AS I SIT PARALYZED with fear over a national election of Armageddon proportion, it is no comfort to realize that even my vote for mayor was for naught. City Hall has gone stupid. I don’t use the word lightly. Stupid is when a councilman mentions offhand it would be a fine thing if the city attracted more investment and suddenly there is a tax-driven downtown boondoggle whose silent partners will eventually buy it at a bankruptcy auction for one-third its…

by Mark Franke Does my vote matter? Yes and no. How’s that for equivocation? One can certainly argue that almost no election has ever been decided by a single vote.  Therefore, my vote won’t change anything so why bother? The risk of COVID exposure can be used as the excuse for staying home this year and absentee ballots are too much effort to request and return. What, though, if I have been talking to my friends and…

by Leo Morris I know what you’re up to, all you early voters. But I have to say I don’t think it’s going to work out the way you hope. You just want this all to be over – the drama, the anxiety, the bitterness, the anger, the shouting of slogans and accusations of taking the country in the wrong direction. You thought you could go ahead and vote and put it all out of…

“Top management is discouraged and saddened, and middle management is drinking too much. Morale in the newsroom is fair, because of the recent raises, but the shining brows of the copy boys, traditional emblems of energy and hope, have begun to display odd, unattractive lines. At every level, people want management to stop what it is doing before it is too late.” — Donald Barthelme in the New Yorker, 1980 WHEN THE CONVERSATION at the morning…

by Mark Franke The American flag seems to be everywhere these days and I suppose that is a good thing. After all, the flag is a symbol of who we are and what we believe.  We are a creedal nation, as George Will describes us. My childhood recollection is that there was a federal law prohibiting the use of the flag and its image in any manner other than posted on a flagpole or hung according…

by Leo Morris I keep pretty good track of changes in the Indiana Code, but I came across one recently that I had missed. As of last year, city police and firefighters no longer have to live inside their county or a bordering county. Now, they can live in a non-bordering county up to 50 miles from city limits. That information came up in news stories about Kokomo. The city, having trouble increasing its police…

by Donna Volmerding The election of 2020 is the most critical in our lifetimes. I read the position of my local newspaper and I must share another point of view. Joe Biden has disdain for the truth. He has lied about his stance on fracking. On March 15, 2019, he said he wanted “no more subsidies for (the) fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for…

“Don’t just do something, stand there.” — the White Rabbit in Walt Disney’s “Alice in Wonderland” PUBLIC POLICY got a lot simpler this last year with money and people fleeing the insanities of progressive states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois and California. Opportunity is ours in Indiana if we can only sit still and avoid their mistakes. Joel Kotkin, a professor of urban studies writing in the current issue of City Journal, lays the groundwork: “Most Americans don’t…

by Mark Franke What’s a responsible citizen to do given the choices on election ballots these days? I started following presidential elections as a grade-schooler back in 1960 but 2016 was the first one in which I felt neither candidate was worthy of occupying the White House. And I was not alone in that sentiment as it was also the first election on record in which both candidates polled higher negative numbers than positive. And, sad…

by Richard Moss, M.D. I contend that the term “cancel culture” is far too mannerly and tame. It scarcely captures the degree of hatred the Left and its social media zealots unleash with any transgression from woke orthodoxy. Even doctrinaire liberals, tried and true “progressives” with a lifetime of fidelity, have felt the sting of leftist vengeance after betraying the cause on a single, isolated point. Individuals have been disgraced, careers ended, livelihoods wrecked and reputations trashed over minor infractions of the progressive…