The first thing theatergoers will notice about the revival of “A View of the Bridge,” Arthur Miller’s 1950s drama about a working-class Italian-American family in Red Hook, is that the characters are speaking a different language: Brooklynese. You got a problem with that!?

You can hear the mellifluous — some might say grating — dialect being celebrated on Broadway by Scarlett Johansson and Liev Schreiber. But that may be the only place. Linguists say features of the classic accent are heard less and less in the city itself, especially among the younger generation. Mocked and stereotyped, the long o’s and w’s have fallen out of favor, unless you’re auditioning for a mob film.

A lot of other accents are disappearing, too. You don’t hear that many deep-South drawls or New England twangs anymore. They’re all being swamped by the flat, perfect tones of TV newscasterese. Too bad — we’re losing a lot of regional charm.

Indiana has about 6,000 public pedestrian and highway railroad grade crossings, which is more than all but four other states. Because of the high number of highway-rail conflict points, Indiana is consistently among the top states with the most railroad crossing crashes. During 2008, there were 139 highway-rail crashes in Indiana, resulting in 44 injuries and 19 fatalities.

The headline on the story is “Too many car-train incidents,” which is an odd thing to say when you think about it. It implies that a certain number of car-train incidents — don’t know what it is, maybe there should be a study – would be acceptable. Go over that number, though, and it’s - whoops! — too darn many car-train incidents.

The story quotes the Indiana Department of Transportation commissioner as saying that “all train collisions with vehicles or pedesterians and in some way preventable.” That’s not really all that helpful, so allow me to elaborate on “some way:” That train is not going to be in the prevention mode. It is big, it has a schedule, it can go no where else but on those tracks. Prevention is the job of the certain loser in any train-not train collision, i.e. the car, other vehicle or pedestrian. So, above all, don’t drink and drive or walk across train tracks.

You’re welcome.

The Saints coach made all the right moves, most notably calling for an onside kick to start the second half, depriving the Colts of the ball when Indianapolis had a 10-6 lead and changing the tone of the game.

Until that play, it was anybody’s game, but the Colts still had the edge. The onside kick completely changed the momentum of the game.

And it was a stupid call. An onside kick in the middle of the game is such a risky move — if the Colts had gotten the ball, they would have had terrific field position and another touchdown, and the game would have been all but over. What possessed the Saints to take such a risk?

Well, they’ve been doing that all year, because they bought into the idea that they were more than a mere football team. They were the spirit of the Who Dat Nation, representing the downtrodden folks of New Orleans, who had to fight back not only from the devastating forces of nature but an inept and surely racist federal government that made their pain and suffering even worse.

So, you see — it was George Bush’s fault.

The Super Bowl finally found its soundtrack with The Who, whose halftime show provided music as big and loud as the game itself.

From guitarist Pete Townshend’s famous windmill strumming to Roger Daltrey’s pained vocals and harmonica blasts, there were no fumbles in the five-song set.

OK, no fumbles, but there weren’t any first downs, either. I think they sounded pretty awful, and listening to these wheezers going through the “teenage wasteland” refrain of “Baba O’Riley” was just surreal. I hate to speak ill of my age set, but maybe the Super Bowl should stick with younger entertainers, or at least more mature ones who don’t try to recapture what they did more than 40 years ago.

Put me down for the ‘proportional’ theory that was discussed. This seems to make the most intuitive sense. 

When you are 10 years old, a year ins’t simply a year, it is also 10% of your entire life. In terms of your ability to retain memories, it is even significantly more than that. A year for a 50-year-old is only 2% of that person’s life.

But this commenter spoke some truth, too: 

You know, when you own an old car, you’ve got every rattle and squeak cataloged in your mind. One day, you hear a new sound, and think, “Uh Oh”. Well, having an old(er) body is like that. You’ve got all your aches and pains cataloged, and one day there’s a new one, and you think, “Uh Oh”.

It’s often said that “time flies when you’re having fun.” Trust me, youngsters, that’s not the half of it. Time flies. Period.

Uh Oh.

If the best the Republican Party of Indiana can do is retread old horses who put themselves out to the pasture to begin with, we’re screwed.

It was, after all, Dan Coats who left the Senate and Evan Bayh who won his seat. Had Coats stayed, this wouldn’t have happened.

The last image most conservatives have of Dan Coats is him standing next to Harriet Myers swearing she was one of us. Don’t get me wrong — he’s a good guy.

But if we are going to run people against Evan Bayh, how about we not run the guy who gave up his seat to Bayh in the first place?

Dan Coats, a good man and a good former Senator, is a recruiting failure by the GOP. I’d gladly support Coats as the nominee. But if the best we can do is pull old politicians out of the pasture, we’re in trouble.

I know I said yesterday I thought the “Washington player” charge would be the most likely one to stick against Coats, but, honestly, I thought that would come from Democrats. And “old horse out of the pasture” would be a little harsh even if it came from the opposition. If Republicans don’t get a fresh face out there against Bayh, is it a sign, as one of the commenters suggests, that the Indiana GOP doesn’t have a very deep bench? Or is it a sign that, despite the “Brown effect,” Republicans here still feel Bayh can’t be beaten?

The charges came after an investigation that lasted more than an year into work done on a house Pabey bought with his daughter in 2007, located at 8530 Locust Ave. in Gary’s Miller neighborhood. Federal officials claim Camacho told five East Chicago employees to work on Pabey’s home, including pour cement and paint the inside, up through August 2008. The employees allegedly used city property, too, including cell phones and a cement truck.

No fancy computer fraud, no elaborate schemes to hide massive sums of money, just good, old-fashioned “get city employees to fix up my house” petty larceny. And the best part:

Pabey came into office six years ago, promising to end the corruption that plagued former Mayor Robert Pastrick’s time in office. Multiple indictments were filed against Pastrick’s allies.

Can’t wait to see what the next reform candidate comes up with.

Indiana lawmakers set their sights on puppy mills, with a new bill that would let you see what you’re getting when you buy a pet. The Indiana House has approved the bill that would require retail pet stores to give the customer information about a pet’s background before selling a dog or cat.

That information includes posting the animal’s medical history, including congenital disorders, right on its cage. The store would also have to put the name of the breeder on the cage and, when requested, disclose the address and size of the breeding operation.

So this would be pet fax, basically. I can see the commercial.

“I can knock $50 off this cat.”

“Fine. Let me see the pet fax.”

“Oh, you don’t need that. I have a letter from the last owner.”

“The pet fax, please.”

I know this is meant to put the squeeze on puppy mills, but I can see it catching on just because it’s a good idea.  When I got cats Dutch and Maggie from the shelter, the employees there told me Maggie had been in a house before but was taken in off the street. Dutch was turned in by a family that “had too many cats” and picked him to get rid of. That was useful information helped me understand some of my cats’ quirks.

Dutch, for example, has no idea what the outside is like, so he’s always trying to escape. But, being clueless, he doesn’t know what to do when he does get out, so he just sits on the porch till I pick him up and take him back inside. Maggie, on the other hand, knows exactly how mean it can be outside, so she likes it in the house, thank you very much. When Dutch tries to dart out the door, she usually just stands back and watches, with amusement, I like to think.

But Senate President Pro Tem David Long, R-Fort Wayne, said Wednesday he expects the state will eventually adopt a ban.

“As you see more and more counties and cities passing smoking bans, the opportunity for a statewide ban increases and will gain momentum,” Long said.

[. . .]

“It’s a tough environment in a short session and a tough economy for doing it,” Long said. “I fault no one for voting for that. I just don’t think we’re ready to consider that in the Senate right now.”

1. “A tough economy” for doing it means, “Let’s not do anything that might hurt business in the middle of a recession.” Is that an admission that it’s OK to hurt business when times are good? 2. Maybe so. Conservative Republicans such as Long are usually the last ones standing fast on their “let business owners decide what to do with their private property” principles when smoking bans finally do pass. The fact that even he expects the state to eventually pass a ban is more than a a little significant.

Mayor, Henry delcares, this weekend, a Go Blue Weekend.

I’m probably fussier about commas than I should be. Sometimes they’re annoying, when they show up, where they don’t belong. But missing commas bug me, too. The TV show “Good Morning America” has bothered me for years. When you’re addressing someone, your remarks and the person or group the remarks are addressed to should be separated by a comma. Looking good, Victoria. Shape up, Larry. Good Morning, America.

Now I have “Go Blue,” the cheer fans are supposed to offer up to the Indianapolis Colts, to contend with. If, as I assume, this is supposed to be telling Blue (the Colts’ nickname, derived from team colors) to get out there and make us all proud (i.e, Go), then there is an obvious need for a comma: Go, Blue. “Go blue” is in the form of an imperative, instructing people to do something they might not necessarily want to do. If you tell me to “Go green,” you are advising me to live environmentally responsibly, to which I say, stuff it in your cabbage. I could probably hold my breath till I turn blue in the face, but I choose not to. If you want someone to go blue, drink a fifth of bourbon and stand outside in the cold for a few hours. I’ll let your next of kin know how the game comes out.

Thanks, I feel much, better now.