Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. As a former cigarette smoker, I have a nightmare. Somewhere down the road, I get a diagnosis of lung cancer. The doctor tells me the the cancer is treatable, the prospects for a full recovery are better than 60 percent and the costs of the treatments will be around $250,000. Now…

by Andrea Neal James Madison, Benjamin Franklin and colleagues spent almost four months debating, writing and editing the document that would become the U.S. Constitution. It took James Brownlee, Benjamin Parke and associates only 18 days to write Indiana’s. The framing of our first constitution represented the final step in a lengthy and sometimes controversial…

REGISTRATION: To ensure an advance copy of the spring journal, click on the “Join Us” button on the menu bar above. WHY POLITICS TURNED NASTY “The narcissism of my generation — the baby boomers — has become a permanent feature of our culture. An ‘it’s all about me’ attitude extends beyond materialistic selfishness. It also…

by Andrea Neal It’s little wonder that today’s political discourse is polarized. The folks doing most of the arguing know so little about the past that they cannot justify their views with historical evidence or data. So they appeal to emotion, name calling, stereotypes and hyperbole. A few recent examples: MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry described the…

What if the featured columnist for the Indianapolis Star is wrong that Western Civilization can be explicated through the historical lens of Selma, Alabama, circa 1965? What if there is a difference between behavior and skin pigment? The columnist was so outraged that a group of black ministers would speak out against same-sex marriage that…

Barack Obama’s powerful pen is now at work in the penal system — seeking to grant clemency to a number of federal prisoners imprisoned for low-level drug offenses. Why? Because they received prison terms based on mandatory sentencing. With the proposed Smarter Sentencing Act, Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Sen. Mike Lee of Utah…

by Andrea Neal Three states claim Abraham Lincoln as a favorite son, but only Indiana can take credit for his formative years. As he moved through adolescence to adulthood, Lincoln worked, studied and dealt with adversity on the Indiana frontier. During this period, Lincoln handled an ax “almost constantly,” as he himself recalled. He read…

The effort is now under way in the Indiana Legislature to further restrict the sale of products containing ephedrine/pseudoephedrine (PSE). That is a key meth ingredient found in the most effective over-the-counter decongestants that afford relief to Hoosiers who suffer from asthma, sinus and other nasal disorders. Meth is a growing problem in Indiana and…

Generally, the hype and extravagance of a modern Super Bowl is approaching levels that only an Albert Speer could fully appreciate. The game, the sport, is decidedly secondary, if that. Two specific takeaways from the Feb. 2 spectacle: First, the super promises of mass transportation were shown to be super false. The ride to and…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. My father was actively involved in two congressional campaigns. He supported the Republican candidates for Congress in the 2nd Congressional district in Oklahoma in 1964 and 1966. He’d give me a dime for every bumper sticker I could persuade a neighbor to put on their car for the GOP standard bearer.…