The mayor of Muncie is considering a radical privatization idea to save money:
Mayor Sharon McShurley said she is considering privatizing fire protection or utilizing volunteer firefighters to compensate for expected shortfalls in property tax revenues.
"Why wouldn't we if we can provide public safety to the city for less?" she asked.
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I was hoping Fort Wayne would be the first in Indiana to show some common sense, but it looks like Indianapolis might beat us to it:
Several U.S. cities have changed their airports' names to honor hometown heroes, and Indianapolis might be next.
Now, this punishment I like:
Call it poetic justice: More than two dozen young people who broke into Robert Frost's former home for a beer party and trashed the place are being required to take classes in his poetry as part of their punishment.
Using "The Road Not Taken" and another poem as jumping-off points, Frost biographer Jay Parini hopes to show the vandals the error of their ways -- and the redemptive power of poetry.
Athletes aren't the only ones who take performance-enhancing drugs. A growing number of college students (as well as their professors, apparently) are taking drugs such as Adderall and Ritalin, which are typically used to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, as "study drugs" to stimulate their memory, concentration and focus. Alarms are being sounded over this "drug abuse" crisis, but Reason magazine wonders what the big deal is:
Democrats seem to be having all the victimization fun these days, with about every third one throwing out the racism or sexism charge five or six times a day. Please allow me, as a conservative/libertarian/moralistic pompous ass, to join in briefly. Just because Dick Cheney is from Wyoming, that doesn't give him any more right than a New Yorker or a Californian to make fun of West Virginia:
The yung'uns are personal-finance innumerates:
In a national financial literacy exam administered by the National Jump$tart Coalition, 62 percent of Indiana teens failed. One-third passed with a grade of C or D, and less than 5 percent earned a B. None received an A.
We have lots of Amish around here. How come no news outlet has done any hard-hitting reporting like this? Amish buggies no match for cars in collisions:
Two collisions that crushed horse-drawn buggies and critically injured two Amish men in Pennsylvania this month have renewed attention to the mismatch between fast, heavy metal motor vehicles and slow, lightweight wooden buggies.
Attention needed renewing? This just in: Bikes vs. trucks -- trucks win.
Some people will read about this "simple" man and think, "What a beautiful life." Others will wonder how someone could be such a loner for so long:
A Bloomington man who died last year at age 100, never married or had children, lived simply and supported himself by caring for other people's lawns and property has left his entire $650,000 estate to Indiana University's Hilltop Garden and Nature Center.
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Allen County has its own channel at YouTube, though it's not exactly scintillating viewing so far. There are seven clips there now, and five of them are about . . . drum roll, please . . . septic tanks!
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=EMUB0OReDFs]
After every National Spelling Bee, it is required that at least one witty columnist write a piece making fun of all the exotic words that pop up by using every single one of them in a "We don't talk like that at the coffee shop" column.
I appreciate the interest of animal-rights activists in saving the lives of poor, oppressed frogs, so I can understand their advocacy of computer software that lets students do virtual dissections. But this is going a little far:
Marilyn Grindley, a member of the Ohio County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said dissecting animals "desensitizes kids. It tells them that we do not have any respect for any animal." She wants to end the practice.
I don't think any weather prediction more than a few days out should be taken seriously. So this is no great shock:
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Tropical Storm Risk Consortium in London and, most recently, the Coastal Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at North Carolina State University in Raleigh are now among teams attempting to handicap the storm season weeks or months ahead.
All you Bush-bashers have been picking on Condi for such trifling things as her national-security competence. Now, finally something that's serious:
Condoleezza Rice may be a top diplomat who once aspired to being a concert pianist but she let her hair down a bit in Stockholm to meet the flamboyant rock group KISS.
How to tell if an issue merits a lot more discussion: When liberals start saying "the debate is over":
The won't even leave the classics alone:
Everything old is new again. And we're not just talking about Indiana Jones and the raiders of the movie box office or that remake of "Get Smart."
Coming to the small screen this summer are "Million Dollar Password" and "Celebrity Family Feud," updated versions of vintage game shows.
We all know about "gambling" addictions, and even that some people are addicted more to one form, like poker or horse racing, than others. But this is a new one on me:
A Muncie man who stole more than $3,000 from a group promoting education is blaming his misdeeds on an addiction to buying scratch-off lottery tickets.
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Indiana's curfew law has been declared invalid and reworked so many times that most people probably don't know whether we even have one or not. We do (so far). Fishers is working to bring its curfew law in line with the state's, and Plymouth is working to make its even stricter than the state's.
Wow. "Sex and the City" has knocked "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" off its No. 1 spot. Has anybody, I wonder, considered what a blockbuster it would be if those two movies could somehow be combined? It would be a guy's picture and a chick flick.
OK, fine. On your way, could you pick up Alec Baldwin, who was supposed to move to France if George Bush were elected?
SUSAN SARANDON, who appeared in three films last year and won kudos for her TV movie "Bernard and Doris," is still not a contented soul. She says if John McCain gets elected, she will move to Italy or Canada. She adds, "It's a critical time, but I have faith in the American people."
New York has become the latest state where gay marriages are possible. What's that? You missed the court ruling or legislative action that did that? Well, you were just looking in the wrong places. You should have been listening to Gov. David A. Paterson, who ordered state agencies to begin recognizing same-sex marriages performed in California and Massachusetts as well as Canada and other countries where the unions can legally be entered into:
