Author: Craig Ladwig

by Leo Morris I intended to write something pithy about the just-concluded General Assembly session, since it was full of portentous news: a whopping $44 billion budget; new public health initiatives; an enormous expansion of school choice; last-minute, eye-popping raises for the governor and other top elected state officials; a deep dive into the morass…

A Journal of Not-So-Precious Moments WITHOUT GETTING maudlin, we all know there are moments when . . . well, moments when things change and will never be the same. As boys fishing on a favorite stream, a moment would come when a soft breeze would pick up, the Cottonwoods would rustle and we knew that summer was over. Soon we were going to be…

A City Named After a Boot FOR REASONS THAT his detractors will gladly list, a friend is not big on winning awards. His agonizing bit of self-appraisal occurred on seeing a picture of a dozen or so members of a local tv news department. They were holding armfuls of “best in journalism” plaques. Award-giving must be a good sized subdivision of…

A Movie not for our Times I ASK THAT YOU FORGIVE my ancien cinéma phase. Last evening was spent rewatching Peter Weir’s film, “Master and Commander,” an acclaimed and authentic glimpse into early 19th century naval warfare. But halfway through I was struck by a disturbing thought: Nobody below the age of 40 is going to have any idea what this movie is about.…

by Leo Morris Today, let’ s pay tribute to one of history’s little known but highly influential figures: Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, a Roman statesman and military commander of the third century BC. His nickname was Cunctator, roughly translated as “the delayer,” earned for the tactics he employed against the invading Carthaginian forces of Hannibal…

A Mayor Sells ‘Sustainability’ — His Own IF YOU CAN STEP BACK for a moment, the absurdity of modern electioneering becomes clearer — not acceptable, but clearer. My mayor, running for his fifth term, is pushing the council to approve a quarter million-dollar plan that promises to “sustain” the city through climate change. What? Can the mayor somehow…

The Persistence of Despotism HOOSIERS ARE FORTUNATE to have a legislature in supermajority. We can witness a real-life, real-time experiment in whether partisanship or just government in and of itself is the problem. Spoiler alert: It is government in and of itself. As my colleague Leo Morris has observed, the majority Republicans (the party of fiscal responsibility,…

by Leo Morris Today’s entry for the “juxtaposition is everything” file: Indiana lawmakers working on the new state budget have learned that they will have $1.5 billion more to spend than previous revenue forecasts predicted. The state ended fiscal year 2022 with about a $6.1 billion surplus, the so-called “rainy day” fund. Both the Indiana…

Don’t Give Up on the Democratic Process Just Yet THE APPROVAL RATING of Congress is 10 percent. The incumbency rating is 90 percent. What does democracy mean in that context? There have been nagging doubts for 300 years that something is wrong with the system. It is clearly vulnerable to manipulation by scalawags and the self-serving. “Remember, democracy…

by Mark Franke “You are uninformed.” I was told this at a display table for the national Convention of States (COS) organization which was exhibiting at the spring conference of the Indiana American Legion. This was in response to my stating concern that such a convention could go rogue because the sponsors could not absolutely…