by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Indiana’s public intoxication law looks like it will be overturned. That seems to me entirely appropriate — if we haven’t confounded the problem. Prior to 2012, if one’s blood alcohol content was above the legal limit, one could be arrested almost anywhere in Indiana. I recall a number of unconfirmed anecdotes around my campus in which students who had a few too many made a responsible decision and called a taxi,…

“Cronyism is the substitution of political influence for free markets. It comes about when government has a lot of power over private-sector decisions and when the government officials in power have great discretion over how to use it.” — David Henderson, editor of the Encyclopedia of Economics by Craig Ladwig It is the time of year we collect annual reports from the various economic-development outfits around the state, quasi-government models of the new regional public-private…

For the use of the membership only (556 words) “All the war propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.” — George Orwell FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER the foundation’s annual Veterans’ Day essay is being written in advance of Nov. 11. As is the formerly procrastinating author’s custom, he is wearing his U.S. Navy baseball cap with the button, “We Were Winning When I Left.” This…

By Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Stories abound of school dropouts who consequently fail to establish themselves in jobs because of parental attempts to force youngsters onto a particular career path. Less noted are young people presenting in the offices of their undergraduate advisers with no interest in a particular major and indicating that all their parents care about is the diploma. Parents question what they, as a shelf-stocker, truck driver or home-care aid, have to…

by Andrea Neal If he could see it now, Father Edward Sorin would surely marvel at what has become of Notre Dame du Lac, Our Lady of the Lake, the Catholic university he founded in 1842. These days it’s called simply Notre Dame, of course, but for Sorin the lake that inspired the name was providential. The spring-fed St. Mary’s Lake provided not only food, water, ice and marl for making bricks, but inspiration. Arriving…

For the use of the membership only (594 words) A FORMER U.N. AMBASSADOR is being mentioned as a reform commissioner for the National Football League. Well and good for her. Maybe diplomacy can change the sport along more socio-politically correct lines. She will have to give it a different name, though. For football, the genuine thing, will go on unchanged. The game, an amazingly true reenactment of phalanx battle, has roots going deep into Western…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. I noticed something unusual about editorials over the Labor Day weekend: Instead of discussing the status of unions, or the state of labor in the American economy, they were about the state of college education. In a sense, this is not surprising. Increasing access to university education has long been seen as a key to reviving the middle class. The upshot of many of the commentaries, however, was that it doesn’t…

by Andrea Neal James F. D. Lanier twice came to the rescue when Indiana desperately needed his help. Without him, state history might have turned out differently. Lanier was born in 1800 in Beaufort County, North Carolina, and died in 1881 in New York City. During the interlude, he lived in Indiana and made lots of money in law, banking and railroads. His parents moved several times before ending up in Indiana in 1817, one…

“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” — Mahatma Gandhi THOSE WHO BELIEVE that their town’s economic development plan is working also read the bar charts in the Chamber of Commerce newsletter and trust that the utility company is figuring their bill accurately. The rest of us have our doubts. So it was encouraging to hear an old friend, an accomplished mayor and legislator, recall in a…

by Linda Christiansen, M.A, J.D., and Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. This is a story about four current college students who have similar family situations. Whatever the intention of politicians, all four were harmed by the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.” Student No. 1 is a young graduate student still fully covered by both parents’ health-insurance plans. He works as a graduate assistant (five hours per week for a small tuition discount and a little…