by Andrea Neal James Whitcomb Riley was the most acclaimed, but he wasn’t the first Hoosier poet to gain national fame. Sarah T. Bolton deserves that honor. Even today her poem “Paddle Your Own Canoe” is cited and recited, though few know anything about its origins. Her poetry “was known everywhere,” and the canoe poem was set to music and translated into a dozen foreign languages, according to historian Jeanette C. Nolan in the book…

Editors: The following article (624 words) was released in coincidence with National Employee Freedom Week on Aug. 10-16. A related opinion survey finds that 85 percent of Hoosiers agree with Indiana’s right-to-work law, i.e., that an employee should have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union. Nationally, including states without a right-to-work law such as California, more than 50 percent agreed. Also nationally, 28 percent of…

TWO POLITICAL STUDIES hit the news this week, seeming to point us in different directions. One, from Princeton University, suggested that average Americans are powerless over the political process. The other, from CNN International, found that only 13 percent of us trust the government to do what is right always or most of the time. You should bet that last statement will dictate the politics of the future — in Indiana, at least. Why? Because every…

By Maryann O. Keating Ph.D. At dinner, the four-year-old reported that her nursery school classmate, Billy, had a bad day and acted mean. When asked what the teacher did, the four-year-old replied wide-eyed, “She took away Billy’s job.” Most of us can empathize with Billy’s symbolic loss of group identity. However, adult unemployment generally is beyond personal control and represents as well a loss of income in addition to emotional grief. In the U.S., most employed…

THE ETERNAL IMPULSES that argue for consolidated government, regional zoning, county executives, etc., have awakened in our corner of Indiana. Someone forgot, apparently, to drive the stakes through their hearts during the last rising. So we citizens finds ourselves divided by an argument that won’t be resolved in the light of day; that is, rhetorically in advance of policy. Some of us simply believe; others of us simply don’t. The thing will be settled only in…

by Andrea Neal In 1825, the Erie Canal was completed with great fanfare. Cannon fire, parades, balls and speeches celebrated the speed and skill with which New Yorkers built “the longest canal in the world,” as one eyewitness erroneously called it. (The Grand Canal of China is longer). Two years later, Indiana was busy planning its own transportation marvel. In 1827, Congress authorized a grant of a half-million acres of land to build a canal…

By Bruce Ippel, M.D. Go to school. Get a license. Practice medicine — I’m one of the few who remember when this was actually possible. Just me and the patient in the exam room. I give my best care, and the patient pays a fee. If the patient likes me and I like him, we develop a relationship that can last a lifetime. To the benefit of both of us, God willing. Forty years on,…

By Stephen M. King, Ph.D. “Political polarization,” “divided government” and “Washington gridlock” have been on the rise for the last 15 years. Public calls for compromise and de-emphasis on centralized government stand out in public opinion polls; yet, nothing changes, and the old order of governance marches. What is wrong? What can be done to significantly and decisively make changes for the better? Polarization and gridlock are only the symptoms; the problem runs deeper. Doris…

THE INDIANA LEGISLATURE could set in motion a process that could help restore a more bicameral Congress, allowing selection of two candidates for U.S. Senate who would then represent their political parties in a general election. It is one of various proposals for making the senate more accountable to the states that is analyzed by Attorney General Gregory Zoeller in a white paper for the quarterly Indiana Policy Review. “Many in our state and nation…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. Back in 1998, the state of Indiana had more than $1.3 billion in surplus funds in its general account. This was about 57 days of state spending. The state had total surplus funds of more than $2 billion that was over 24 percent of its annual operating revenues. I remember the cries of the time: The state should not be a bank, social spending has been cut to the bone and…