by Leo Morris Go away, Thomas Benton. We don’t want your kind around here. Welcome, Alfred Kinsey. You are one of us. So it goes in the swamp of 21st century culture. Or perhaps we are just witnessing the moral vacuum in one prestigious university. Thomas Hart Benton was a renowned painter, along with Grant Wood a member of the Regionalist school of American art, which advocated forays into areas considered cultural wastelands such as…

THE FOUNDATION is requesting financial support for a project we are excited about. It is compiling a list of free-market council members in Indiana’s top 25 cities. No, it won’t be a long list but we think it will be an important one. These men and women, often outvoted, deserve help and encouragement. They aren’t getting it from their political party. With a budget of $6,000, we are asking for $250-$500 donations to fund a professional canvass…

by Mark Franke I don’t usually give Congress credit for passing useful legislation. Bills that run to a thousand pages or more just can’t prove beneficial, especially when our elected representatives admit to or even brag about not reading them. An exception to my cynical appraisal of congressional mischief is its designating every September 17 as Constitution Day. No, it is not a federal holiday which gives everyone a paid day off work. Nor are…

by Leo Morris After a year and a half of trying to balance full-time college with full-time work, I had had enough and quit Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne. That made me eligible for the military draft, a true government-induced hardship, all you college-loan whiners. But I had a plan to thwart the draft board. “You cannot have two years of my life,” I thought triumphantly as I headed for the recruiting office. “I will enlist…

Indy Crime and Overcoming the ‘Envy Barrier’ ALTHOUGH WE OUTSTATE would rather ignore it, someone has to explain what has gone wrong with Indianapolis. This is in reference, of course, to the city’s uncharacteristic inability to address a serious crime problem. Indianapolis made international headlines in this regard recently. Three members of the Dutch Commando Corps, in town on free time after a nearby training session, were shot outside their hotel, one fatally, by local thugs, police…

Getting a ‘Foothold’ AS PART OF ITS “Foothold” project, our foundation this week sponsored a webinar with Dr. Dennis Ganahl, an independent political consultant. He reminded us that at the most local level the Republican Party isn’t much practical help to local conservatives. Indeed, there it tends to bleed away the best intentions, energy, money and time. One of his pieces of advice that drew a chuckle was to halve the amount of time that a volunteer…

by Tanner Bouchie On August 30, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit against Indiana’s Medical Licensing Board in the Monroe Circuit Court. The lawsuit argued, in part, that Indiana’s Constitution protects the practice of abortion under a theory of privacy. I wonder whether the plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU’s Ken Falk, have ever read the Constitution. Article 1, Section 1 states, in part: “WE DECLARE, That all people are created equal; that they are endowed by their…

by Mark Franke Fort Wayne, my hometown, has a telephone service that residents can use to ask questions, request city services or report situations which require attention from city departments. I’ve never used this service but I have a friend who contacts the 311 folks daily. Of course he is a retiree with plenty of free time on his hands. The city isn’t the only recipient of his well-intended advice; I am sure he calls…

H.L. Mencken’s Revenge THIS IS my mea culpa, and perhaps it is yours too. When I began editing The Indiana Policy Review, when I first sat in the high-backed chair, I thought I would use our scholars’ knowledge and wisdom to help public officials and political leaders think through Indiana’s challenges. They could better see unintended consequences and avoid policy traps and snares. They would have on their desks credentialed resources that they otherwise could not access…

by Leo Morris Two pictures of Indiana. The first picture, from the past. Sylvanus Freelove Bowser was born in 1854 just north of Fort Wayne and, except for a short stay in Kansas, lived in that city for his whole life. According to a 1963 issue of Old Fort News, Bowser was one of 13 children and had barely a year of formal schooling, his manual labor being needed to help support the family. He…