Remember when IPFW put on "Corpus Christi" and all the resulting furor? I was one of the ones who questioned Chancellor Mike Wartell's judgment in letting all that unfold. It wasn't a matter of whether the school had the academic freedom to put on such a controversial play. It was the idea that mounting a production so scornful of Christianity in a place that takes its Christianity so seriously would make campus-city collaboration a lot more difficult than it needed to be.
I don't know who the next basketball coach at Indiana University will be, but I predict a long and healthy relationship. I base this not on sports knowledge but on my understanding of the rules of breakups. The No. 1 rule is: The first relationship you have after your heart is broken is never a permanent one; it is the interum affair, the placeholding fling that you enter into lightly while you mend. Mike Davis was the post-breakup beau; he was never destined to be the next true love.
If any of you think you're unatrractive, at least be comforted in knowing you're not that ugly.
Not only are physically unattractive teenagers likely to be stay-at-homes on prom night, they're also more likely to grow up to be criminals, say two economists who tracked the life course of young people from high school through early adulthood.
Don't know how I got so lucky, but I happened to catch the beginnings of two of those half-hour infomercials on WANE-TV yesterday (at least we know the local TV networks still take that "day of rest" stuff seriously). At the beginning of each of them was a text advisory something to the effect of, "This is a paid advertisement, and the endorsement of WANE-TV should not be implied." Or inferred, either, I'm guessing.
The filing deadline for the May primary is noon today, so it's time to think about what some of the issues might be. An important one -- which the News-Sentinel editorial page will be concentrating on -- is what county candidates think about the consolidated government issue. It's no surprise that there is a split between city and county residents, with those in the city tending to favor consolidation more than those in the county.
Boy wouldn't this throw the whole presidential race, which nobody has figured out anyway, into absolute chaos?
But what are they thinking that they're not saying? Here's a hunch, based not on any inside knowledge but only on what I know of people who practice politics, and those who practice it within the Bush White House.
Could there be two more different people, at least in what they preach and do, than Jesse Jackson and Condoleezza Rice? Yet they came out one and two in a poll of blacks about who the "most important black leader is." Guess that means, wonder of wonders, that blacks are no more monolithic than any other group. Imagine a poll asking who the "most important white leader is."
I just finished a book from last year (I waited for the paperback) -- John Scalzi's "Old Man's War" -- that I highly recommend to science fiction fans. Its the first thing I've read in a long time that reminds me of Robert Heinlein. It starts this way -- "I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave, Then I joined the army." -- and just gets better and better. The protagonist is John Perry, who joins the Colonial Defense Forces because he has nothing left to keep him on Earth.
Another generation of confused Florida voters is on the way.
Looks like Indiana is getting in on the Reality TV craze:
A former Indiana journalist has created a TV show that will give viewers a look into the world of the juvenile justice system.The eight-week reality series called "M-T-V-Juvies" will reveal the stories and daily lives of 16 teens in Indiana's Lake County Juvenile Center.
Leave it to Antonin Scalia to speak the truth, if rudely:
People who believe the Constitution would break if it didn't change with society are "idiots," U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says.
[...]
"The Constitution is not a living organism, it is a legal document. It says something and doesn't say other things."
Yeah, the vice president should have been more forthcoming about his hunting accident, and the White House should have been more forthcoming. As a sports writer, who does not normally talk about politics, said to me, "This IS a big deal. He's the vice president; he doesn't have a private life." About the only thing the delay did was reinforce the stereotypes many hold about the Bush administration -- the secrecy, the obstinancy, all of it.
Well, maybe this is true:
Money doesn't buy happiness, and now there's a study to prove it. Australian researchers found that people in well-off Sydney are among the most miserable in the country, while those in some of the poorest areas are much more satisfied with their lives.
But it's been my experience that money makes shopping for happiness a lot more enjoyable.
Think even lethal injection is a cruel and unusual form of capital punishment? This seems like a pretty good alternative.
Anybody else have a problem with government ordering a business to stock a specific item?
A Massachusetts regulatory board voted on Tuesday to require Wal-Mart stores to stock morning-after contraceptives, two weeks after three women in the state sued Wal-Mart for refusing to fill orders for the pills.
Let me see if I have this straight. The liquor wholesalers are afraid the Big Boxes could get wine cheap and sell it cheap. And they have the clout to persuade the General Assembly to prevent that possibility by enacting rules that will drive many small wineries out of business. All so the wine, just like beer and hard liquor, will have to go them so they can add their markup to it before it gets to me.
I'm as big a champion of downtown redevelopment as anyone, but I hope the proposal for a downtown baseball stadium gets a thorough, serious debate. It seems like a big, costly risk to me.
The popular local blog Fort Wayne Observed is back after being turned off for a few weeks, and with some changes. Blog owner Nathan Gotsch is doing the "other pursuits" thing (hope that means things are going well for him in California) and has transferred the blog to Mitch Harper, the former state legislator who now runs the Indiana Parley blog.
I was glad to see this piece on why the "Brokeback Mountain" breakout meme ("Even Red State conservatives are flocking to see it!") is BS (if you fear I am descending into vulgarity, consider that it stands for "baloney sandwich"; no, not bologna -- we like to spell things like they sound in Kentucky). Now, I don't have to seem like the only homophobe or in-denial-about-his-own-gay-tendencies man in town because I don't want to go see simulated homosexual sex on the big screen.
