Essays


  • Mass Media, Black and White and Troubled All Over

    “Philadelphia Inquirer top editor forced to resign after publishing piece with ‘Buildings Matter’ headline. Was with paper 20 years; led team to Pulitzer; doubled minority staff. Apologized for ‘Buildings Matter, Too’ headline. ‘Deeply offensive.’” — Byron York, June 7, 2020 by Craig Ladwig My foundation addressed the need for journalism reform at its beginning, and its argument has been consistent for these last three decades: Ownership matters, especially so in the context of American journalism.…

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  • Hydroxychloroquine and Me

    by Richard Moss, M.D. I took hydroxychloroquine for two years. I was a visiting cancer surgeon in Asia, in Thailand, Nepal, India and Bangladesh from 1987 to 1990. Malaria is rife there. I took it for prophylaxis, 400 milligrams once a week for two years. Never had any trouble. It was inexpensive and effective. I started it two weeks before and was supposed to continue it through my stay and four weeks after returning. I…

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  • The Outstater

    OUR MODEST-SIZED CITY in northeast Indiana performed relatively well during the week of rioting. The police and the mayor (a Democrat) did their job trying to protect property and persons. That was true in the midst of the dizzying hypocrisy of crowds elsewhere, in a pandemic, looting oxycontin, electronics, jewelry and Nikes in the name of justice. One would feel even better about the city’s future had the mayor or the hometown newspaper led a…

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  • Franke: The Soul of Civil Disobedience

    “Thirty-one percent of likely U.S. voters say it’s likely that the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years, with 11 percent who say it’s very likely.” — Rasmussen Reports, June 27, 2018 by Mark Franke (April 12) — First it was sanctuary cities, primarily on the West Coast, that declared their police would not comply with requests from federal immigration officials in enforcement of actions directed toward illegal…

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  • Morris: Space, the Next Frontier Again

    by Leo Morris “Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth Put out my hand, and touched the face of God“ Those are the first and last lines of “High Flight” by 19-year-old Canadian Air Force pilot John Gillespie Magee Jr., who wrote the 14-line sonnet after a solo run in his Spitfire in late August or early September of 1941. In December, just a few months after that inspirational flight, Magee perished during…

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  • The Outstater

    A FRIEND, trying to make sense of the then new government-subsidized economic development programs, came up with a word picture that seemed to work. It envisioned money falling from the sky at a certain time and place — a helicopter drop. Carrying the idea far as it would go, it could be imagined this would create local development not only from the value of the cash fluttering down from above but from increases in property values below. Among the immediate…

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  • Keating: Penny-Pinching in a Crisis

    by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. The affluent generally have no need to second-guess themselves on spending. The rest of us do well to question practically every single expenditures in terms of our pocketbooks.  Is it appropriate to evaluate a national response to COVID-19 in terms of the dollar cost for testing of all Americans for COVID-19 paid either by individuals, corporations, Medicaid or Medicare? Facing such a serious crisis, is it unseemly to discuss cost…

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  • Please Renew

    WE NEED YOUR HELP to publish and distribute the quarterly journal. Please consider a tax-exempt donation HERE. An individual membership is $50 and a corporate membership is $120. The foundation accepts credit cards and PayPal (or personal checks to Indiana Policy Review, PO Box 5166, Fort Wayne, IN 46895). Coming in the summer journal . . . Wednesday Whist | Minding Chesterton’s Fence (Morris)Cover Essay | The Soul of Civil Disobedience (Franke)Schansberg | Hobbits Wardrobes and World WarsSpecial…

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  • Morris: The ‘Anvil Chorus’

    by Leo Morris The “Anvil Chorus” is the English name for the Coro di Zingari (Italian for “Gypsy chorus”) from act 2, scene 1 of Giuseppe Verdi’s 1853 opera “Il Trovatore.” It depicts Spanish Gypsies striking their anvils at dawn and singing the praises of hard work, good wine and Gypsy women. So, basically, a cacophonous babble from a bunch of good old boys shouting out about the things that matter to them most. Naturally,…

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  • Schansberg: Degeneration of the News

    by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Last week on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Chuck Todd played a clip from a recent CBS News interview with Attorney General William Barr. Unfortunately, the clip had been edited in a way that gave the opposite impression of what Barr was trying to say. NBC was publicly taken to task and has now apologized. The fiasco is one more example of general problems we’ve seen over time with the media:…

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