HOORAY to the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette for reprinting June 22 its classic editorial decrying what a long line of its editors has found to be the offensive use of “Redskins” in sports names. This famously progressive newspaper, though, will want to go further. At question is the name of the newspaper’s hometown, proudly if thoughtlessly incorporated into its own masthead. Fort Wayne, of course, is named to honor Gen. “Mad Anthony” Wayne. You should know…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. The key to enjoying any sport is to fully embrace the addiction. To a non-golfer watching grown men walk down a fairway to club a small ball toward a green is perverse torture. The true golfer, however, embraces the tension before the hit, observes the swing with care, relishes the ball’s flight to green and joins the crowd in the oohs and aahs that follow. Looks like madness to an outsider—and…

DO WE PUT TOO MUCH FAITH  in constitutions? What if securing liberty is harder work than setting words to paper? Our foundation tried to answer that question 20 years ago this month. It filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Legislature, which had hidden a pay raise in a package of bills. The Indiana Constitution, of course, specifically and exactly prohibits such trickery. Article IV, Section 19: “An act, except an act for the codification, revision or…

For the use of the membership only (549 words) SOME OF US used to complain that our politicians rarely returned to Indiana after leaving office. There will be fewer such complaints now that former Rep. Mark Souder has so firmly replanted himself here. Suffering only from obsessive political personality disorder, Souder returns undaunted by scandal, fully pensioned and comfortably ensconced in academia. And although forced to forgo his Washington staff and trappings, he seems generously…

by Andrea Neal Like other pioneers, free African-Americans came to Indiana in search of land and liberty and, for the most part, found both. Beginning in the 1820s and continuing until the eve of the Civil War, they migrated in family groups to Indiana and established farming societies that valued hard work, education and faith. More than a dozen such communities were formed before 1860. Greenville Settlement, founded in 1822 in Randolph County, is believed to…

By Tyler Watts, Ph.D. Caesar had Brutus, Manning has Patriot fans and state Sen. David Long has Sheila Kennedy. Ms. Kennedy, a law and public-policy professor at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, made comments over the weekend pooh-poohing Senator Long’s goal of restoring fiscal sanity to the federal government through a state-led constitutional amendment process. Before we look at her argument, here is the background: Congress, as spelled out in Article V of the U.S.…

For the use of the membership only (119 words) MATTHEW TULLEY, the Indianapolis Star columnist, leans on a tautology in his June 9 blast in what he imagines is the direction of Indiana conservatives. In “Richard Mourdock Blows it Once Again,” he lectures the former GOP Senate nominee that there is nothing, nothing comparable to Hitler’s atrocities, certainly nothing on the American political left. Well yes, and historical analogies in political discourse are a famously…

by Cecil Bohanon, Ph.D. A basic assumption of economics is the Axiom of Revealed Preference. This is fundamental to economic analysis and distinguishes it from other branches of the social sciences. In a nutshell, the axiom says: “What someone does tells us more about what they value than what they say.” Interesting, it is similar to what I learned in Sunday School in Oklahoma — talk is cheap; actions are what matter. For a mundane…

For the use of the membership only (362 words) THIS GENERATION is going to have to study war some more, alas. Even admirals today don’t seem to know how it works outside their politically corrected service academies. Rear Adm. John F. Kirby, the Pentagon spokesman, commented the other day that . . . wait, they assign admirals as flacks now? Isn’t that expensive? Anyway, Rear Admiral Kirby doesn’t think the American military leaves anyone behind. “When…

For the use of the membership only (214 words) Indiana politicians settle so comfortably into the role of placeholders. When events reveal a policy void, they rush to fill the space where leadership otherwise might be. This week, one of them noted that the Department of Veteran Affairs (VA) doesn’t work. “If we are to correct the VA’s flaws, we must change its culture,” he explained in a news release. No explanation was needed. Veterans…