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NOTIONS: On a morning blue, a Valentine’s wish for you Morning Blue By Austin Hetrick

My son, Austin, is in love. He doesn’t use those words, exactly-at least not with his old man. But he’s listening to moody music, meeting his love’s parents and taking her out to movies. Most telling: When I suggested he spend time with other teen-agers during our Christmas-week cruise, he said, “No, I’m taken.” Last weekend, Austin was listening to Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah.” Deeming it “a very sad song,” he was inspired to write a poem. “I’m not usually much…

Movie theater ads spark big-screen debate: Appeal of captive audience and demographics push advertising sales to record levels, prompting backlash

Ron Keedy can be found taking tickets, popping popcorn and sweeping floors at Key Cinemas on Indianapolis’ south side. There’s little Keedy won’t do to build customer loyalty at the two-screen cinema he owns. What he won’t do is sell advertisements to go along with the first-run, often offbeat films he shows. Keedy thinks movies are art, and there’s no place for commercial ads in the art his patrons pay to see. “Maybe I’m a purist,” Keedy said. “I feel…

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary: Legislature has big responsibility

CHRIS KATTERJOHN Commentary Legislature has big responsibility We stand on the threshold of greatness. Wait; let me say that again. “We stand on the threshold of greatness.” Now, say it to yourself, making sure to insert a pregnant pause after the word “stand” and imagining you hear it in the booming radio voice of FDR. It’s one of those platitudes that could’ve been contrived by a speechwriter for any number of inaugural addresses, including those of Franklin D. Roosevelt, John…

BEHIND THE NEWS: Sales are sizzling at Steak n Shake Minting Managers Sticking with steakburgers

When shareholders of The Steak n Shake Co. gather for their annual meeting this week, expect a lovefest. Peter Dunn, who joined the company as president in September 2002 and added the title CEO last year, seems to be doing a bang-up job reinvigorating one of the nation’s oldest restaurant chains. Choose whatever measure you like: Since Dunn’s arrival at the Indianapolis-based company, Steak n Shake shares have appreciated 92 percent, whipping the 46-percent gain for the S&P 500-stock index….

ECONOMIC ANALYSIS: GDP figures demonstrate Fed’s rate hikes hit mark

Here’s something to try the next time you find yourself mingling with your friends at a party. Strike up a conversation about GDP. You know, GDP. Gross Domestic Product? It’s the total output of everything we produce in the economy. Oh, well, never mind. But even if it’s generally true that talk of GDP’s ups and downs elicits blank stares, some of us devour the news. That’s because the speed-up and slowdown of overall economic growth can affect the policies…

ATA may fly solo again, exec says: Restructuring officer sees opportunities ahead

The retired Southwest Airlines executive helping pilot ATA Holdings Inc. out of bankruptcy said he’s confident the Indianapolis carrier could again fly solo, despite a virtual pullout from its hometown and what to some is a precarious reliance on code sharing with competitor Southwest. John Denison, former chief financial officer and executive vice president at Dallas-based Southwest, said ATA’s long-term strategy could include boosting frequency of flights from ATA’s Chicago Midway Airport hub to key markets such as New York…

European firm plants local roots in patient technology: Company to start Indianapolis operation after test

A British company has picked Methodist Hospital and Indianapolis as the birthing ground for a new way to monitor patients using technology inspired by jet engines. Oxford BioSignals Ltd. hopes to roll out its BioSign technology by the end of this year, but the Rolls-Royce partner won’t leave the city after testing ends. The company also plans to start business operations here, much to the delight of those nurturing the life sciences industry. BioSignals will begin testing its BioSign product…

INVESTING: Merger activity no harbinger, but better market coming

On Jan. 28, Procter and Gamble agreed to pay $52 billion to acquire Gillette. Days later, SBC Communications Corp. bought AT&T for $16 billion. The track record of merger-and-acquisition activity on Wall Street leaves a lot to be desired. Most of the mergers involving large operations fail to generate anywhere near the returns management promises. But as soon as I heard about the P&G deal, I thought a lot of things make sense here. First of all, neither one of…

Funding a chance at success: Bowens have helped 300 find career hope

Sharon Townsel is old enough to be Kori Buford’s mother. But despite the age difference, the women share a common bond: They’re both scholarship recipients of the Bowen Foundation. Robert and Terry Bowen launched the not-for-profit a decade ago and since have doled out $600,000 of their own money to nearly 300 black recipients who want to better their lives. By helping them learn a skill or trade, the object of the foundation is to assist those who need the…

SUSAN WILLIAMS Commentary: Don’t overlook Benjamin Harrison Home

SUSAN WILLIAMS Commentary Don’t overlook Benjamin Harrison Home Here’s a thought: Celebrate President’s Day (Feb. 21) at the President Benjamin Harrison Home. Let re-enactors take you back to the era of the only president elected from Indiana. Benjamin Harrison built his three-story Italianate Victorian home at 1230 N. Delaware St. in 1875 and lived there until his death in 1901, with a four-year interruption when he moved to Washington, D.C., to serve as the 23rd president of the United States….

New La Plaza says adios to independent NFP operations: Three groups uniting to serve Hispanic community

It took several years and a couple of gentle nudges in the direction of progress, but a streamlined support system for local Latinos is finally taking shape. Three Indianapolis not-for-profit agencies are giving up their own identities-and autonomy-to populate La Plaza Inc., an organization that aims to position itself as the place for the burgeoning Hispanic community to look for help. “When you have three or four groups working with minimal budgets and overlapping services, it can get confusing,” said…

STATEHOUSE DISPATCH: Telecom regulation takes center stage at Statehouse

While this session will, necessarily and constitutionally, be all about the budget, you can expect a few interesting stops during the long journey to that point. Even as the House Ways and Means Committee was hearing last week from assorted state agencies about their respective budget needs, other lawmakers were hearing from Hoosiers more interested in altering state policy than what the state’s fiscal bottom line might be. And just like the governor will be distracted this week-as he should…

Study shows lack of women law partners: City firms rank below national average of 17 percent

Prominent local attorney Virginia Dill McCarty earned her law degree from Indiana University in 1950, the only woman to do so at the school that year. That trend certainly has changed since then, with far more women entering the bar. Still, the number of women at the highest levels of most law firms is far smaller than many expect it should be, according to a report from the National Association for Law Placement in Washington, D.C. In Indianapolis last year,…

IDEM levies fewer fines: Air pollution violators account for half of state’s penalties

Four of the 10 largest environmental penalties levied against Indiana companies in 2004 involved air pollution violations, an area of regulation likely to come under renewed focus after the first-ever “fine particulate” health warning was issued last week for Marion and five other counties. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, which sounded the alarm, assessed $1.2 million in air pollution penalties last year-almost half of the $2.4 million in 1999, according to state records. The decrease in air penalty amounts…

Portal plan targets humanities teachers: Technology offers access to data, lesson-planning

The Indiana Humanities Council wants to open a new doorway for teachers around the state. IHC has begun testing a trial version of an education-portal program called Smart-Desktop at six central Indiana schools, including three from IPS. The goal of the program is to help teachers teach traditional humanities subjects such as history, social science and literature more efficiently and effectively, said John Keller, teacher-designer and coordinator of K-12 development for the Smart-Desktop initiative. Starting Feb. 1, more than 30…

BULLS & BEARS: Despite decade’s bad start, market points to upswing

The four most dangerous words an investor can mutter are, “It’s different this time.” You heard the phrase a lot in the late 1990s and it was usually surrounded by words like “new economy” and “paradigm shift.” We should all know by now that it’s never really different. Boom and bust trajectories pretty much look the same whether they are tulip bulb prices, radio stocks, Internet stocks or Britney Spears’ record sales. Using the premise that same-old, sameold will rule,…

Dicks’ trust under attack: Conseco: Couple shielded $7.5M in Cook Islands

Conseco Inc. says former Chief Financial Officer Rollin Dick and his wife, Helen, set up a $7.5 million trust in a remote South Pacific island nation five years ago as part of a scheme to put family assets beyond the company’s reach. The trust in the Cook Islands has surfaced as an explosive new area of attack by Conseco attorneys trying to recover $97 million in principal and interest on loans Rollin Dick used in the 1990s to buy company…

SPORTS: A model sports program in our own back yard

The leaders of the NCAA, including President Myles Brand, have a grand vision. They want to see student-athletes who arrive on campus prepared for the rigors of higher academia and who depart in a timely manner with meaningful degrees. They want to see quality coaching and success on the field of play, including the opportunity for those student-athletes to compete on a national level. They want to see the athletic department guided by the academic mission of the institution and…