Category: Indiana Writers Group

“Inventing Freedom: How the English-Speaking Peoples Made the Modern World.” By Daniel Hannan (HarperCollins Publishers, Epub Edition, December, 2013, 6574 Locations) by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. The public’s fascination with the wedding this Spring of Britain’s Prince Harry to the American Meaghan Markel would not surprise Daniel Hannan. Rather, he would see it as support for the…

by Leo Morris There is no such thing as a free lunch. Yeah, well, about that. According to news reports, students in Fort Wayne Community Schools (FWCS) will receive both free lunches and free breakfasts starting next year. Not just middle and elementary students, as it has been since 2014, but high school students as…

by Mark Franke The discipline of economics is at once both brilliantly simple and obtusely complex. Ask a class of undergraduates taking Econ 101 for a general education elective, and I dare say you will find no takers on the former proposition of simplicity. One does hope, however, that economics majors will place themselves mostly…

“It is hereby ordained and declared by the authority aforesaid, that the following articles shall be considered as articles of compact between the original States and the people and States in the said territory and forever remain unalterable, unless by common consent, to wit: . . . Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good…

by Leo Morris You’ve likely run into this little riddle before: Would you rather have $1 million or an amount that results from starting with a penny and doubling it every day for 30 days? Even if you don’t know the quiz or bother to do the elementary math, you can tell it’s a trick…

by David Penticuff It is promising for my community that the spending of its county economic growth council is coming under official scrutiny this summer. Historically, the council has gotten most of its yearly funding from the Economic Development Income Tax (EDIT), a local income tax for county residents. While the so-called growth council started as a…

by T. Norman Van Cott The longer I taught economics to university students, the more I came to appreciate subtleties in markets grounded in secure private property rights. Indeed, as my awareness of these subtleties developed, a sense of awe arose. The subtleties go far beyond that typically drilled into freshmen and sophomores. Let’s put…

The author, an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review and a former associate counsel to the president of the United States, served as an officer in the United States Army assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency. RECALL THAT THE SO-CALLED ‘SMOKING GUN’ TAPE that led to President Richard Nixon’s resignation was of a June 1972…

by Leo Morris Both ends of the alley behind my house were blocked one day last week. It annoyed me no end. But it also set me to thinking about the need to vigorously defend our private property rights even as we acknowledge the proper place of public property in the grand scheme of things.…

A FRIEND EXPRESSED ADMIRATION for how quickly I was able to go through the morning newspaper. No, I explained, I’m not a speed reader. Reductions in newsroom staffing have had a lot to do with it, but also I am aided by a lifetime of amalgamated discernment. I know which stories can be ignored at no…