One night in Adams Morgan, the sons and daughters of lawyers and corporate executives padded into a friend’s rowhouse for a kind of group therapy session about their families’ wealth.
They are young people who have inherited or stand to inherit big money, and they are spending their post-college years living modestly and working to address the needs of the poor, hungry and politically disadvantaged. But the privilege they grew up with and the money coming their way nag at them in ways few people not in their position can fathom.
I hate to see anybody suffer, especially when inherited-wealth-induced guilt forces people into such intense and painful therapy sessions. I would be very happy to make them less guilty — they can just send me as much of their money as it takes to get them back to good mental health. I even promise to foolishly squander the money so they can replace all that guilt with loathing.
The kids’ “therapy session” was at a private dinner, which gave them a “rare chance” to talk about their guilt and their views on social equality without fear of “eye-rolling from people who might view them as spoiled rich kids playing at helping the downtrodden.”
Make that whiny, spoiled rich kids. Oops. Eyes rolling here.
When we were young and the world was more moral, our games were more wholesome and entertaining. If we wanted to break the ice with members of the opposie sex, a simple straighforward game of strip poker was sufficient. We weren’t absolutely depraved, like these irresponsible young people today:
Allegations stemming from a game of “strip Yahtzee” led to a Muncie woman’s arrest this week.
Amber M. Foster, 21, was arrested Tuesday night on a charge of false informing, a Class A misdemeanor carrying a maximum one-year jail term, after police said they determined her claims that a former boyfriend had raped her were false.
Investigators said the encounter between Foster and the ex-boyfriend came after she was the loser in a game of “strip Yahtzee” — a board game featuring dice — with a group of friends and had walked, nude, into her bedroom with the target of her accusation.
Hey, if you can’t play nice, don’t roll the dice. If you’re gonna play the game, don’t spread the blame.
Anybody interested in a quick game of strip Scrabble?
Those mean, stingy county officials just wouldn’t go along, and the mayor is sad, so unbearably sad:
“The dream of a joint solution to Fort Wayne’s and Allen County’s space needs through co-location just died,” a somber Mayor Tom Henry said in a hastily arranged news conference Thursday afternoon.
But who killed it? City and county officials identified vastly different culprits.
Well, the mayor should be somber, and more than a little embarrassed. As County Councilman Paul Moss notes, the city and county are already co-located and have been for a long time. Mayor Henry is the one who used a simple, specific need — for new police headquarters — as the excuse to rush into purchase of Renaissance Square and to pressure the county into coming up with the money to help fix up the building and move all city and county offices around sufficiently for taxpayers to not know where to go for what.
At least County Council members, right now the only political body in the county worthy of being described as fiscally responsible, had the sense to say, unanimously “Are you nuts?” and refuse to commit the money. So now the city is stuck with the $14 million tab for purchase and renovation of Renaissance, which will become City Hall, and the City-County Building will become strictly a county operation.
Who killed the dream? That is the most unnecessary question of the year.
Got your “God in the Hoosier news” update here. A teenager in Terre Haute expressed dismay at what she perceived as an “intolerant” sign at a church:
Saagarika Coleman submitted a letter to the editor of the Tribune-Star (see page A8) stating that she was “hit with a wave of shock. I was horrified” when she saw the sign at Bible Baptist Church as her father drove her to school Monday morning.
The sign stated, “Jesus died and rose and lives for you. What did Allah do.”
Well, since “Allah” is God and Jesus is, you know, the son of God, that’s a nice little non sequitir there. “What did Allah do?” Pretty much everything, is the way I hear it. I’m guessing the sign was really supposed to refer to Mohammad rather than Allah.
Perhaps that kind of ignorance can be cleared up by the “By the Book” Bible studies effort in Huntington. The program was suspended, you might recall, when a federal judge ruled that it was a violation of the separation of church and state because the trailers in which the classes were held were in school parking lots. Officials now say the programs are returning, and will serve 97 percent of third- and fourth-graders, with the trailers parked across the streets from schools.
Hair unsplit! Problem solved! Now there’s at least a chance some of those students will be mowed down trying to cross the street in traffic and thus be spared the scary possibility of being exposed to that dangerous religious instruction.
As noted earlier here, former Gov. Joe Kernan is returning to Vietnam for the first time since his release from a POW camp there. Guess old warriors can’t help the urge to revisit the battlegrounds of their youth:
It’s been 40 years since John Eckenrode was suspended from the University of Notre Dame for a sit-in during the Vietnam War, but he still remembers where he stood that day.
[. . .]
Ten students were suspended or expelled that day. They were dubbed the “Notre Dame Ten,” and the case drew national attention.
Two of the 10 returned Wednesday for a 40th anniversary vigil and to reflect on the role of a Catholic university in times of war.
[. . .]
The two graduates, two former professors and about a dozen others gathered Wednesday morning on the front steps of the Main Building. A cold rain gently fell as the group prayed for those who died in the Vietnam War and for innocent victims of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A “cold rain gently fell” and blah, blah, blah. That’s how we know those were serious times and these former protesters are somberly reflecting on their principled participation in disrupting their campus. The story notes with a touch of sadness that “Some wonder why today’s students don’t seem as interested and involved in moral issues.” I don’t know who the “some” are that wonder this, but there is an answer.
It’s getting to the point where we should probably begin every story about what they’re doing in Washington with the disclaimer, “No this isn’t a joke. We’re not kidding. They really are considering this.”
Senate Democrats crafting a job creation bill are considering a proposal to give money to workers who cut their hours in order to avoid layoffs.
A bill sponsored by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) would give unemployment compensation to employees who accept a reduced work schedule to allow their companies to avert layoffs or to hire more employees. Reed’s proposal for work-sharing was mentioned during the Senate Democrats’ lunch Tuesday, when Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) announced that an initiative focusing on jobs would soon be a priority, Reed’s office said.
The government paying people to work less so companies will hire more people — what could possibly go wrong? Hey, I have an idea. Let’s call it the “three workers to watch while one worker fills the pothole” act. As NR points out, this idea didn’t exactly work as planned when it was tried in France.
The Indiana Supreme Court’s invalidation of part of Zachary’s law seems pretty straightforward. The state constitution bans ex post facto laws in pretty plain language, and the portion of the law requiring even sex offenders convicted prior to the registration law to register is, by intent and effect, retroactive. But at least one law enforcement officer isn’t having any of that constitutional mumbo jumbo:
Lt. Bob Hanna, the overseer of the Marion County registry, told local news station WRTV “We’re not going to remove anybody. We’re taking no enforcement action. As far as removing faces, names and addresses, we won’t do that without a court order.”
Maybe a lawyer can correct my misunderstanding, but isn’t a ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court pretty much a court order?
As the story notes, this ruling has the potential to bring about the release of more than 1,000 offenders from the state’s two largest registries in Marion and Allen counties. That’s understandably upsetting to people living in the affected neighborhoods, but the potential abuse of ex post facto laws against any of us is too great to allow them to be used against the worst among us.
Kellogg Co. says there will be a nationwide shortage of its popular Eggo frozen waffles until next summer because of interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them.
It’s funny how your mind works. I haven’t had an Eggo in years, but the minute I heard about the shortage I had a sudden hunger for one, with butter and lots of syrup, sausage on the side. And they say it will be the middle of next year before shelves are stocked at pre shutdown levels. Pop Tarts just don’t do it, do they?
At the SC09 supercomputing conference in Portland, Ore., this week, Big Blue announced that it has made “significant progress” toward creating a computer that simulates a living organism’s brain with abilities of sensation, perception, action, interaction and cognition. Best of all, perhaps, is that IBM said such a computer system could rival “the brain’s low power and energy consumption and compact size.”
Specifically, scientists from IBM Research, along with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, have reportedly performed the first “near real-time cortical simulation” of a cat brain that contains 1 billion spiking neurons and 10 trillion individual learning synapses. The simulation was performed on Lawrence Livermore National Lab’s Dawn Blue Gene/P supercomputer, which has a whopping 147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes of main memory.
147,456 CPUs and 144 terabytes for a cat brain; sounds about right. The plans of our feline overlords are obviously right on schedule. I can has cheezburger. And you will bring it. Now.
We have an out-of-towner at Meijer’s today. Well, yeah, Gov. Sarah Palin, too, but I mean this woman:
Debbie Coning of Portage, Mich., hasn’t slept a wink. She arrived at the Meijer store at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon to claim the first spot in line. She had driven all the way to Grand Rapids on Wednesday, only to be turned away because she got there too late. So she jumped in her car and drove another three hours to Fort Wayne.
Now that’s dedication.
Meanwhile, as Gov. Palin is drawing network TV coverage for her rock-star crowds in Indiana (here and in Noblesville later today), the Republican Governors Association meeting in Austin talked about how that group should be in the forefront of the fight to oppose an overreaching Democratic administration and Congress. But I wouldn’t want to bore people with the details of something so boring.
The imaginary 00, 10th, 11th, 14th, and 18th Congressional Districts of Indiana have, according to recovery.gov, made a tax dollar windfall of about $5.3 million, and ‘created or saved’ 9 jobs - all of which obviously can’t exist in these fake districts.
Imaginary jobs, imaginary districts, imaginary money. Too bad, though — what a scoop if it were true; 9 jobs saved or created at a cost of only $5.3 million!
Joe Kernan is still one of the classiest guys around. He had planned to go on a trade mission to Vietnam when he was lieutenant governor, but the trip fell through, and he says he’s always wanted to go back to the country where he fought and was held as a prisoner of war for 11 months. Now a trip is on:
Tour stops will include the site where Kernan’s plane was shot down and the preserved portion of the prison referred to by Americans held there, including Sen. John McCain, as the Hanoi Hilton.
What does Kernan expect his reaction to be as he walks into the portion of the prison now turned into a museum?
“Well, I don’t know,” he says. “It’s been a long time.”
[. . .]
But Kernan says he has no hatred toward the North Vietnamese for what happened at a time of war. He explains:
“If somebody from somewhere else parachuted down in this country after 33 planes were dropping bombs on their neighborhood, what kind of reception would they get?”
Sure, he adds, “I didn’t like some of them I met along the way.”
I know Vietnam vets who aren’t as over the war as Kernan is, and some of them weren’t even in combat, let alone a prison camp. Hell, I know World War II vets who still aren’t over Japan.
Former Fort Wayne educator Eugene White has had his ups and downs as superintendent of Indianapolis Public Schools. This could probably be considered a down period, since parents at three high schools want his head on a platter:
Indianapolis Public Schools Superintendent Eugene White said Tuesday there is no chance he will reverse his decision to cancel football at three high schools, despite protests from dozens of angry community members at that night’s School Board meeting.
[. . .]
White has decided to close the football programs at Manual, Marshall and Washington high schools, citing the low number of students on the teams.
My initital reaction was probably the same as a lot of others — all that passion expended for football? Wouldn’t it be great if parents got that worked up over the actual education mission. (As one commenter to the story put it, “When money is tight, and participation is low, sports need to be cut. Not every situation is a Disney movie where some humble, underpaid coach comes in a saves a crumbling urban sports team from demise.”)
But I also understand the feelings of the parents and students who say that athletics contribute to the school spirit (boy, there’s an old-fashioned concept for you) that can keep students engaged, maybe even preventing some from dropping out. Tough call.
The United States’ climbing national debt could drag the country into a “double-dip recession,” President Obama warned in an interview with Fox News Wednesday from China, though he said he’s still considering additional tax incentives for businesses to reverse the rising unemployment rate.
[. . .]
”I think it is important, though, to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”
Golly. Increasing the debt during a recession might be bad. Who knew? If Obama says it’s so, it must be so. Tax incentives for businesses? What a concept! Just a friendly word of advice: If adding to the debt is bad, STOP ADDING TO THE DEBT!!
RealClearPolitics puts Gov. Mitch Daniels second on its list of five most likely GOP dark horses for the 2012 presidential nomination, just behind South Dakota Sen. John Thune (”a political giant-killer, knocking off then Minority Leader Tom Dachle in 2004.”) and just ahead of Texas Gov. Rick Perry (”rock-solid conservative credentials and a long electoral track record in one of the nation’s largest states”). Rounding out the list are Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn (”approaching legendary status as a deficit hawk since entering the Senate in 2004″) and the darkest of dark horses, former Vice President Dick Cheney (”nothing would match the drama of an Obama - Cheney general election cage match”).
Of Daniels, it is said:
At a time when not just the nation’s economy but its growing debts are a mounting concern, Daniels’ credentials as a fiscal conservative are likely his strongest asset in a potential 2012 race. Indiana currently has one of the lowest budget deficits in the county as a percentage of its general fund, and was one of the few states not to implement new or higher taxes this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Daniels has often said publicly that he has no interest in running for president, but RCP says he may sending other signals behind the scenes:
U.S. News & World Report claimed just this week he’s been consulting with veterans of national campaigns, including former Vice President and Indiana Senator Dan Quayle, on a potential run.
Rep. Mike Pence also gets a mention as one of the “best of the rest,” one of three GOP representatives who are “up-and-coming GOP stars” who may be “players at the presidential level at some point.”
Well, if you can’t be happy, you might as well have more sex:
A ‘female Viagra’ that works on the pleasure centre of a woman’s brain to restore flagging libido could be on sale within two years.
Women who take flibanserin once a day have sex more often and enjoy it more, large-scale trials have shown.
[. . .]
Like Viagra, which was originally designed to treat heart problems, flibanserin was formulated with another purpose in mind.
It was created as an anti-depressant but those taking part in trials said it did nothing to boost their mood but did wonders for their sex drive.
For men, having sex more often and enjoying it more pretty much is an anti-depressant. But this drug could be very dangerous, now that I think of it. If women don’t have to fake it anymore, that could upset the whole balance of power between the sexes.
The first sentence of this story makes you think, “Well, the poor guy obviously isn’t comfortable with who he is – no wonder he drinks.”
The male principal of a local elementary school was arrested for suspicion of OWI while wearing a pink dress, wig and high heels, according to reports.
But then we read the second sentence:
Tracy Treadway was stopped when officers in Argos, Indiana, noted him walking unsteadily toward his car early on November 1, apparently leaving a Halloween party.
That’s the problem with Halloween parties. You have to wear the damn costumes going there and back. (This one is for those who think my only problem with the holiday is with the stupid kids and their stupid trick-or-treating. It isn’t; it’s the whole stupid thing.)
Just what we need — a General Assembly that starts early so it can create more mischief:
The Indiana House and Senate have planned rare December hearings on key legislation – including a proposed constitutional amendment to limit property tax bills – in hopes that lawmakers can get more done by their mid-March deadline.
Typically lawmakers don’t begin meeting in earnest until January, but on Tuesday they used their Organization Day to get a jumpstart on five bills in the House and two in the Senate.
“This is a short session and we have quite a few bills that are of a great deal of importance to the people of Indiana,” said House Majority Whip Paul Robertson, D-Depauw. “We need to give them a good, thorough hearing.”
I don’t mean to make light of legislators taking the time to get things right — heaven knows we could use a little more of that attitude at the national level. But the every-other-year short session, which we’ve had only since 1970, was meant to deal with emergencies that might arise from the fact that we have a two-year budget. It wasn’t meant to be crowded with hundreds of measures the way it is now, and the fact that somebody would even say “we have quite a few bills that are of a gread deal of importance to the people of Indiana” is a little worrisome.
Between the 1851 constitution and 1970, the General Assembly met only in one session every two years. That’s how they still do it in Texas where my brother lives, and I have yet to year him or any other Texan say, “You know, this every-other-year thing just isn’t working out — we don’t have nearly enough laws.”
If you’re not worried yet about the implications of trying terror suspects in a civil criminal court, maybe this will help:
The greatest danger posed in the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) isn’t that he will go free. The greatest danger is that he will be convicted and that during his appeals the courts will ratify all of the extraordinary measures used to capture and convict him. The great danger is that the courts will ratify the rough, inaccurate and ambiguous norms of martial law as applying to all civil criminal trials.
After a couple of decades of these court decisions reverberating throughout the legal system, we could end up living under de facto martial law.
[. . .]
For over two hundred years we were careful to keep a firewall between civil and martial law. We did so because civil and martial law are polar opposites. Civil law is focused on protecting the rights of the accused against the overwhelming power of the state. When there is doubt, the accused walks free. Martial law is focused on imposing a minimal order on bloody chaos. It was focused on allowing the military to complete its mission and win wars. When there is doubt, the accused is presumed guilty.
Now, Obama wants to bring martial law into a civil court room in Manhattan. In order to let a civil conviction of KSM stand, the higher courts will have to overturn almost all the current constitutional protections of the accused.
[. . .]
As the author notes, “Nothing good will come of this trial.” That may end up being the understatement of the year.
INDIANAPOLIS - A felon’s friends and hobbies could influence how much time he spends behind bars if the Indiana Supreme Court upholds a lower-court ruling.
At issue is a type of psychological test commonly used by probation officers to assess whether an offender is likely to commit more crimes and determine the level of supervision and type of treatment needed. A Tippecanoe County judge cited Anthony Malenchik’s high test score in sentencing him to six years out of a possible 7 1/2 for receiving stolen property and being a habitual offender.
Malenchik appealed, but the appeals court upheld the judge’s decision. Now, the Supreme Court is considering whether such tests have a place in the sentencing process. It heard arguments last month and is expected to rule in coming months.
The tests apparently aren’t intended to be used in determining sentences, but this judge clearly used them that way and other jurists probably are, too. It bothers even Steve Johnson, executive director of the Indiana Prosecuting Attorneys Council, who said the tests measure some things judges already consider, such as the risk of re-offense, so such factors might be double-counted.
It doesn’t bother most of us — at least not much — when tests are used to ”prove” sex offenders are likely to sin again and keep them prison longer. It’s a little scarier, isn’t it, that any of us might be subjected to a personality test that could determine our fate?
I like some of the things mentioned by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett that have been done to help the state better compete for a share of the federal Department of Education’s $4 billion “Race to the Top” education grant program — not putting a cap on charter schools, for example, and removing a roadblock that prevented teachers from being judged on student achievement. I just wish he didn’t sound so enthusiastic about getting all that federal loot, perhaps $250 million or more:
Our reform efforts already under way closely mirror the pillars of Race to the Top, because they have been crafted with the goals of increasing accountability, freedom and competition in our schools to increase students’ academic achievement,” Bennett said.
[. . .]
State Department of Education spokesman Cam Savage said Indiana school districts will likely have the option to opt out of any programs that are funded with the competitive grants if they do not agree with the plan’s goals.
Our goals and those of the federal government may be compatible now, but what if they aren’t in the future? We’d still be tied to federal means and federal ends and federal rules. And it’s all very well to say districts can opt out if they don’t agree with the goals, but that sort of glosses over the appeal of easy money. Sure, there are strings attached, but those strings don’t seem so bad, you know, and we could do so much with that funding.
The principles of federalism — careful allocation of power to the appropriate level of government – are still valid. It’s still a bad idea to let the national government muscle its way into something that has traditionally been a state and local concern. That was true when it was Republican George Bush and his misguided No Child Left Behind, and it’s still true when it’s a Republican education superintendent clamoring for Democratic administration dollars.
I want to be enthusiastic about all of this, but the alarm bells are going off.
DePauw University professor Kevin Howley didn’t think much of media coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s fall — a “myopic and narcissistic view of history” by a bunch of celebrity reporters “waxing nostalgic” about their own role in history:
What’s more, it re-inscribes a particular interpretation of the historical record: an account that implies the ethical and economic superiority of American-style liberal democracy over the morally bankrupt and ideologically repugnant Soviets.
What? American-style democracy might possibly be better than a government run by ideologically repugnant Soviets? How dare the media peddle such nonsense.
The column is mostly about health care, believe it or not, and leans heavily on the views of Rep. Dennis Kucinich that the reforms being pushed through Congress are bad because they will “accelerate the privatization” of health care. You’ll have to read the reference Howley makes to Veterans Day and the Fort Hood massacre to believe it –2,300 uninsured veterans die every year, and the growing number of Army suicides is scandalous!
The New Oxford American Dictionary has chosen its word of the year for 2009, and, strangely, “Obamessiah” wasn’t even on the list:
“Birther ” was in the running, so was “death panels,” but in the end the New Oxford American Dictionary can only pick one word of the year. For 2009, it’s “unfriend,” says the Oxford University Press.
Or in New Oxfordspeak: “unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, ‘I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.’”
Not only do we turn a perfectly respectable noun into a verb, but we skip right over the positive to “friend” someone and head right for the negative and “unfriend” people. And this comes from nerds who think hanging out at social networking sites is the same as socializing.
Dang — I missed National Pickle Day. If you hunger for some real pickles — sweet but spicy — you have to try these, the sweet fire pickles from one of my favorite mail-order places, the New Braunfels Smokehouse. And their smoked brisket is — well, let’s just say the only place even close to it here I’ve found so far is at the Moosewood Smoke House.
A feature in yesterday’s Washington Post on how to grow a political party from the ground up focused on Republicans in St. Joseph County, a group more distressed than Democrats in Allen County. When Chris Riley accepted the unpaid job as GOP chairman in 2006, he says it was “maybe the worst job in the world” — he had a database containing 11 people.
Early in his tenure as county chairman, Riley compiled a list of every elected position in St. Joseph County, a largely rural expanse of housing subdivisions and cornfields near the Michigan border. It is the fourth-largest county in Indiana, encompassing 10 towns and 13 townships, each with its own judges and town councils, its own clerks and coroners. By the time Riley finished his list, it included more than 100 political positions, fewer than 35 of those occupied by Republicans.
Riley thought Republicans could regain legitimacy only by finding candidates to run for all 100 slots, so he created a depth chart of would-be politicians.
IT’s a fascinating article for political junkies of all persuasions and especially recommended for those who think politics is an easy game.
