by Andrea Neal Long before scientists understood the benefits of wetlands, Hoosiers drained a wildlife Garden of Eden that stretched from western St. Joseph County to the Illinois line. The Grand Kankakee Marsh was “one of the great freshwater wetland ecosystems of the world,” according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Nicknamed the Everglades of the North, it provided habitat to bass and walleye, passenger pigeons and woodpeckers, minks and muskrats, to name a…

GEORGE WILL has been evolving over the past 40 years as a public intellectual and pundit. The fellow who wrote this column bears no resemblance to the author of the 1983 conservative best seller, “Statecraft as Soulcraft.” In the preface to that book, Will wrote: “I am often asked: ‘Why do you call yourself a conservative if you believe’ this or that? The question usually pertains to my belief in strong government, including the essentials of…

TRYING HARD to take the advice of our friend Tom Huston to prevent our crank from becoming a crackpot, we begin with a bright spot in this oh-too-fleeting season. An Indiana homemaker wrote Aunt Millie’s Bakery to thank the consummate family-owned Hoosier company for its special Christmas packaging showing a young girl in prayer. An excerpt: “I was making breakfast, worrying about the typical offenders: bills, the pets’ health, school, family problems, friends who are…

by Craig Ladwig The fellow at the next desk loved to tell about his first assignment in a little river town founded as the disembarkation point for prostitutes, gamblers and pickpockets kicked off the steamboats. The town still had an edge, he said. Some of us prefer cities founded along ports and rivers, cities with magical, freewheeling, creative, rough-and-tumble mixings of humanity, cities whose very geographic location tells a story — Fort Wayne, Evansville, Jeffersonville,…

BACK WHEN WE BABY BOOMERS came of credit-card age, the trigger word was “new.” It was everywhere in advertising promotions carried by the then-novel medium of television. It came to signal products that were overpriced or of lower quality — pigs in pokes, products that couldn’t withstand close inspection. So it is today with “must” for the millennial voter. They are bombarded by arguments that they must do this and they must do that. Here…

By Donna Volmerding “For the poor you have with you always, but you do not always have Me.” — Jesus Christ In a letter to a local newspaper, a pastor wrote that “if we are authentic Christians, we are always on the side of the poor, the marginalized, the least, the last and the lost.” “Authentic” Christians do not dispute the fact that they are to be caring servants, but discussions about how best to…

Dear Editor: At risk of dampening the boosterism generated by the multi-million dollar Regional Cities hoopla, we offer this counter proposal written by our adjunct scholar Fred McCarthy in 1989 and published in the fall 2011 issue of The Indiana Policy Review: “The State of Indiana announces a new policy for business development. In the belief that businesses locate or expand more productively using long-term, genuine economic logic, we will no longer offer temporary tax…

THE CONCERN that a shift in the form of media ownership would change the nature of Indiana’s public discussion is realized in the Indianapolis Star. The newspaper, since its purchase by a widely held national corporation, has gone from a trusted statewide arbiter of that discussion to a myopic collection of digital headlines lecturing Hoosiers on their failings as citizens. In his book, “Coloring the News: How Crusading for Diversity Has Corrupted American Journalism,” William…

by John Pickerill Some claim that the Constitutional system (the Electoral College) for selecting the President. It was never the intent of the Constitution, however, for the President to be elected by direct popular vote — and for good reason. Part of their confusion is due to today’s state law code and how it circumvents the original purpose of the Electoral College. The intent was for Indiana voters to go to the polls in November…

by Andrea Neal Whatever the potential benefits of Barack Obama’s Clean Power Plan, this much is clear: It would kill Indiana’s coal industry and devastate our economy. Indiana gets 84 percent of its energy from coal, an abundant and affordable natural resource that — when burned — emits carbon dioxide that is blamed for global warming. “The Clean Power Plan,” an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule that takes effect Dec. 22, envisions a low carbon…