A professor makes a find that should do wonders for our self-esteem:
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- What was the original meaning of the word "Hoosier"? In this month's issue of the Indiana Magazine of History, Jonathan Clark Smith of Hanover College unearths the earliest known references to the term. He concludes that far from being a derisive epithet (as some historians have maintained), Hoosier status was a point of pride from the start.
Ruth Holladay, the Indianapolis blogger who used to be a columnist for the Star, thinks everybody should quit picking on Jack Trudeau:
Robert Annis of the Star is reporting that Jack Trudeau has denied serving alcohol to teen-age guests at the recent Park Tudor graduation party he and his wife hosted at their Zionsville home.
And I believe him. Based, of course, on my own experience.
[. . .]
Trying to accommodate smokers:
A number of local eateries and bars have built patios, or added onto old ones, because of the smoking ordinance. The 412 Club is the only one The News-Sentinel could find that actually marked a line for smokers and nonsmokers.
If you think New Hampshire has had far too much influence on presidential politics, blame it on Indiana:
This is one anniversary we can't let slip by us. Twenty years ago today, Ronald Reagan gave his "tear down this wall speech." Conservatives like to remember it as the turning point in the Cold War, while liberals even question how much credit Reagan should be given for the end of the Cold War.
The Fort Wayne Burmese community gets cover-story treatment in The Irrawaddy, a Burmese news publication based in Thailand.
More "Summer of Love" crapola. I tell you, we're going to be absolutely sick and tired of this before all the boomer geezers get this out of their system:
The hippie movement bloomed like a kaleidoscopic flower during the Summer of Love.
To be young and part of the counterculture in 1967 was to be tuned in to a revolution that called for you to drop out of the conventional world.
Having 17 years to think about his coming execution might have made this guy more reflective, but it sure hasn't made him any smarter:
Michael Lambert has had 17 years to think about how his life could have been so different if a police officer had found the gun in his jacket pocket as he patted him down.
[ . . .]
Lambert was in the back seat of Winters' police cruiser when he pulled out the stolen gun and began shooting. He says he doesn't know why he did it.
He's getting what he deserves, i.e. a fair trial, which is something he wasn't willing to give:
On Tuesday — more than a year after he took the lead in investigating claims three men raped a stripper at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke's highly ranked lacrosse team — the Durham County district attorney will stand trial on ethics charges ranging from lying to the court to withholding potentially exculpatory evidence.
Just when almost everybody, including some death penalty supporters, has decided that capital punishment does not deter, some evidence to the contrary:
Listen up, dummies; you obviously won't be able to make it through the summer without help. If it hasn't rained in awhile, and you know what that means? Come on, think:
If you haven't been doing so already, you need to begin watering your landscapes to keep them healthy and growing.
But don't overdo it because, you know:
I'm afraid I didn't read Howard Kurtz's take on the Republican debate, since he decided to preface it by noting how much smarter he is than everybody else. In the lone debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, you see, he knew Carter had won it, because he had paid attention to the substance, unlike regular moronic voters:
The obvious point is made that, having a record he must defend, Gov. Daniels can't just rely on his RV-tour gimmick during his next campaign:
Indeed, Daniels has made some waves in these first 21/2 years in office.
[. . .]
But Republicans say for every person angry about one of those issues is a person -- or people -- who benefited.
A new study pinpoints how a portion of the brain known as the dentate gyrus, responsbile for episodic memories, creates the phenomenon known as deja vu.
This is fascinating, don't you think? Some of us were talking about it at work the other day, and it reminded us of some new brain research:
Democratic mayoral candidate Tom Henry's campaign manager has been let go, and I'm not sure what his transgression was:
Knuth said Ascher lacked strengths the campaign needed, such as working with the media, and had a style that clashed with other campaign members. Still, Knuth said he would recommend Ascher to another campaign.
This has been a proud nearly Paris Hilton-free zone since 2005, but come on. First, her 45-day sentence is changed to a 23-day one, then three days into that, she was "fitted with an electronic monitoring ankle bracelet and released to the comforts of her 2,700-square-foot Hollywood Hills home due to a mysterious and unspecified medical condition."
Never mind the polar bears and the glaciers. This global warming thing is getting serious:
Droves of cats and kittens are swarming into animal shelters nationwide, and global warming is to blame, according to one pet adoption group.
Gas prices have been high long enough for Indiana Senate Minority Leader Richard Young to notice. What's a leader to do? Fire off a letter to the state attorney general, of course, demanding an investigation:
In the letter Young said that while the economic forces of supply and demand are most often cited for the rising fuel costs, attention needs to also be paid to the profits made by oil companies and to the possibility that fuel supplies are artificially manipulated to keep prices high.
I'm not prepared yet to say where the world is headed, but I have my handbasket picked out just in case:
In their simple convent, where rows of chairs are arranged in front of a television and a crucifix, the 23 nuns of the Salesian Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province briefly put aside their pleas for the sick and the poor to pray for the San Antonio Spurs.
