Ken de la Bastide, writing for the Kokomo Tribune has an article (picked up by the Courier Journal) entitled Desegregation at its Dawn about Charles Burk, now 85 years old, who was a federal marshal out of Logansport who was assigned to help with desegregating more than a dozen school integrations. Burk talks about the bravery (or perhaps ignorance) of one of the little girls he helped. He also described the racist pieces of crap masquerading as teachers (not his words) who refused to teach the little girl.

Ryan Lenz, writing for the Associated Press, has an article on the raid of a currency protest group in Evansville. From the article, I gather that this Liberty Dollar group mints coins — not counterfeit, I guess, since they aren’t duplicates of existing currency — and puts them into circulation. I don’t know if similarity to federal coinage is part of the gag or if they’re just using currency that is accepted in an underground economy of some sort. One of their coins features Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul.

The organization, which is critical of the Federal Reserve, has repeatedly clashed with the federal government, which contends that the gold, silver and copper coins it produces are illegal. NORFED claims its Liberty Dollars are inflation free and can restore stability to financial markets by allowing commerce based on a currency that does not fluctuate in value like the U.S. dollar.

“They’re running scared right now and they had to do something,” von NotHaus told The Associated Press Friday. “I’m volunteering to meet the agents and get arrested so we can thrash this out in court.”

There is a pretty substantial Wikipedia entry about the Liberty Dollar here. From the description there, it looks like there is no intent for the coinage to be mistaken for federal coinage. They claim that the coins are “numismatic pieces or medallions which may be used voluntarily as barter.”

From a purely individual standpoint, I don’t suppose there is any problem with people using alternate currencies among themselves, so long as the use is entirely voluntary and well-informed. In other words, nobody should ever be fooled into thinking that the currency is something other than private issue. From a government standpoint, a government should be very jealous of its prerogatives with respect to currency — it’s almost as important to a government as keeping a monopoly on violence. There was a line in Frank Herbert’s Dune on the subject of keeping power to the effect of “Control the courts and the currency, let the rabble have the rest.”

I was reading this Journal and Courier article about a blackout in downtown Lafayette yesterday. There was brief mention of the fact that, because of the blackout, a meal couldn’t be prepared at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon. They called Brad Cohen, owner of Arni’s Pizza, and he was Johnny-on-the-Spot with 13 pizzas and some salad. I wouldn’t mention this in isolation, but it seems like everywhere I look in Lafayette, Cohen and Arni’s is there helping out the community. My personal experience is as a coordinator of the annual Legal Aid golf outing. Cohen and Arni’s have been kind enough to donate food for the lunch. My wife was involved with a MOMs Club charitable event, and Arni’s donated. Just a very solid member of the community, very much doing their part to make Lafayette a great place. And, might I add — great pizza.

Unlike the agony that the I-69 project seems to cause, the Hoosier Heartland Highway seems generally to be a happy proposition up here in Lafayette. The Journal & Courier has an article on the progress. The Hoosier Heartland is a four lane, mostly limited access, mostly four lane highway from Lafayette to Fort Wayne. Some day, this will hopefully be augmented by the Fort to Port project that will expand US 24 from Fort Wayne to Toledo. I don’t think there is anything currently on the drawing board from Lafayette, but one day they should at least expand US 231 from Lafayette down to I-74. Something from Lafayette to I-57 would also seem to make sense, though that’s a lot more ambitious.

Some folks are trying to organize an Indiana Blog Conference.

Here are the big picture details:

–Two-day conference to be held in Fall 2008 in downtown Indianapolis

–Session topics will include various current issues relating to blogging and social media, such as: political blogging, ways to make your blog and blog writing better, website analytics, blog and social media marketing techniques, business blogging, citizen journalism, creative commons, social networking, monetizing your blog, and local topics. This is a very early and rough list of topics that will become much more refined as we move forward–your input is appreciated.

–Estimated registration cost of $99 (you only pay $49 total if you register early through ThePoint.com)

Click on through if you’re interested.

While Fort Wayne and Indianapolis writers seem to dominate the Indiana blogosphere, there is a relative lack of voices in other places. Filling in one of the gaps is the South Shore Progressive — coming from Indiana’s northern reaches. (H/t Blue Indiana).

Bill Ruthhart, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled ACLU asks review of legislative prayers. The initial appeal of the legislative prayer case was heard by a 3 panel judge of the 7th Circuit who decided that the Plaintiffs did not have standing to challenge the practice of sectarian prayer as official business of the Indiana House of Representatives. They did not reach the question of whether such sectarian prayer was constitutionally permissible or not.

I think that’s probably a good idea. In fact, the standing decision could have a greater long term impact on citizens attempting to challenge pernicious practices of their government than the particulars of this prayer dispute.

A couple of interesting ideas out of Lafayette, Athens of the Midwest.

The Tippecanoe County Council isn’t happy about having to cough up $30,000 to mail out the property tax rebate checks mandated by the General Assembly. Adding further annoyance is the requirement that the rebate checks contain language that state that this is “tax relief being provided by the General Assembly.”

An editor of the Purdue Exponent was denied the right to vote because of Indiana’s restrictive voter ID law. (This one has been mentioned by other state blogs, Blue Indiana and Taking Down Words coming immediately to mind.) The editor is a student at Purdue who hails from New Jersey and has a New Jersey driver’s license. However he resides in Tippecanoe County and is registered to vote here. The BMV wouldn’t give him an Indiana ID and, in fact, gave him the run around about why he couldn’t vote. First they cited IC 9-24-16, and then they effectively told him he wasn’t an Indiana citizen eligible to vote until he registered his vehicle in Indiana. IC 9-24-16 governs the issuance of identification cards for nondrivers.

IC 9-24-16-10(b), in fact, requires issuance of an ID card without a fee to an individual who is or will be 18 before the next election and does not have a valid *Indiana* driver’s license. IC 3-7-13 sets out the voter eligibility requirements. You have to be 18, be a U.S. citizen, and reside in a precinct continuously for 30 days. Nothing in there about not being a licensed driver in another state or owning vehicles registered in other states. The Voter ID law is supposed to be nothing more and nothing less than a mechanism by which a citizen can prove that he or she is who they say they are. I don’t know whether this individual is complying with the state’s vehicle registration laws or driving licensure laws. Point is — it doesn’t matter. If he is who he says he is, and if he is eligible to vote, he should be allowed to vote – not have to wade through the BMV’s bureaucracy.