Land of the rising sun?

In this day and age, semantics is everything.\nApparently, it's more important than the jobs lost in Indiana, the budget, gambling and deciding whether it's five o'clock Eastern time or four o'clock Indiana time.\nAfter all, District 57 Rep. Luke Messer has just introduced House Bill 1100 in the 2005 session which will change the definition of our state seal from "a setting sun" to "a rising sun." This measure will not change the seal itself, but rather how it is described in Indiana Code 1-2-4-1. Currently, we have a "nearly full sun setting behind and between the first and second hill from the left."\nIf Messer has his way, we might soon have a "nearly full sun rising," which clearly will ease the state's financial woes -- or at least hide its lack of a solution beneath the sponsorship of superfluous bills. But maybe that's not the case. Maybe it's more sinister than that. Maybe Messer wants to make Indiana an outpost of the Japanese empire. You can't ignore the connection:a rising sun in the state seal and Japan as the "Land of the Rising Sun." Or maybe you can. \nStill, Mitch Daniels won the gubernatorial election based on a campaign that is, according to his Web site, "(u)nwilling to settle for a state government that wastes our tax dollars."\nBut apparently some people in that government have slipped through the cracks.\nAfter all, most people can agree the description of the seal is a non-issue. And considering that the operating cost of the House of Representatives for the 2002-2003 session was about $14.9 million, it's also a huge waste of tax dollars. If there aren't enough issues of importance on the plate, maybe someone should introduce a bill that gives the House of Representatives a longer vacation with a pay cut to match it. \nThis scenario is clearly an example of your garden-variety, tax-and-spend Democrats wasting money like they were born to do it. Of course, Messer is not a Democrat but a Republican who, according to his Web site, wants to focus his work in the General Assembly "on creating good-paying jobs in Indiana and ensuring that every Hoosier child receives a quality education." Poor grammar aside, I fail to see the importance of the state seal's relationship to either issue. \nIn fact, and maybe it's the result of my public school education, I didn't even know the state seal had an official definition, and I doubt many Hoosiers could tell you for certain whether the sun is rising or setting to begin with. \nDon't get me wrong -- I know the state needs to start looking ahead to the future; the economy needs to be turned around. It is important that our legislature is optimistic, but optimism shouldn't come at such a premium. If this is the only way the state's House of Representatives knows how to be optimistic, then we're in trouble. Happier words alone cannot remedy the problems in our state. A similar 2005 House bill proposed to change "non-custodial parents' visitation time" to "parenting time." Sometimes semantics does matter, but in this case, merely changing the way we talk about things doesn't get to the bottom of the issue. \nLast year, Messer's seat, along with many others, went uncontested in the November election. This lack of accountability is a huge problem in the state's political system. Democracy constantly is being undermined by the legislature's ability to waste time and money without a fight from the opposition.\nHopefully, when the next election rolls around, the Democrats in Shelby County will take the initiative and nominate a candidate who won't waste so many tax dollars on non-issues.\nIn the meantime, if Messer still thinks the sun is half-full, he should foot the bill -- monetarily speaking, of course.