by Leo Morris I’m basically a lazy person, so I’m not opposed to the government paying me to do something I might otherwise be inclined to forgo. But it seldom works out. Sometimes, I’m in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ohio, for example, would have given me a chance to win a $1 million lottery just for getting my Covid shots, but I had already been vaccinated and, alas, lived in a different…

“Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.” — C.K. Chesterton THE STAFF of the Indianapolis Star, reduced as it is, has found time to devote dozens of hours and thousands of words to the city’s food “deserts,” those areas unserved by commercial grocery stores. Star readers will learn little from the effort. The newspaper merely steers us to its foregone, unsupported conclusion: That a well-stocked, nearby grocery store is somewhere written into the Bill of Rights. The editors have invented…

by Mark Franke I was not a road warrior during my career but I traveled enough on business to look forward to never seeing the inside of a hotel lobby or airport concourse again. My retirement goal was to sit under “my vine and fig tree,” to use Biblical language. Voluntary travel ranked right behind a 20-year sentence in a Siberian salt mine on my bucket list. Not so my wife. She spent her career…

Cause and effect, chain of eventsAll of the chaos makes perfect senseWhen you’re spinnin’ roundThings come undoneWelcome to Earth, third rock from the Sun — Joe Difie THINKING ABOUT the political repercussions of an Indianapolis crime wave, a friend reminded me of a quite different catastrophe — the Chicago blizzard of 1978. My friend’s point was that such events contain absolutes that are resistant to even the most practiced political spin. With the local weather stations having predicted…

by Leo Morris I was leaving the gym last Wednesday when Tony told me they would be closed on Friday and Monday. “Why?” I asked. “What’s going on?” “Oh, you know, just adding another day off and making it an extra-long holiday weekend.” “What holiday?” Oh, that one. Of all the ones to let sneak up on me, it had to be the one specifically designed to make us remember, to ensure that we never…

(May 26) — Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita today issued an opinion in support of an IU Board of Trustee candidate who challenged the university’s decision that all faculty and staff be required to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Margaret Menge, an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review, argued that the school will be in violation of state law if it “requires” that anyone get the Covid-19 vaccine. “House Bill 1405, passed by an overwhelming majority of Indiana legislators and…

by Mark Franke “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold.” These haunting words of poet William Butler Yeats were written in 1919. His poem “The Second Coming” was a reflection on a world in chaos, spiraling ever downward. Think of what confronted him then: a world war that caused 14 million deaths; a bloody revolution in his Irish homeland and an even bloodier one in Bolshevik Russia; a map of Europe being redrawn in a…

As I write, our governor is winging his way to the Middle East on a visit that he believes will somehow advance the interests of Hoosiers.  Eric Holcomb’s press release announcing the trip to Israel “at the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu” included the customary disclaimer that no taxpayer funds will be used.  That may only mean that the trip cannot withstand taxpayer scrutiny. But let us assume that the governor is honest in his intent if only wishful in his promise.…

by Leo Morris When I was just a child, I roamed all over the hills of Eastern Kentucky, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, recklessly climbing trees, exploring abandoned mines and generally tempting fate to the point of taunting it. Our family moved to Fort Wayne when I was 12, and I regularly walked the mile from our house to Packard Park and covered even more territory on my bike. My younger brother had similar freedom…

(May 23) — A candidate for the Indiana University Board of Trustees is challenging last week’s announcement by the university that all faculty and staff will be required to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Margaret Menge, an adjunct scholar of the Indiana Policy Review, argues that the school will be in violation of state law if it “requires” that anyone get the vaccine. “House Bill 1405, passed by an overwhelming majority of Indiana legislators and signed into…