Clowning around
Anna Billings, left, and Kailieg Adams have varying reactions to a story read to them during “Put Your Nose In a Book Day” at Southside School Friday in Columbus, Ind.
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Anna Billings, left, and Kailieg Adams have varying reactions to a story read to them during “Put Your Nose In a Book Day” at Southside School Friday in Columbus, Ind.
INDIANAPOLIS – Sexual abuse and misconduct allegations levied against 10 workers at the Marion County Juvenile Detention Center have led to just one conviction.\nProsecutors dismissed the lone remaining charge in the case on Friday.\n“I’m not happy with the outcome of these cases,” Marion County Prosecutor Carl Brizzi said. “(But) I absolutely stand by the way this case was handled, when we believed time was of the essence.”\nThe employees were charged last year after an investigation into reports of abuse of current and former detainees by staff. But the probe eroded as former female detainees recanted or refused to testify in most of the cases, resulting in dropped charges.\nA jury earlier this year acquitted a guard accused in \nthe case.\nLast month, a judge acquitted the center’s former superintendent, Damon Ellison. He faced felony charges of obstruction of justice and neglect of a dependent.\nProsecutors won their sole conviction last year when Anthony Tyler, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of official misconduct, avoiding sexual misconduct and child solicitation charges. He received one year on home detention.\nOne legal expert said there was a key breakdown as the case evolved. The claims of the victims, all girls ages 13 to 16, were never properly sewn up. Prosecutors moved ahead based on interviews by investigators.\nThey didn’t require the girls to give sworn statements or testify before a grand jury.\n“You’ve just got to get it under oath,” said Professor Henry Karlson, who teaches criminal law at IU School of Law-Indianapolis. “If they’re not willing to give you a sworn statement, then you know you have a problem from the beginning.”\nBrizzi said convening a grand jury would have made the five-month investigation even longer. He said he didn’t want to take that much time because some of the employees under investigation were still working with girls.\nHe also noted that seasoned investigators interviewed the victims, and their statements were “very believable, very detailed, very credible.” When giving depositions later, some of the girls backed off their accusations or denied their \nearlier statements.\n“These witnesses were either lying when they gave their statements or they are lying now,” he said.\nBrizzi noted that the criminal charges spurred leadership changes and extensive security upgrades at the center. He points to that and the exposure of other problems as \npositive results.
HAMMOND, Ind. – A broken drainage device might have contributed to the flooding and closure of a major road artery into and out of Chicago last month, a joint investigation by several agencies has revealed.\nThe device, known as a flapgate and located in a drainage pipe along Interstate 80/94, was not working properly during heavy rains, sending water back onto the highway, Dan Gardner, executive director of the Little Calumet River Basin Commission, told the Post-Tribune of Merrillville for a story Friday.\nThe flapgates are designed to close when water flows toward the highway.\nThe commission, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the city of Hammond are jointly investigating why the highway, also known as the Borman Expressway, was forced to close almost entirely Aug. 24-26.\nAngie Fegaras, an INDOT spokeswoman, said the flapgate and other possible factors in the flooding remained under investigation.\nOfficials are also looking into a privately owned levee that broke nearby and a malfunctioning lift station in Hammond, Fegaras said.\n“All parties have come together to work as a team to further investigate the flooding, to establish future guidelines and to further investigate an alternative drainage system,” Fegaras said.\nImad Samara of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said dangerous accumulation of water on the highway receded once back-up gates were closed.\n“When we closed them,” Samara said, “things kind of got better.”\nNeither Gardner nor Fegaras could say which agency was responsible for maintaining the flapgate.\nGardner said the timing of the flood could turn out to be favorable if changes must be made to the highway’s drainage system.\nAnother contract is about to be awarded in the Army Corps’ Little Calumet River flood control project, Gardner said, and it will take place in the area where the flood occurred.\nIf a consensus can be reached on what caused the flood by the end of September, Gardner said, it might be possible to add the remedial work to the contract.\n“As early as Thanksgiving we could have repairs, remediation, being done,” Gardner said.
INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana taxpayers challenged the constitutionality of the state property tax system in a lawsuit filed Thursday.\nThe petition in Indiana Tax Court questions statewide assessment methods, the use of tax abatements and several other aspects of the state system.\nIt also argues that Indiana’s tax structure does not comply with the state constitutional requirement of a “uniform and equal rate of property assessment and taxation.” Multiple taxing districts can lead to vastly nonuniform bills for people living in the same county if they are in different school districts or townships.\n“This is a statewide issue,” said John Price, an Indianapolis attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of 11 taxpayers from each of Indiana’s congressional districts and seven taxpayer associations.\nPrice said many of the lawsuit’s plaintiffs would like to see property taxes abolished.\n“This case could ultimately be used to help accelerate that,” he said.\nSeveral taxpayers gathered Thursday at the Statehouse as Price filed the lawsuit. Mona and Dick Bimm of Indianapolis said property tax bills have gone from $2,000 to $12,000 over the last few years on the house they’ve lived in for nearly 40 years. They are so frustrated with the system that they may consider moving out of state, Dick Bimm said.\n“We’re going to vote with our feet,” he said.\nMona Bimm said government leaders don’t seem accountable.\n“People have been asking for help on this issue,” she said. “They ignored them.”\nThe lawsuit also asks the tax court to consider whether homeowner tax payments should be put toward the common school fund, which provides loans to schools. However, State Auditor Tim Berry said that no property tax revenue goes to the fund.\nThe lawsuit asks the tax court for several remedies, including overturning a recent income tax increase in Indianapolis because one of the councilors who voted on the matter was disqualified by moving into another district.\nThe suit also asks the court to void the deadline extensions ordered by Gov. Mitch Daniels that would have given counties more time to adopt local income taxes.
WINAMAC, Ind. – A man who spent 40 years in prison for killing a 6-year-old girl and her 3-year-old brother while he was a teenager has been charged with offering $50 to a boy to go with him to a nearby beach to pose for pictures.\nRichard Allen Dobeski, 59, was arrested Aug. 31, exactly 43 years to the day he was sentenced to two life sentences for murder. He was arrested after authorities searched his mobile home in Westville, Pulaski County Prosecutor Stacey L. Mrak said.\nDobeski is charged with felony counts of attempted criminal confinement and enticing a child. The age of the boy has not been released. The incident occurred near Monterey, about 50 miles south of South Bend.\nHe was being held Thursday in the Pulaski County Jail under $100,000 bond.\nDobeski was 16 in 1964 when he was convicted in the slayings of 3-year-old Cary Robert Johnston and his sister, Shawn Elizabeth Johnston, 6, of Long Beach. He received two life sentences.\nThe children were found in a crawl space underneath Dobeski’s home in Long Beach, just east of Michigan City.\nIn 1984, during an appeal, Dobeski agreed to a deal that reduced the life sentence to two 40-year terms. The murdered children’s parents, who had moved from the Michigan City area, were unaware Dobeski had been granted a sentence modification.\nThe Indiana Supreme Court ruled in November 2000 that Dobeski’s new sentencing arrangement must stand, allowing him to be eligible for parole. Dobeski was released from prison in 2003.
TIPTON, Ind. – Cardboard manufacturer Midwest Sheets Co. must pay a $600,000 fine following its guilty plea Thursday to federal charges over a chemical spill that killed more than 2,000 fish.\nMidwest Sheets pleaded guilty to three counts of violating the federal Clean Water Act for two July 22, 2002, discharges of more than 1,800 gallons of the caustic soda, or sodium hydroxide, federal prosecutors said.\nCompany officials failed to notify the Tipton wastewater treatment plant of the discharges, which occurred when a storage tank overflowed, sending the chemical directly into the sewer system in the city about 30 miles north of Indianapolis, prosecutors said.\nThe highly concentrated chemical, which the company uses to make glue for corrugated cardboard, spilled into nearby Cicero Creek, killing 2,000 fish and disrupting Tipton’s wastewater treatment plant for a week.\nU.S. District Judge David Hamilton in Indianapolis ordered the company to pay the fine, to publicly apologize for the chemical release and implement corporate and employee environmental training programs. He also ordered the company to comply with all federal, state and local environmental laws.\nThe company’s general manager, Duane Matschullat, said in a statement that Midwest Sheets “deeply regrets” causing the spills.\n“Midwest Sheets takes corporate citizenship very seriously and deeply regrets the damage caused by the spill,” he said.
INDIANAPOLIS – Colts quarterback Peyton Manning now has a children’s hospital named after him.\nThe St. Vincent Children’s Hospital was renamed Wednesday as Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital at St. Vincent.\nManning has had a strong public and private relationship with the St. Vincent hospitals since 1998 when he joined the Colts, but officials didn’t say how much money the Super Bowl MVP has donated to the facility.\n“He is not only an extraordinary football athlete, but also a role model who is committed to giving back to children and the community,” said Vincent C. Caponi, CEO of St. Vincent Health.\nManning was at the announcement with his wife and parents and said he has known patients and families treated there.\n“I’m extremely proud to be associated with St. Vincent as it continues its mission and work on behalf of critically ill and injured children and their families,” Manning said.\nThe hospital, which has sites in Indianapolis and Carmel, specializes in treating children with complex, chronic or congenital conditions. It includes 46 inpatient beds and 15 beds in a pediatric intensive care unit, as well as 17 private rooms in the pediatric emergency department.\n“We have set a goal to become one of the safest and best children’s hospitals in the country by delivering world-class pediatric care,” said Jeff Poltawsky, administrator of the newly named hospital.\nSt. Vincent operates one of two children’s hospitals in Indianapolis. Clarian Health Partners runs the other, Riley Hospital for Children.\nManning and the Colts open their Super Bowl title defense Thursday night against the New Orleans Saints.
INDIANAPOLIS – First, Don Bundy had trouble remembering the names of his grandchildren. Now, the 69-year-old Alzheimer’s patient forgets what a dinner plate is and relies on his wife, Carolyn, to remember his age.\nSince doctors diagnosed Bundy a few years ago, he’s volunteered for several drug studies and brain scans. He knows they’ll help science – but probably not him.\n“I think it’s an opportunity to help others have a better life, really,” the Indianapolis resident said.\nBundy’s efforts are part of a push by more than a dozen drug makers to crack an Alzheimer’s market loaded with blockbuster potential for the company that develops a breakthrough treatment.\nThe potential market alone is staggering: more than 26 million people diagnosed worldwide, a figure that is expected to quadruple by 2050. An effective treatment could easily surpass $1 billion in annual sales, said Joe Tooley, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons.\nBut first a treatment has to get to market.\nWyeth has 23 drug compounds in various stages of development. Fellow drug maker Eli Lilly and Co. has started patient testing on a couple more.\nIndianapolis-based Lilly also is working with GE Healthcare on diagnostic testing that tells the difference between Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, which could ensure proper treatment.\n“I think in the course of our lifetime that we’ll see a significant change in the way we understand Alzheimer’s disease and the way we treat and possibly even prevent it,” said Niles Frantz, a spokesman for the Chicago-based Alzheimer’s Association.\nAlzheimer’s is an irreversible, fatal disease. It involves the formation of lesions in the brain called plaques and tangles. Scientists believe they poison nerve cells and interfere with the ability to learn and reason.\nCarolyn Bundy thinks the disease began developing in her husband’s brain around the year 2000, when he started forgetting names and struggling with his job as a quality control manager at a food processing center.\nThen he began confusing simple tasks. She’d ask him to go to the garage for a screwdriver. He’d come back with a hammer. Now, she has to tell him over and over how to wash his hands or brush his teeth.\n“What he can do today, he might not be able to do tomorrow,” she said. “But something he can’t do today he might have no problem with tomorrow.\n“It’s a moving target.”\nAvailable treatments can ease symptoms of the disease, but none target its roots.\n“There’s just a huge unmet need for drugs to treat (Alzheimer’s),” said Brandon Troegle, a Morningstar analyst who covers Lilly. “Right now, there’s obviously no cures or anything that even stops the progression.”\nNeither Lilly nor Wyeth has an Alzheimer’s treatment on \nthe market.\nLilly is developing a drug that might attack the disease instead of the symptoms. The unnamed drug slows the growth of a sticky protein that serves as a building block for plaque. Lilly wants to find out whether it slows Alzheimer’s as well.\nThe company plans to start testing on 1,500 patients early next year.\n“The symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease gradually worsen over time,” said Dr. Eric Siemers, a Lilly researcher. “What we would expect to see is the rate of decline in those symptoms is slowed, and so people are milder for a longer period of time.”\nAnother Lilly drug in an earlier stage of development could clear this protein from the body by latching onto it when it leaves the brain and then preventing it \nfrom returning.\nWyeth’s potential Alzheimer’s treatments range from drugs that handle symptoms to those that attack the disease. It is partnering with Elan Corp. to develop an antibody that binds to Alzheimer’s plaque and could clear it from \nthe brain.\nAll told, a couple dozen Alzheimer’s drugs have entered later-stage testing on people, said Dr. Sam Gandy, chairman of the Alzheimer’s Association medical and scientific advisory council.\nEventually, he thinks Alzheimer’s patients might be treated with a drug cocktail similar to what’s used for HIV or AIDS patients.\n“That’s easily five or 10 years away,” Gandy said.
LAPORTE, Ind. – Former Indiana Gov. Joseph Kernan has been tapped as a consultant for a proposal to bring an intermodal rail development to LaPorte County.\nKernan is a part-time consultant for Cressy & Everett, a Mishawaka, Ind., real estate development and management firm with options to buy land near Union Mills about 30 miles southwest of South Bend.\nKernan, who went to high school with the firm’s owners, said the intermodal project is still being researched for LaPorte County. An intermodal is a rail yard where goods are loaded and unloaded from train flat cars and trucks for transport by rail and highway.\nKernan said intermodals can be strong economic development engines, creating jobs while also reducing tractor-trailer traffic on roads and highways. He said northwestern Indiana is an ideal place for such a project.\n“Its proximity to Chicago and multiple railroad lines that connect to Chicago gives it the opportunity for the right kind of facility to be created,” he said.\nKernan said Cressy & Everett first must determine if the project is viable and makes sense financially. Then, he said the project would need the support of the railroads.
BROWNSBURG, Ind. – A small plane landed on a stretch of highway that was under construction Monday after the pilot reported having mechanical problems, officials said.\nThe pilot told officials he was heading to Eagle Creek Airport on the northwest side of Indianapolis when he decided the twin-engine plane would not make it and spotted a section of Ronald Reagan Parkway being built in Hendricks County.\nThe planed landed safely at about 10 a.m., but a wing was damaged when it clipped a piece of construction equipment, Ryan Miller of the Brownsburg Fire Territory said. The pilot and the other person on board suffered no injuries.\n“Had any part of this scenario been different, it could have been very tragic,” Miller said. “To have to initiate an emergency landing and finding an area that’s safe enough to land your aircraft without injuring yourself or damaging the aircraft any more than he did, I think is very lucky.”\nThe section of highway being built in the suburbs west of Indianapolis is unpaved, but the packed gravel made a relatively safe landing site, Miller said.\nInformation on the identities of those on the plane or where the flight originated was not immediately released.
FORT WAYNE – Two Korean War veterans who served their country rather than finishing high school nearly 60 years ago finally have their diplomas thanks to a change in \nstate law.\nCarl Edwards and Arthur Flotow, both 77, were joined by relatives Saturday night when they received their framed high school diplomas in a special ceremony at a Fraternal Order of the Eagles Lodge in Fort Wayne.\nAlthough diplomas were offered to veterans of World War I and World War II, the benefit was only extended to Korean and Vietnam war veterans in May after Gov. Mitch Daniels signed new legislation into law.
LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A mother faces two felony neglect charges after prosecutors said she allowed her 5-year-old son to drive her and his younger brother in the woman’s car.\nHolly L. Schnobrich, 24, of Lafayette was being held under $10,000 bond Thursday in the Tippecanoe County Jail.\nAccording to an affidavit filed Tuesday with the charges, Tippecanoe County sheriff’s deputies were called Saturday night to a subdivision east of Lafayette after neighbors reported finding the 5-year-old behind the wheel.\n“It was just bizarre,” Wendy Barrett said of finding the boy driving his seemingly impaired mother and stopping on Barrett’s property. “I asked, ‘Is this toddler driving your car?’ She said, ‘He’s a good driver.’”\nThe 5-year-old and Schnobrich’s 3-year-old son who was also in the vehicle were taken into custody by the Department of Child Services.\nBarrett said the children were in their pajamas and did not appear hurt or distraught. Neither child was restrained; there were two safety seats in the back seat.\nAnother neighbor removed the ignition key, Barrett said.\nPolice also found a near-empty bottle of sleeping pills that Schnobrich said she had bought just two days prior. Schnobrich told investigators that she would take a prescription painkiller to calm down when her children acted up, according to the affidavit.\nThe 5-year-old told a sheriff’s deputy that he had been driving but was “having a hard time because I can’t reach the pedals.”
JASPER, Ind. – Comments submitted to the federal agency considering whether to move six southwestern Indiana counties back to the Eastern Time Zone include two letters against the move listing hundreds of apparently forged names.\nThe letters to the U.S. Department of Transportation, purporting to be from residents of the town of Ireland and parishioners of St. Raphael Catholic Church in Dubois, have typewritten names but no signatures.\nBoth Alan Matheis, a member of St. Raphael, and Terry Kissel, who lives in Ireland, said they found from others that their names were on the respective letters and decided to submit comments stating their Eastern time preference.\n“I was very aggravated,” Kissel told The Herald of Jasper. “That somebody used my name and didn’t even ask me, that’s what aggravated me.”\nThe Rev. Thomas Kessler, St. Raphael’s pastor, said that the letter on parish letterhead was not authorized and looked like a listing of names pulled from the church’s directory.\n“It did not come from the church,” said Kessler, whose name was included on the letter. “This did not come from our community.”\nThe Transportation Department is accepting public comments through Friday on a request to reverse last year’s change to Central time for Daviess, Dubois, Knox, Martin, Perry and Pike counties. The agency in July proposed approval for the move by five of the counties, and Perry County officials joined that request this month.\nThe disputed letters won’t be pulled from the docket as all comments the agency receives are included without any screening, agency spokesman Bill Mosley said. He suggested that those improperly named in the letters submit their own responses that will be reviewed before a final decision is made.\nIf the change wins final approval, it would take effect when daylight-saving time ends for the year on Nov. 4.\nMatheis, whose named was among the 320 listed the letter supposedly from St. Raphael Church, said the time zone issue had been divisive enough already for the area about 50 miles northeast of Evansville.\n“We were on the best time we could be where we didn’t have to change the clocks,” Matheis said. “It’s a disappointment that we have to go through this anyway. For someone to go and forge people’s names on this is even more disappointing.”
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 34 percent of the 938 traffic fatalities in Indiana in 2005 were alcohol-related.\nOf all adults placed on probation in Monroe County during 2006, 37 percent were convicted of impaired driving, according to a press release from the mayor’s office. Of those, 12 percent were involved in a crash and 28 percent were repeat drunk driving offenders. \nMonroe County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Gaal said these statistics are unacceptable.\nGaal announced his “Get a Ride!” Campaign today at a press conference in city hall with Mayor Mark Kruzan, IU Dean of Students Dick McKaig and Ivy Tech-Bloomington Chancellor John Whikehart.\nThe public safety initiative will put posters with the “Get a Ride!” logo on 10 Bloomington city buses, all IU campus buses and flyers and cards will be distributed in the city and at both campuses, according to a press release from Kruzan’s office.\nGaal said it is important to let everyone know the alternatives to driving after drinking, pointing out the city’s bus system and Bloomington’s cab services.
HAMMOND, Ind. – Residents and officials are questioning why Interstate 80/94 flooded last week, causing parts of the route into Chicago that is one of the nation’s busiest stretches of highway to be closed for three days.\nIndiana Department of Transportation officials defended the design, saying unusually heavy rains were to blame for the closure of the highway section that has been rebuilt over the past three years.\n“It was an act of nature,” INDOT spokesman Joshua Bingham said.\nBut area residents and officials, including Hammond’s city engineer, rejected that argument. They believe some improper drainage was to blame for the problems with the highway known in the area as the Borman Expressway.\n“I’m not an engineer, but I can tell you there’s a problem and it must be fixed,” Hammond City Councilman Dan Repay said.\nA section of the highway was closed to all traffic on Saturday and partially shut Friday through Sunday because of flooding that reached three feet deep at points in a \nthree-mile stretch.\nBingham said last week’s storms created a 100-year flood for the Little Calumet River that runs along the highway.\n“INDOT didn’t cause the flood. The rain caused the flood,” he said.\nStanley Dostatni, Hammond’s city engineer, said he believed the reconstructed highway is susceptible to flooding because the new design narrowed the storm water ditches considerably. He said that means when the area becomes saturated with rising flood waters, the water has nowhere to go but on the road.\nINDOT spokeswoman Angie Fegaras said Dostatni was mistaken. Despite how it appears, she said the ditch system was upgraded and is “adequate” for normal amounts of rain.\nCrew were continuing Tuesday to pump water from the ramps and some surrounding areas at two interchanges for I-80/94 a few miles east of the Illinois-Indiana state line. All ramps were not expected to be reopened until late in \nthe week.
A Bloomington man was shot and murdered Thursday night after a reported domestic dispute.\nJohn Hood, 63, owner of Putter’s Park and Johnny Joe’s Pub in Ellettsville, was shot once in the chest, said Monroe County Det. Brad Swain.\nPolice believe his wife, Juanita, 52, shot him.\nAt about 11:30 p.m. the Monroe County Sheriff’s department received a 911 call from Hood’s daughter, saying Juanita Hood had told her she shot John Hood, Monroe County Det. Brad Swain said.\nMonroe County dispatched state troopers to their house where emergency personnel determined John Hood to be dead at the scene, Swain said. After interviewing Juanita Hood, officers arrested her. She now faces preliminary charges of murder.\nSwain said the sheriff’s department will be pursuing other issues to try and get a clearer picture of what happened.\nJuanita Hood was transported to the Monroe County Jail and is being held without bond.
Republican presidential hopefuls Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney will be in Indianapolis this weekend for the Midwest Republican Leadership Conference. Huckabee will speak at 10 a.m. Friday at the Westin Indianapolis Hotel. Romney is scheduled for a “Hoosier Hospitality Barbecue” at 5:40 p.m. Friday in the Economaki Room of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
In his introductory press conference in 2006, Kelvin Sampson told IU men’s basketball supporters he would recruit Indiana natives to play in Bloomington. But it is the prospects in border states, not the Hoosier state, that have padded the second-year coach’s 2008 recruiting class.\nMatt Roth, a 6-foot-2 shooting guard from Illinois, announced Wednesday he will sign a letter of intent to play for IU in 2008. Roth chose IU over Bradley and Saint Louis universities. Roth is the second player from a neighboring state to join next year’s recruiting class, and the third commitment overall. He joins Bud Mackey, shooting guard from Kentucky, and Devin Ebanks, small forward from Connecticut.\nRoth is ranked a three-star – out of a possible five stars – player by recruiting Web site www.rivals.com, and will help the Hoosiers from beyond the arc. Roth averaged 21.1 points per game for the Washington (Ill.) High School Panthers as a junior, and shot 48 percent from behind the three-point line. He drained 143 3-pointers last year, three shy of the Illinois state high school record. \nRoth is AAU teammates with Tyler Zeller, a 6-foot-11 center from Washington, Ind. Zeller, a five-star recruit, is ranked No. 22 nationally by www.rivals.com, and is considering IU among three other schools – North Carolina, Notre Dame and Purdue. Zeller’s brother Luke, who was Indiana’s Mr. Basketball in 2005, will be a junior at Notre Dame this season.
Attention friends: You need this one. \nOkkervil River is a six-man outfit led by singer-songwriter Will Sheff that merges rock's energy with both lo-fi acoustic and grand operatic sounds. But the band members distinguish themselves by not merely wearing their hearts on their sleeves, but by virtually plucking them out and flinging them into the audience -- no abstract images or quirky stories here, just Sheff's howl of pain toward the heavens. This is, of course, rather melodramatic -- but Okkervil River shows just enough restraint to keep it convincing, achieving emo-like emotional release without resorting to its shopworn musical and lyrical tricks.\nThe Stage Names manages to surpass even 2005's excellent Black Sheep Boy in aesthetics and ambition -- making it one of this year's best indie-rock records. \nThis is, to no small extent, due to Sheff's extraordinary lyrics, which tell vivid stories by blurring the line between his characters and the media in their lives -- most strikingly, in "Our Life is Not a Movie or Maybe" and "A Hand to Take Hold of the Scene," which express a wish to control life like it was a film or TV show (respectively), and in "Plus Ones" and "John Allyn Smith Sails," which incorporate familiar songs into their larger narratives. But all this eggheadery would mean little were it not for Okkervil River's stunning instrumentation, which takes everything from the ringing anthem of "Our Life" to the shuffling, downcast beauty of "A Girl in Port," and sends it vibrating down your spine. \nIf Okkervil River suffered from success before, now it's truly doomed.
Who would have guessed that the last name of a heavy-set, 71-year-old man would become synonymous with football and cutting-edge video-game technology?\nThe greatest sports video game in history has done it again. "Madden NFL '08" is the best version to date. \nLast year's "Madden" was the top-selling game in 2006, selling more than 7.4 million copies in North America alone. This year's edition was released on 10 different consoles and meets the hype generated by football-starved fans.\n"Madden '08" isn't just last year's game with a roster update. Almost every aspect of the game has been tweaked, and if it is to your distaste you can likely customize it to fit your every need. One change to the game is Hit Stick 2.0, which allows you to take out a defender's legs or lower your shoulder and hit the defender between the shoulders … Mmm, violence.\nWith all of the new features in "Madden '08," picking a particular favorite would be like choosing one girl to spend the rest of your life with -- impossible. But the complete player control is unlike any other sports game. The player movement possibilities are endless. You'll be able to re-enact Reggie Bush high-school highlights until your thumbs blister over. Believe me. \nAnd the improved graphics and uber-realistic game play isn't all "Madden" has to offer. The Franchise and Superstar modes have also received significant face lifts. You can make decisions like Bill Polian for 25 years, or you can live the life of an actual rookie (JaMarcus Russell) until you retire.\n"Madden" has also reincorporated several features from previous versions. EA Sports has brought back Marshall Faulk to do the pre-game and post-game analysis. He knows little about football, but I personally would have chosen Charles Barkley for the part. \nAnd unlike other years, the sound track is actually tolerable. It has everything from Brother Ali to Ozzy Osbourne. My question is, do you think Madden personally selected Swizz Beatz's "It's Me Snitches" to play in the background during games? Me too. \nFinally, the Player Weapons feature allows you to see which players on the field are specifically skilled and separates the superstar from the average NFL player. For example, Ray Lewis has a large brick wall under him to indicate he is a great tackler. So large in fact, you might think a heavy-set, 71-year-old man was behind the game. \nEnjoy "Madden." It's all in the game.