by Andrew M. Horning Unlike any other employer in the world, the average voter does not spend time and money to seek and research job applicants. Voters don’t pore over resumes or hold face-to-face interviews; too few even watch the too-few televised debates. It’s the opposite. Most voters expect candidates to grab their attention with billboards, yard signs, radio spots, TV ads and lots of newspaper column inches. Candidates research voters, however, to target ads for…

by Leo Morris The Associated Press had an astonishing story this week about what awful, horrible people Hoosiers are. Apparently, we resist change, which means we are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic monsters who should just crawl back into the primordial slime and let civilized people get on with the job of perfecting the world. If Indiana is to compete successfully in a global economy, the article begins, quoting Gov. Eric Holcomb’s sensible observation, it can’t…

by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Between 1992 and 2005, U.S.  government spending on K-12 education, adjusted for inflation, doubled. However, per-pupil spending in the nation’s public schools fell for each year between 2012-13. In Indiana, during that same period, real spending per pupil declined 8.5 percent..   In 2014, New York spent in about $20,000 per pupil; the average for all states was $11,009.  Indiana allocated $9,548 per pupil, a significant percentage of its median…

by Leo Morris My brother and sister-in-law buy Peeps by the carload. They don’t eat the goofy marshmallow critters or give them out as party favors or use them as Halloween decorations. Periodically, they haul a bunch of them down to the shooting range they’ve built on their property, line them up against the wall and blast them to smithereens. Out comes the .38 Special and – Bam! – another Peep is gone. Look, here’s…

by Leo Morris In 30-some years of writing about Indiana politics, there is one race that I miscalculated so badly it embarrasses me to this day. No, not Donald Trump’s romp through the 2016 presidential race. I’ll defer to the geniuses in the national press corps for that one.. It was the 2014 Republican primary for Indiana Senate District 15, a four-way race featuring a businessman and three current or former office-holders. Businessman Jeffrey Snyder,…

America has an appalling history of racism and brutal subjugation, and we should always be vigilant against any recurrence of that history. But the most influential sectors of our economy today practice preferences in favor of blacks. The main obstacles to racial equality at present lie not in implicit bias but in culture and behavior. — Heather Mac Donald by Dick McGowan, Ph.D. I watched the NFL games the last several weekends, but I am also a fan…

“Peyton Manning was immortalized on Saturday. His likeness will tower some 13 feet over the northern entrance of Lucas Oil Stadium after the long-promised bronze statue was unveiled in a ceremony attended by an estimated 10,000 fans.” — Stephen Holder in the Indianapolis Star by Fred McCarthy “Immortalized”? Now really, a 13-foot bronze statue of a football player was put on display. But since the paper has used that word we feel free to use another — “Idolatry.” Two sections…

by Leo Morris I am the oldest of the three children who lived. Between my younger brother Larry and my younger sister Judy were the twins, Darryl and Dianne. I always assumed they were stillborn, so my thoughts rarely dwelled on them specifically but centered mostly on those left behind. The unbearable sadness my mother must have felt. How all our lives would have been different with a pair of mischievous twins weaving through them.…

by David Penticuff Fifty years ago the great character actor Strother Martin uttered what could be the epitaph for the relationship of my city council and the city administration. It was in the movie “Cool Hand Luke.” Martin, who played a prison warden, knocked prisoner Paul Newman, wearing chains, down a tall hill after Newman’s character sassed him. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate,” Martin slowly delivered in a memorable southern drawl. The line became…

by Craig Ladwig There were howls of anguish when a proposal was made to change municipal bidding practices in Indiana to limit the influence of campaign donations. One mayor called the plan disrespectful. A development official took umbrage that anyone would use the word “corruption” in connection with his city. Today, though, David Penticuff of the Marion Chronicle-Tribune reports that a civil suit there alleges that part of the millions in public money provided to a developer…