Category: Indiana Writers Group

by Mark Franke A high school-aged friend of mine asked me a question which had never entered my mind. Should the voting age be lowered to 16? She was working on a paper for her rhetoric class and that was the assigned topic.   The situation required a dodge, certainly not the formal rhetorical term her teacher would…

by Leo Morris I’ve mentioned this in passing in a couple of columns, but I think it bears some elaboration: Hypocrisy is a very boring subject. It’s the cheapest sort of complaint to make against somebody, reflexive and shallow. Very high schoolish. When we first understand the power of logic and the beauty of destroying…

by Margaret Menge  What does Indiana have to do with the allegations of widespread fraud in the presidential election in several Democrat-controlled cities? Quite a lot, if you think about it. It’s likely that the 1.7 million Hoosiers who voted for Donald Trump for President this year were disenfranchised, their votes canceled out by the…

“Former Reality TV Show Host’s Son Tests Positive for COVID-19” — Yahoo reporting that Donald Trump, Jr., had tested positive for the virus THE THOUGHT OCCURS that the reason criticism of journalism has so little effect is that it is directed at individuals who aren’t actually journalists. The profession has changed into something else entirely, something beyond recognition or…

by Mark Franke I listened in the other day while my wife read a Thanksgiving story to our grandchildren. It was the traditional story with Pilgrims and Squanto and a shared dinner. Then, the book was published in 1973 before political correctness was running amok. This book, “The Pilgrims’ First Thanksgiving” by Ann McGovern, paints an idyllic…

by Leo Morris Her name was Judy – no point in making up a protect-her-privacy name for her at this point. She was a year behind me in high school – a junior when I was a senior – so our paths did not cross that often. But a few subjects were taught without regard…

“This life’s hard, but it’s harder if you’re stupid.” — the character Jackie Brown in the 1971 novel “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” by George Higgins. IF YOU WANT your Indiana city to prosper these next few years, there is something you can do. Write your councilman, your party chairman, the prosecuting attorney or anyone else…

by Mark Franke When did we as Americans plunge into the abyss of demonizing everyone with whom we disagree? It wasn’t this way for the first 30 years of my life. Some of the most fulfilling times of my undergraduate days were spent debating philosophy, religion and politics with friends of what was then the left…

by Margaret Menge The question of who owns voting machines and the software they run on has resurfaced since the Nov. 3 election with the Trump campaign pointing fingers at Smartmatic, which was started by three Venezuelans. One company that has escaped scrutiny thus far is Hart InterCivic, the third-largest maker of voting machines in the…

by Leo Morris It’s such a perfect little story to illustrate this awful, awful year of the pandemic, cities overtaken by anarchy and an election from hell. A deer jumped through a window into an empty classroom at Blackhawk Middle School in Fort Wayne. After trashing the room for 45 minutes, the deer jumped back…