Fort Wayne is not Detroit, and a baseball stadium downtown would not be the equivalent of the Super Bowl. But there's lesson to be learned here:
Yet with the exception of a few square miles in the center of town, many residents say they have not seen any improvement. And they don't expect the Super Bowl to have an effect on their lives.
Just what we've all been waiting to see -- a prosecutor in a bondage mask.
It's startling that Indiana's Porter County, not exactly an urban hotbed, would have one of the worst heroin problems in the nation. None of the stories I've seen about the issue have tried to explain why that particular drug is so prevalent. Is it because of Porter County's proximity to Chicago or Lake County, I wonder? It wouldn't take many cases for Porter to have a high per-capita usage.
I wonder if city planners thought reaction to their billboard ordinance would be tame, since nothing that drastic is proposed; billboards would be have to be smaller and a little lower. But it turns out a lot of people are unhappy. Those who own and use the billboards don't want any changes at all. And many of the "make our city beautiful" types would like the things outlawed altogether.
Here's the complete text of the president's State of the Union speech.
There were two distinct parts of the speech -- foreign policy and America's place in the world, and domestic policy. On the first part, an A+. On the second part, a B-. Overall, he didn't sound like a president down in the polls, and I'd guess this will move his numbers up.
Just in case you doubted that everybody's getting into blogging these days:
From death row in Baltimore Vernon Lee Evans doles out philosophy and advice to the curious, confused and lonely around the world on a unique blog, but his blogging days are numbered with the approach of his execution early next month.
It's comforting to know I don't have to try to keep up with the latest slang:
I wasn't that thrilled with my efforts at live-blogging the governor's State of the State address. Commenting on something that's still in progress leads to short, shallow posts lacking a lot of insight, and it's hard to pay attention to what someone is saying right now when you're reacting to and typing about what he said a minute ago. So for the president's State of the Union speech tonight, I'll do it a little differently. I'll watch the whole thing, then post a lengthy reaction to the entire speech. If you want to weigh in, I'll try to have it up within a half-hour of his finish.
We can never declare the end of history -- the resolution of one conflict (such as communism vs. capitalism) usually signals but an interlude before the next struggle (like the one we're now in between modernism and reactionary fundamentalism). Unfortunately, the political philosopher who most understood this has himself been misunderstood.
One more reason to find a new home for the United Nations:
The U.N. has a plan to make every Miss America Pageant contestant happy by bringing about "world peace."
All it will take, says the draft of a visionary proposal by the U.N. Development Program, is to getting rid of all the pesky nations of the world.
Fort Wayne Indiana etc., a new blog in town, sounds off about the Allen County Public Library spending more than $500,000 for new chairs on a one-bid contract. Among the 1,860 Herman Miller-brand chairs are 110 chairs for staff from the Herman Miller Aeron line at a cost of $560.74 each. Not only does a review of those chairs suggest they might be a tad overpriced, but " . . .
Partly because the electronic media almost lost one of their stars, we're seeing the kind of information about Iraq that has been scarce before now. I watched "Good Morning America's" report this morning about the injuries sustained by "World News Tonight" co-anchor Bob Woodruff, and it included a look at how sophisticated combat medical procedures have become.
Why Mike Pence is becoming THE star of the conservative movement (what's left of it, that is, in the sense of "limited federal government") -- appearing on Fox News Sunday, he said:
Well, I believe President Bush has been an extraordinary commander in chief. I believe he's demonstrated what it is to practice honor in your personal life, in Congress. And in his heart, I believe he is a conservative man.
I always knew there was a good reason they sent me to Vietnam; it just took me awhile to figure it out: to make the country safe for American tourists who want to have the VC experience:
At the beginning of the tunnel complex here, there's a wall draped with clothing - vests, cone-shaped peasant hats, capes in camouflage colors. Oh yes, and rifles. Real rifles, but thankfully without the ammo.
For those worried aboout which radicals can come to the United States to speak or caught up in high school controversies, here is what real censorship looks like:
In the Chinese government's latest effort to stifle dissent, propaganda chiefs have shut down one of the country's most influential newspapers after it ran a story about distortions in Chinese textbooks.
Show of hands: Anybody sorry that someone who "sympathizes with the resistance in Iraq" didn't get his tenured professorship at Notre Dame? Anybody planning to write a big, fat check to the ACLU to help enable this guy to lecture us on our imperialism?
So, the Colts commission a study that ends up showing that, surprise, surprise:
When it comes to identity, excitement and pride, the people of Indiana consider the Colts important. More than that, the Colts are a good value.
And this is called a groundbreaking, first-of-its-kind study, a group commissioning a survey that says exactly what it wants said? If you believe that, you'll believe the Colts can win a playoff game.
Twenty years ago tomorrow, when we sent a teacher into space and lost her. Until the Twin Towers of 2001, that was the most gripping public moment in my memory, one of those stunning, numbing catastrophes that have people at work huddled around the TV set in shock and disbelief. I thought then, and still do, that there was at least something comprehensible about a teacher dying in pursuit of the unknown. The more we know about Christa McAuliffe, the sadder her death seems:
Sometimes I like a nice glass of red wine after a hard day's work; many prefer a beer or a martini or a hit of something illegal, but I'll take the red wine. I also enjoy a really great meal -- crisp salad, a main course with a couple of side dishes, some crusty bread, a light dessert. I don't need the meal with the wine or the wine with the meal. Each is enjoyable on its own. But one can complement the other, and there's nothing quite like a great meal with a glass of great red wine.
Speaking of high schools and the First Amendment (we were, weren't we?), remember the dust-up over the school paper's reports on oral sex down in Columbus? The story is starting to get play elsewere. Wonder why.
