Listening to the State of the Union address Wednesday gave me reason to be hopeful.

Much of what I heard made sense — creating jobs, tax credits for small businesses, college tuition tax credits and fees on fat-cat bankers.

Every year the president’s analysis of our national situation prompts me to do my own survey. With no stable of advisers to assist me, I do the gruntwork myself. It consists of noting a few of the news stories that have caught my eye recently.

A few observations, starting with the good news:

‰Oregon taxpayers approved a tax increase for those whose income exceeds $125,000. Making the well-to-do pay their share is just common sense, it seems to me. So the election suggests that at least some people have their heads on straight. Let’s hope it’s catching.

‰Ohio, where I live, is getting $400 million in economic stimulus money to develop passenger rail service between Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. Besides being a supporter of mass transit, I really like train travel.

On a visit several years ago to relatives in southern California, my son and I took a commuter train into San Diego. It wasn’t plush but it was more comfortable than taking a car, and quicker too.

My hope is that the line gets enough passengers to warrant expansion and possible connection with rail service through Ashland.

‰The nutty, right-wing pseudojournalist James O’Keefe, who became a conservative darling when he punked employees of the community organizing group ACORN, got busted in Louisiana, allegedly trying to bug a Democratic senator’s office telephone.

According to authorities, he and three confederates went all Mission Impossible, disguising themselves as telephone repairmen and waltzing in with hard hats and hidden cameras.

The funniest thing is that his former admirers, while they haven’t out and out disavowed him, are obviously ready to toss him under the bus as soon as he becomes enough of an embarrassment.

It’s not all good news out there. A few stories made me wonder whether our country ever will really grow up.

‰ Right up the road from me, in Nelsonville, Ohio, minority students are genuinely scared after written threats of a mass killing were discovered scrawled on a bathroom wall at Hocking College. A few students have withdrawn permanently and others are afraid to walk around the semi-rural campus.

It’s disturbing to me because in my experience it’s difficult to get college students to take much of anything seriously. If these students are scared enough to cut short their studies, it make an ominous statement about the state of racial relations in the U.S.

It shows me that a significant number of African-Americans still feel they are not safe in a culture dominated by whites. It shows me that a particularly vicious strain of racism is alive and well.

‰ A school district in California removed all the dictionaries from its elementaries because (gasp) a parent complained that they included an entry for (this is true) oral sex. Apparently the parent worried that children might stumble across the entry and be corrupted.

It should go without saying that a dictionary is going to have at least a few unsavory words in it. It also should go without saying that people find the words they look up.

Also, it is pretty common for kids to look up the bad words in the dictionary. Believe me, they already know the definitions, they just like to snicker about it.

Removing the volumes not only deprives children of a valuable reference, it sends the unfortunate message that the dictionary is not to be trusted.

‰ Several recent stories about the health care reform debate make reference to opponents who fear changes to what they call “the best health care system in the world.” Without taking a position on whether the U.S. has the best health care system, I think it is worth pointing out that the comments are not entirely relevant.

That is because the debate is over health care insurance, not health care itself. I personally have few complaints about the physicians, nurses, technicians and other health care professionals who have cared for me and my family.

Just don’t get me started on insurance. My costs have gone up steadily for years, to the point where I hesitate to go to the doctor or to fill prescriptions. That’s my problem and probably yours, too.

The state of the union would be considerably better if we quit conflating the two issues.

None of the above gives me a really clear indication of where our nation is bound. The truth is, none of us really knows. President Obama said it well when he pointed out that at crisis points in our history, times we look back on and assume that the destiny of America was to forge ahead with eternal success, were in fact times of utter uncertainty.

I just don’t know.

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2652.