by Andrea Neal Sept. 11, 2001. The very mention of that date sends chills down the spine of all Hoosiers, indeed all Americans, who lived through it. It was the day that terrorists from the Middle East turned commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction, killing nearly 3,000 people in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on board four hijacked planes. “It was the first shot in the global war on terrorism,” reflects Teri…

by Tom Charles Huston History may not repeat, but it forewarns. James G. Blaine was the preeminent Republican of his time. Speaker of the House of Representatives, United States Senator, Secretary of State during the brief presidency of James Garfield and unsuccessful candidate for the White House in 1884, Blaine was known by his friends as “the Plumed Knight” and by his enemies as the “Continental Liar from the State of Maine.” Blaine was an…

George C. Parker, a character to whom you will be more fully introduced later, would relish the ongoing discussions of how supposedly earmarked or set-aside funds can be spent by Indiana mayors. Few issues are so loaded with misconception, a specialty of Mr. Parker. It is an assumption of our municipal governments that city officials cannot hide behind walls of legal and accounting abstractions to lie about public finance. That assumption is being tested in…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D., and Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. The October 1997 death of Roberto Goizueta, the former CEO of Coca-Cola who fled Cuba in 1961, and the recent death of Fidel Casto, Cuba’s president for life, offers an opportunity to make a telling comment on the Cuban economy. To wit, the corporate regime of a single Cuban emigrant generated sufficient wealth to more than double the average living standard of Cuba. The market…

by John Pickerill For some, the good news from the election was that Hillary Clinton wasn’t elected as President. For others, the bad news was that Donald Trump was elected President. The reality, however, is that not one vote has yet been cast for President of the United States. When you were voting you might have missed the fine print that read, “. . . a ballot cast for the named candidates for President and…

by T. Norman Van Cott, Ph.D. Some years ago, I saw television advertisements by the lumber and wood products firm Weyerhaeuser Corporation. The ads began by showing Weyerhaeuser employees having just finished clear-cutting a mountainside in the Pacific Northwest. The next portion of the ad showed other Weyerhaeuser employees tromping up and down the clear-cut mountainside planting tree seedlings. The final portion showed Weyerhaeuser aircraft flying over the mountainside fertilizing the seedlings. Before you start…

by Andrea Neal On April 4, 1968, Indianapolis showed its best self. Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy had come to town to hold a nighttime political rally at Broadway and 17th streets, a mostly black neighborhood near Downtown. Indianapolis Mayor Richard G. Lugar was attending a banquet at the Marott Hotel to celebrate Shortridge High School’s trip to the state basketball finals. It should have been a festive evening for all concerned – but…

by Craig Ladwig A young journalism major’s impassioned column in my morning Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, an appeal to use full-court persuasion, on the job and off, to oppose the president elect, got me to thinking about the future of my sorry profession. A few days earlier, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the New York Times, had “rededicated” his newspaper to fairness while thanking the readership for its loyalty. What the young columnist gets…

by Andrea Neal Before New York had Woodstock, Indiana had Bean Blossom. It’s just a notch in the road to motorists heading south from Indy on State Road 135 en route to the art colony at Nashville or Brown County State Park. But to folks who know bluegrass, it’s Mecca — home to the nation’s oldest, continuously running bluegrass festival launched in 1967 by the legendary singer and mandolin-picker Bill Monroe. (Woodstock, a one-time three-day…

by Andrea Neal Mike Pence hit the nail on the head. On Sept. 8, while speaking at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, he declared that the spirit of 1980 was back and that Donald Trump would win the White House. While others jeered, Pence predicted that the same forces that powered the Reagan revolution — working-class voters, union members, evangelicals — would align behind Trump and create a winning coalition. The party of…