifics will be yet.

Why can't the General Assembly stop playing parent to local governments? asks Indiana economist Morton Marcus. It's all about power:

Steve Towsley (see full comment) nails it, I think:

I don't care what party Daniels hails from, and doubt most other Hoosiers do. If he takes action, as he seems to be doing, and gets the state out of the morass without doing anything felonious or oppressive to his bosses the citizens, he'll be judged a good governor for the times.

Kevin Knuth, chairman of the Allen County Democratic Party, watched the governor's speech and posted a few comments here. On Daniels' desire to put more teachers into classrooms, he asks, What about the teachers who lost their jobs under the governor's budget? He wonders how we can know whether some privatization efforts really saved money since there were no competitive bids. He talks about Daniels traveling around in his fancy RV in contrast to Gov. Kernan driving the state in the company of a lone state trooper.