by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Alice’s Restaurant in Hometown, Ind., makes the best pancakes and tenderloins this side of heaven. It also employs 150 workers; some full-time, some part-time. Suppose Alice, for whatever reason, announces she is going to let go an equivalent of two full-time workers. The sacking could take a number of forms: She could let two full-timers go, she could let four part-time workers go, she could reduce four full-timers to part-time .…

by Andrea Neal It’s a date every Hoosier should know: Dec. 11, 1816. On that day, Indiana became the 16th state. We’ve been observing it formally since 1925, when the Indiana General Assembly passed a law requiring the governor to “issue a proclamation annually designating the eleventh day of December as Indiana Day.” Indiana Code 1-1-10-1 encourages public schools and citizens to celebrate “in appropriate and patriotic observance of the anniversary of the admission of…

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 let’s change the scenario. The doctor tells me the cancer is difficult to treat, but there is hope. A regimen…

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 process that advanced Indiana from frontier territory to full-fledged state. Territorial leaders had hoped Indiana would be admitted to the…

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 fuels intellectual and moral arrogance. The ‘I’m always right, I never lie, and I am a morally superior creature’ posture…

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 word ObamaCare as a racist label “conceived of by a group of wealthy white men who needed a way to…

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 she interrupted her vacation to write a column labeling them “hypocrites.” Here is her reasoning, which in effect carried the…

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 also seek to restore discretion in non-violent and non-gang-related low-quantity drug crimes. Some will see drugs as always violent; others…

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 voraciously. He practiced carpentry, even helping his father build a coffin for his mother. He took a ferry to New…

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 a major source of concern to local governments. Mayors and their police chiefs are frustrated by the manpower and dollars…