The New Boondoggles THE NEW riverfront park with the landscaped hiking trails, the downtown renovation, the convention center, the sports stadium with the attached garages and a mixed-use apartment complex — has it ever crossed your mind that they are all boondoggles? Of course it has. Economists have a nicer term for it. They speak of “rent extractions,” referring to the ability of officials to squeeze payments (seek “rents”) for favorable legislation. We call it press-release economics. Whatever you…

by Leo Morris I did not go to college because I wanted to. I went first of all because it was expected of me. I had good grades in high school, and that meant, according to the prevailing custom, you were supposed to continue your studies, especially if you would be the first one in your family to attempt postsecondary education. And I went second of all because I thought I had to. Journalism at…

Please click HERE to donate. Your support makes possible the quarterly journal, policy seminars and our weekly backgrounders and columns. The summer journal (cover and index below) will begin distribution June 21. Changing Patterns in K-12 Education THE CENTRALIZATION of K-12 operating expenses has standardized per-student spending, with the downside that curriculum and disciplinary standards in Indiana’s district schools may be less in line with local preferences. Hoosier state lawmakers are responding to interest groups’ pressure in allocating funds based…

More Gun-Control Sanctimony “Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good.” — Thomas Sowell THERE IS a rationale for gun control that says private ownership of firearms is unnecessary because the police will be there to protect you. That sounds good but some of us have lived long enough to offer sad testimony to the contrary. As a police reporter, I covered dozens of…

by Mark Franke People consider me old fashioned, even medieval, in my thinking and outlook. I plead guilty. As I observe what is happening in our society, my fears for the future only intensify. That’s why I look continually to the past for a useful insight into the future. How would you describe our political system? According to the Constitution, we are a republic or representative democracy. Democracy is the ideal form of government yet…

by Leo Morris Vietnam was the first war brought to our living rooms by television, so I always thought it interesting that the movie about the war moving me most was a made-for-TV film. “Friendly Fire” stars Carol Burnett and Ned Beatty in the true story of Iowa farm couple Peg and Gene Mullen trying to cope with their son’s death in the war. With the help of journalist C.D.B. Bryan, on whose book the…

GOV. ERIC HOLCOMB reached a career pinnacle this week in being asked to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. It marked him as among the brightest of the bright, the most powerful of the powerful, one of the men and women who make the world go around. OK, let’s grant him that. Such recognition seems important to him. Back here on the ground in Indiana, though, we have some questions — mundane, perhaps, but sincere.…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. It seems crazy now, but I thought I could win the race for Indiana’s 9th District seat for U.S. Congress in the May 3rd primary — if our grass roots spread widely; if my advertising choices paid off; if big money and/or big name-recognition didn’t crush; and if God’s hand was in it (in terms of delivering a victory). None of these conditions played out in our favor. In particular, I over-estimated how…

by Leo Morris Let you in on a little secret: Non-European, non-white voters are flooding the polls, boosting prospects for the Democratic Party and relegating Republicans to permanent minority status. That is not rabid paranoia from the fevered imaginations of rightwing conspiracy nuts. It’s a boast from Democrat and liberal journalists, academicians and politicians, including Joe Biden, who just a few years ago were claiming that population shifts in the United States would dramatically alter…

By Richard Moss, M.D. For many years I had listened to the recitals and drills occurring in the distance, at the High School, just two blocks from my home. It was in the evenings, of course, after school, with the sun setting, glittering twilight fading into inky darkness, and the often chilly temperatures of early autumn descending upon the tormented students, marching stoically if not deliriously into the long night.  I heard the truncated blasts of…