A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

I had only been scanning the headlines as they crossed my news reader, but when they showed up back-to-back, it occurred to me that it had been a rough time for veterans in eastern Indiana.

In Muncie, a young veteran took his life in a movie theater in Muncie. Jacob Sexton was on leave from Afghanistan, went to see a movie in Muncie, and apparently had an exchange with the manager about whether he was old enough. He said something about having shot 18 people but showed the manager his ID and was allowed into the theater. While in the movie:

Jeremiah said Jacob asked for his gun, a 9 mm Taurus, which he played around with as they were watching the zombie killer movie.

“He did not say anything,” said Jeremiah on Tuesday.

Jacob then told Keagy to duck, grabbed his head, pushed it down and then shot himself.

In Winchester, Iraq War veteran, Andrew S. Ward is accused of opening fire on Randolph County Sheriff’s deputies.

According to authorities, Ward fired four shots from a shotgun at three deputies as the officers responded to a 911 call at Ward’s sister’s house, 7651 Boundary Pike.

Ward had allegedly broke into her home, battered a baby-sitter and threatened to kill his sister.

Alcohol was apparently involved in both situations as well. I don’t know that any particular conclusions can be drawn from two isolated incidents, but a movie quote is leaping to mind:

The Schofield Kid: [after killing a man for the first time] It don’t seem real… how he ain’t gonna never breathe again, ever… how he’s dead. And the other one too. All on account of pulling a trigger.

Will Munny: It’s a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.

The Schofield Kid: Yeah, well, I guess they had it coming.

Will Munny: We all got it coming, kid.

I will, however, go way out on a limb to say that we should make sure our veterans are getting good mental health care and to say that alcohol and firearms are a bad combination.

Mike Lopresti, Gannett sports columnist, has an enjoyable column on John Wooden. Wooden is about to turn 99 tomorrow. He comes from the town of Hall, Indiana. Lopresti’s account has Wooden’s memory fading along with the town.

He had a stand-out playing career, first with Martinsville High School and then with the Boilermakers. After that he coached high school ball in South Bend, then college at Indiana State, and, most famously, a ridiculously successful career at UCLA.

Just goofing around with the Google, I found a Sports Illustrated article about “Gentle Johnny Wooden” from 1969. Wooden seems to have been the kind of guy every Hoosier could be proud of – hard working, good at basketball, humble, and victorious. Happy birthday, coach.

Let’s face it, some people are just fat and lazy, and the rest of us shouldn’t have to pay for their health care. Take the case of Alex Lange. He has never held a job. In his age group, he is as fat as they come. He mooches off his family. Not to put too fine a point on it: he’s a parasite. Private insurers have, naturally, declined to extend coverage; and bleeding heart liberals would have government take over health care so that the rest of us can pick up the tab.

This is America, damn it, and we shouldn’t have to stand for this sort of thing. Oh, I’m sure some do-gooders are going to bitch and moan about how Mr. Lange is only four months old, but we can’t coddle these kids. Personal responsibility is the only way people, including Mr. Lange, will learn that their choices have consequences. So, bravo, Rocky Mountain Health Plans for your bold stand against indolence and free-riders. With luck, the fascist-communist plan to take over health care will be thwarted and fat babies will continue to be denied health care, as Nature intended.

Update The insurance company caved: “Fat baby can get coverage after all, insurer says.”

517 years ago, Christopher Columbus washed up on the shores of the New World. This was bad news for the indigenous people, no doubt. But, I still don’t mind commemorating the day — as a white male of European descent, I’m a direct beneficiary, so I guess I don’t have a lot of credibility here.

The event was important. Not entirely good, of course; but not unmitigated evil, either. Columbus was a product of his time and place, with all of the arrogance and cruelty that entails. But, he also did something pretty bold. He sailed off the map, and the world hasn’t been the same since. Sure, Leif Erikson did it before Columbus. But, the fact is, his society was not ready to do anything about Erikson’s discovery. The Europe from which Columbus set sail was ready to start moving.

I’m biased by more than being of white, European descent. I’m a history buff, and the Age of Exploration is probably my favorite era. The idea of being able to hop on a boat and find places and civilizations you had not expected really captures my imagination. For me, it’s not just Columbus.

It’s Prince Henry the Navigator pouring resources into Portuguese expeditions south along the western African shore until Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope. It’s Da Gama reaching India. Columbus and the New World. Magellan sailing around the world. James Cook sailing everywhere. They were motivated by greed, religion, dreams of power, and a thirst for knowledge. (One of my favorite themes for this period was the Quest for Prester John, a mythical Christian ruler with great riches — this quest combined a number of the motivating forces.) Regardless of motivations and even brutal consequences, they went into the unknown as few others had been willing or able to do before them and, more importantly, they reported back in such a way as to firmly link the world together.

For me, Columbus Day isn’t the celebration of a virtuous man who brought light to a benighted world. I don’t think Columbus was that or did that. Rather, it’s commemoration of the linking together of the planet, for all the good and bad that has done.

An issue I blogged about (in response to a USA Today article) last June got some more attention from the Lafayette Journal & Courier’s David Smith.

Basically, Buyer has close ties to the Frontier Foundation that is getting a bunch of money from lobbyists and isn’t paying out that much money for its purported purpose. Buyer says, through a spokesman, that it isn’t his foundation, but it shares an office with his campaign and, until recently, it employed his daughter and his campaign finance director.

According to tax reports, the foundation has collected $830,148 in contributions, but the fair market value of its net assets was just $482,761 by the end of 2008.

During six years of operation, the organization has had $258,136 in operating expenses. Those included $83,150 in fundraising expenses, $48,264 for travel, and $4,499 for meals.

Gifts and awards accounted for 3.9 percent of the foundation’s expense total. Mattix was paid more each year to run the foundation — $12,000 in 2004, rising to $17,275 in 2007 and 2008 — than the foundation gave out in six years of operation.
. . .
So far this year, according to lobbying reports, PhRMA, a trade group representing pharmaceutical companies, has given $25,000 to Frontier Foundation in Buyer’s honor, and the National Association of Broadcasters has given $20,000.

The money is coming from sources that would never, ever donate this kind of money to this kind of foundation but for its very, very close relationship to a Congressman. The foundation is spending next to nothing on worthy causes. Instead, it appears to be a stipend for those close to Buyer and to pay for travel and dining.

I’m realistic enough to know that the Democrats are unlikely to win in this district. It would be nice if the Republicans would run a primary challenger who is smart, energetic, and honest – even if his or her political philosophy was different than mine. Then I could perhaps take some pride in my Congressional representation.

Lesley Stedman Weidenbener has a column about the recent news about tax revenue falling short of projections and where cuts might come from. She points out that most of the state’s money is spent on schools, prisons, and Medicaid. The governor has indicated an unwillingness to cut on prisons — which would likely have to involve releasing inmates. Medicaid is structured as an entitlement, meaning it’s driven by the number of people who satisfy the qualification criteria which makes it difficult to impose percentage based spending cuts. This puts education in the cross-hairs.

There was a time when the operating budgets for public schools came largely from property taxes. But in order to cut property taxes and to start leveling funding among districts, the state began taking over more and more of the education budgets.

Then last year, when the General Assembly passed a massive overhaul of the property tax system, the state took on the total responsibility for school operating funds.

That means school general funds are paid for primarily with income and sales taxes, which are two revenue sources that can be wildly volatile in a recession.

Ms. Weidenbener points out that this downside to relying on sales and income taxes as opposed to property taxes was predictable. In fact, it was predicted. Marty Lucas said:

Sales and income revenues vary significantly with economic conditions too, and drop quite a bit during recessions. Government needs to be able to continue providing services during a recession. Real estate taxes are more stable.

He wasn’t the only one making this point, it was a significant theme in the debate about whether to shift from relying on property taxes to other kinds of taxes. But, we’ve picked this poison, now our education is almost certainly going to pay a price.

So, Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Has he done more than anyone else to promote peace in the world? No. Am I pleased that he won? Yes. Will the award have much of an effect in the world? I doubt it.

I think we lose sight of just how much the rest of the world hated and feared the Bush administration’s approach to foreign policy. Lots of loud, belligerent talk. And, when there was action, it was poorly thought through and betrayed a preference for force over persuasion.

What Barack Obama has accomplished is to win the Presidential election (no small achievement) and begin charting a different course on U.S. foreign policy. The ship is enormous and the change is consequently slow. Obama might not disengage from war or ultimately promote human rights as much as I would like, but the trajectory of the country’s approach to these things has changed. Obama won the election — something Bob Barr couldn’t do — and turned down the heat on the United States’ attitude toward the rest of the world — something John McCain wouldn’t do. Given the magnitude of the U.S. influence in the world, a small change in our foreign policy has a greater impact than more dramatic achievements in other contexts.

If I were awarding a Nobel, I would have looked elsewhere. But, the prize is most interesting as a sort of Rorschach test for domestic commentary. How you see the award depends almost entirely on your existing perception of Obama. From my side, you get the “probably he hasn’t earned it yet, but . . .” commentary. From the other side, you get the reverse of last week’s cheering about the U.S. not getting the Olympics. There was quite a bit of bemoaning that a particular worthy person didn’t get the prize, but the moaning was coming from people who generally don’t care in the slightest about who gets the prize. And, almost comically, I’ve seen a few attempts at “winning the Nobel Prize is the worst thing that could have happened to Obama.”

America wants health care, and it doesn’t care about procedures, processes, or personalities or if a health care bill gets 51 votes, 60 votes, or 83 votes in the Senate. America cares that people are going bankrupt for want of insurance and dying for lack of health care.

[W]hat’s at stake here is life and death, enormous amounts of money, and people are counting upon us to move ahead. America understands what’s good for America. America cares about health care, America cares about jobs, America cares about education, about energy independance, America does not care about processes politicians or personalities or anything like that.