A much-needed recovery period from knee surgery, coupled with the holiday season, left little time for working anywhere but on the computer these past two weeks. No interviews, few e-mails, mostly surfing government Web pages. And the effort produced an alarming deja vu.

While researching a story for NUVO readers in Indianapolis on the connection between autism and toxic chemicals, I returned to territory familiar from my stint as an environmental writer at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) from 1996-2000. I spent hours analyzing Indiana's Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), a gauge for how polluted Indiana or any other state is.

This Community-Right-to-Know tool is a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) database through which polluters quantify their annual releases of "nearly" 650 chemicals into the nation's air, water and land, according to the TRI Program Fact Sheet.

AlterNet, the online news digest, is sponsoring a project that asks readers to write a 100-word essay that answers the following question: "What would you like Obama's first 100 days in office to look like?" In lieu of my regular column, I thought I'd give it a go.

Executions are legal in 59 countries; the United States is one of them. Executions are legal in 36 states, one of which is Indiana. It's pointless to debate the morality of the death penalty: arguments about personal belief and individual opinion are unresolvable through discussion. Instead, it makes sense to assess the merits of the death penalty in terms of public policy. Is capital punishment sound public policy?

The death penalty is expensive. According to Chris Hitz-Bradley, an Indianapolis attorney and president of the Indiana Information Center to Abolish Capital Punishment (IICACP), writing in the Indiana Abolitionist, "The cost of just the initial trial and appeal of a capital case [in Indiana] is estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. The state's economists" he goes on to say, "have estimated that 'the cost of this first phase of a capital case is 1/3 more than a case of life without parole.'"

Some time ago a friend suggested that we begin referring to the Republican party as simply the “Low-Wage Party,” since the only consistent theme throughout all Republican platforms seemed to be pushing down wages for the majority of Americans -- presumably so that a minority could scoop up what was left on the table.

Of course the current appellation for the Republican party is, correctly, The Party That Wrecked America (or perhaps the even more grandiose and accurate The Party That Wrecked The World). But if things ever get back to some sense of normalcy, I wonder if, on a day-to-day basis, it wouldn’t make sense to take my friend up on his recommendation and in conversation, casual to formal, refer to the party by its ideological foundations.

Meaning refer to the party as The Low-Wage Party and party members as Low-Wage Republicans.

In reality, this introduction to a new Bloomington Alternative feature called "On the Trail" was written after-the-fact, as I've been on this path the past few weeks now. My last two pieces, for example, included first-person accounts of my recent forays in health-care and environmental reporting. And that's mostly what I will be doing here in the near future -- writing more about the journey than the destination.

This new focus reflects a shift in my priorities. Changes are at hand here that demand expanded horizons and time commitments. So what writing time I will have for the Alternative in the near future, anyway, will be used to share the experiences I have researching and writing stories for other publications. There aren't enough hours in the day.

My last two columns and this one, for example, chronicle the sources and information I have found researching a 2,000-word story for a national political newsletter on the role industrial pollution may play in the development of autism.

"Brazen." "Staggering." "Outrageous."

Last week, the political class was working overtime consulting Roget's Thesaurus to find just the right word to express their indignation over Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's plot to sell a U.S. Senate appointment to the highest bidder.

Blagojevich's pay-to-play scheme has all the trappings of old school Chicago-style politics: influence peddling, backroom deal making and a would-be political boss with a vindictive streak.

But there's a twist. Until recently, the senate seat that was up for sale belonged to none other than President-elect Barack Obama. As if Obama didn't have enough to contend with already, even the hint of scandal surrounding this transition could doom his presidency.

As political theater it doesn't get much better than this. Even the transcript of telephone conversations between Blagojevich and his aides reads like something out of a David Mamet play: "I've got this thing and it's fucking golden ... I'm just not giving it up for fucking nothing."

More media attention than usual has been devoted to labor law and the potential for some badly needed changes since Barack Obama's election. During his campaign, Obama publicly supported the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an amendment to the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

But some in the business community have gone on the offensive to condemn changes in labor law as if the world was going to end if the EFCA passed in Congress.

The NLRA was passed in 1935 and gave workers the right to self-organization and protection if they desired to organize collectively to address workplace issues with their employers. It was a response to the effects of industrial strife and workplace disruptions of interstate commerce.

When employees believed they were being treated as commodities instead of as a people, strikes ensued, costing the economy, workers and employers much needed financial resources during the Great Depression.

In many ways, the journalistic journey I am taking into the world of autism reminds me of a mushroom experience I had deep in the Martin County woods in the late 1980s.

As some tree-hugger friends and I led a Washington Times columnist through a valley en route to a particularly egregious U.S. Forest Service clearcut, I noticed what, to someone who had never found a morel before, a specimen that seemed like a giant. Once I discovered the first one, they suddenly appeared everywhere, and I left the woods with a couple dozen in my backpack.

So it has been with autism. Since I started paying attention a month ago, I've realized it is everywhere.

I can’t believe it’s happening, but it is. The administration, by which I mean the Bush administration, is failing in a colossal manner yet again.

They invaded Afghanistan, with the largest and most capable military the world has ever known, to track down and capture one man. One man. And they couldn’t pull it off. Here, seven years later, Osama Bin Laden is still at large and living large, tucked away comfortably in a Pakistani safe house, mailing us taunting home videos.

They attacked Iraq, for no understandable reason, telling us the Iraqis would shower us with flowers and, in no time at all, would be paying their own Visa bills.

Five years later, the country is a hopeless quagmire where unvetted private mercenaries have taken the role as our proxy fighters to the tune of nearly a billion dollars of borrowed money a day.

It's Obama instead of Ol' Bomber. What a relief!

At last, after all these dark and terrible years, we might have a man in the White House who doesn't stoke our fears and look about for enemies to taunt.

The one advantage of that endless election campaign was that it gave us time to see that Obama is obviously sane. How refreshing!

He doesn't immediately brand as an "enemy" any country that disagrees with us. Everything isn't U.S. versus T.H.E.M. He doesn't feed the national paranoia that those Bush Crazies whipped up out of 9/11. He doesn't wave weapons and middle fingers when he's speaking of foreign policy.

As someone wisely noted: when things get hot, you want a cool leader. Obama is warmhearted but coolheaded. That's what we desperately need. If you don't believe that's what we need, look at the last seven years: