Region

Around The Region

EVANSVILLE -- Officials overseeing the proposed Interstate 69 extension from Evansville to Indianapolis are considering a new route in the Evansville area. The latest option could have less of an impact on archaeological sites near the Ohio River than the other nine proposed routes traversing southwestern Indiana, officials say.

News shrinks, editor despairs

Newspapers are shrinking. A reader holding a newspaper wide open used to boast a wingspan of 54 inches, but it's closed in to 50 inches for about 41 percent of 529 U.S. newspapers, according to a Newspaper Association of America survey. You've seen it if your hometown paper is the Kokomo Tribune, Chicago Tribune or Evansville Courier & Press. You'll see it in the IDS within a couple years if the trend forces all papers to conform based on standard advertisement dimensions.

The soundtrack to relationships

Today I did a little experiment. I counted the number of people wearing headphones. I stopped at 28 after a guy almost got flattened by one of those wonderful buses. It's funny how putting two earpieces on makes avoiding interaction as simple as dodging eye contact with thousands of strangers brushing by. There is something comforting about knowing I can crank my new MP3 player up and enter another world.

Grow-A-Date™ replaces Teddy

It's Valentine's Day, and that means thousands of guys and gals are getting their hearts broken by the romantic interest of their lives. I feel sorry for them, but I feel even more sorry for the teddy bears. Thousands of poor, pitiful stuffed bears are given this day to people who don't want them, and the miserable creatures are destined to spend the rest of their nonexistent lives on the top shelf of a dark, lonely closet. This is incredibly depressing.

Student voting is essential

The system of government in America is historically unique. In America, citizens themselves decide who will make law and sometimes, in the case of initiatives, decide what the law will be. All political power rests in the hands of the people. Voting is more than the privilege of a citizen; it is the solemn duty of each individual to give the ballot his political voice. Universal suffrage was a long time coming. The Revolutionary War was fought to give landed men a vote in their government. Susan B. Anthony and the suffrage movement in the early part of the last century gave women the vote after 140 years of disenfranchisement.

More than blank tapes and leather jackets

Iron Maiden: classic, thinking man's metal

Lots of electronics, not enough music

Musical fervor with crescendos

Cockburn at his bittersweet best

'J to Tha Blow'

Cracker matures but keeps spirit

The darker side of 'Vanilla Sky'

The world in your living room

'Sim Golf' is no hole in one

NHL game scores with power playing

Children, weep for humanity

'American Gladiators' gone to hell

Emotional thriller exposes criminals

The Moe Z Show