What would the city and people of Indianapolis do without the Colts®  and the Pacers®?

   The past couple of months I have expressed paranoia about those franchises’ owners. If they detect any “spare” change rattling about in the City’s coffers, there appears a new need for monies for one or another of the teams.

   To the best of my knowledge, no one has been shown the books of YOUR Indiana Pacers®. The Pacers®  had built for them a new arena in 1999, now called Bankers Life® …

   We can put into better perspective the demands of the NFL® upon a city that seeks to host the Super Bowl®.

   What if Lindsay Lohan were available to be a guest in someone’s house for a month? These would be possible demands of a contract for her stay:

   1) Of course, she would pay no rent. In fact, you would pay her for the privilege of playing “host” to a World-Class celebrity.

   2) She requires transportation, therefore you would be required to provide, 24/7, three…

   A metaphor I learned at a young age was imparted by Wiley Coyote's purchase of the Acme Company's Rocket-propelled Darts. At the start of that cartoon, Coyote let loose a string of the rocket-propelled projectiles in his quest to dine on Road Runner. The darts missed their target. Throughout the rest of the cartoon, at some of the most inconvenient moments for Coyote, a dart would flutter down from the sky, its rocket fuel spent, jab Coyote in the butt and blow up. The metaphor was about…

   I was born a fan of the Chicago Bears. I grew up watching Lindsey Nelson and CBS's broadcasts from Wrigley Field and its seemingly (perhaps actually) too-short end zones. The Bears did not win any championships during those years. Individual players were fun to watch. Gayle Sayers was awesome. The Chicago Tribune ran a front page photograph Dick Butkus as the middle linebacker sacked a quarterback and, fingers inserted through the guy's face mask, attempted to gouge at least one…

   We are supposed to be overjoyed at the prospects of Indianapolis playing host to Super Bowl LII®. City leaders have boasted of the money the last Super Bowl® brought to Indianapolis. Those leaders overlook some of the financial incentives Indianapolis extended to the NFL®, such as the NFL® not having to pay certain taxes.

   The City came up with a study that showed we "made" $152 million from acting as the host city of the last Super Bowl.® The report is from Rockport Analytics,…

   As Woody Harrelson's character in "Doc Hollywood said, "I woulda been a doctor, except for all that science stuff." That might not be verbatim, so maybe the quotation marks are inappropriate. But the sentiment was correct.

   Still one does not need to be in the medical profession to know certain things, especially about one's self.

   I had no use of my legs. My brain would direct them with such complex orders as "Move!" And they wouldn't. Above my (growing thanks to the…

   Everyone seems happy about the Super Bowl®. We have projected the image of a "world class city." (I don’t know if that phrase is trademarked or copyrighted. One day maybe all words and phrases will be copyrighted and/or trademarked and one will require a license to speak.) The concept expressed by more than one person is that Indianapolis has thrown such a good Super Bowl®, the NFL® will want to return here for another or more.

   First, I doubt—really, truly, honestly doubt—the…

   Of the two, I do not know what I find more distressing: 1) That a Marion County Superior Court judge granted blanket powers to three corporations—the NFL®, the New York Giants®, and the New England Patriots®—to seize any item their agents or employees deem an infringement of copyright/trademark, or that the story about the issuance of the order granting that injunctive relief that appeared yesterday morning on the Indiana Law Blog was gone by last evening.

   There are procedures…

   Red Lion Grog House is located at 1043 Virginia Avenue, in Fountain Square. Red Lion has set a sandwich board outside its front entrance for over two years. Last Friday evening, an individual from City Code Enforcement advised the proprietor that the sign was in violation of an ordinance, adopted in August by The City of Consolidated Indianapolis and Marion County, through the City Council and the Mayor, to cater (more accurately kow-tow) to the NFL®. The ordinance was passed to assuage…

   Because the Super Bowl® has occupied Indianapolis, the NFL® flew in (at City expense, of course) a special photographer for book-ins at the Marion County Jail. Actually, the effort was to make sure one person was not available to take those head shots. The NFL had sought to hire the photographer responsible for the most famous head shot of all time. Long after Nick Nolte has retired, and 48 Hours is mentioned more frequently in trivia contents than discussions of really cool…

   And the day has arrived. We begin shooting at 11 a.m. at Big Hat Books. Big Hat is located at 6510 Cornell Avenue, immediately north of the Brewpub, just north of 65^th. Cornell runs parallel to the Monon Trail. For those of you who might not be familiar with Broad Ripple, Google®  the address (as I presume you are on a computer if you are reading this blog).

   The City of Consolidated Indianapolis and Marion County has, in place, a silly ordinance meant to cater (more…

   The City of Indianapolis, through its Department of Code Enforcement,  has been kind enough to post an information for "Super Celebration Sites" for the time leading up to, and following, the Super Bowl.

   Contexts of Orwellian twists on the English language are interesting. To see these phenomena in regard to a sports event staged by a mono(lith)poly would add an element of amusement, were it not for a couple of factors. First, we—taxpayers and citizens of Indianapolis and…

"Super"-Congress!?

   Congressional leaders, unable to resolve the crisis on the debt ceiling have, according to this morning’s HuffPost, proposed creating a body comprised of members of both houses to enact budget legislation. The details are fuzzy, but the net result is the same.

   They propose to alter the structure of the Federal government in conflict with provisions of the United States Constitution without the inconvenient steps of the process of…