“’Quiet, man!’ said Mitty, in a low, cool voice. He sprang to the machine, which was now going pocketa-pocketa-queep-pocketa-queep. He began fingering delicately a row of glistening dials. ‘Give me a fountain pen!’ he snapped. — “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” by James Thurber in the March 18, 1939, New Yorker   WALTER MITTY IS ALIVE AND WELL editing the Indianapolis Star. This week — in his head — he launched a daring multi-faceted…

For the use of the membership only. by Tom Huston Lots of people seem to think it is inappropriate for unauthorized people to seek the presidency. While they don’t seem to agree on who does the authorizing, Democrats are convinced that too many aspirants are trying to climb aboard what they love to call the Republican clown car, and nervous Republicans are worried that too many choices are a bad thing except when shopping at…

“In a recent Quinnipiac poll of New York City voters, 61 percent of black respondents said they wanted the police to actively enforce quality-of-life laws in their neighborhood, compared with 59 percent of white voters.” —Heather Mac Donald in the June 14 Wall Street Journal For immediate release (645 words). by Joe Squadrito Before we let the media redefine what it means to be a police officer, it would be wise to explore the word’s origin.…

by Andrea Neal Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, John Burroughs. To this list of famous American naturalists, add the name Gene Stratton-Porter of Indiana. Decades before the modern environmental movement began, Stratton-Porter warned against human activities that could lead to climate change. Also a best-selling fiction author, Stratton-Porter brought the beauty of the earth to the masses through her nature books, photographs, essays and poems. Barbara Olenyik Morrow, in her biography of Nature’s Storyteller, observed…

For the use of the membership only. The most heartfelt arguments of those who favor larger government contend that otherwise life would be unsafe. Those arguments have been spectacularly successful, but are they based on truth? Food purity has been the pluperfect example since Upton Sinclair wrote “The Jungle,” a novel based on the Chicago packing industry. But why would people dependent on the business of selling us food want to make us sick on…

by Bruce Ippel, M.D. It is called an obesity “epidemic.” Now an epidemic in my profession is something that sneaks up when you’re unprepared, when you’re minding your own business — and wreaks havoc. So obesity is no more a human epidemic than cars are an automotive epidemic. We did it on purpose. Famine and thinness have been the usual human experience since time began. If your tribe wasn’t able to find enough food or didn’t…

by Shelby Lamm The conventional graduation ceremonies occurring across Indiana offer an opportunity to recognize an unconventional one. A Columbia City high school this year is graduating five seniors from a student body of 38 — students nobody else could manage, one at a time, without much pomp or ceremony, at about half the cost of a public school. TROY Center, an independent school founded in 1997, boasts a student body on whom the education…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. On June 6, I harvested a bushel basket of spinach and mustard greens planted in early April. Most of the crop was washed, chopped, placed in 10 half-pint Ball jars, and processed for an hour in a pressure canner yielding about two kilograms of cooked greens for future consumption. The rest of the crop went to a spinach salad my wife and I had with dinner. Economists teach about the benefits…

For the use of the membership only (609 words) Have you ever wanted to run for office? Ever wanted to convince a friend to run for office? Let’s conduct a reality check to test the political waters: Are you running against an incumbent especially liked by old Republican regulars? Are you going door-to-door rather than relying on big-media advertising buys? Have you refused an invitation to participate in a rigged debate sponsored by a local…

by Andy Horning Nearly all of what we call “issues” — the unraveling economy, a ridiculous healthcare system, rising prices, even militarized police and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — are just symptoms and side effects of a much worse problem. It makes all our talk of ideology, libertarian versus authoritarian, or even “left” versus “right,” whatever those mean anymore, not just irrelevant but a costly distraction. The problem is corruption; we have…