by Mark Franke As he was leaving the Constitutional Convention for the last time, a citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what the delegates had given her and her fellows. “A republic, if you can keep it.” To be precise, what Franklin and his colleagues had given us was a document that serves as the philosophical and practical foundation for a system of government. This republic, which we as Franklin’s posterity are charged with keeping, can only…

THOSE WHO WERE AROUND during the administration of Republican Gov. Robert Orr know the assumption behind statewide grade-by-grade, district-by-district testing. It was thought that the then-powerful teachers unions were protecting inadequate or at least mediocre teachers. That was quickly found false. Indiana schools are blessedly free of bad teachers relative to other states, and that is so regardless either of union machinations or a governor’s posed oversight. Teaching here is still a calling, please know,…

by Leo Morris It’s stretched beyond two weeks since the abrupt departure of the Colts quarterback, and so far, we seem to have been spared the awful kind of puns usually favored by newspaper headline writers and TV news readers: “Colts are out of Luck.” “Team can’t count on good Luck.” And, what would have been my favorite, “If it weren’t for bad Luck, we’d have no Luck at all.” We have, however, been treated…

THE MAN AT THE NEXT DESK says nobody wants to read about our city’s problems anymore. He is almost surely right, but there remains the possibility that some other Indiana city is experiencing an arrogant administration unchecked by a fawning newspaper. On that slim chance, the following observations are offered. It began with an editorial this week dismissing the mayor’s unwillingness to discuss a $3.2-million spending plan as an issue of no concern. A mere…

by Leo Morris “We’re All Going to Die!” Imagine seeing a headline like that. Naturally you can’t ignore such a story. So, palms sweating and perhaps heart fluttering, you begin to read, dreading news of a ghastly plague sweeping the globe or a brewing nuclear war or even an unstoppable meteor the size of Texas hurtling toward Earth. But it turns out to be just another one of those tedious essays about the meaning of…

by Leo Morris Does it embarrass you to know that the Ku Klux Klan was once such a dominant force in Indiana? Want to ignore that whole sorry episode from our past and never mention it again? Or should we teach it in our schools as a way to remind the oppressors’ descendants of the sins they must live down and remind today’s victim groups that their grievances are still valid? That might seem like…

by Mark Franke Senator Elizabeth Warren pronounced recently that the police in Ferguson, Missouri, were guilty of murder in spite of the fact that a grand jury and the Obama Justice Department exonerated them. No matter to Sen. Warren, who has a propensity to play fast and loose with the truth. Witness her claim to be American Indian even though she isn’t and has no objective reason to think she is. This started me ruminating…

by Maryann O. Keating It is almost September and classes have begun or are about to start. We detect some reluctance in students, but not in adds for school supplies or with summer-weary parents. Parents and retailers are more than ready. For teachers as well, there is inevitably an autumn bounce in starting anew and getting it right this year. But what exactly does “getting education right” imply? We reminisce nostalgically of times past when…

by Leo Morris Gov. Eric Holcomb always looks so comfortably stern, like an accountant at tax time waiting for his client’s big gulp of ulcer medicine to kick in. He needs a good nickname to lighten his image. Something like “Fuzzy,” the sidekick for one of those singing cowboys, there mostly for comic relief but always ready guide the posse to the rescue when the chips are down. His current image, you see, is tarnished,…

THE HEADLINE is an exaggeration for effect, as modern journalists now define lying. The government, you see, is deciding whether to “red flag” us for one thing or another, and, most ominously, what the criteria for such a flagging should be. In the meantime, we have our own red flags, one warning of a media run amok and another of a government gone bad. First, the red flag of a media run amok . .…