Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Steven Keltner, PA Chances are, you’ve changed a test answer at the last second, only to find out your original response was correct. Second-guessing your visceral response is a common occurrence.  Professional test preparation companies generally offer a key piece of advice to deal with this situation: Never change an answer, unless you’re sure…

Editor’s Note:  This was written a few years ago but is a useful primer on the difficulties of government arrangements being considered today for food “deserts” in Indianapolis and Fort Wayne. It also relates those difficulties to government management of any politically commanded program that ignores economic realities, specifically K-12 education. by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. With the grocery store…

“Communism: great idea, wrong species.” — the sociobiologist E.O. Wilson NOTHING MAKES CONSERVATIVES feel better than knowing they are right — better even than solving the problem. For instance, how about a biting critique of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and damnation of the pusillanimous who abide it? You need spend only a few moments thinking about using tax…

by Mark Franke June 14 is Flag Day in the United States, a holiday sandwiched between the patriotic holidays of Memorial Day and Independence Day. Unfortunately, almost no one honors it by flying flags or other appropriate decorations. It’s sad, really. My cul-de-sac has a tradition of putting out small yard flags to line the…

I TRY NOT to let old books rule my outlook. But as I write tonight, I am listening to a recording of a local city council meeting and cannot shake a thought so incisive it has long survived its writer. It is an observation from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” through her enigmatic hero John Galt. “When you see that in…

by Leo Morris I’m basically a lazy person, so I’m not opposed to the government paying me to do something I might otherwise be inclined to forgo. But it seldom works out. Sometimes, I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ohio, for example, would have given me a chance to win a $1…

“Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.” — C.K. Chesterton THE STAFF of the Indianapolis Star, reduced as it is, has found time to devote dozens of hours and thousands of words to the city’s food “deserts,” those areas unserved by commercial grocery stores. Star readers will learn little from the effort. The newspaper merely steers us to its…

by Mark Franke I was not a road warrior during my career but I traveled enough on business to look forward to never seeing the inside of a hotel lobby or airport concourse again. My retirement goal was to sit under “my vine and fig tree,” to use Biblical language. Voluntary travel ranked right behind…

Cause and effect, chain of eventsAll of the chaos makes perfect senseWhen you’re spinnin’ roundThings come undoneWelcome to Earth, third rock from the Sun — Joe Difie THINKING ABOUT the political repercussions of an Indianapolis crime wave, a friend reminded me of a quite different catastrophe — the Chicago blizzard of 1978. My friend’s point was…

by Leo Morris I was leaving the gym last Wednesday when Tony told me they would be closed on Friday and Monday. “Why?” I asked. “What’s going on?” “Oh, you know, just adding another day off and making it an extra-long holiday weekend.” “What holiday?” Oh, that one. Of all the ones to let sneak…