Hoosier lore

I love the defense offered by the Indiana truck driver charged with spying:

Mike Pence has been mentioned in a few places as a contender to replace Tom DeLay as speaker of the House, including "This Week" on ABC yesterday morning. Here's a site asking for our input on the question; I already posted a comment including my vote for Pence. Republicans have lost their way as the voice of small-government conservatism.

You remember Kelo, the now-infamous Supreme Court decisison that made it clear the court was not going to halt the drift toward public-good taking of land as opposed to the public-use taking clearly spelled out in the Constitution (what do you think about that, Judge Alito?) Well, things aren't going too well for the hope of New London officials to kick out some private-property owners and replace them with ones who could provide more tax revenue.

When most people talk about consolidation or regional cooperation, they mean government. But, as Indianapolis Star John Ketzenberger points out, there is a business component, too.

I hope what seems to be true here really is true, that an outside group is running this Web site, and Indiana death-row inmate Michael Dean Overstreet isn't corresponding with a bunch of "pen pals." In all my years on editorial pages, I've had only a handful of hard-and-fast rules for letters to the editor. One of them is: Never, ever, run a letter from someone in prison -- never mind death row -- seeking someone to write to. More often than not, they're just looking for someone to scam.

Because of Indiana's late Primary and its nearly total Republican allegience, we never really get to have any fun in presidential elections. By the time we get a chance to weigh in, it's all over. So we have to get our jollies where we can. There's a site out there that, at least for a time, will let Hoosiers feel like they're an important part of presidential politics. Online ratings polls such as this are silly and meaningless. Still, it's interesting to see that Mike Pence comes in third.

I distrust studies like this one. Put out by the education establishment, it shows that, surprise surprise, more Hoosiers than ever are "satisfied" with public education but think there is "room for improvement." What meaningless nonsense. I can name a hundred things I'm satisfied with but think can be improved. I'm especially suspicious of the findings that 59 percent say they would pay higher taxes to increase school funding.

A danger in being a strong advocate for something is that we can overlook obvious drawbacks that our passion blinds us to. The trick is to know which issues affect us that way so we can both doublecheck our reasoning and be open to flags raised by others. I can name numerous subjects I can be snared by: downtown revitalization, regional economic development, advocacy for the mentally ill, a limited federal government and on and on.

You can probably guess exactly where Lisa Koop stands on the immigration issue when you learn that she has had a "No Human Being Is Illegal" bumper sticker. She's an immigration lawyer at the Notre Dame Legal Aid Clinic and decries proposed U.S. House legislation that would make an "undocumented immigrant's" "very existence in our communities a crime." So? It already isn't a crime?

In case you hadn't noticed, Fort Wayne is making an effort to be a leader in wireless Internet connections. Everybody from City Hall to the Allen County Public Library (all branches will have wi-fi) is getting involved. Now comes news that Indianapolis is taking a cautious, go-slow approach. Dumb, dumb, dumb. This not only will give the No. 2 city an area where it can outshine the No.