Opinion

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.

We have often wondered how teachers keep up with all of the changes thrown at them.

Most of the changes come from Indianapolis, and with Tony Bennett serving as the state’s chief education official, their rollout has been fast and furious.

Probably television stations, which received giant amounts of political advertising revenue this year, are the only ones not glad that the U.S. elections are over. But since many of the races were close at the national and state levels, it will be interesting to see how the victors govern.

President Barack Obama once again proved to be a highly skillful campaigner. Virtually his only misstep was being too passive in his first debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

There are a lot of stories coming out from the presidential debates between incumbent President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

“It’s unfortunate that a handshake doesn’t mean what it used to,” lamented a teachers’ representative at the last Cannelton School Board meeting.

A signature has little value in the corporation, as well.

Janet Abrams, with the Indiana State Teachers Association, had just said at the board’s Sept. 20 meeting the teachers had agreed to some requests from Schools Superintendent Al Sibbitt, and shook hands before parting ways.

During a presidential-election year, the Indiana State Bar Association, Indiana Secretary of State and the Indiana Department of Education sponsor a program called Indiana Kids’ Election. This mock election allows Hoosier students in kindergarten through 12th grades to go through the voting process Nov. 6, just as their parents, grandparents and other adults will do.

The recent death of Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, brings up the question of what would be the best way to honor his memory.

One way we have immortalized some great men is declaring their birthday a national holiday. We have also declared the Monday closest to Oct. 12, the day Christopher Columbus first landed in the New World, a national holiday even though we now know some Viking explorers arrived in the Americas before he did.