Our town

Mayor Tom Henry has had plenty of good ideas. But he had one very bad idea when he flirted with trying to get a casino here as an economic development tool. Casinos do not develop the local economy. In fact, building one is about the fastest way to wreck a local economy:

Yikes. The first three items in our Police Briefs roundup yesterday are about people being shot while minding their own business. One man was shot in the leg while standing in his driveway. Another was shot in the foot while walking on the sidewalk. And this one:

A girl was shot in the leg as she was sleeping early Sunday in the top bunk bed in her southeast Fort Wayne home.

[. . .]

The Indiana Republican Party will draft its 2014 platform when its state convention is held here later this week, and, thank goodness, it doesn't look like it will have a rigid ideological agenda that will require me to do something hard, like decide where I stand on the issues. At least that's my take based on the comments of Allen County GOP Chairman Steve Shine:

When the Chipotle chain announced its intended gun ban by saying the sight of law-abiding citizens carrying guns caused customers "anxiety and discomfort," Breitbart News reacted with this:

I do not want to be a customer of one of those fancy styling salons, OK? I am always on the lookout for old-fashioned barbers who will talk my ear off while I doze in the chair in manly contentment. And I have to tell you, it's getting harder and harder. Every time I find a guy -- the place on Fairlfield next to the old Luteran hospital, the guy on Broadway close to downtown -- he's in his 80s and down to one chair that he only works at half-days. Then he retires, and I have to start another search.

Oh, well. It was nice while it lasted:

The sometimes maligned “Helmholtz” sculpture is repaired and ready to return to Fort Wayne.

OK, here's today's callous, rightwing post of ruthless bloodthirstiness. This protect seems misguided a little to me:

Community members take the time to remember innocent casualties of other countries that have been subject to drone attacks.

Ouch:

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (21Alive) -- Police are on the scene of a shooting at the Renaissance Pointe YMCA

Initial reports indicated that a man accidentally shot himself in the neck. According to an officer on the scene, the man forgot he had his gun in his gym bag and dropped the bag on the floor and the gun discharged.

When my friend Lisa's mother Vivian died in 2010, I went with Lisa and her father Art to Lindenwood Cemetery where they made arrangements for cremation. That also happens to be where my mother and father are buried, and after we'd taken care of the arrangements, we stopped by their graves. Before we left, Lisa and Art were down on their knees, clearing away the weeds from the graves. That's the kind of guy he was -- you never had to ask him for help.

Has our criminal justice system become a crime?