BOHANON: Proud of ‘Liberal’ Indiana
by CECIL BOHANON, Ph.D. In May 1988, Professor James McGill Buchanan, the 1986 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics, told the graduating class at Ball State University that he “had never been attracted to the romantic nonsense that government or politicians know what is best . . .” He encouraged the students to “nurture Read the full article…
Book Review
Dave Bego. The Devil at Our Doorstep. CreateSpace, North Charleston, S.C., 2012. $14.95 The difficult thing about fighting for free markets is that our successes are invisible or are projected beyond the political horizon — and, maddeningly, so are the failed promises of our statist opponents. That, however, is lessened with publication of Dave Bego’s Read the full article…
KEATING: Restoring Professionalism to Education
by MARYANN O. KEATING, Ph.D. Steve Jobs, the computer pioneer, warned Barack Obama that there can be no effective educational reform unless teachers are treated as professionals, not like workers in an assembly line (“Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson). James Buchanan, the Nobel Laureate in Economics, noted that education is a unique activity: Those who Read the full article…
The Rabbit Is Eating the Eco-Devo Hat
by CRAIG LADWIG Many years ago a big-name manufacturer in my town shocked a heavily unionized labor force by announcing it was pulling up stakes for more productive pastures. Our mayor, a master politician, announced what was then an innovative policy — subsidies and tax abatements. In private, the mayor conceded to the editors of Read the full article…
NEAL: Colleges Failing Students in the Liberal Arts
(For release May 16 and thereafter) by ANDREA NEAL Congratulations and best of luck to the Class of 2012. Even with a degree in hand, they’ll need it. A college diploma just doesn’t mean what it used to. Consider the following: At 85 percent of colleges, students can graduate without taking an intermediate level foreign Read the full article…
Half Past the Month: Indiana’s Elizabethan EcoDevo
by CRAIG LADWIG Earlier this month a newspaper in my hometown ran one of those predictably boosterish “we can do it” articles on the local economy. This one, though, was so wrong-headed on such an important subject at such a critical moment that it requires a challenge. The news was that economic help was on its Read the full article…
