by Mark Franke I am sick and tired of all the negativity, the vitriol, the hatred, the divisiveness, the assault on everything I believe in. Having said that, I now feel much better. And I will make my small contribution to helping others like me feel positive, encouraged, optimistic and thankful to be Americans. Sure, no matter what I write here will do nothing to cancel the Cancel Culture movement or find a cure for COVID-19. But…

“No, that’s not a line from Kamala Harris’ DNC acceptance speech. It’s Indiana’s Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb.” — The Point with Chris Cilizza on CNN, Aug. 20, 2020 WITH ERIC HOLCOMB assured reelection, Indiana Republicans might spend some time thinking about what the heck they are doing. Why are they spending so much energy and money pushing to the fore a political anachronism? Holcomb’s address this week on “equality and equity,” applauded wildly by everyone from CNN to the…

by Leo Morris Here’s a thought for the day: The planet is a hot mess right now because of the indefensible stupidity of the politicians and professors, journalists and generals and preachers, administrators and artists, in fact the entire leadership class to whom we have entrusted our fragile civilization. So, let’s give the philosophers a chance. What have we got to lose? That line of thought got started a few days ago when I tried…

by Mark Franke I spent my entire professional career in higher education administration, eventually rising to a senior position. I used to be proud of that. No more. The lofty goals of college study, such as free inquiry and critical thinking, were things we challenged our incoming freshmen to take as their own. Now this Olympian-like quest for well-formed knowledge and liberal mindedness (liberal here being with a small “l”) has become a marble man, a statue, rather…

THERE’S A CERTAIN TYPE of councilman — you will recognize him once described — who wants to be someone else. Don’t get me wrong, these are men and woman of some accomplishment in their profession. It’s just that . . . well, they’ve always wanted to be a banker, a developer or some other captain of their own ship. That is a human failing too common to judge. At one time all of us fall…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. “I have always been a believer in truth. Palliatives are harmful.  One must have the courage to face reality. Without that courage, life is meaningless.  The people who do us the most harm are the people who shield us from reality.” — Agatha Christie, Murder in Retrospect, p.150 When President Donald Trump was elected my hope was that people would do their own research on various claims made by politicians and…

by Leo Morris A reader commenting on my column about nimrods from Podunk emailed that he appreciates a little context with his news, “a concept that seems to be an endangered species.” Numbers are just numbers, he wrote. “Data should always be presented in context. Context can make the difference between truth/fact and honesty.” Anecdotes offered as proof of an argument could also use a little context to bridge the fact-to-honesty gap. I was thinking…

“Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” — George Orwell, “1984” I HAD THE IMPRESSION during my time on Capitol Hill, a supposed center of representative government, that…

POST-RIOT LIFE in our town is divided into the factions that a historian predicted more than 70 years ago, and we will be lucky to survive when they finally clash. Granted, nobody reads Arnold Toynbee any more. He is a bit thick, as British scholars tend to be, but his 10-volume magisterial study of the rise and fall of more than 60 civilizations put him on the cover of Time Magazine. In short, he knows stuff. Here are some of Toynbee’s…

by Mark Franke John Adams is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Founding Fathers; he gets no respect. That is an exaggeration but not by much. He was, at the same time, one the most intellectual of the Founding Fathers and no doubt the most ill-tempered. It seems he just couldn’t help being irascible, given to moodiness and bouts of brooding. Because of his superior intelligence, he could think easily at the conceptual level so why…