by Mark Franke “Baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet.” Recall that advertising jingle from 1974? It had quite a catchy tune and was a successful advertising campaign by all accounts. Think back to what America was like in 1974. There was the Watergate scandal, resulting in the resignation of an elected president. The Vietnam War was theoretically winding down, but the only winding down was America’s military presence there, paving the way for a…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. I wonder if I’ll get “canceled” someday. I could trip up and say something awkward or inappropriate — and get crushed for it. It could be a phrase in a Facebook post or a newspaper article like this. It could be a slip in the classroom that gets reported by a student. It doesn’t bother me a lot. I know I’m not perfect in word, deed, motive, or thought. And I…

by Leo Morris None of my best friends are black. OK, I apologize. I did that just to get your attention. We have become so race conscious in the last couple of years, I figured that sentence would cause everybody to read further, if for no other reason than to see if I would say something irredeemably stupid. What I really want to talk about is friendship, specifically what it means to be a friend.…

Thinking is difficult, that’s why most people judge. ~ Carl Jung A FRIEND THINKS he was present at the beginning of critical race theory. It was a seventh-grade bible study in the early 1960s in a small town on the Great Plains.  A student from a nearby college was leading the study and, hoping for a moment of agonizing self-appraisal if not spiritual awakening, she asked each of the participants to say whether they would drink…

by Leo Morris I’ve been trying to make sense of NFTs, those digital creations called “non-fungible tokens” that can sell for millions of dollars. So, naturally, I thought of the squirrel.  It showed up one day underneath the tree that stood in the outdoor break area for Fort Wayne Newspapers, the umbrella company for the morning Journal Gazette and afternoon News-Sentinel. Only JG columnist Frank Gray and I were there at the time, and the squirrel walked right up,…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. In April, 2003, Hall of Fame President Dale Petroskey canceled a Cooperstown event celebrating the 15th anniversary of the movie “Bull Durham.” Petroskey, a former Bush administrator, did not want its stars, Tom Robbins and Susan Sarandon, famous for their opposition to the Iraq war, to appear or speak. As Petroskey put it, “There was a chance of politics being injected into The Hall during these sensitive times, and I made a…

“Expectations were created that with the government of President Biden there would be a better treatment of migrants. And this has caused Central American migrants, and also from our country, wanting to cross the border thinking that it is easier to do so.” — Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador THE MAYOR OF MY CITY, a Biden man, has made clear in the past that he welcomes the world’s immigrants — all of them, seemingly, even in numbers…

by Mark Franke “You should always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.” Yogi Berra was, to my way of thinking, one of the two most significant philosophers of the 20th century. He had a simple, direct way of looking at life and summing up its highest order principles in his own elegant way. He was extraordinarily deft at applying the famed razor of William of Ockham. To someone like me who…

by Leo Morris You probably know what you think about murder, rape, arson and all sorts of other abhorrent crimes. But how do you feel about jaywalking and littering? It’s not as trivial a question as it might seem. Laws against jaywalking save lives. It is true that most car-pedestrian collisions happen at intersections, but more pedestrians are killed when they are hit while jaywalking. Since pedestrian deaths now account for a higher proportion of…

EVERYONE IS EXCITED. Your city is getting a new mixed-use hotel, dining and entertainment district where once only dilapidated buildings stood. Adjacent will be a new baseball park and maybe down the road a basketball arena or soccer stadium and luxury condominiums. The mayor put together a public-private partnership with a big-time out-of-state developer. There will be plenty of money to realize his vision of the most up-to-date city for the most discerning citizenry. He can be proud once again to…