A Citizen's Guide to Indiana

Like learning stuff? You might check out some of the blog work done with the basic concepts of science. I just read the one on energy. My favorite bits: matter is just a lumpy sort of energy; and bunny – anti-bunny pairs.

I thought I’d share this interesting bit of Indiana History I came across while reading Howard Peckham’s “Indiana: A History.” He was discussing Indiana’s religious landscape and the fact that Indiana’s churches weren’t, by and large, a liberalizing force in the state.

Yet if it has seemed that Indiana churches were self-absorbed and isolationist, that was not a true picture, either. A few sects have been conspicuous leaders in international outreach.

. . .

The Church of the Brethren sponsored relief work in Spain after that country’s civil war. It was a Brethren agent, Dan West of Goshen, who conceived of the Heifer Project in 1944, aimed at reestablishing herds in war-ravaged countries. He collected donated livestock, raised money for shipping them to a port, and asked the recipient country to pay the final shipping charges. The first offspring of a donated animal had to be given to another family, but after that all of the new-born animals might be kept by the original recipient. Cows, bulls, goats, sheep, hogs, and rabbits have been exported. In 1952, the project sent three planes, each loaded with 72,000 eggs, directly from Indiana to Korea to revive the poultry-and-egg industry. Today, more than half the chickens in Korea are of Hoosier descent. Don’t speak to Koreans about Hoosiers being self-centered isolationists.

(Emphasis and any typos are mine.)

Hunter had me at:

In the year 2000, a devastating blow was dealt to conservative ideology. They were at long last given simultaneous control of all parts of government, and a chance to implement their philosophies.

The outcome proved, of course, to be a fiasco of monumental proportions. From budget surpluses to record deficits; unchecked pork; a tide of corruption, both moral and legal, that thinned their ranks like smallpox; mismanagement of even basic government tasks, such as emergency response capabilities; a national economy constantly teetering between mere sluggishness and outright recession; the entrance into a quagmire of a war, one with unclear initial purpose and even less clear strategies for exit. And those are just the highlights.

This article by Mary Beth Schneider is a little amusing. Apparently some legislators were “offended” by the notion that people would perceive anything untoward about the revolving door between the General Assembly and the lobbying industry. Sen. Miller introduced a bill that would’ve required a one year cooling off period between serving in the General Assembly and becoming employed as a lobbyist.

The Indianapolis Republican’s fellow lawmakers, however, were so offended by that perception that they killed her bill.

. . .

Sen. Marvin Riegsecker, the Goshen Republican who controlled the bill’s fate as chairman of the Senate Public Policy Committee, said he killed the proposal because he and other senators were angered by comments that “we’re taking money under the table. That’s the interpretation we had.”

Those members of the public who had pushed for the bill say they were talking about the legislature’s image, not making specific accusations.

“I guess we read between the lines,” Riegsecker said. “Either way, it angered my fellow senators, so I wasn’t going to subject them to a vote. I don’t think the bill would have passed anyway.”

. . .

[T]he lawmakers were hostile “from the get-go.”

“To be honest, it almost seemed to me that they wanted to be offended so that they would have an excuse not to deal with the problem,” said Patricia Wittberg, a sociology professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and a Catholic nun, who came to testify.
Wittberg said that throughout her 18 years of teaching, when she talks to her students about legislators representing them “in a fair and just way, and not influenced by special interests, the students laugh. They laugh.”

It was those words that Sen. Vi Simpson, D-Ellettsville, found among the most offensive.
“The testimony was so nasty and mean and personal that the committee members were furious,” she said. “It was a very unpleasant confrontation. That’s not how you get legislation passed around here.”

Sandra Mowell, a member of the League of Women Voters who also testified, said it was lawmakers who were “rather nasty.”

“I thought they just reacted rather violently without a whole lot of provocation toward us,” she said. “People in elective office may say they want people to participate in this process, but I went away with the definite opinion that that’s just talk.”

Here are the facts – Most legislators are perfectly honest. The general public has a vague notion that they’re getting screwed by government. Legislators frequently turn around and get paid good money by lobbying firms after the legislators are out of office. This apparent cashing in gives the vague notion something concrete to latch on to. Being offended doesn’t change the reality of this perception. The cooling off legislation might change the perception a bit. Overreacting to the proposal just reinforces the perception.

I’m a white guy, so what the heck do I know? But, I agree with Ed Brayton, another white guy.

For those who don’t know about it, here’s what happened. A Golf Channel anchor named Kelly Tilghman was having a conversation on air with Nick Faldo about Tiger’s dominance and how the other players could stop him from winning. Faldo joked that nothing short of “ganging up” on him would work and Tilghman responded by saying that the only way to stop him is to “lynch him in a back alley.”

Tiger didn’t figure there was any racial intent behind the use of the word “lynch” and says he didn’t take any particular offense. The intent is clear – Tiger’s so good, if he makes it to the course, he’s going to win.

But, apparently there is a fair amount of commotion simply because the word “lynch” was used. The folks raising the commotion don’t seem to care that the speaker clearly didn’t mean the word with any racial connotations. Nor do they care that a listener wouldn’t reasonably understand the use to carry racial connotations. Apparently the mere sound of the word sufficiently justifies anger. Words aren’t magic. They only have such power as we give them. And let’s be clear here, this wasn’t a “dog whistle” situation where the speaker was saying something facially reasonable designed to convey something unreasonable to a certain constituency.

Most people are reasonable. If you tell them you don’t feel comfortable about a certain term, they’ll go with alternatives. For example, at some point, someone told me that “Oriental” was offensive and that, if situation called for such broad racial term, “Asian” was more appropriate. To this day, I can’t say I have a visceral understanding of why one and not the other. But neither is special to me, so if Asian is more polite, no skin off my nose to use it. Being polite is reason enough to do most things. I’ll bet if someone had said to this Golf Channel anchor, “Hey, it’s not cool to use the term “lynch” about a partially black person like Tiger;” it wouldn’t have happened again. Problem solved.

Instead, the Golf Channel suspended this person for two weeks and apparently Jim Brown is mad at Tiger for not getting mad enough. Or something. Getting angry is emotionally satisfying, I guess. But it’s not very productive most times. But, like I said, I’m just a white guy. Maybe I just don’t understand.