“The behavior of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies,” wrote the historian Robert Conquest. With most Indiana cities in economic doldrums, we are told that we can’t cut taxes on the job creators. It would endanger the sewer utility fund, they say in Terre Haute. It would put stress on school budgeters, they say in Fort Wayne. And these are the…

by Tom Huston The two most influential women on the American Right during the last half of the 20th century were Jeane Kirkpatrick, the Ambassador to the United Nations during Ronald Reagan’s first term, and Phyllis Schlafly, who never held any public office but who influenced public policy more significantly than most anyone who did. Schlafly died on Monday at age 92. Both of these women were formidable personalities, well-credentialed and widely published. Schlafly’s first…

by Andrea Neal The city of Indianapolis will be forever linked to one of the worst naval disasters in history: the sinking of the USS Indianapolis in World War II. This was the 10,000-ton cruiser that delivered secret components for the atomic bomb to be used against Japan, only to be sunk by Japanese torpedoes on the return trip. More than 870 men died in shark-filled waters, and the ship’s captain, Charles McVay, was unjustly…

For the use of the membership only; not for publication, duplication or quotation (490 words). by Craig Ladwig Those Indiana communities that can discuss fiscal and economic matters in clear and honest terms, what attracts investment and what does not, will have an advantage. Fort Wayne, in the midst of a discussion whether to take the Legislature up on a new tax exemption, will not be among them. An Aug. 25 editorial in the Fort…

by Andrea Neal Army Air Corps Lt. Col. Horace Meek Hickam of Spencer played a central role in establishing the U.S. Air Force as a separate branch of the Armed Forces, but his name didn’t come to world attention until Dec. 7, 1941. Hickam Air Force Base in Honolulu, named posthumously after Colonel Hickam, adjoined Pearl Harbor and served as America’s primary air base in the South Pacific. A central part of the Japanese strategy…

This is to commend a deputy chief of the Fort Wayne Police Department (FWPD) for making a clear and, considering the amount of political correctness in the air, courageous statement on the importance of both diverse hiring practices and upholding the standards of his department. “If you were in a medical crisis, when you go to the hospital, you don’t sit in the emergency room until you get an African-American doctor or a Latino doctor,…

(For the use of the membersip only.) SO, AFTER 12 YEARS of Republican leadership, four of them with a super majority, now with a place on the GOP presidential ticket, what could be wrong? At the top of my list is the absence of serious education reform, the kind detailed in the current issue of The Indiana Policy Review. Systemic change has been pushed aside at the Statehouse with a “not the right time.” Republicans in…

by Andrea Neal “Life is completely changed for thousands of American boys on this side of the earth. For at last they are in there fighting.” Hoosier war correspondent Ernie Pyle wrote those words on Dec 1, 1942, while on assignment with U.S. forces in Algiers. The United States had entered World War II in December 1941 after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Exactly one year later Pyle witnessed the first battle action in…

by Adrienne Carrier Most of us have halcyon memories of the school-lunch line — the cafeteria ladies, the half-pint milk cartons, always making sure to bring money on pizza day. Nostalgia, though, may mask what the lunch line now represents, that is, an overreaching federal program measuring success by the number of dependent families. We now have a system that not only feeds school children but an entitlement mentality. For somewhere along the way we…

by Craig Ladwig To be sure, government as entertainment is an acquired taste. But if you can imagine a ballet with the dancers drafted from a personal-injury law firm and the Amalgamated Plumbers Union you can appreciate it. For the connoisseur, there is the planning and zoning meeting. David Mamet, the playwright, famously described this particular form of government theatre in an essay for the Village Voice: “In the abstract, we may envision an Olympian…