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…

   A colleague called me yesterday morning to say The Indiana Law Blog had an item about the picture of a roller coaster having been superimposed on the video of oral argument in Whistle Stop Inn, et al v. City of Indianapolis in which I argued for Appellants/Plaintiffs Monday afternoon.

   First, I was concerned someone might believe I had something to do with the matter. There would be little point to illustrating an oral argument with a graphic the judges could not see. Also, without…

   Broad Ripple—“maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives”—will become a “brand.” In the presentation a couple of years ago about the Whole Foods complex planned for the Village—because, as one presenter noted (to a chorus of boos from the audience that consisted of many customers and fans of longtime locally-owned and operated organic food store Good Earth) Broad Ripple lacks an organic food store—one of the “suits” on the stage of the Broad Ripple Methodist Church said…

   There are so few times to “get away,” that even a leisurely cruise can serve as a tonic.

   I define a “vacation” as any trip of three days or more in which business plays no part and from which I return more relaxed than when I left.

   I heartily recommend the charter boat company in question. The boat was 70 feet or so long. The fixtures were clean and polished. The members of the crew were polite.

   We left the dock. The Hancock Building rose above us. I engaged in…

   There are periods in which person experiences self-doubt. Self-doubt can lead to loss of  “confidence”—“full trust; belief in the trustworthiness or reliability of a person.” The American College Dictionary, 1962 ed. Three people had to help me the last three-quarters of a mile to finish yesterday’s race. They gave me confidence.

   Yesterday I was determined to finish the Mini. My goal in my first Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon®), in 1999, was to break three hours for the…

   Today I shall walk my seventeenth consecutive Indianapolis 500 Festival Mini-Marathon®. Two years ago, I blogged here about the reasons I walk the Mini.

   In 1994, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. By the second day in the hospital, I completely had lost use of my legs. That evening—or maybe it was the next; things were a bit of a blur—a neurologist visited my room to inform me of the diagnosis. He said, “You have MS.” I was goofy on the drugs I had been administered—lawfully…

    Kool-Aid® got a bad reputation in November, 1978, when Jim Jones (a Hoosier in case readers were unaware of the fact) exhorted (or threatened at gunpoint) his followers in Jonestown to drink from vats a brew of powdered soft drink flavoring agent laced with potassium cyanide. To accuse someone or group of people as having been drinking the Kool-Aid® has come to mean those people blindly follow a view or position despite catastrophic consequences. However, it is easier to accuse someone…

   Groundhogs were familiar visitors at my parents’s farm. When I told my father that a groundhog was in the mulberry tree next to the Upper Barn, he thought I was joking him. He saw for himself, however, that a specimen of Marmot monax, indeed, had burrowed into the main trunk of the dying tree, about ten feet above the ground.

   Each year, a groundhog, with its home (I finally figured out) under the foundation of the silo on the east end of the Upper Barn, scampered to the nearby pear…

   In the early 1980s, I visited Indianapolis from Chicago. I thought construction of a football stadium here was rather odd, given Indianapolis lacked a National Football League® team.  “Field of Dreams” had yet to be produced, but the concept of “build it and he will come” was a reality. Mayflower® moving trucks, as everyone well knows, transported the Colts from Baltimore to Indianapolis in 1983.

   The Colts now have played as the team of Indianapolis longer than as the team of Charm…

Dusk

c. 1986 by mark small.

Cattle crop lower branches

of the tree line

     luminescent with the sun

14 shades of glowing green---

but for the cottonwoods,

leaves upturned in whiteness,

pages to be read by breezes.

Hot July fragrances

on heavy corn-pollinated air---

     and mown hay

     and cut peppermint.

And blades of timothy, sweet

to the tastes of the horses.

And a falling sense of…

   On March 1, 1980, I moved to Lafayette, Indiana. I obtained employment on the clerical staff at Purdue University, across the Wabash River from where I crashed on a friend’s couch. A few months later I moved to a basement apartment in the student ghetto. At 15 North Salisbury, I paid $112.50 for my half of the rent, and the price included all utilities and basic cable. I did not own a car. My job, in the Life Sciences Library, was a six-block walk from my residence. A grocery store…

   The number of days trash pick-up has been canceled worries me. I think the administration of Greg “Give Me a Reason to Toss Sweet Deals to Pals” Ballard will use the days trash pick-up have been canceled this winter as a pre-text for final privatization of that service by the City.

   First, let me say that I understand what it is like to work in sub-zero weather. During college, I worked for my old man’s construction company. His company was union, but there was an exemption for…

   Representatives of the United States government—members of Congress, officials in the executive branch—often talk about our “friend” and “ally” Saudi Arabia.

   One needs to overlook a few unpleasant aspects of that country, the first part of the name of which is derived from the name of the family that has ruled it since the 1920s. There is the marked weakness of human rights. For example, to criticize the King or other governmental officials is also to risk imprisonment. There are…

   Sheila Kennedy blogged about the attempt by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to remove language from the University of Wisconsin’s mission statement that its mission it to “extend knowledge and its application beyond the boundaries of its campus” and to “serve and stimulate society.” Ms. Kennedy reports Associated Press as noting “He also wanted to remove the statement ‘Basic to every purpose of the system is the search for truth.’”

   Paul Ogden, at “Ogden on Politics,” took issue…

   As a fan of the Chicago Cubs National League Baseball Club®, I have experienced a lot of anguish. As a citizen of the United States, I have seen my rights erode concomitantly with bestowal of rights on corporations—fictional entities created to shield shareholders from liability (the most popular reason to incorporate).

   Now a sports agent Scott Boras proposes playing The World Series on a neutral field. Boras criticizes the “surprise” of where The World Series is played as bad for…

   January 22 is the anniversary of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

   “They should take politics out of selection of judges,” a fellow seated to my right commented a couple of days ago.

   We should be clear about one matter: judges, as part of our political system, are selected by various processes—Federal appointment for life after nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate; various hybrids, at the State level, of…

   When I have spoken with friends about Islam, none has read The Koran—the holy book of the religion. In yesterday’s blog I criticized those who are ignorant of the religion. Ignorance produces fear and fear begets violence.

   I want to clarify that I am not an advocate of Islam. Nor am I an advocate of any religion. I do not believe in the existence of a supreme deity. As I wrote yesterday, I am an atheist because I have studied religions. A principle dynamic of religion is a basic…

   Yesterday’s mass shooting of editors and other staff at “Charlie Hebdo,” a French publication known for satire, most prominently of matters related to Islam, demonstrated some people cannot tolerate humor.

   Religious extremists exist, be they in Islam, Christianity or Judaism—all, by the way, from the branch of religions arisen from the concept of Abraham—and have carried out other atrocities in history. Christians flayed the head of the library of Alexandria—Egypt, not Madison…

   SONY Pictures produces a movie that sucks—according to the critics whose reviews I have read. “The Interview” is a one punch line film of questionable taste. Because the flick is centered on a pair of journalists who plan to assassinate Kim Jong Un, and the film’s makers do a lot of promo (they appear on “The Daily Show,” as I recall, and other places), the flick garners more attention than perhaps would have been the case.

   Here is where matters become more interesting. Kim Jong Un…