Before I go on the weekly rant, I would like to take this opportunity to say congratulations and good job to the Warsaw Tiger basketball team and their coaches.
Making it to the state championship game in Class 4A is no small feat.
Sure, the Tigers were a bit outmatched in that final game, but there is no reason for team members to hang their heads.
They represented our town quite well when you consider what they were up against. North Central's enrollment is 40 percent larger than Warsaw's, giving them a much larger talent pool to draw from.
Besides, Indianapolis schools have open enrollment. It gives coaches a chance to more or less load up a team with top talent from all over town. It also gives parents the opportunity to pick the school they want their student to attend.
And I think it's fair to say that in big cities, parents do whatever they can to get their kids in good athletic programs.
So hold your heads high, Tigers. You made the town proud. I can't wait for next season.
It's Ridiculous
And now, here are some things I find absolutely ridiculous.
*****
Want evidence of how broken our system of government has become?
Look no further than the front page of Wednesday's edition of the Times-Union.
There you will find two stories.
One story reports that the county will be accepting and acting as the fiscal unit for a $680,000 grant from the federal government to upgrade emergency communications systems in our and five other counties.
Another story details just how cash-strapped our very own Warsaw Community School Corporation is. Administrators talked about budget shortfalls in the millions of dollars, dwindling cash reserves, selling off property, etc.
On the one hand you have the county raking in big bucks for improvements it could easily do without.
On the other hand you have a school system that graduated 3 out of 4 high schoolers last year strapped for cash.
Ridiculous.
*****
CBS Sports called the newspaper Tuesday. They were talking about sending a film crew to Warsaw. The working premise of the story was that Warsaw would be the only town in Indiana that would not be cheering for Butler in the Final Four at Indianapolis this weekend. (Duke, West Virginia, Michigan State and Butler are the Final Four teams.)
While Butler is from Indiana, Warsaw's own Miles and Mason Plumlee play for Duke.
The guy from CBS asked if there was going to be a pep rally or if there were signs up and store windows painted up - you know, the basic, "support your local athletes doing well" stuff one might expect.
We had to tell him, well, not so much.
A New York Times reporter also called several people around town to ask questions about the Duke standouts.
That'll be an interesting story.
The bottom line in all this is that the town should be proud of a couple Warsaw kids who have made it to the pinnacle of NCAA hoops - but it's not.
In fact, we get nasty anonymous calls, letters and e-mails when we run stories about Duke in our newspaper.
We did notice that Denny Duncan, the elementary principal over at Jefferson, where the boys attended, did a nice little "good luck" tribute to them. He always thought they were great kids. (Beware, Denny. You're probably going to hear from the haters.)
The boys apparently weren't a good fit for Warsaw basketball and wound up heading to North Carolina to play high school ball.
Now they are in a 7-man rotation at Duke playing in the Final Four as a freshman and a sophomore and a bunch of people in this town resent them for it.
Ridiculous.*****
Remember the health care bill's passage?
Remember Bart Stupak, the pro-life Democrat congressman from Michigan whose coalition pushed it over the top?
He and 10 other Dems were called the Stupak 11. They were the focus of high level pressure by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats because they threatened to vote against the health care reform bill. They didn't like the abortion language it contained.
Well, Stupak met with the President and got some abortion assurances - an executive order, which, by the way, isn't law - and he was happy. Seems he got more than an executive order.
Fiscal 2011 earmark requests (read that political payoffs) by members of the Stupak 11 total more than $3.5 billion. Yeah, billion.
That's an average of around $314 million per lawmaker.
Ringleader Stupak, according to watchdog group The Sunlight Foundation, requested more than 170 earmarks totaling $559 million, including $125 million for a replacement lock on the Sault Ste. Marie, $25.6 million to build a federal courthouse in Marquette, Mich., $15 million to repaint the Mackinac Bridge and $800,000 to preserve the Quincy Mining Company smelter near Hancock in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
Indiana's 2nd District congressman Joe Donnelly was one of the Stupak 11. He only requested a lousy $19 million. That's way below average. Where was he on that one?
Ridiculous.
*****
Finally, a bunch of big companies are doing write downs of their profits because of the aforementioned health care bill.
Seems that tax incentives for these companies to keep employees on their prescription plans and off Medicare are being scrapped as part of the new health care bill.
The losses are in the billions. What do you suppose these companies will do to offset these losses? Lay people off? Raise their prices?
Well, as bad as that seems, it gets worse. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman is calling these company's CEO's on the carpet.
He's bringing them in to brow beat them. He wants memos and balance sheets. How dare they say health care is going to hurt their bottom line!
