America: Melting Pot or Boiling Cauldron? by Mark Franke I learned during what many today consider the benighted 1950s about a concept termed the Melting Pot. This was taught in what we called social studies back then, which included a healthy dose of American and Indiana history. The principle of the Melting Pot is that we are a nation of immigrants. Everyone came here from somewhere else including the Indians who are now termed by…

Questioning the Jobs Rhetoric by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Americans are awakening to the fact that political rhetoric concerning job creation is no longer so reassuring. Why exactly are politicians so focused on efforts to increase labor force participation? Will policies intended to increase participation actually be effective?  U.S. job growth this September came in 300,000 jobs short of what economists predicted. In August, the gap was almost half a million short. These figure are surprising…

Education and the Great Divide by Leo Morris If a group of parents request that certain material be removed from the classroom, that is not censorship or “book banning,” Is that a provocative statement? I don’t think it should be. Today’s case study is from central Indiana. Former Hoosier Julia Scheeres is “somewhat amused” but “entirely unsurprised” that her memoir about growing up in Indiana “has been targeted by a group of conservative parents who want…

The Stadium Game Plays Out IN ANY DISCUSSION of economic development the success of our publicly financed baseball stadium is invariably trumpeted. It is surrounded by similarly financed masses of concrete and rebar, e.g., a convention center, apartment complexes, parking garages and now an abandoned factory transformed into a mixed-use district “of innovation, energy and culture.” All very exciting, but the eco-devo vision doesn’t work without the thought — the myth, actually — of thousands of…

The Jan. 6 Record Set Straight(er) WE OWE to the Claremont Institute some insight into the unholy mess that was Jan. 6, 2021, and the fateful decision of the Vice President to certify the election of Joe Biden as President. It is not what we have been told. The narrative to date is that the Vice President had little choice when presiding over the Joint Session of Congress. It says that he either had to certify the electors or…

Indiana’s Equity Commissar Gets Paid IT IS PAINFUL to follow the public discussion but somebody has to do it. I can tell you that it is devoid of what most of us would recognize as common sense, let alone that necessary to continue a democratic republic.  Gov. Eric Holcomb, an always ready example of the haplessly shallow, was defending his decision this week on how to fund the office of the state’s office of equity, inclusion and opportunity, the creation of…

Redistricting: Power Delineated by Leo Morris Here’s the remarkable opening sentence of one of the many stories about the Hoosier GOP’s “disputed” and “contentious” redistricting plan: “Two independent analyses of Indiana’s redistricting maps say the districts drawn by Republicans are heavily skewed in favor of Republicans.” Seriously? The party in charge of redrawing election maps redraws them so that it stays in control? How in the world did that happen? A little clarification here for those who…

Returning Civility to America’s Discourse by Mark Franke America was built by a group of people who disagreed about many things but still found enough common ground to write our Constitution and forge a stable republic. The battle for ratification had its elevated oratory, to be sure, but the new nation began in an environment marked by enthusiastic optimism for what the future held. The feel-good times lasted only a few years, as Thomas Jefferson…

Is Stupidity a Dominant Gene? by Mark Franke Several weeks ago the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed column entitled “You Are Living in the Golden Age of Stupidity.” That got my attention, even without my wife’s not-so-subtle hinting I should read it.   The author, Lance Morrow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote a humorous yet thought-provoking analysis of America’s seeming fascination with being and doing stupid. Forrest Gump was right, according to Morrow. …

Is Debt ‘Ceiling’ the Right Term? by Leo Morris A modest request to news organizations: Please stop referring to the federal “debt ceiling.” It is a grotesquely inappropriate term. It is preposterous to refer to something that is constantly being moved as a “ceiling,” which we all know is fixed in place forever. Remember that other ceiling metaphor – the “glass” one that women in business are trapped by? They can see through it, forever…