Monsters to Destroy . . . TIME SPENT FIGHTING a foreign war, a decade writing editorials on foreign policy and several years as a foreign policy aide to a U.S. Senator have left me with a single insight. It applies to the inflection that we see developing in the Middle East and it is just this: Envy is always dangerous, but when it is institutionalize in a culture, political movement or a foreign policy it is…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. My family has felt the horrors of terrorism. Years ago, when the First Officer of Egypt Air Flight 990 piloted the aircraft into the north Atlantic while repeatedly muttering “I rely on God,” 217 people perished. Among those who were killed in this perfidious act were two of my relatives, an uncle and a cousin. Years after that, and three weeks before he left Indianapolis to do humanitarian work in the Mideast,…

Gaza Perversity at IU IU STUDENTS WHO PROTESTED following the terrorist attack on Israeli homes (do we need to show you the pictures that the terrorists themselves took?) now say they were merely concerned for the lives of innocent children living from whence the terrorists came. Really? So, one morning it is announced that a thousand Israeli men, women and children have been slaughtered in their homes and your first reaction is to grab a…

by Mark Franke This time they have gone too far, so far that even their usual choir of apologists have distanced themselves. The sickening images coming out of Israel are the epitome of pure evil. What compounds the horror is the response this is getting on certain elite college campuses. This should have given everyone pause, including those who generally are sympathetic to Palestinian claims. Parachuting armed terrorists into a music festival for the sole…

“The government you elect is the government you deserve.” Thomas Jefferson Find someone who will speak positively about our government these days and you will have outdone the cynic Diogenes. He merely wanted to find a wise man; we are looking for a happy and contented one. Fortunately we can let the Gallup Poll do our work for us. That organization conducts an annual survey of a representative group of Americans to ask their level…

Leadership — The Other Kind YES, WE SEEM TO HAVE fallen into chaos, stumbled off a cliff even. The recent swirl around the office of Speaker of the House — a “gyre” is the new Beltway word for it — had me rethinking a decision of a couple summers back. I had chosen to play cards with some friends instead of attend a local political rally. It was the right call. The invitation was sincere. The politician was a…

by Mark Franke Like nearly every other red-blooded American, I have dreamt about get-rich-quick schemes but to no avail. I wish I had been the genius who figured out that he could take free water, bottle it and then sell it at three bucks a crack. I was also too late with hula hoops, slinkies, soap-on-a-rope and pet rocks. Genius is 99 percent perspiration and only one percent inspiration, if Thomas Edison is to be…

Obviously . . . AS C.K. CHESTERTON famously said, every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things. This is an apology to our members for continuing — perhaps monotonously — to remind them of those obvious things. But somebody has to do it. A week ago we highlighted an economist’s courageous study showing that, yes, two-parent families have an advantage in raising children. Earlier this week we reminded ourselves that private property matters, critiquing the business…

Cornucopian Welfare I CAN’T KNOW ENOUGH about my city’s new government grocery store, one of several proposed for areas officially designated as food “deserts.” If the facts are ever known it will serve as a bipartisan example of government folly, as good a one as any liberal could dream up and one overseen by a Republican city council. Heck, authorized shoppers at the government grocery won’t even need money. It expects to tap into a virtual cornucopia of welfare: Persons living in the designated areas…

A Man for the ‘Masses’ AS ERIC HOLCOMB prepares to leave office after another summer of foreign travel ostensibly in search of jobs for us, the opinion of him has softened. It is expressed to friends this way: He is a blockhead but he is our blockhead. And as the view has become more charitable, we have had to put certain pictures out of our mind. There he is with that smile of obliviousness holding a gift plate on a visit to China with a high official…