by Andrea Neal Fulton County historian Shirley Willard calls round barns the “cathedrals” of the countryside. They are symbols of a bygone time in Indiana agriculture when farmers combined form, function and aesthetics. Their heyday was 1890 to 1915. Agricultural experts of the day advocated round barns as efficient and economical. Architect Benton Steele of Pendleton advertised them as “the cheapest and best from every standpoint” with their “ordinary joist frame construction, assisted by the…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. Imagine a world where cars no longer require repairs and maintenance. Would this be good for the economy and society? For individuals and the economy, the costs of this improvement are obvious. Producers of auto parts and engine fluids would go bankrupt, with job losses and investment failures. Service providers of oil changes and timing belts would be out of work. This would be difficult for these folks, especially if they…

by Tom Huston I’ll bet you didn’t know that barely five percent of Indianapolis residents live within easy walking distance to a grocery store that sells fresh produce. Being familiar with the geography, demographics and zoning code of our capital city, I would have guessed as much. Where I would have gone wrong was in not suspecting that the walkability shortfall was a problem in need of a legislative solution. There are, you see, all…

by Jason Arp “This is how Liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause.” — Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman), “Revenge of the Sith” The excitement over Indiana’s recently announced Regional Cities awards reminds me of the scene in the 2005 Star Wars in which the Galactic Republic is dissolved and is replaced with an emperor. All in attendance responded in a joyous ovation. The public is being asked to put its faith in an elaborate…

by Ryan Cummins The city of Terre Haute has been informed by the State Board of Accounts that as a result of the most recent audit “there is substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern.” With a private business, such an audit would indicate the business must either liquidate or substantially change the way it operates. With a city or county, however, liquidation is not an option generally considered. That leaves…

by Andrea Neal Long before scientists understood the benefits of wetlands, Hoosiers drained a wildlife Garden of Eden that stretched from western St. Joseph County to the Illinois line. The Grand Kankakee Marsh was “one of the great freshwater wetland ecosystems of the world,” according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Nicknamed the Everglades of the North, it provided habitat to bass and walleye, passenger pigeons and woodpeckers, minks and muskrats, to name a…

GEORGE WILL has been evolving over the past 40 years as a public intellectual and pundit. The fellow who wrote this column bears no resemblance to the author of the 1983 conservative best seller, “Statecraft as Soulcraft.” In the preface to that book, Will wrote: “I am often asked: ‘Why do you call yourself a conservative if you believe’ this or that? The question usually pertains to my belief in strong government, including the essentials of…

TRYING HARD to take the advice of our friend Tom Huston to prevent our crank from becoming a crackpot, we begin with a bright spot in this oh-too-fleeting season. An Indiana homemaker wrote Aunt Millie’s Bakery to thank the consummate family-owned Hoosier company for its special Christmas packaging showing a young girl in prayer. An excerpt: “I was making breakfast, worrying about the typical offenders: bills, the pets’ health, school, family problems, friends who are…

by Craig Ladwig The fellow at the next desk loved to tell about his first assignment in a little river town founded as the disembarkation point for prostitutes, gamblers and pickpockets kicked off the steamboats. The town still had an edge, he said. Some of us prefer cities founded along ports and rivers, cities with magical, freewheeling, creative, rough-and-tumble mixings of humanity, cities whose very geographic location tells a story — Fort Wayne, Evansville, Jeffersonville,…

BACK WHEN WE BABY BOOMERS came of credit-card age, the trigger word was “new.” It was everywhere in advertising promotions carried by the then-novel medium of television. It came to signal products that were overpriced or of lower quality — pigs in pokes, products that couldn’t withstand close inspection. So it is today with “must” for the millennial voter. They are bombarded by arguments that they must do this and they must do that. Here…