I’m generally suspicious of our good Governor’s numbers, but here is some good news, if true. He says that funding for the state’s recreation trails will soon double from $10 million/year to $20 million/year.

“The state will take the lead, but local communities and private organizations must play a large role if we’re to take a real leap forward and create the kind of trails network that really sets Indiana apart,” Daniels said. “We’ll favor cooperative projects among communities that will link local trails into long continuous routes.”

Sounds like a good plan.

It’s Memorial Day. I don’t have any real interest in commenting on Indiana politics this morning, so I’ll just add my voice to the chorus of thanks for the men and women who have given their lives fighting in America’s wars.

According to the Wikipedia entry linked above, Memorial Day was formerly known as “Decoration Day” and began first to honor Union soldiers who died during the Civil War. After World War I, it expanded to include those who died in any war or military action. I wonder if that includes the southern rebels who committed treason by fighting against the union for the Confederacy, killing the Union soldiers for whom the holiday was originally enacted. Along those lines, the Wikipedia entry goes on to state:

Many of the states of the U.S. South refused to celebrate Decoration Day due to lingering hostility towards the Union Army, which it was commemorating. Many Southern States did not recognize Memorial Day until after World War I, and even after continued to have a separate Confederate Memorial Day, with the date varying from state to state.

I’m not sure if it’s proper to honor our military dead in this fashion, but when so many are dying in Iraq, I’m reminded of Lord Tennyson’s Charge of the Light Brigade. The traditional image of Memorial Day is the brave soldier dying for a noble cause. But with the war in Iraq, the Charge of the Light Brigade seems more appropriate — brave soldiers dying for their country, but in a futile cause because their superiors have misused the honor and loyalty of their soldiers.

1.

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
“Charge for the guns!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

2.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Someone had blunder’d:
Their’s not to make reply,
Their’s not to reason why,
Their’s but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

3.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

4.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

5.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

6.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

This is sacrilarious. I don’t want to give it away, but I’ll just mention that it involves Jesus, “I Will Survive,” and an ending I’ve wanted to see in many, many movies.

The Richmond Palladium-Item has had a dust-up concerning its policy with respect to publishing the names of suspects. The background to this dust-up concerns an incident that took place on May 13 involving Scott Porter, a prominent business man in Richmond. The police investigation suggests that he was driving near the Olde Richmond Inn when two couples going to prom were walking by. Porter apparently made some “inappropriate” remarks about the girls, their dates attempted to defend their honor, Porter flashed a pistol (Porter says it was actually a cell phone), got of the car and kicked one of the boys “in the groin.”

In today’s story, the Pal-Item made a statement concerning its policy with respect to naming suspects:

The Palladium-Item does not print the names of alleged victims of violence. Nor is it the newspaper’s policy to print the name of suspects before they are charged with any crime.

Apparently the failure to name this particular name riled up some of the readers who thought that Mr. Porter was being given special treatment. This led to 2 Pal-Item editor’s blog entries defending the practice.

With respect to the policy, the editor (somewhat jokingly) compared it to the Ten Commandments:

What many people suggest is that we break our policy. But policy is an institutional form of ethics and morality and their argument is akin to suggesting that we have morals but break them when the situation calls for it.

It’s like saying that the Ten Commandments forbid adultery but I can commit adultery if Angelina Jolie has stopped by my house. (Now, don’t think I wouldn’t give it serious consideration. But that’s another blog entirely.)

Trouble is, they had already published Mr. Porter’s name the day before:

NEWS: Police hand prosecutor results from investigation of local real estate agent

Local real estate agent J. Scott Porter has been the target of an investigation into allegations of battery and criminal recklessness for the past 10 days. Police sent the results of their probe to Wayne County Prosecutor Michael Shipman on Tuesday.

Originally published May 23, 2006

That link has since been pulled. So I don’t know if it was a mistake, momentary vacillation, or what. Richmond area blogger Chris Hardie noted some big holes (see comments to 5/24/06 11:00 entry) in the Palladium-Item’s policy.

I did want to ask if you could speak (or, type) to the difference between what it means to be “under police investigation” and just “under suspicion of wrongdoing”?

Using some of the Don Holbrook / EDC events (and your coverage of them) from earlier this year as a contrast, it would seem that someone who has allegedly done wrong (criminal, moral, or otherwise) enters into some sort of special protection (in the newspaper’s eye) at the point they start being investigated by official law enforcement. But up until that point, they’re not protected…?

If someone has just allegedly done something wrong but is not yet even (or ever) under police investigation, are they fair game for greater exposure in your pages as a result? Does the Pal-Item have a policy related to publishing someone’s name as a part of allegations against them, even though it may not be a matter of illegal activities? Or is this a case-by-case editorial decision?

Incidentally, I’m not blowing anybody’s cover. Porter was charged with 5 felonies today and the Palladium-Item published the name.

I include this story by Bill Ruthhart over an airport issue between Fishers and Noblesville in part because I’m interested in urban development and transportation issues and in larger part because I’m playing with Google Earth.

The Noblesville City Council declined a proposal by Fishers to move the Metropolitan Airport. Apparently Fishers envisioned the current site as a future commercial hub that could include a park-and-ride facility for a possible rapid transit line to Indianapolis.

Noblesville doesn’t want the new airport in its backyard. Fishers officials and Hamilton County officials had envisioned relocating the airport to a 1,000 acre site on the county’s eastern edge. The Indianapolis Airport Authority has said that it would need Noblesville’s approval to make such a move. Because that approval will not be forthcoming, Fishers has indicated it will look into potentially moving it to Madison County which is directly to the east of Hamilton County.

Mary Dalrymple has an article on the weekend raid by the FBI on the Congressional offices of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA). I’m a bit torn on this issue. On the one hand, unless there is an extremely significant wrinkle explaining why he would be accepting a bag of cash ($100,000 in $100 bills) from an FBI informant, then the Democrats should be howling for their colleague to resign. On the other hand, the idea of the executive branch tossing the office of a member of the legislative branch has disturbing implications. It was refreshing to hear that the Bush administration at least bothered to get a search warrant for this search. Being a member of Congress apparently has its privileges. Being an innocent citizen of the U.S. who uses a telephone: not so much.

I am a little annoyed that it takes an FBI search in Congress to get members of Congress interested in the Bill of Rights again. When it’s the rabble citizenry being searched you hear a bunch of “if you’ve got nothing to hide, you have nothing to be afraid of.” When it’s an apparently corrupt member of Congress, suddenly the Constitution becomes a sacred document again.

Advance Indiana has a post on a public records matter (that was also flagged by  a commenter here). A former city employee of the City of Crawfordsville brought an EEOC charge against Mayor Zumer. That matter was settled, but the terms of the settlement include a nondisclosure clause. The AP covers the story here.

The settlement was reached Monday during a mediation session held by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission involving Mayor John Zumer, former assistant Summar Keesee and their attorneys.

“The case is resolved,” said Keesee’s attorney, Bruce Petit. “There is a nondisclosure required in the settlement, so we really can’t say more than we’ve resolved it to a mutual satisfaction.”

I suppose the attorneys are free to decline to comment, but the Indiana Court of Appeals recently held that a settlement agreement entered into by a governmental entity or its insurer is a public record. Knightstown Banner, LLC v. Town of Knightstown, 838 N.E.2d 1127 (Ind.Ct.App. 2005).

The Knightstown case appears to be similar to the Crawfordsville case. The Knightstown case involved a police dispatcher who alleged sexual harassment. The case was settled, but the Town of Knightstown refused to disclose the terms of settlement because of a confidentiality agreement. I don’t see any reason that the Crawfordsville settlement’s confidentiality provisions would hold up where the Knightstown provisions did not.

I can’t find it in the online version, but I found amusing this little note in the “police investigations” section of the Monticello Herald Journal:

1:15 p.m. – Deputy Lee Ann Reinholt responded to the area of CR 725 E and US 24 in reference to a welfare check due to a passer-by calling out several buzzards being on top of a house. Occupants of the house were located and accounted for.

This news is not at all encouraging. Rick Callahan, writing for the Associated Press, has an article on the fitness of Indiana’s citizens.

Long considered among the nation’s most unfit citizens, Indiana residents are apparently losing ground in the battle against obesity, smoking and other unhealthy behavior, according to a new survey.

27.2% of Hoosiers are obese, up from 25.5% in 2004, and they smoke more – 27.3% up from 24.8%, putting Indiana second in smoking behind Kentucky in the percentage of smokers. This is bad, really bad. It jacks up our health costs and likely reduces our productivity. More than that, being unhealthy severely reduces the quality of one’s life.

In this day and age, it’s just mind boggling that our percentage of smokers is increasing. I don’t know the solution, particularly. It seems as if the anti-smoking advertisements have been pretty visible. I don’t know what education is like on the subject in the schools.

As for the obesity, eating habits are a significant factor, but I suspect that Hoosiers’ lack of exercise is an even greater factor. Maybe Major Moves should focus more on bike and running trails and less on roads. But, to the Governor’s credit, his visibility in promoting exercise and healthy habits seems to show that he knows this is a significant issue and ought to be a major concern. Whether his overall approach is effective, I don’t know; but at least it’s on his radar.

I recall being in Boulder, Colorado for a day or two on my way to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some hiking. For whatever reason, we ended up in a McDonald’s, and I believe we located the only two overweight people in the entire city. Obviously Boulder has some environmental advantages that we don’t — I think it would be tough to have those mountains in your back yard and not want to get outside and enjoy them. But there is also a culture of activity. Everybody bikes, hikes, runs, kayaks, or whatever. While recognizing our environmental disadvantages, we need to cultivate a similar attitude in our communities. I’ve only seen it in passing, but it seems like the Monon Trail around Broad Ripple has encouraged residents to get out and exercise.

Obviously I don’t have a complete solution, but it seems to me that government — probably local government in particular — has a role to play in encouraging the health of its citizens. I suspect the libertarian purists in our midst will complain that this is well beyond the scope of what a government ought to do, but in our current system where we are not willing to let our citizens simply die when they become unhealthy enough, the economically prudent thing to do is to try to make sure citizens do not become unhealthy in the first place. Otherwise, we end up paying for a great deal of medical treatment in the form of Medicaid payments, subsidized emergency rooms, and the like.

So, investments governments make in parks, trails, lakes, and other recreational facilities for its citizens likely pay for themselves, albeit indirectly and over the long term.

(Sorry if this post was a bit disjointed — I had to stop my 9 month old daughter, no less than 7 times, from certain doom as she tried to climb the stairs she is not yet able to climb down. And, in doing so, she showed me up as a hypocrite in that she was getting all sorts of exercise while dear old dad was sitting around staring at a computer screen.)