by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. It seems crazy now, but I thought I could win the race for Indiana’s 9th District seat for U.S. Congress in the May 3rd primary — if our grass roots spread widely; if my advertising choices paid off; if big money and/or big name-recognition didn’t crush; and if God’s hand was in it (in terms of delivering a victory). None of these conditions played out in our favor. In particular, I over-estimated how…

by Leo Morris Let you in on a little secret: Non-European, non-white voters are flooding the polls, boosting prospects for the Democratic Party and relegating Republicans to permanent minority status. That is not rabid paranoia from the fevered imaginations of rightwing conspiracy nuts. It’s a boast from Democrat and liberal journalists, academicians and politicians, including Joe Biden, who just a few years ago were claiming that population shifts in the United States would dramatically alter…

By Richard Moss, M.D. For many years I had listened to the recitals and drills occurring in the distance, at the High School, just two blocks from my home. It was in the evenings, of course, after school, with the sun setting, glittering twilight fading into inky darkness, and the often chilly temperatures of early autumn descending upon the tormented students, marching stoically if not deliriously into the long night.  I heard the truncated blasts of…

by Mark Franke “We just agree different.” Yogi Berra I had an unofficial undergraduate minor in philosophy. I studied the greats — Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Hobbes and Locke — and learned how they informed Western civilization and provided the philosophical foundation for the culture bequeathed to us today. Of course this was before the Orwellian Newspeak censors retroactively applied their puritanical sensibilities on all these white European males from the past. It seems I wasted…

Indiana’s Pusillanimous Court “Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial. Meanwhile, the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.” — Aldous Huxley in “Brave New World, 1932 AMERICAN POLITICS operates as a ratchet. That is, it allows continuous motion in one direction while preventing motion in the opposite direction. Some time ago, the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, led…

by Leo Morris It’s probably sacrilegious for a Hoosier to admit this, but I find auto racing the dullest of spectator sports. Watching cars go around and around a track endlessly, lap after lap, until a winner is finally declared just before my bottom falls asleep? Counting the raisins in a box of cereal would be about that exciting to me. At least I can only say that auto racing bores me. It incenses my…

Paradise Lost (but Sustained) RAISED IN RURAL AMERICA, I admit to romantic views of small-town life. And later as a young journalist I wandered around the Midwest passing through the iconic courthouse squares, stopping in the once ubiquitous downtown cafe with the “Eats” sign to sample the coconut cream pie and read the hometown paper. Ah, and the pool halls that served beer in iced mugs . . . I know, I know, those days are gone. Still,…

SETTING ASIDE what the Indianapolis Star copy desk might think is “far right,” a reader of the newspaper’s May 6 headline (above) could assume that Republican voters in last week’s primary election were following the narrative being spit out by our journalism schools, to wit, that wokism is winning. Don’t bet on it. There is another explanation. It is that the Supermajority has held together long enough now to mark the cards in favor of Statehouse power and control rather than any preference…

by Mark Franke I suppose I can be forgiven for relapsing into occasional geezer mode, given my advanced age and deteriorating mental capabilities. Then again, there really is no excuse for letting it happen too often — or even at all. It helps to look for what is still positive in our rancid, rage-driven society and such positives can be found. I was reminded of this several weeks ago when I was privileged to serve…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. The Supreme Court appears prepared to visit the abortion question again, as well it should, for Roe vs. Wade and Planned Parenthood of PA vs. Casey are linguistic nightmares with serious implications for the viability of abortion. The Court’s language in both cases shows the Court’s confusion, or perhaps its ignorance, regarding the procedure of abortion. A person need only read the first sentence of the syllabus for Roe vs. Wade to…