by Andrea Neal From his pulpit at Plymouth Congregational Church in Indianapolis, the Rev. Oscar C. McCulloch missed no opportunity to push his congregation out of the pews and into the world. “Here lies our work,” he exhorted one Sunday, unveiling a vision of a church that educated, entertained and provided role models to the “wretched” poor of the city. “I want to teach the poor that their best friend is the Christ, and that all…

For the use of the membership only (674 words) by Tom Charles Huston The French domestic intelligence service, the Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure (DGSI), is one of the two best internal security operations in the world. The other is Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency. The successor of the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, which during my time in the business was the only cooperating intelligence service thought by the FBI not…

by Craig Ladwig You know there is a political element when the sponsors of a research study announce in advance what the research is going to find. So it is with a study from the University of Southern Indiana directed by the Indiana Economic Development Association (IEDA) that promises to debunk the “myths” of tax-increment financing (TIF) — that is, to explain what a good deal it is. “Powerful myths and considerable misinformation about TIF…

(For the use of the membership only) by Craig Ladwig I have been waiting for one of the many famous graduates of the Missouri School of Journalism to step forward and explain the difference between the protests of the early 1970s and what occurred this week. It is left to me, a graduate-school washout there, to take a stab at it. The first thing you need to know is that the clenched fists you saw…

A LOCAL COUNCILMAN was discussing what the recent municipal elections might mean for economic development, the subject of this quarter’s Indiana Policy Review. He surprised us by suggesting that his town’s fortune would not depend on any of the expansive plans being floated by the regional economic-development group. It would depend on civic character, specifically trustworthiness. The argument may seem naive for the times but hear him out. Trust is what facilitates commerce, he notes,…

by Andrea Neal It’s time for Indiana lawmakers to scrap ISTEP. The test is nothing but trouble, and it’s taking valuable time away from classroom learning. During the two years I served on the State Board of Education, I developed a short list of what’s wrong with the state’s high-stakes exam, formally known as the Indiana Statewide Testing for Educational Progress Plus: It has become the be-all and end-all of a Hoosier education. Student achievement…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Kwang Jin Kim was born to a middle-class family in North Korea. In his book “Under the Same Sky,” he gives a first-hand account of his family’s fall to destitution during the North Korean famine in the late 1990s. Forced to sell all it had to get enough to eat, the family eventually splits up as they moved from relative to relative in a desperate attempt to survive. The father dies…

by Andrea Neal The date was July 4, 1894. The location was Pumpkinvine Pike, three miles east of Kokomo. Elwood Haynes had hauled his newfangled carriage — a horseless one, no less — to the edge of the city for a test drive. He unhitched the horses that towed it there, mounted the driver’s seat and, with a push-start, drove into the future. “The little buggy ran eastward, carrying three passengers about one-and-one-half miles,” Haynes…

by Craig Ladwig The Pulitzer Prize winner David Mamet, writing his political confessions for the Village Voice, famously argued this: In the abstract, we might envision an Olympian perfection in our courthouse, “but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bullshit and go straight to firearms.” That mood was captured in a weekend article by…

Good Jobs First — An analysis of more than 4,200 economic-development incentive awards in 14 states including Indiana, finds that — holy crony capitalist! — big businesses were awarded 90 percent of the dollars. These are the same businesses that are least loyal to the local economy, most likely to demand more benefits than they pay in taxes and produce on average the fewest new jobs over time. They also are the same players who…