Loose Ends... Vol. I

I will attempt to make this a weekly post going forward. "Loose Ends" will be more condensed posts intended to highlight a few stories or thoughts from the week in review. The goal is to get some quick thoughts down on items which I probably wanted to write more, but couldn't find the time. This week, this will have two parts...

22 in 29 (0.7586)

Twenty-two homicides in twenty-nine days. Indianapolis is usually thought of as a relatively safe city. Homicides have become a bit more of a problem in recent years. This year new mayor, Greg Ballard, pledged to reduce crime. Up until a month ago, he seemed to be doing a "good job" (not that I think the mayor is all-powerful and can impact crime so quickly and easily). Now, we've had a flurry. I wanted to dig in the details and see what I could find. In my attempt to write up a quick post, I just spent about twenty minutes trying to find official information on the homicides. The only thing I could find was here, which appears to be a website devoted to vitriol against our last mayor, Bart Peterson. So, I'm a bit disappointed that it is so hard to find this data easily along with police reports, etc. The only thing I could find on the IMPD website required payment. Maybe another time I will dig in and look for trends and thoughts. My early inclination is to think that too much of this is related to drug crime. I leave this with the parting question to be analyzed more at another time... how much decriminalization of narcotics is appropriate? (I think quite a bit!)

9/16 (0.5625)

Nine-sixteenths of a second. I'll admit that I didn't notice anything in that quick instance. Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson were finishing their performance of "Rock Your Body" at the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. (I'm a pretty big fan of that song, by the way. It solidified Timberlake as a truly great pop artist and not just a member of a boy band.) Well, you know the story... the "wardrobe malfunction" led to many complaints with the FCC. This week, I have to give it up to the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for throwing out the case of the FCC against CBS. Judge Scririca ruled in favor of CBS supporting their claim of arbitrary and capricious action by the FCC in fining them $550,000. I wanted to review the brief and discuss at length thoughts of free speech protection under the first amendment, my opinion of the unconstitutionality of the existence and actions of the FCC, and my case for free-market television... but, that will also have to wait for another time.

That's all for this week!