Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Richard Moss, M.D. My state folded. The people didn’t fail; our government did. Specifically, our governor. Indiana is a red Republican state with two Republican U.S. Senators, seven (out of nine) Republican Congressman, a Republican Statehouse and Senate, and, ostensibly, a Republican governor. Gov. Eric Holcomb is his name. With Republicans like him who needs…

by Leo Morris I like being asked. It means I have a choice. I can say no. Not that I always do. They’ve been asking me, over and over during this stay-at-home pandemic, to support our local restaurants. If I don’t help them stay afloat by using their carryout and delivery services, their dining rooms…

WE OWE TO NOBEL PHYSICIST Niels Bohr our definition of an expert. He is someone, preferably from out of town, who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field. I am an expert — in bluebirdology. More narrowly, I am an expert on how to get the ugly, bad-mannered…

OUR ADJUNCT, MARGARET MENGE, hit on an interesting story this week. The Indiana Department of Workforce Development, the people responsible for making insurance payments from the money collected by force from Hoosier paychecks on the rationale that it would be available in an emergency, seem unable to fulfill that promise. “The thing about unemployment compensation…

by Margaret Menge What if a pandemic hit and hundreds of thousands of people were suddenly unemployed, and when they turned to the people responsible for making insurance payments from the big pot of money — money collected from society by force over many years — those people aren’t there? Don’t pick up the phones.…

By Richard Moss, MD My neighbors hunt.  They can survive in the forest, hills, lakes, and rivers, here in Indiana.  They understand the world of nature, its vicissitudes and barbarism.  Appreciating its transcendent beauty and cadences, they also accept its fierce cruelties.  They do not worship nature.  They seek reconciliation with it that they may…

by Leo Morris I was going to write a wry but pointed column about Indiana’s coming search for a new tourism slogan, something along the lines of, “Wave on your way to Michigan” or, “Thanks for not stopping by.” Our past attempts to snare visitors with a catchy phrase have always come up embarrassingly short.…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. If you’re into C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, or the impact of the World Wars on society, religion and culture, I’d recommend Joe Loconte’s book, “A Hobbit, A Wardrobe and a Great War.” Loconte describes Lewis’ faith journey in detail. Well before “Chronicles of Narnia,” he embraced atheism after being raised in…

“There is, to put it mildly, a huge spread (in the predictions) — the difference between a death toll on par with the number of people who die from injury and violence annually in the U.S. and one that’s closer to the number of people murdered when the Chinese communists moved to suppress counterrevolutionaries between…

by Leo Morris The newspaper that employed me for more than 30 years has ceased publication. It feels like a death in the family, and I’ve been trying to imagine the obituary: “The News-Sentinel, 187, native of Fort Wayne, Ind., born in 1833, died in 2020 of natural causes. Cherished by loved ones, true friend…