Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Craig Ladwig “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.” — The Boy Scout Oath Talk that the Boy Scouts of America…

by Leo Morris There is an old joke riddle that goes: “What do you call the person who graduates last in the class in medical school?” “Doctor.” There isn’t an equivalent joke for lawyers, but there should be. And if current trends continue, there likely will be. According to news reports, Indiana is following the…

by David Penticuff It was a nice phrase used in William Makepeace Thackeray’s 19th century novel “Vanity Fair,” in which he wrote of a “perfect storm of sympathy.” Pardon us if we rework the now well-worn expression. The confluence of power in my Indiana county of a former mayor and his brother, plus the county’s…

Gov. Eric Holcomb, pushing a plan this session he says will discourage blatant hatred, said the other day that he is confident a majority of Hoosiers agree with him. Putting aside the depressing thought that his expectation is only 51 percent rather than, say, 85 percent, the governor imagines he is on the highest moral…

by Leo Morris “Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me.” – Don Corleone, “The Godfather.” Hoosiers owe the brave members of the Indiana Association of Public School Superintendents a vote of gratitude for making a courageous move that could bring needed reform to…

AS THE ERA OF THE SUPERMAJORITY stretches to historical length, Gov. Eric Holcomb and House Speaker Brian Bosma are working hard to set the flaccidity bar ever lower. Their recent statements on public education could have been written by a committee of ISTA pensioners on Methaqualone. Remarks this week at the always unremarkable Bingham-Greenebaum-Doll (BGD)…

by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. A recent article in the New York Times reports that a former security guard in Venezuela became a billionaire even as his country crumbled. The amount of money involved is inconceivable to most of us, yet attainable given just two conditions. First, you must live in a country where government…

by Leo Morris “Does anybody really know what time it is, “Does anybody really care?” –Robert William Lamm, from the “Chicago Transit Authority” album, 1969 From past experience, we can guess that the Indiana General Assembly will spend at least half its time in the coming session arguing about measures that have no chance of…

President Trump is expected to announce he will nominate State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert, a Fox News presenter until two years ago, to be the next U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. — Associated Press, Dec. 7, 2018 WHAT FATE AWAITS a nation that grades its information on the physical appearance of the source rather…

by H. Sterling Burnett, Ph.D. The plan by Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) to shut down two large coal power plants and replace them with renewable energy sources is bad for ratepayers and bad for the state’s business climate. In fact, the only winner is NIPSCO, who will reap profits on the backs of…