None of this is any fun. When the economy is bad and public money dries up, government has to figure out a way to conform to a shrinking budget.

‘Homelessness has no face.” Jimmie Schuster, 33, uttered the phrase last weekend during a unique night where Anderson residents got a close-up view of the plight of the homeless. About 150 people paid $25 to sleep in a tent or $10 to stay in a cardboard box in a vacant eastside lot.

Efforts to push legislative ethics reform through the Indiana General Assembly have long faced an insurmountable obstacle in the person of House Speaker Pat Bauer.

An ongoing challenge to a school corporation is to keep its constituents informed whether its teachers passing knowledge to youth or elected school board members getting its message to parents and taxpayers.

Dr. Felix Chow will be taking over as superintendent of Anderson Community Schools on Jan. 1. On Thursday, he visited The Herald Bulletin newsroom to introduce himself and set forth some of his educational ideas.

Four economists looked into their crystal balls Tuesday at Anderson Country Club during the annual economic forecast and came up with this projection: Things will get better. Slowly, perhaps not steadily.

The shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, last week have cast a pall over Veterans Day. Maj. Nidal Hasan allegedly killed 13 people and wounded 29. Meanwhile, President Barack Obama will likely send more troops to Afghanistan by January, and troops are still stationed in Iraq where the violence seems to have subsided but the country is still in a volatile state.

Inside a Herald Bulletin story on Oct. 28 was an approval by the Anderson Board of Public Works of the 2010 holiday schedule, which gives city workers 16 paid days off.

Thumbs up: To the Ball Brothers Foundation for its recent grant of $100,000 to Second Harvest Food Bank of East Central Indiana to help the regional food bank match a $400,000 challenge grant from the Kresge Foundation.

January 20. May 4. November 2.
All in 2010.
Those are the critical dates facing candidates in next year’s elections; the days when they can declare their candidacy, run in the primary election and, perhaps, run in the general election.

The conservative FOX news cable network has been getting as much mileage as possible from its never-on, always-off relationship with President Barack Obama.

Indiana schools Superintendent Tony Bennett has been courting controversy since he took the office in January. An enthusiastic cheerleader for charter schools, Bennett recently took the bold move of challenging Indiana’s teacher education curriculum. He claims he is only thinking of the schoolchildren, but he’s wrong here. In fact, his policy could be detrimental to children because underqualified personnel could be standing in front of the blackboard.

“Women and children first.”
That call has been intended since the mid-1800s to place chivalry above personal safety during rescue attempts.

Thumbs up: To the fifth annual Women in Philanthropy Luncheon that was held Friday at Anderson Country Club. Each year the Community Foundation organizers choose a female speaker who inspires the attendees to continue helping their community monetarily and through volunteerism. This year’s speaker was no exception.

Despite high unemployment. Despite lost wages. Despite devalued investments. Despite a harsh economy that has brought real suffering to the community.

The state’s evidence against Middletown’s Dr. Phillip Foley is startling: He wrote 96,000 prescriptions, a rate of 545 per week; he wrote 424 prescriptions for 141 patients in a single day; and nearly all prescriptions were for narcotics, stimulants and painkillers.

The great fear of issuing warnings is that those who need the warning won’t see it. Which brings us to Halloween.

In business, government, and basically any other arena, extremes generally have negative, unintended consequences. Take the case of Indiana’s welfare system. In late 2006, after concluding that inconsistencies and fraud riddled the Family and Social Services Administration, Gov. Daniels awarded IBM a $1.16 billion, 10-year contract to automate welfare applications and services.

Let the consumer decide. It’s a phrase we often repeat here when business issues collide with certain health or religious concerns.

Thumbs up: To the volunteers from Madison County who are helping out at the five-day build for “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” in Miami County. They are among hundreds of volunteers who began construction on the Cowan-Brown family last Thursday at Bunker Hill.

Raise taxes or cut expenses – or both. Those are the hard decisions facing Madison County and Anderson City government. The city projects it will have a $3.5 million budget shortfall by the end of 2009, even after previously planned budget cuts. And the county projects a $3.8 million deficit.

It’s truly a new world in education. This week Anderson Community Schools invited students, parents, faculty and staff to fill out a questionnaire concerning what themes they would like to see available at individual schools.

More than 80 percent of 224 respondents to a recent online poll at theheraldbulletin.com said that trips to Asia by local economic development officials are not worth the expense to taxpayers.

The don’t ask, don’t tell policy has been a divisive aspect of military life since President Bill Clinton signed it into law in 1993. President Barack Obama has vowed to do away with the policy, which still could take some time but needs to be done.