Opinion

As if the forces of voter disenfranchisement were not out in sufficient numbers already, the Supreme Court opened a door and posted a welcome sign over it.
They issued several rulings last week, and those regarding gay marriage dominated the resulting media coverage. Those rulings are important, but because far more Americans are voters than are gay, we respectfully draw your attention to their 5-4 striking down of a formula key to the implementation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It’s hard for us to point fingers at any one person whose property is in need of repair, but the sorry state of the Obrecht House on Tell City’s Seventh Street is one that warrants community concern and this editorial.

The home needs repaired and restored or it needs to be torn down. It’s that simple.

Let us say, up front, that we hope the home is saved and we would be overjoyed if the current owner, Carolyn Barr, would follow through with her pledge, published in the newspaper a few weeks ago, to return the home to its past glory.

President Ronald Reagan is credited with asserting, “the most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ ”

Advocates of a year-round school calendar believe that with shorter breaks children will retain more information than they do with the current 2½-month summer vacation.

Yet as recently as the late 1980s, then Indiana Lt. Gov. John Mutz was advocating a return to a school year that begins after Labor Day and ends by Memorial Day, giving students slightly more than a three-month summer vacation. Among his reasons for that suggestion was it would help the state’s tourism industry.

When ISTEP tests roll around, students, teachers and parents should be focused on applying classroom learning to the test, not worrying if the testing system itself will work.

That wasn’t the case across many areas of the state, including Perry County, late last month. On April 29, Hoosier students taking the online multiple-choice portion of the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress-Plus exam experienced frozen screens and in many cases, an inability to finish the test.

Memo to teachers and other authority figures nationwide: Respond to actual threats where they exist. Where no threat exists, leave our children alone.

A teacher in West Virginia demanded that a high-school student remove a T-shirt decorated with the National Rifle Association logo and a picture of a rifle, according to media reports last week. Also adorning the shirt were the words, “Protect your right.”

If a new hotel along Tell City’s Seventh Street is feasible economically, let’s not waste time. Let’s make it happen.

That was the message Tony Pappano delivered to the Perry County Convention and Visitors Bureau a few weeks ago. Pappano is a grant administrator and community visionary who for years has helped our area leverage grant funds. He was instrumental in Tell City being awarded and successfully administering more than $2 million in Neighborhood Stabilization Fund grants over the past few years.

A Lee Greenwood song, “Proud to be an American,” inspired a swell of patriotism 10 years ago. Because its 10th anniversary is being observed this month, some media outlets are looking back on this nation’s war in Iraq.

They don’t inspire much pride.

Retrospectives are useful for lessons-learned purposes. We’d like to highlight several lessons we hope the nation has learned.

Everything isn’t always what it seems to be in politics, and sometimes just the threat to do something can produce the desired result.

History buffs are familiar with the Judicial Procedures Reform Bill of 1937, frequently called the court-packing plan. Because the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled several parts of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation unconstitutional, Roosevelt suggested this bill to add more members to the Supreme Court. The Constitution does not specify how many members the court must have.