In the wake of the mass shooting in the Charleston, South Carolina church Wednesday evening, several commentators have expressed concern that Indiana has no “hate crime” among its statutes. As noted on Wikipedia (my 1996 pocket edition of Black’s Law Dictionary lacks a definition of “hate crime”): “Hate crime laws protect against hate crimes (also known as bias crimes) motivated by enmity or animus against a protected class. Although state laws vary, current statutes permit federal…

   On Wednesday, another mass shooting took place in the United States.

   Before the gun nuts get revved up, this blog will not address the absurd proliferation (oddly, “prolife” is the first part of the word “proliferation”) of assault weapons, etc., in this country. Instead, I want to address another aspect of the incident.

   An individual identified as a forensic psychiatrist appeared on The Charlie Brooker Show after a school shooting in Winenden, Germany, in March, 2009. In…

   For me the hour was late. 9:00 p.m. is when I usually pass into the arms of Morpheus. I get up at 4:40 a.m.

   Someone knocked at my door. I live in a big city and, therefore, with Indy’s cutbacks on safety, I was apprehensive. I saw a short man, oddly dressed in the fashion of the early Twentieth Century. He looked familiar. In one hand he held an umbrella. In the other hand he held an unlit cigar. He rapped again at the door, with the handle (now I saw) of the umbrella. I asked him…

  On this 43rd anniversary of the Watergate break-in, I thought of politics and irony.

   President Nixon was on his way to a landslide re-election victory in 1972, in part because of such tactics as exemplified by the Watergate fiasco, but also because Nixon had made a lot of what today would be called progressive moves (like creating the EPA) although simultaneously prolonging direct United States military involvement in Vietnam so he could make a grandstand peace deal as the 1972…

   There have been several signs, posted on lamp posts, the past couple of weeks, about missing pets in the Warfleigh neighborhood where I live.  This is an area in Broad Ripple west of College, north of the canal, south of the river, and east of Meridian.

   Last week, on my morning walk, I saw a coyote.  Two days ago, again on my morning walk, I saw a coyote.  Perhaps I saw the same coyote.  Perhaps I saw different coyotes.  Coyotes are carnivores.  Jokes about Acme Corporation and…

   The contract Mayor Ballard entered into a contract with Vision Fleet has garnered attention from the media of communications and news coverage that seem most comprehensive in our local political goings-on these days: the local blogosphere.

   As I understand the numbers, the City would pay $35 million for 400 French-manufactured electric vehicles. Photos I have seen of the vehicles purportedly to be provided by the terms of the lease show tiny cars. I was reminded of the original…