Category: Indiana Writers Group

For the use of the membership only. by John F. Gaski, Ph.D. Once again, as is becoming a tedious ritual at this time of year, our country’s legal and political institutions are wrestling with the “separation of church and state” — or at least one highly visible aspect of it. This particular struggle even has…

by Andrea Neal Hoosier women have come a long way since the mid-19th century when a proposal for women’s suffrage generated more scorn than acceptance. One political leader summed up the views of the day when he noted that women already enjoyed “the rights which the Bible designed them to have in this Christian land…

by Chad Davis, M.D. Indiana’s private practitioners, family doctors among them, need your help — a Code Red, if you will. Specifically, they need you to understand the economic pressures that change how your medical care is provided — and not just those changes associated with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known…

by Jon Bingham Which system do you prefer: college basketball’s March Madness or college football’s bowls-playoff? Your answer may indicate your view of the beneficial role of government. Should the government facilitate competition or predetermine much of the outcome? March Madness relates to the free market; college football exemplifies government control. For years, college football…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. In the summer of 1967, when I was about to enter the seventh grade, I watched television news reports of the Detroit riots on my grandmother’s black-and-white Philco. An elderly black woman cried on camera because she had been burned out of her apartment. My grandmother thought it was all “very…

(For the use of the membership only.) “Like the mandarins of old, these officials are well-educated, well-mannered, well-intentioned and wrong.” — Dan Hannan in the Dec. 8, 2014, Washington Examiner by Craig Ladwig Republican officeholders are one thing. Republican voters are another. That was made clear this week as the U.S. House voted to fund…

“What does ‘free’ healthcare mean?  . . . It isn’t free treatment, it’s depersonalized treatment.” — Dr. Oreshchenkov in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s 1967 novel “Cancer Ward.” By Craig Ladwig An idea planted here six years ago could make the difference in Indiana healthcare. It begins by asking Indiana hospitals to give patients a firm price in…

by Andrea Neal Indiana’s 1816 Constitution called for a statewide system of free public schools, but it didn’t happen until the 1850s — after education reformers demanded it. The chief lobbyist for taxpayer-funded schools was Caleb Mills, who used the power of the pen to persuade lawmakers that illiteracy was a threat to Indiana’s future.…

by Andy Horning You may label me a cultural illiterate, an ignoramus — and that’s more fact than denunciation. I don’t know anything about professional sports, for example. I know there are innumerable magazines, cable channels, radio stations and websites devoted to such things. Many Americans can rattle off sport statistics back to the 19-aughts…

MANY OF US HERE would rather ignore the Indianapolis Star’s Gannett-speak, as do most thoughtful persons. But the newspaper is an Indiana mass medium, so our mission statement requires our attention to it. Respecting the membership’s time nonetheless, we are stating the conclusion up front: The Star as an indicator of the public mood, a…