Rush on down to Crazy Uncle Sam’s Car Lot, where the rides are always fine, and the deals are always hot! No money for a down payment? No problem! Trouble getting financing? Not here, friend! We offer six months’ same as cash, we’ll eat the first three payments, and the first 500 customers will get free car washes for a year! How can Uncle Sam do that, you ask? Because he’s craaaaaazy! And if you don’t take advantage of these sweet deals, you’re even craaaazier!!
“If you buy a car from Chrysler or General Motors, you will be able to get your car serviced and repaired, just like always,” the president promised yesterday morning from the executive mansion.
And that’s not all, folks! “Your warranty will be safe,” the salesman in chief went on. “In fact, it will be safer than it’s ever been, because starting today, the United States government will stand behind your warranty.”
[. . .]
The president had promised car buyers everything but rich Corinthian leather seats — and reporters leaving the Grand Foyer got in the spirit of the day. “Zero money down!” proposed one. “Will he throw in a few oil changes?” wondered another.
NBC’s Chuck Todd, during White House press secretary Robert Gibbs’s afternoon briefing, observed that “the president stood up there almost like an advertisement.”
Gibbs responded by supplementing the president’s pitch. “No person that goes out today to buy a Jeep — which I love to drive, I used to have a Jeep — if somebody wants to go buy a Jeep, they should not hesitate to do so, because that warranty will be insured. . . . If somebody wants to go buy, as the president said, the Motor Trend Car of the Year, they can go do that.”
If they start bringing in circus elephants and pushing used cars — but, nah, that would be silly.
Those of us who admit to having any kind of libertarian instinct run the risk of getting called hypocritcal or dishonest or philosophically incoherent any time we express the mildest approval for any kind of government action (see previous post on high-speed rail, for example). So I feel bad about criticizing Neal Boortz, syndicated radio talk-show host and self-described libertarian, but he went off the deep end a little about seat belts.
He starts his piece by wondering “how many people will Glen Richardson kill this year?” Richardson is the Republican Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives, and his sin, in Boortz’s estimation, is holding up a bill that would remove the exemption pickup trucks have under the state’s mandatory seatbelt laws. “Statistics show that fatalities in pickup accidents in Georgia exceed fatalities in other vehicles by 31%,” Boortz writes. So Richardson is killing all those pickup drivers, never mind that they choose to drive without seat belts.
Boortz realizes he will be called on the libertarianism question, so he attempts a preemptive strike:
I’m told that Speaker Richardson is refusing to allow it to come up for a vote. When asked why, he mutters something about government intrusion into our lives. Who knows what the real reason might be.
You want to talk about government intrusion? How about the government seizing money from me to pay for the medical treatment of idiots who don’t fasten seatbelts? How about the expanded Medicaid costs? How about the danger from secondary collisions caused by people who aren’t kept behind the wheel when they get into a wreck? Oh .. and how about the millions of Federal highway dollars the State of Georgia loses every year because of this pickup exemption?
You’ve heard the old joke about the kid who killed his parents then begged for the mercy of the court because he was an orphan. The “your stupidity will cost me money” is a little like that. The government ensnares us with all sorts of funding and rules that require us to be responsible for one another, then that fact is used to expand government still further. I can no longer be responsible for me and mine but have to pay for your stupid actions, too. That is the sort of collectivist, anti-individualist drift that should be resisted, not aided and abetted.
Don’t give me that “You’re not a libertarian” crap either. You can drive your car all you want .. 24/7 .. on your own property or on the private property of another person without wearing a seatbelt. Go rent a racetrack and do it. When you elect to drive on public highways you are a party to a contract with every other driver. If that contract, which requires insurance, headlights, brakes and such as well as seatbelts, is too inconvenient for you .. then catch a cab.
But if I harm myself through my own stupidity, what does it matter where I do it? Whether I kill myself on the road by not wearing a seat belt or motorcycle helmet or in my own living room by smoking or drinking, the issue is still one of whether I affect only myself or “society” must also bear some of the burden. If government makes you pay for my visit to the intensive-care unit, that should be your concern, not how I came to need the ICU. Let’s not confuse the implied consent we give by using the public highways — which is legitimately cited for things such as impaired driving and other reckless behavior that can harm others — and the acceptance or avoidance of personal responsibility.
Where I grew up, some relatives could be reached only by train, so I’ve had a lifelong fondness for that mode of travel. And during my time in northwest Indiana, I enjoyed the idea of having the South Shore available. How cool is it to have an electric interurban still around in this day and age? It was so easy to ride the train to the Randolph Street Station to take in downtown Chicago instead of driving through all that maddening traffic. I noted with interest the new double-decker cars the South Shore has added to the fleet, though perhaps in reality they won’t be as much fun as I imagine them to be:
“You can’t beat a view like this,” said Hackett, waving sarcastically at a portion of Northwest Indiana’s less attractive stretches of industrial land. “It’s almost like being in a new automobile — you can smell it.”
Ah, yes, that new train smell, although old-train smell isn’t that bad.
In case you’re interested, there’ll be a rally Friday at 4:30 p.m. at the Baker Street Railroad Station to drum up support for high-speed rail. President Obama’s stimulus package includes $8 billion for that service, and of the nine states in the Midwest, Indiana is the only one not to apply for any of the funding. High-speed rail is a long shot, I think — it would be extremely expensive and take a very long time, not to mention the fact that rail is for collective travel and Americans much prefer individual travel. But it’s an interesting and praiseworthy effort nonetheless. High-speed rail could drastically improve the economy of the Midwest.
And before you start screaming about a libertarian seeming to endorse federal subsidies for railroads, I know, I know. But the government subsidizes all sorts of transportation in all sorts of ways, from highway funding to support for airports. Unless we’re going to talk about an end to all federal transportation spending (which would be an interesting debate as well), there should at least be a discussion about which mode gets how much and why.
Newark police say that Konink saw a neighbor riding a motorized bar stool shortly before the man wrecked while trying to make a U-turn.
Police say that Kile Wygle, 28, had one too many before wheeling his homemade oddity around the neighborhood on March 4.
Wygle was charged with driving the bar stool while under the influence of alcohol and driving while under suspension. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and asked for a jury trial. No court date has been set.
According to a report by Officer Michael Trotter, Wygle told him that his bar stool can reach a speed of 38 mph but that he was traveling only about 20 mph when he wrecked.
At Licking Memorial Hospital, where Wygle was treated for minor injuries, he chuckled about his bar stool. Wygle told Trotter that he’d had about 15 beers before the wreck. The man refused to take a blood-alcohol test.
He was obviously just practicing for an upcoming barstool-race, which is apparently big in some parts of the country. You can even find barstool-racing kits online. Say, you know what? If we put barstool racing together with Cornhole and Ladder Ball (per Sue’s suggestion in the comments), we’ve got us the start of a festival! Here — hold my beer.
Wheee! Time travel is fun. You nod off while sampling the Internet in 2009, and you wake up in 1970:
Believe it or not, there are men in Muncie who not only support feminism and feminist ideals, but identify themselves as feminists as well.
But that doesn’t mean some people aren’t surprised by meeting men who support the social, political and economic equality between the sexes.
“The type of question that comes up is ‘How can you be a dude and be a feminist? How did that happen? How does one be a male and do feminist work?’” said Joseph Marchal. “I’ve always been a feminist. I just didn’t know it.”
No, no, not surprised at all, Dude. Wonder if a post-post-sexist pig can also be a post-post-feminist?
There may be a worse name that could have been chosen for this fast-growing sport, but, offhand, I can’t think of what it would be:
The World Championship of Cornhole selection committee is pleased to announce that Evansville, Indiana has been chosen as the host city for the World Championship of Cornhole IV. The announcement was officially made Friday, March 27, on ESPN Radio’s Dan Egierski show on WFYX in Evansville. The two-day event will take place September 5-6, 2009, at Evansville’s Metro Sports Center.
Already up to the Cornhole World Championship IV? Who knew? For the unenlightened (the story doesn’t bother to explain) the game involves tossing a corn-filled beanbag (now, there’s a contradiction for you) into a hole in a board. Some exciting fun there, huh? The reigning champs, by the way, are the Bombers of Cincinnati, Ohio. Yes, the Cornhole Bombers.
These pundits, left-leaning economists, and other designated “experts,” differ on the precise ramifications of the vanished “American Dream,” but the crux is similar: we’re entering a long, long era of reduced expectations and simpler way of life. Considering the sources—and academia is the epicenter—it’s not surprising that “Reaganism” is now a filthy word, Wall Street money-grubbers are and will be considered pariahs on the order of pornographers and ambulance-chasing lawyers, and high taxes are both necessary and desirable.
[. . .]
Most of the writing expresses hostility to entrepreneurship and the commercial world, the belief that business, large and small, is somehow dirty, anti-intellectual, and brings out the worst in people. The underclass must be protected because it’s too fragile to be trusted to the greedy, corrupt upper class; a huge, benign government needs to steer such unfortunates in their private and professional lives.
[. . .]
The left doesn’t want to hear it, but once the recession does end, the country will need a fully-engaged, humming economy, and for that to happen it’s imperative that talented, business-oriented individuals lead the way. Government’s role is to be the umpire, not the shortstop, pitcher, and clean-up hitter all in one. It’s too early to tell whether Obama, at least if he wants to be re-elected, understands that the United States is a centrist country, and once the furor over AIG and TARP companies dies down, if he tacks to the left and embarks on a program of income redistribution, a Howard Jarvis-like populism will take hold and his “transformative” plans will be scuttled.
I don’t know if I’m as optimistic as this writer. I agree that the “transformative” crowd completely misunderstands the country. I’m just not sure how much of it will be left to restore once they get done with it.
Those sinners in Indianapolis are on their way to being saved after saying their Earth Hour prayer at the global-warming altar:
The lights at the shop and some other locations in the city went out at 8:30 p.m. and stayed out for an hour. Sponsored by the World Wildlife Fund, the same observance was planned for the same local times around the globe.
At the shop, candles lit the room, and the lights-out participants expressed dedication.
“I’m very passionate about sustainable development and cutting down our carbon footprint,” said Dana Bushause, 27, a Northside Indianapolis resident. “It comes down to just making a statement, but when you multiply it by what everyone is doing all over the world, it can make a difference.”
As promised, I made my own Earth Hour statement by turning on every light in the house for that hour. Alas, it was negated by the fact that my electricity went out for a couple of hours, from about noon to 2 p.m. Is this a conspiracy? Does AEP intend that I become an Earth Firster whether I want to or not?
You’d think the story would have tried to calculate how much energy was saved, but no. Looking elsewhere, I found that there was about a 1 percent drop in electricity usage in Chicago but no discernible difference in California or New York. Oh, and those candles? Not such a great idea. Replacing the amount of light from one incandescent bulb with candles would emit about 10 times as much carbon dioxide. If you replaced one bulb with one candle, however, you’d be ahead carbon-footprintwise. But, you might protest, there would be so little illumination in that case that nothing useful could be done. That’s the whole point, you ninny.
Today we have two great examples of “What, me, too?” encounters with police. First up, the father-son team of Derrick and John Sadler. Derrick, deputy coroner for Kosciusko County, was nabbed for drunken driving. So police called his father, the county coroner, to come pick up his son’s vehicle:
When he arrived Trooper Brian Kreger found probable cause that John was also operating while intoxicated.
[. . .]
Both Derrick and John Sadler are in the Whitley County jail.
Wonder who’ll make the phone call? Whether she hears “Guess what, Mom?” or “Guess what, honey?” that’s not going to be a happy woman.
Then we have poor Sergio Fernandez. The good news is that the guy who burglarized his house, Juan Trujuillo, was nabbed, along with the stolen goods. Unfortunately, the goods consisted of 15 bricks of marijuana:
Fernandez got home as police were checking his house and gave officers permission to search it. When they did, the report says they found another 14 ounces of marijuana.
Let these be lessons. If you’re going to be an innocent bystander, don’t forget the innocent part.
As someone with two cats that frequently decide to chase each other through my legs while I’m trying to walk up or down the stairs, I don’t think this figure is exaggerated:
People are always falling for their pets. Apparently, some are falling over them, too.
About 86,000 injuries each year occur when good people go klutzy around their animals and end up in emergency rooms. Most stumble over their cats and dogs. Others get pushed or pulled by a dog on a walk — or are doing the chasing themselves. Some pet owners are tripped up by food bowls and pet toys.
If they were dogs, I’d think they were just being the goofy, clumsy beasts they are. But cats now; I suspect a plot. They know they have nine lives, after all, and I’ve got just the one.
Good thing I’m not one of those New World Order conspiracy nuts; this would be downright worrisome:
Once hailed as a beacon of rebirth in the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Freedom Tower has been stripped of its patriotic name — which has been swapped out for the more marketable “One World Trade Center,” Port Authority officials conceded yesterday.
It makes a certain amount of sense to make marketing a top goal — isn’t that what we do with our freedom? But using the location’s actual address — which used to be One World Trade Center and Two World Trade Center — as a name gives it an unfortunate spin since there’s only going to be one building now. Oh, but guess who one of the first customers is? A Chinese firm, Vantone Industrial Co., will lease six floors. One World Trade indeed.
I agree with Mike Pence on a lot of issues. This isn’t one of them:
The Free Flow of Information Act simply provides qualified protection for members of the news media against compelled disclosure of confidential sources. In doing so, this legislation strikes a balance between the public interest in the free flow of information against the public interest in compelling testimony in limited circumstances such as situations involving grave risk to national security or imminent threat of bodily harm.
Giving journalists a shield law is wrong for a couple of related reasons, as noted here before. 1. Who is a “journalist” these days? Why should someone who gets a paycheck from a newspaper get any more protection than someone who dispenses useful information gratis on a blog? 2. How is “the press” supposed to be the watchdog of government if it lets government define who is a member of the press?
And, as a practical matter, with mainstream journalists the object of scorn and newspapers folding left and right, I don’t think this is exactly the point in history at which we want to be seen as recipients of a government privilege.
And, while I disagree with Paul Helmke on a lot of issues, this isn’t one of them. The head of the Brady organization is also an attorney with First Amendment specialization, and before he was maor he acted as The News-Sentinel’s lawyer. He thinks it’s a mistake to focus on journalists instead of the grand jury process itself. Give all Americans, not just journalists, greater protections against unreasonable prosecutors, and the problem will be taken care of.
Predicting snowfall totals for Colorado Springs is a crapshoot: How far south that precipitation lasts is often anyone’s guess. Add to that the potential for a narrow band of heavy snow to suddenly develop and, on Wednesday morning, none of the meteorologists could predict for sure what’s going to fall where.
“Here in Pueblo, we could get an inch or 2, or we could get a foot,” Magnuson said.
Since predicting any weather more than 48 hours out is little more than voodoo science, I don’t know why we watch the forecasts so intently, but we do. I know people who leave the Weather Channel on in the background while they’re reading or doing other things. Spooky.
Guess it’s a sign of tough times when people decide improving their minds has to give way to more basic concerns. In the “One Book” programs gaining popularity in the country, communities read and discuss novels such as “Grapes of Wrath” and “To Kill a Mockingbird.” Here in Fort Wayne, we’ve done “Frankenstein” and “Fahrenheit 451.” But for “Hamilton County Reads,” they’re going to tackle “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbar Kingsolver, which sets out to prove “that a local diet is not just better for the economy and the environment but also better on the table.”
WWPL is hosting several special events relating to this program:
April 2, at 6:30 p.m., Bill Rice, Educator with Purdue Extension in Hamilton County, will be at the Westfield Washington Public Library to talk about “How to Start a Vegetable Garden.” Bill specializes in Agriculture and Natural Resources and will have expert advice for helping you and your family eat fresh from the garden!
Oh, I get it. The green movement has made it even to small-town Indiana. They need help on starting a vegetable garden in Westfield?
It’s OK to send your team to play basketball here, but please quit trying to hijack our tourists:
Tourism boosters from Louisville, Ky., planned to transform Downtown Indianapolis into their canvas today — by projecting red-tinged laser images and messages on the sides of Downtown buildings.
The light show would have proclaimed why Louisville (with its Sweet 16 hoops team, the University of Louisville Cardinals) is so wonderful.
“This is a great way for us to leave a mark, albeit a temporary one, in Indianapolis,” Mayor Jerry Abramson said in a statement.
“We want the people of Indianapolis to know that Louisville is a ‘city of possibilities,’ a city where a national championship is in the Cards.”
Watch it there, Louisville. “City of possibilities” is way too close to “Room for Dreams.” Wouldn’t want a lawsuit in addition to the laser ban, would you? And how dare a podunk, wannabe big city put on airs in a world-class city like Indianapolis. How do we know it’s world-class? Well, the newspaper capitalizes Downtown, that’s how. Does the Courier-Journal write “D”owntown Louisville or just “d”owntown? Thought so.
Yesterday, we tackled state songs. Today, let’s do flags. Ever looked at Indiana’s? It has a torch, the name “Indiana” and 19 stars — know what they mean? It means we were the 19th state, you simpleton:”The 13 stars in the outer circle represent the 13 original colonies of the United States of America; the 5 stars in a half circle represent the states admitted prior to Indiana (but after the original 13), and the larger star atop the flame of the torch of Liberty represents Indiana.” Borrrrring!
Steve Champan over at reason.com thinks almost all state flags could be improved:
A lot more care goes into designing the basketball uniforms at big public universities than went into designing what flies over those schools.
[. . .]
A good flag is clean, simple, and distinctive. The experts at the North American Vexillological Association (NAVA) offer an excellent rule: A child should be able to draw it from memory.
[. . .]
The more a flag tries to do, the less likely it is to succeed. Illinois features a bald eagle perched on a boulder, which bears the dates 1818 and 1868. The bird grips a stars-and-stripes shield in one talon, and its beak holds a streamer proclaiming “State Sovereignty, National Union” (with “sovereignty” upside down). At its feet are what looks like palm fronds and shoots of grass, and behind it is a sun rising over a body of water. All these images congregate above the state name.
This is not a flag but a novel.
At least our’s isn’t as busy as the Illinois flag. But it could use some improvement. Chapman lists some of the simple ones he likes — Arizona with its starburst, Wyoming with its buffalo, South Carolina with its crescent moon over a palmetto tree. And of course, there is Texas. Who doesn’t know what “The Lone Star State” means?
The post office will run out of money this year unless it gets help, Postmaster General John Potter told Congress on Wednesday as he sought permission to cut delivery to five days a week.
“We are facing losses of historic proportion. Our situation is critical,” Potter told a House panel.
The agency lost $2.8 billion last year and is looking at much larger losses this year. Reducing mail delivery from six days to five days a week could save $3.5 billion annually, Potter said.
Losing all that money, and still Congress balks at what seems to be a reasonable step to deal with it:
Potter first raised the possibility of delivery cutbacks in January, but the idea has not been warmly received in Congress.
“With the Postal Service facing budget shortfalls, the subcommittee will consider a number of options to restore financial stability and examine ways for the Postal Service to continue to operate without cutting services,” subcommittee chairman Stephen F. Lynch, D-Mass., said.
Lynch said the financial stability of the Postal Service is “critical to the American expectation of affordable six-day mail delivery.”
I have zero expectation of “affordable six-day mail delivery.” I couldn’t care less. What about you? I can live with five days — even four. It’s not like any of us are waiting desperately by the mailbox for critical news of where that new railroad line is finally going to go. Dang — over by New Haven. Guess that’s the place to build the new cattle pens.
When something has grown beyond what it was meant to be, when it seems to exist only to serve itself instead of the people it was created for and by, maybe it’s time to think about letting it go or at least redefining it. That’s the conclusion reached by people on Chicago’s South Side, who are ending the St. Patrick’s Day Parade they began in 1979:
A 30-year tradition that began as a whimsical walk gave way to a massive street party filled with drunken brawlers and underage drinkers.
Fearing a growing public-safety risk, organizers said Wednesday that they were suspending the parade in its current incarnation.
“It just got totally out of hand,” Hughes said. “It’s a shame, but I understand the decision.”
Except to note that summer is coming up, I won’t say why I posted this. You connect the dots. Something to think about.
When’s the last time you saw anybody smoking on TV, unless it was in an old movie on one of the cable networks? Are smokers going to start feeling like blacks must have in the 1950s, when television producers pretended they didn’t exist? Just a passing thought, triggered by:
Smoking in a film? Rate it R, so that no children under 17 are exposed to it.
That idea, at least, is what anti-smoking advocates were promoting at a rally Wednesday evening in Downtown Indianapolis.
So, those under 17 can’t handle even seeing somebody smoke? What if they see somebody on the street puffing away?
I know, I know. The idea is that if teens see somebody smoking in a film, it might give them the idea that the habit is condoned by somebody, which will make them desperate to try it themselves. This argument actually had some validity at one point. When I was growing up, it was seen as cool to smoke, and TV and the movies reinforced that idea. But today, when teens are relentlessly bombarded with the evils of smoking?
So, I’ve gotten drunk and stupid once or twice in my life. But there weren’t that many witnesses, and none of the people involved have written books about the incidents so far as I know, so my indiscretions have been allowed to dissolve into the mists of time. They haven’t haunted the rest of my life. There was this one time, for example, when a bunch of us who were stationed at Fort Hood started drinking on Friday night in San Antonio and somehow ended up in a motel room in Mexico . . . but let’s not ruin a good memory.
Thank goodness there was no such thing as the Internet back then:
An Indiana state trooper is under investigation for postings on a social networking Web site in which he refers to himself as a “garbage man,” calls those he arrests “trash” and brags about heavy drinking.
State police Maj. Carlos Pettiford told television station WTHR that the agency was looking into whether Trooper Chris Pestow’s Facebook posts violated department policy and whether he used the site on state time.
[. . .]
Some of the entries showed Pestow with a .357 Magnum pointed at his head and drinking beer with friends. He also posted pictures of a crash involving his police cruiser and wrote that a person who resists arrest and threatens police officers would “probably end up shot.”
We’ve all been horses assess a time or two in our lives (though some abuse the privilege). It’s part of growing up, and we occasionally even have lapses of judgment in our adult lives. It’s part of the learning process as we decide which rules are important and how to fit our obligations into our socialization. But how does it change things when the lapses are around forever and can be accessed by anyone? I don’t think anyone knows for sure yet, so it’s better to be cautious. Be stupid at home, and don’t blab about it on the Internet. If you get a job, don’t Twitter a friend that you’re really happy except that the commute’s gonna suck. Your new boss might read it and rescind the offer. (An actual piece of advice I heard on”Good Morning America” today).
On a related subject, I’d like to correct something I heard on the Bob & Tom show the other day. A comedian asked, “What’s the last thing a stupid redneck says before he dies?” Hey, ya’ll, watch this! No, sir. That’s the second-to-the-last thing he says. The last is, “Hold my beer.”
Maryland is worried that its state song, written during the Civil War when people were kind of riled up, might be a little rough by today’s standards, and there is some thought of softening it up:
The song begins with a hostile reference to President Abraham Lincoln, who brought troops through Baltimore en route to protect Washington: “The despot’s heel is on thy shore, Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!”
It ends with a call for the state to stand up to the Union: “She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb — Huzza! She spurns the Northern scum! She breaths! She burns! She’ll come! Maryland! My Maryland!”
I’m not quite sure what the problem is. I’ve lived up nawth most of my life, and there are despots, and the scum, they do abound. But as long as we’re cleaning up state songs, I wish somebody would look at Indiana’s. “On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” is very troubling.
First of all, it opens with the writer longing to see his “mother in the doorway,” just as she stood years ago, “her boy to greet,” so there’s the whole oedipal thing. Then he writes about strolling arm and arm by the river with “sweetheart Mary” by his side. This is clearly a homophobic song, or at least a heterocentric one, as Barney Frank would probably be happy to point out. Finally, we learn that Mary is currently “sleeping in the churchyard.” Unless Mary is narcoleptic and/or somnambulistic, there are some questions that need answering here. Was Mary murdered by the writer? Or did she commit suicide because he wouldn’t shut up about his dear mother? Maybe she slipped and fell into the Wabash and was overcome by industrial run-off.
Maybe we could get John Mellencamp to write us some new lyrics. “Little Pink Houses on the Banks of the Wabash” or something.
The Obama administration appears to be backing away from the phrase “global war on terror,” a signature rhetorical legacy of its predecessor.
In a memo e-mailed this week to Pentagon staff members, the Defense Department’s office of security review noted that “this administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT.] Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’ “
Overseas Contingency Operation — how catchy. Just as a matter of curisoity, though, what was 9/11? Oh, wait, that was somebody else’s Overseas Contingency Operation!
Oh, my. Some distressing news. You don’t have to 10-62 on this, but if you, do, 10-40 it, OK? It’s a 10-18 situation, maybe even requiring a 10-33. So, 10-12 till I get back to you:
Today, the Dallas Police Department moves to a new plain-language system that’s supposed to make communications more universal and less complicated. No more of those distinctive radio codes or signals.
The department says it’s following a nationwide trend, but some call it the end of an era.
Others say the switch is no big deal. Many Dallas police dispatches already include plain language because it’s simple.
I get the plain English part, to end the confusion and make the police’s job easier and safer. There are too many departments using too many different codes. But it sure does take away some of the romance, doesn’t it? I did police beat for a while on my first reporting job in Wabash, and I learned the city police codes as part of the job. Listening the the back and forth on the police radio was like being part of a secret club. You didn’t know what was going on without the decoder ring, and not that many people had one.
All those who’ve talked about “downtown development” have stressed the importance of reaching some magic tipping point where there are enough people to make attractions worthwhile and enough attractions to draw the people. No one ever seems sure about how to get to that point — people first or attractions first or a little of this, a little of that? — but the condo part of Harrison Square was at least meant to address the people part of the equation. But the 62 unit-version was downsized by half, and now there’s talk of scaling back even further:
New artist renderings show scaled-back plans for 17 condo units.
[. . .]
The new plans are just an option and haven’t been set in stone.
[. . .]
Fort Wayne officials have said the city has not been presented with or accepted any design changes to the condo project.
Well, I hope not. Any city official who “accepts” this should be run out of town. A 17-unit condo complex as part of a mixed-use grand plan to rejuvenate downtown? Are they actually serious? If something isn’t coming off as planned, you don’t just keep downsizing it and hope for the best. It’s time get on with the baseball-diamond part and rethink the rest of it.
