Haitian Stew Anyone? I AM ALWAYS ON THE LOOKOUT for illustrations of exactly how out of touch is the staff of the Indianapolis Star. I can tell you that the pickings are rich. Here is the latest headline that caught my eye: “Comforting Haitian Stew Is Next Dish You Should Try in Indy” The Star’s food editor has discovered the slow-cooked “brothy comestibles” of that culinary Mecca, Haiti. “I’ve got a good feeling about 2026. Not with regards to…

Childcare and Charitable Exhaustion THE PROPHETS WARN that the devil loves an impossible task. A newsroom corollary is that corruption follows an inarguable good. Both apply to the challenge of caring for children in troubled homes due to poverty, emotional crisis or the myriad snares of modern society. Indiana spends $147 million a year in state and federal monies on the general budget classification of “child care.” It is unlikely, best intentions aside, the experience of…

Graduation for Graduation’s Sake SOMETHING STRUCK ME wrong about all the Indiana public school districts this week touting increases in their graduation rates. Shouldn’t we be worried about what is being graduated?  Civic education, for instance. Gallup tell us that only 41 percent of those born after 1997 are proud to be an American compared with 83 percent of those born before 1946. The numbers on math and English learning aren’t more encouraging. An economist friend explains that questioning…

by Mark Franke Edmund Burke was a philosophical hero for us Young Americans for Freedom undergraduates back in the Nixon administration. In large part this was due to Russell Kirk’s autobiography, “Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered,” that had just been released.  In recent years Burke’s status has been brought into question by factions within the conservative movement, no doubt inevitable given the splintering of conservatives into multiple factions. I really don’t understand the current infatuation…

Creating a Homeless Magnet AGAIN, AS CITIES throughout the nation gear up to lure business away from New York City’s socialist mayor, my city is taking a different tact. We are striving to become as much like New York City as our meager resources permit — complete with a government grocery, a casino and upgraded homeless facilities. I plan to write more about the grocery whenever the city makes the profit/loss records available, and the casino is still only a…

A Word for our Times solipsism | ˈsäləpˌsizəm | noun. The quality of being self-centered or selfish. In philosophy it is the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist. “SOLIPSISM” IS A GOOD WORD. More use can be made of it. The late Charles Krauthammer  used it to characterize persons who assume that the whole world “works something like suburban Boston.” It can be expanded to describe those who think…

‘Alabama 27, Indiana 24‘ THE LATE BOB BARTLEY, editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial pages, understood the intrinsic value of journalism. He imagined a campfire of prehistoric hunters where one in the circle had a better memory for game trails than the others. That member of the party earned special privileges (a Mammoth rib perhaps) irrespective of his tactical contribution to the hunt. That prescience, that value, has disappeared for reasons to be addressed in a moment.…

Sharks Are Only Human After All I ADMIT to spending too much time trying to make sense of the world. Why, for instance, do we provide aid and shelter to foreign nationals who appear to hate us? Nonetheless, it is important to keep tabs on the more egregious examples of softheadedness. Here is the latest in my collection: A California biologist has come forward to explain to the unaware that a shark killing a woman swimmer was…

Restoring the Family Farm IF YOU HEADED OUT into the Indiana countryside over the holidays you witnessed the dearth of family farms. As we noted in “Indiana Mandate: A Return to Founding Principles,” George Washington and James Madison, farmers both, would be shocked to learn that farm and ranch families comprise less than 2 percent of the American population today, That could change here as the administration of Gov. Mike Braun and Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith turn its…

2026: A ‘Declaration’ Year by Mark Franke This year I will not make any New Year’s resolutions. It’s not that I don’t have a need for personal improvement in many areas of my life. I do. Instead, my focus is at the macro level. What should American society resolve to improve in 2026? What is the most important societal problem to address? Finally, how can I contribute toward making things better? The answer to our…