by Leo Morris I come to some of the hot-topic debates of the day a little late because I get all caught up in the search for context. By the time I escape from the labyrinth of historical research and peripheral analyses, the zeitgeist has moved on, and nobody wants to talk about the issue any longer. Consider the “gender pay gap,” shorthand for the fact that when we compare the median wages for full-time…

by Mark Franke “Facts are stubborn things,” John Adams asserted after the Boston Massacre. “Whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” Except for when they have the audacity to disprove the received wisdom of our current progressive elites. That is, when they just don’t fit the narrative, a term our former president loved to use. It is a sad commentary…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. Indiana media outlets have recently reported on women’s ostensible pay gap. And USA Today wrote last month that the notion of bringing home 80 cents for every dollar pocketed by a man on a national basis is “unsettling,” calling it “a shortfall” and suggesting a lack of something owed. A northern Indiana paper said, “Women in Indiana make 72 cents to the dollar that Hoosier men do on average, and they won’t see…

by Leo Morris Donald J. Trump is a jerk. I feel as if I have a right to say that. I voted for him. He may be a jerk, but he’s my jerk. It was a difficult decision, probably the toughest call of my voting life. As a fiscal conservative, I was an early supporter of Ted Cruz, and I favored many other candidates in the crowded GOP primary over Trump – most of them, in…

(For the use of the membership only.) “Equality of opportunity, not only is it fair enough, it’s even laudable. But equality of outcome? It’s like, ‘No, you’ve crossed the line. We’re not going there with you.’” — Dr. Jordan B. Peterson THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD, the wags used to say, those who believe there are two types of people and those who don’t. If that applies to any issue, it…

by Mark Franke Just when it appears that the political correctness brigade has exhausted itself tilting at ideological windmills, another incredulous story hits the internet news feeds. The city of Arcata, California, has determined that a statue of President William McKinley is an affront to our society’s moral purity and must be pulled down. William McKinley? What political sin did McKinley commit that warrants his banishment from our visual historical record? It apparently has to…

by Leo Morris There might be something more terrifying for a wheezy old man than sitting in a compact with a flat tire on the shoulder of I-465 in Indianapolis, watching nervously in the driver’s side mirror at three lanes of cars and trucks whizzing by at 70 miles an hour, but offhand I can’t imagine what. Staring into the muzzle of a .45 perhaps, being held by a crack addict three days from a…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. The uproar over President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariff pronouncements has been a déjà vu moment for me. Early on in the Jimmy Carter administration, I was an economist for the U.S. Department of Labor and a member of the administration’s “Footwear Task Force” committee. The committee was implicitly charged with honoring Carter’s campaign promise to grant import relief to American shoe producers. Gerald Ford’s preceding administration had rejected…

 by Leo Morris I enjoy my regular coiffure-adjustment sessions because they give me a glimpse of something I seldom get to see — the back of my head, when the barber sticks the small mirror in front of my face so I can see into the giant mirror behind me. He always asks a variation of the same question, which tickles me no end: “So, what do you think?” What am I supposed to say to that? “It…

by Mark Franke What is the definition of a religion? By that I mean to ask: What is that which is protected under the First Amendment in its right to be freely exercised apart from governmental obstruction? Most would likely think in concrete, structural terms such as a church, synagogue or mosque building as the focal point of the religion being practiced. Symbols are important too, as more than a billion Christians this week commemorate…