Opening Arguments

I’m taking next week off to visit my brother in Texas. I might post a few photos from Hill Country, though, if you feel like checking in occasionally.

One of the cool things about become a regular at a restaurant is that you learn about the things only the regulars know — food items that aren’t on the menu but which you can get by knowing to ask for them. Apparently, fast-food places have secret items, too. Out of the 10 listed here, I’ll just highlight the smallest and the biggest:

2. If you’re at Starbucks and in need of just a little caffeine, don’t worry – there’s a tiny option for you. It’s the Short size, and they don’t advertise it. It’s like a little baby cup of coffee.

 5. If you’re at Wendy’s and you’re really hungry – like, three-patties-just-won’t-cut-it hungry – go ahead and order the Grand Slam, which is four patties stacked on a bun. It’s also known as the Meat Cube. Gross.

Being a “regular” at such places isn’t quite the same, unfortunately. Kind of depressing, actually.

It’s not absolute, but we have something called the “American bystander rule.” (pdf file) In the United States in general, we do not have have a legal duty to intervene if someone else is in danger (regardless of whatever moral duty we might or might not have). Would we be better served with something like the Good Samaritan rule in Europe and some jurisdictions here that requires intervention, at least of the level of reporting a crime?

To wit:

In the wake of the gang rape of a 15-year-old girl outside a California high school, some are questioning Indiana’s lack of laws requiring bystanders to report serious crimes.

[. . .]

Indiana does have laws requiring people report child or elderly abuse.

State Rep. Vanessa Summers said she wants to investigate the issue further and discuss the possibility of expanding the law to include other serious crimes.

I have mixed feelings. I can see a lot of reasons not to require actual intervention, but reporing a crime seems like basic citizenship, i.e. doing for others in trouble what I would want them to do for me if I were in trouble. On the other hand, I can see problems in enforcing such a law, which would make it tough to apply uniformly.

What do you think?

Aw, shucks, don’t mention it. Glad to be of service:

MUNCIE — Carol Schafer has been looking for work since she and 10 other employees at Radiology Associates and Bethel Billing were laid off Nov. 8, 2008.

Now Schafer is considering expanding her job search to include nursing homes, an industry she thinks might provide more stability than others.

“It’s going to be a growing field,” she said Thursday. “Everyone is living older. Now you have people who are living into their 80s, 90s and 100s.”

The recession that has affected Schafer and 287,000 other unemployed Hoosiers comes at a time when the country’s largest generation, the Baby Boomers, are entering seniority. So while Americans are growing hungrier for jobs, nursing homes are becoming hungrier for labor.

But I want only pretty nurses, OK? And they shouldn’t talk too much, unless I ask a question, then they should answer at length and then go get my orange juice. I want three pillows — not two, not four — and the room should be precisely 72 degrees, unless I feel a chill, then somebody better come to turn up the thermostat the minute I buzz. You can keep all the games — board and electronic both — in the storeroom, but I want lots of cable channels and a van to take me to the Rib Room every Friday night.

Hey, I’ve been practicing to be a mean old man all my life. Let me enjoy the fantasy.

Isn’t ”branding” one of the biggest scams in the world? Consultants make millions convincing communities they can sell the sizzle instead of delivering the steak. The latest suckers in Indiana are in the northwest part of the state:

The Indiana Dunes in Porter County is perhaps the eighth wonder of the world.

That’s one of the statements from a working tourism poster that county tourism leaders fashioned with national tourism experts.

After more than a year of planning, Roger Brooks and his team from Seattle-based Destination Development, unveiled logos and taglines for local communities to build on as they embark on a branding effort to draw more visitors and tourism dollars.

[. . .]

Communities ought to highlight their local assets to draw visitors from the dunes, as the primary lure, Brooks said. For example, Valparaiso can capitalize on its downtown and night-life while Kouts embraces a “country living” theme, the experts said. The towns and cities of Porter, Pines, Valparaiso, Portage, Chesterton, Hebron, Kouts and Burns Harbor took part in the assessment.

The Indiana Dunes need no branding, because, well, they’re the dunes. Sand and lake and blue sky — what’s not to like? But I’m sure thousands of people, having rested and relaxed at the dunes for a few days, would be restless and bored enough to seek out the awesome “nightlife” of exciting downtown Valparaiso if only they were told it was there. Then, of course, they’d have to recover from that by spending a little time sampling the “country living” of Kouts.

You know what’s fun when you go someplace like the dunes? Exploring all the little communities around it, just driving and stopping when you see something interesting. A few well-paced signs would be a lot cheaper and a lot more effective than branding.

OK, everybody stop whatever you’re doing and watch the zoo’s new baby giraffe on the live zoo cam. Come on, you know you want to.

Fishers has seen an increase in property crime in the last few years, and since “it is unclear why,” somebody has to explain it to befuddled residents:

Experts say changes in crime have little to do with the economy. Instead, they say Fishers’ growth likely is a factor in the increase.

The town, one of the state’s fastest-growing communities, has gained about 12,000 new residents since 2005. When the population grows, people can expect crime to increase, said Kevin Whiteacre, assistant professor of criminal justice and sociology at the University of Indianapolis.

“A lot of time crime is a function of the availability of things to steal,” Whiteacre said, and when more people, more cars and more stores come to an area, that means there is more to steal.

Wow, when there is more stuff to steal, there will be more stuff stolen. Who knew? And, let’s not forget, there are more people to steal the stuff, too. Hey, look at me, I’m an expert.

They’re trying to scare the peasants in three Indiana school districts where there are spending referendums necessitated by the state’s evil property tax caps designed to, well, reduce spending:

If approved, the referendum changes would be in effect for seven years. If they fail, leaders say they would be forced to make drastic cuts and possibly slash transportation.

“We absolutely will have to eliminate all transportation in the fall of 2010 (if the referendum fails),” said Beech Grove Superintendent Paul Kaiser.

Additionally, Kaiser said the district would have to cut $500,000 from the capital projects budget. That would translate into fees for extracurricular activities and other cutbacks.

We are optimistic that our community will support our kids,” he said.

In Franklin Township, the district faces a possible $3 million in staff-reduction cuts if the referendum fails.

Superintendent Walter Bourke said school transportation services there also would face severe cutbacks. Bourke outlined three scenarios for bus transportation if the referendum fails: reducing ridership by a third, charging for busing, and dropping transportation altogether.

Give us more money to spend, or your child will have to walk miles to school! And we will make him pay to joint the chess club! I notice they never warn that teachers might have to take a pay cut or that some redundant administrators could be eliminated or that legacy building projects will have to be done away with. 

When Indiana leased its toll road for $3.8 billion in 2006, a lot of critics accused the Daniels administration of giving away the state, but a lot of other state governments looked to follow that example and the one three years earlier involving Chicago Skyway lease. There were proposals on the table worth at least $10 billion for the leasing of everything from highways to lotteries. But that was before the recession:

A rush by state and local governments to sell roads, bridges and airports to private operators in return for eye-popping upfront sums has all but collapsed in the recession.

That could leave taxpayers on the hook for more of the $200 billion a year needed to maintain the nation’s transportation system, according to federal estimates.

[. . .]

The purchase of government assets has all but stopped as credit has dried up. Now, with tax collections falling, state and local governments are scrambling to finance projects.

The biggest casualty so far: a $2.5 billion agreement to sell Chicago’s Midway Airport fell apart in June when investors could not round up enough money.

“Investors are skeptical. These are difficult times,” says Peter Samuel, editor of Toll Road News, a trade publication. The buyers of the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road “have lost their shirts,” he says.

And Indiana’s lease that was so controversial at the time?

Earlier this year, Macquarie Infrastructure Group said its toll road investments, which include the Chicago Skyway and Indiana Toll Road, had lost one-third of their value. The investments are made based on long-term, historic trends, company spokesman Alex Doughty says. “In any business, there’s likely to be peaks and troughs,” he says.

In the meantime, though, we’re using that $3.8 billion, which we got in cash, for 400 road projcets. So maybe it wasn’t such a bad deal after all?

Having solved all other problems, Indiana University now devotes some of those research dollars to . . . office gossip. Researchers observed meetings and even taped 13 of them and came to this startling conclusion:

 ”Be aware that what is going on is a form of politics and it’s a form of politics that can be a weapon to undermine people who aren’t present. But it also can be a gift. If people are talking positively it can be a way to enhance someone’s reputation.”

Let’s see if I get this. If bad things are said about people who aren’t there, it can hurt them. But if good things are said about them, it can help them. Well, at least we have a fighting chance if we don’t go to the meetings.

Oh, wait: Gossip was classified either as in a formal setting or an informal setting, and both “were almost always negative.” Good thing they cleared that up, huh? Guess we’d better not miss any more meetings.

Nothing is left to chance these days, not even how much of a haul a kid might make trick-or-treating:

The folks at Zillow.com have created their first Trick or Treat Housing Index, which draws on the site’s real estate data to determine the top-five neighborhoods in Seattle and Los Angeles to maximize candy intake this Saturday.

Zillow factored in home values alongside additional data on population density, neighborhood walkability, and local crime. “Based on those variables, this Index represents neighborhoods that will provide the most candy, with the least walking, and minimum safety risks,” she wrote.

Of course, if the kids flood those “top neighborhoods,” the residents are likely to run out of candy very quickly, meaning the Web site, by the very act of publicizing its calculations, will have made them untrue. But possibly the kids can tweet each other to let everybody know where the good and bad spots are.

By the way, munchkins, feel free to flood the Oakdale neighborhood and pester all my neighbors Saturday evening. As usual, I will be elsewhere during the festivities.

Media alert! The Obama daughters have gotten their swine flu shots. But, wait, a potential controversy!

The vaccinations are bound to raise questions about whether the Obama girls were given special treatment.

Oh, please. And this just in: After the president gets bad press for the frat house atmosphere of the White House, he finally invites a gal to play golf. But that doesn’t fool anybody:

I still wouldn’t believe he’s any more comfortable dealing with women or concerned about “women’s” issues than the dearly departed former Sen. Jesse Helms.

Does anyone really believe the president’s daughters should stand in line just like everybody else? (Or that the leader of the free world should wait until “priority groups” get their shots first, for that matter?) Are presidential critics truly going to argue that liking to hang out and play sports with your buds equates to a dislike of women?  The Obama administration is showing itself to be pretty incompetent in any number of policy areas, and we’ll never run out of valid things to say about that. Let’s not get in a sweat over all this small stuff.

The scammers never sleep:

As you protect your family from swine flu, be aware of scams promising relief from the virus.

Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller says some Internet retailers are selling products that claim to be H1N1 flu medicines, but they’re actually fake or unapproved.

But this is just in the great American tradition, isn’t it? After all, we spend billions every year on phony cold remedies that are perfectly legal.

This week’s sign that the End Times are near:

Legislative ethics reform won some important but unexpected backers Tuesday: leaders of the Indiana House and Senate.

House Speaker B. Patrick Bauer, D-South Bend, laid out a package of reforms for the legislative session that begins Jan. 4, including a one-year waiting period before legislators could become lobbyists.

There will be differences in what the House and Senate propose, but one thing both will apparently have is a “cooling off” period of a year before ex-legislators can become lobbyists. Five years or “forever” would be a better period, but let’s take what we can get, eh? The story notes that in the past legislators of both parties claimed to be insulted “by the implication that lawmakers would use their position to win a lucrative lobbying job.” Presumably the 30 for legislators who are now lobbyists have thicker skins.

This just in: An atheist will become the next pope.

The kind of story we don’t see every day (thank goodness):

 JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. —  State health officials say a person from southern Indiana’s Clark County has died of rabies.

The state Department of Health announced the death Tuesday, saying it was the first human death from rabies in Indiana since 2006 and only the second since 1959.

Apparently, the infection came from a bat. Usually, when we hear about rabies, we think “dog,” but that’s not usually the case in this country:

Rabies is primarily a disease of animals. Infected dogs account for less than 5% of all rabies cases. However in other countries where canine rabies has not been controlled, it accounts for 90% or more of cases of rabies. In North America, especially on the east coast, an increasing number of infected raccoons are being seen. In the Midwest, skunks and bats more commonly carry rabies.

Wild animals generally account for about 93% of rabies, raccoons about 40% of that, skunks 30%, and foxes 6%.

Though it’s rare here, rabies is still the 10th leading caue of mortality in the world, according to the article, with about 55,000 deaths a year.

Probably more honest than he intended to be:

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) says Democrats are “trying on every front to increase the role of government.”

And pretty much succeeding.

Must be divine justice of some kind — The United Nations is investigating New York:

Everybody knows New York City is an expensive place to live. But the United Nations wants to know if affordable housing is so tough to come by that it actually violates human rights.

The United Nations has assigned an official, “a special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing,” to check the city’s affordable housing. The rapporteur, Raquel Rolnik, is to tour the city for the next three days with housing advocates and city officials to “hear the voices of those who are suffering on the ground,” she said.

The United Nations Human Rights Council appoints a rapporteur, or independent experts, to investigate human rights conditions around the world. In the case of Ms. Rolnik, a professor of urban planning at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil, her “mission” is to tour New York City and six other places in the United States and to report back to the United Nations General Assembly about housing rights violations and advances.

After that, “We send off letters to governments to ask, ‘Is this true? What’s going on?’ and to please intervene,” she said.

I’d bet even a New York liberal would get a little miffed on getting a “to please intervene” letter from a U.N. busybody. “Affordable housing” as a human right? Well, they could exercise their human right to move to Fort Wayne.

Those of us who attended college in the bad old days of repression and guilt clearly missed out on all the fun:

 Sexploration at IU, the second annual weeklong series of fun, interactive sex-positive events offering Indiana University students information about sexuality related issues, begins today (Oct. 26) on the Bloomington campus.

Events include talks by the wildly popular sexuality expert and columnist Dan Savage and IU sex researcher Debby Herbenick, author of Because it Feels Good, A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure and Satisfaction, free HIV testing, the 37th annual IU Health Fair and a “retrosexual film showing.” Sexploration at IU is developed and organized by the IU Health Center’s Health & Wellness Education Department.

“Sexploration at IU is an opportunity for us to explore sexuality in a fun yet educational way outside of the classroom,” said Cathlene Hardy Hansen, director of Health and Wellness Education at the IU Health Center. “One’s sexuality should not be feared or a cause of distress — information, and the skills to talk about these issues help students develop good knowledge that they will use now and later in life. We are using a creative, sex-positive approach to educate, entertain and explore the role of sex in our lives. This is sex education at its very best — some of the best learning on campus is available for free outside of the classroom .”

Heaven forbid they have to explore sexuality in a fun yet educational way only in the classroom. One’s sexuality shouldn’t be feared or a cause of distress? Well, there goes my whole approach to life.

I’m no fan of excessive regulation, but this doen’t seem unreasonable:

The Bloomington City Council approved a change the city’s animal code Monday night.

The new ordinance limits the number of cats and dogs a resident can own to 19.

Anbody who needs more than 19 dogs and/or cats has a problem. The ordinance, in keeping with the spirit of the state’s actions on puppy mills, also calls for pet stores to reveal the history of the animals they sell. I can just see the commercial.

“Could I see the pet fax on that dog, please?”

“I have something better — a signed statement from the last owner.”

“Just show me the pet fax.”

“Is there anything I can do to put you with this dog?”

“SHOW me the PET FAX.”

Seems like they have a pretty evenly divided City-County Council in Indianapolis. The vote was 15-14 in favor of a hotel tax for the Capital Improvement Board and 15-13 to make it tougher to panhandle. And now:

A  proposal to ban smoking in nearly all Indianapolis workplaces faces an uncertain future after a narrowly divided City-County Council tabled it Monday night.

The 14-13 vote means the ordinance can return to the council agenda with majority support, but some on the council said achieving that could be difficult.

The ban already covers most restaurants and public spaces such as hotel lobbies. But, as in Allen County, smoking is still allowed in places like bowling alleys and some bars. It’s interesting that stodgy old Fort Wayne is as radical as, say, Bloomington when it comes to smoking bans, but the more metropolitan Indy is more in line with Allen County.

Is America in decline? Depends:

The question of whether America is in decline cannot be answered yes or no. There is no yes or no. Both answers are wrong, because the assumption that somehow there exists some predetermined inevitable trajectory, the result of uncontrollable external forces, is wrong. Nothing is inevitable. Nothing is written. For America today, decline is not a condition. Decline is a choice. Two decades into the unipolar world that came about with the fall of the Soviet Union, America is in the position of deciding whether to abdicate or retain its dominance. Decline — or continued ascendancy — is in our hands.

Those in power today, starting with the president, pretty clearly are embarrassed by America’s power, at times even ashamed of it, and seem determined to steer us toward some kind of fantasy world in which all states are moral equals. Considering the condition the world is in and how many rogues it has, I’d feel safer if the United States stayed the world’s sole superpower.

We don’t need cap-and-trade legislation to wreck the economy. The EPA can do that all by itself:

While campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama said his cap-and-trade tax plans would “bankrupt” anyone building a coal-fired power plant. Although those taxes haven’t materialized, the Environmental Protection Agency has put the brakes on 79 surface mining permits in four states since he was elected.

The EPA says these permits could violate the Clean Water Act and warrant “enhanced” review. But the agency went even further last week, announcing plans to revoke a permit for the Spruce No. 1 Mine in West Virginia - a move that has caused anxiety among coal-state Democrats about the future of the industry under the Obama administration.

So far, only mine permits in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee have been affected. Are you paying attention, Mr. Bayh?

Government fraud? Say it isn’t so:

The Department of Defense awarded nearly $30 million in stimulus contracts to six companies while they were under federal criminal investigation on suspicion of defrauding the government.

According to Air Force documents, the companies claimed to be small, minority-owned businesses, which allowed them to gain special preference in bidding for government contracts. But investigators found that they were all part of a larger minority-owned enterprise in Southern California, making them ineligible for the contracts.

The Air Force and the Army awarded the companies 112 stimulus projects at U.S. military bases, federal contracting records show [2] (27MB Microsoft Excel File). It wasn’t until Sept. 23 – more than a year after the criminal investigation started – that the Air Force suspended the firms from receiving new government contracts.

The administration that’s going to pay for so much of health care reform with the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse might just have some waste, fraud and abuse in its own stimulus program? That’s not possible, is it? Giving preference to some groups of people over others who committed no sin except being born the wrong color might cause some people to game the system? Sort of destroys your faith in human nature.

Officials in West Lafayette are missing a wonderful opportunity to improve the lives of city residents. Seems a landlord was informed that his rental property was “in need of aesthetic improvements.” In response to that helpful reminder, city inspectors contend, he went and painted the house pink. Some in the neighborhood are outraged (not the tenants, who are college students and think it’s kind of cool to tell people, “Just come to the pink house”) but the city says it can’t do anything:

Rick Walker, code enforcement supervisor and head of the Neighborhood Resource Team, said there aren’t any city codes forbidding a particular shade of house.

A longtime neighbor who was upset at the color (”It’s the worst I’ve ever seen on a home”) wrote a letter to the neighborhood association, which was posted on the association’s Web site as a way “to persuade the property owners to change the color.” But some people can never be persuaded to do the right thing. That’s why we need laws! What in the world were city officials thinking, blathering on about “aesthetic” improvements when they didn’t even have a bad-color ban in the city code? Why, some people don’t even think a house’s color is anybody elses’s business. Can you imagine them toeing the approved-color program without the threat of serious legal action?

What that neighborhood needs to do is go historic on that landlord — nothing like reverence for the way people used to live to get all those rotten, selfish rneighborhood esidents to get with the program. Here in Fort Wayne, there’s no end of ways the city can dismantle that silly “a persnon’s home is his castle” nonsense (speaking of the way people used to live). As the West Central Neighborhood Association helpfully reminds its members:

Anyone residing within the West Central Local Historic District must follow the guidelines when making any exterior changes to their property.  The guidelines include information relating to such things as paint color, windows, doors, siding, landscaping, roofing materials, and other subjects.

What “other subjects”? Don’t ask. Really, you don’t want to know.