The only rational argument that supports the plan to pay the Indiana Pacers $10 million a year to stay in Indianapolis and operate Conseco Fieldhouse is that it's a wise investment in second-level economic development. The primary level – the Pacers organization itself – will never generate enough revenue for the city to break even.

The tangible economic activity surrounding the team and the less-tangible status of having a National Basketball Association team are supposed to tip the payback scale.

A key assumption of that argument is that the NBA gives the city valuable status. City leaders making that argument discount the estimate made last winter by Commissioner David Stern that NBA teams collectively would lose $400 million this year. They also assume that a new NBA collective bargaining agreement will fix both the money drain and the lack of team identification that seems to allow players (see Chris Paul) to announce aspirations to play for some other outfit.

Perhaps most threatening is the devaluation of teams such as the Pacers by the talent-stacking move made last week by LeBron James and Chris Bosh in joining Dwayne Wade in Miami. For the next couple of years, who will pay for tickets at Conseco unless the Heat is coming to town? If the same holds true in cities such as Charlotte and Oklahoma City, what will be the value of the NBA? The league could become a dozen or so versions of the Washington Generals, waiting for Globetrotter-style trouncings at the hands of the Heat or the Lakers or a few other teams to sell tickets.

The NBA made a calculated decision to market individual stars rather than teams. That decision may destroy the league, or at least make the decision-makers in Indianapolis wish they'd decided to subsidize players rather than owners. That, of course, would be silly.

The new boss of the Indycar racing series, Randy Bernard, got to see the track and the race nearly at its best at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on Sunday. Hot but not unbearable, a good race but not necessarily a classic, a big crowd but probably not the biggest. Good enough to understand the tradition but still showing some room for improvement.

In our section in the Northwest Vista, we had spectators from Indianapolis, Boston, New York, Minnesota, Holland (the wooden shoe types, not the Michigan types) and Ohio. From their collective experiences, here are some suggestions to throw Bernard's way:

1. Spend some money on the museum. A first-time visitor sees many cool old cars and, given enough time, can figure out how design of chassis and engines evolved, if not why.  Surprisingly, there's not a lot of easy information about the track itself, which is the star of the show. The video presentation is a recitation of historical facts, but never really transmits the excitement of the race. The museum needs interactive exhibits, cutaways of engines and chassis, a modern-day multimedia presentation, more explanation of technology and some reference to the future. Tradition is not enough.

2.  Make every driver into a star. I understand it took decades just to have introductions of the drivers, but introducing them row by row throws away the opportunity for the newcomers to learn about each one. There's so much time between arrival at the track and the start of the race that the driver introductions can be more detailed. I'd rather hear a Townsend Bell talk about how he got to Indy than hear some ex-football player publicly display his lack of familiarity with the sport. The IRL has taken positive steps by bringing the whole group of drivers to national media centers, but only Danica and Helio have reached rock-star status.

3. Compress the accumulated traditions. Give Florence Henderson a lifetime pass and a seat in the Hulman Suite, but no singing duties. Do one really stirring tribute to the military, not several weak ones. (Personally, my jaw dropped when the benediction mentioned Izod, but I guess a deal is a deal.)

4. Put some pre-race entertainment in the corners. The video screens are great, but a couple of hours in the grandstand prior to the race would go faster with the kinds of shows they use at NBA halftimes. The acts could rotate around the tracks. Sort of like the Macy's parade in New York.

5. Develop more American drivers. I know everybody has said this for 20 years and efforts have been made, but it continues to be an important priority.

6. Explain stuff. People in our section didn't understand the scoring displays for about 60 laps. If you are working to attract a new  audience, you have to expect some of your audience is new and they don't always buy programs.

7. Put humanity first. When Dave Calabro was calling on the crowd to cheer Dario's victory, everybody on the north end of the track was holding their breath waiting to see movement from Mike Conway. How that horrific crash could have been ignored defies explanation.

8. Figure out exit traffic control. In recent years, law enforcement has become much more active in closing lanes and funneling traffic flow. So far the result seems to us to be more gridlock.  Spectators should know what streets are going to be closed or redirected so that they understand why they're being sent south when they want to go north.

These are just a few thoughts. I'm sure Bernard has his own observations as well. So far, I think he's going in the right direction.

"Utilities were created for a reason – a lot of that is to take politics out of decisions," (Indianapolis Mayor) Ballard said Wednesday, quoted in the Indianapolis Star. "When it comes to an election, (politicians) say, 'I'm going to stand up and protect ratepayers,' when infrastructure is decaying underneath."

That perspective may look correct enough to an officeholder facing re-election for him to turn his back on the populism that put him in office. That's exactly what he's doing in proposing to sell the Indianapolis water and sewer systems to Citizens Energy, an independent public trust.

Historically, Ballard's view is myopic. Privately owned utilities developed because they could raise capital, build systems and operate them at a time when governments did not have resources to do the job. Many were regulated locally until their operations spanned municipal boundaries, leading to control over rates and investments by appointed commissioners at the state level. The Mayor is correct in that having regulation vested in a state commission allows politicians to rail against utility rates without accountability for the amount and quality of planned investments.

While that situation is convenient for the office-holder, it may not be preferred by the voters. If you asked a water and sewer customer in Marion County about whether he or she would like a voice in when and how Indianapolis spends $4 billion for infrastructure improvements, I'd bet most would opt for accountability.

• Drivers would learn how cars work and would, of necessity, learn how to perform simple repairs.
• Using 35-year-old steel accomplishes the goal of recycling without the middlemen.
• The average trip would become shorter, partially because of the noise and discomfort.
• Texting and other dangerous distractions would disappear as drivers focused on operating manual transmissions.

Nevertheless, it goes. And stops. Isn't that all we really need?

Meanwhile, in a recent presentation, Indianapolis Star Editor and Vice President Dennis R. Ryerson said his newspaper has stopped counting on advertisers to carry their traditional share of operating costs. He said the paper will institute changes to induce readers to buy the print product. He described the new direction for the Star as a "daily newsmagazine." The professional reporting, writing and editing of the product, he said, had to be supported by circulation revenue.

Both of these moves come as a response to the failure of advertisers to value online publications, at least those that are produced by traditional print newspapers. Both companies also are responding to the unsolved problem of free, unregulated online duplication of news produced by their employees. 


The Evening Standard's Russian owner, Alexander Lebdenev, seems to believe flooding the market with a free quality product will make his product indispensable to advertisers. Since the change, one other free newspaper in London has shut down.


The Star's Gannett ownership seems to believe that advertisers, with many options, will never again foot the bill for news operations. A good, local news product, they are saying, should be a marketable item.


There are differences between the U.S. and British television systems, which alter the calculations, but it's hard to imagine that both of these moves can be right at the same time. If London is wrong, the Evening Standard will flame out. If Indianapolis is wrong, the Star will start spiraling into a smaller and smaller niche. Let's hope at least one of them has found the answer.

Driving back from Kokomo on Wednesday, I saw a driver almost knucklehead himself into a bad accident. We were stopped at a traffic light at a complex intersection. When crossing cars appeared to stop, he drove into the intersection with an assumption our light was turning green. He got to the middle before he realized a left-turning car was about to plow into him. How could he be so oblivious?

He was talking on the cell phone at his ear.

Heading south near Butler University last week, I stopped for a 4-way stop sign and let a car cross in front of mine. Then I started up to take my turn. The driver behind the first car paused and then barreled into the intersection in front of me. I thought she just was being too aggressive.

Then I saw she had a phone at her left ear. Perhaps she didn't see me at all.

On  Monday, I waited for a crosswalk signal and started walking across Illinois Street at Ohio Street. A man driving an SUV made a right turn that forced me to push myself off his car door to get out of his way.

He had a cell phone at his right ear.

Six states now ban use of handheld cell phones by drivers. Eighteen states ban texting by drivers. Indiana's ban, passed this year, applies only to drivers under 18. It did not apply to the three distracted drivers above.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been following the issue of distracted driving for some time. It estimates that more than 5,870 traffic fatalities and more than 515,000 injuries last year were caused by distracted driving. See the findings here.

State Rep. Vanessa Summers of Indianapolis has introduced a bill to ban the use of hand-held mobile telephones by all drivers (except in emergencies) for the past eight years.

Help her pass that bill this year. Save the knuckleheads.

I could not say this better than Bristol Editor.

The morning after the Colts' exhilarating Monday Night Football victory over the Miami Dolphins, the drive-time ESPN radio team of Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic devoted much of their four-hour stint to the game. It's sports-talk formula that people want to hear about what they saw and Monday Night Football is what every fan sees.

For those in Indianapolis who wanted to hear about what they saw,  it would have been smart to skip Mike and Mike and tune in the next time slot on 1070TheFan: the Dan Dakich Show.

With a game that offered much to discuss: the "wildcat" offense, the Dolphins' clock management, the Colts' lack of run defense and Peyton Manning's magic audibles, Greenberg and Golic focused on one cockeyed point: is Manning a better Colts quarterback than the late Johnny Unitas? Despite the fact that Unitas played his last game in 1973, before many of the listeners were born, and that he never played in Indianapolis, the two Mikes went through "best quarterback" lists and belabored the question through live interviews. The simple answer is that the two football eras cannot easily be compared and they both will be remembered as among the best.

That simple answer did not suffice, because Mike and Mike regularly reduce every sporting accomplishment to a "best" list.  Quarterbacks, pitchers, tennis players, coaches, shortstops. The question of whether Derek Jeter is better than Cal Ripken can be counted on to produce email and fit neatly into a short morning drive segment.

Dan Dakich doesn't have to worry about short segments. On the air now for nearly a year, Dakich runs his three hours like the family patriarch at Thanksgiving dinner. He's patient with kids, prickly with blowhards and lets guests and callers expound a viewpoint without confrontation or condescension.

When Emmis Broadcasting gave the 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekday slot to Dakich, some in the industry scratched their heads. Why move ESPN's national Colin Cowherd show out of its live slot to the afternoon for an old basketball coach who'd never done radio? The other sports radio stations in Indianapolis rely on their networks for mid-morning material.  While Dakich spent 16 years as a player and coach at Indiana University, he'd been in Ohio for most of the previous ten years as the coach at Bowling Green University. He came back to IU during the Kelvin Sampson years and served as the interim head coach after Sampson was fired.

How long could Coach Dakich endure knucklehead listeners? Would every show devolve into a debate about Bob Knight? What if he had to talk about something other than basketball?

What's happened is that listeners have helped Dakich shape his show into something approaching a sports-talk salon. The games and schtick are minimal. The show keeps a moderate pace and and an Indiana center. Like most coaches, Dakich seems to be interested in all sports. Almost every coach you meet seems to be a fan of baseball and a player of golf. Pro football is the national sport; Dakich has baskeball covered and is the kind of guy who scans his car radio for high school games.

The morning after the Colts defeated the Dolphins, those who had the good fortune to tune in Dan Dakitch learned about the problems with the Indianapolis run defense and running attack, the former critics of Dallas Clark, the wisdom of "wildcat" and much more.

It's not formula radio. It may not survive. But for those with the time to listen, it's better than you would expect.

One theory about how newspapers can survive in a paperless future is the notion that they can become the prime sources of local news. What the President says can be found everywhere. What the Mayor says must be found on a local news site. The theory holds that what used to be called a newspaper's newsroom and now is called an "information center" is well-equipped to become the dominant local news site.

That dominance would mean advertisers get exposure from everyone looking for local news. Being on the welcome page or the main sports page would collect lots of impressions.

What would happen to that dominance if the readers go somewhere else for a news digest and then directly to the story about what the Mayor said? This happens already in a limited way if you use, for example, an iGoogle home page that gives you the top stories of your local paper.

Now an entrepreneur named Yiyi Liu has begun a revolution in that thought. Based in Montreal, his operation, called "City and Press," has taken what Google does in a universal way and made it local. In 30 cities, including Indianapolis, Liu has started local news aggregation sites called "(city).cityandpress.com". In Indianapolis, of course, it's www.indianapolis.cityandpress.com.

How this works, apparently, is that they capture RSS feeds from every local news outlet and publish them on the city-specific site, with stories categorized as "news,", "sports," "business" and more. On each city site, they promise to stop using material generated by a news outlet, such as TV station, on request.

This creates a problem for a newspaper, a radio station or a TV station. Does management want to be left out of what could become the prime index of local news or cede that role to someone else and take the linked hits? The revenue for a "City and Press" site is likely to be small, a least at first, but its overhead is minimal.

As we know, things online are moving faster than we ever expect. How news outlets respond to this advance could be crucial.