County Overall County SCI Family Unity  Community Health  Institutional Health Collective Efficacy  Adams County, Indiana 79 94 63 63 -1 Allen County, Indiana 46 43 31 69 32 Bartholomew County, IN 65 67 44 65 62 Benton County, Indiana 73 51 81 69 -1 Blackford County, IN 64 41 57 57 91 Boone County, Indiana 89 94 42 89 93 Brown County, Indiana 71 28 54 82 97 Carroll County, Indiana 74 68 56 66…

by Mark Frank I have finally figured out the root cause of all our woes — air conditioning. I am deadly serious about this. Consider just two travesties wreaking havoc across our landscape: First, school start dates. My teacher neighbor started the first full week of August and her school was not alone. The school where I volunteer won’t start until Aug. 16 but they are an outlier, not that even a mid-August start date is…

by Richard Moss, M.D. The entire month, each June, is a low point for the country. The unrestrained debauchery, the flaunting of pathologic deviancy and the celebration of perversion — does it get any worse than “Pride Month?” Our ruling elites in all sectors are positively swept away by it, consumed as they are with promoting it,  and virtue signaling their fealty and allegiance to it. It has become our most important holiday season. Compare it with other…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. I teach an on-line Principles of Microeconomics course every summer. It is “asynchronous”: students work at their own pace (within my deadlines), using the text, a course-management system, short videos from me, and outside resources they find. In such courses, I interact with the students through “forums” to discuss articles; I give them feedback on assignments and tests; and they’re free to schedule Zoom appointments with me (although few do). So,…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. When I taught ethics, I had several challenges. For one thing, unlike students in France, American students took no philosophy courses in high school. Students leave high school with reasoning skills that do not align well with the critical analysis philosophy courses demand. Students, even bright students, rely too much on memory for knowledge acquisition and cognitive growth. I should know. After a stellar high school G.P.A. that got me admitted…

A Tale of Two Artworks HOW’S THE CULTURE WAR GOING? Well, I have the perfect seat for it — on a favorite bench in the middle of Freimann Square in downtown Fort Wayne. There, on the southwest corner of the square, is Gen. Anthony Wayne, hero of Fallen Timbers, his horse with one front leg raised signifying that the rider had been wounded in battle. The statue, the work of George Gainer in 1917, had to be…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. The January-February issue of the AARP Bulletin had an article on heart disease stating that “for decades, women were underrepresented in clinical trials” and “women’s health is still understudied.” The article directed the reader’s attention to the alleged plight of women regarding research and knowledge of heart disease. Readers of the article were likely to infer that men constituted the majority of research subjects during investigations into heart disease. That is an inference…

by Dennis Ganahl, Ph.D. For me, 1979 was a big year. I bought my first newspaper, the purchase of which included a farmhouse that needed lots of work. It had an old console TV, so I was able to watch Bob Vila’s first season of This Old House. I also had contracted with my state’s GOP to start and publish a newspaper. There was harmony in my universe. I didn’t have any handyman skills to complete home projects but it…

by Eric Schansberg, Ph.D. With the 100th anniversary of Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration as our 30th president on Aug. 2, I want to write about his noteworthy presidency. Why has Coolidge continued under the radar of history? In terms of public policy, he was opposed to the growth of government. He thought it was more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. Acts of omission are typically harder to value compared with acts of commission,…

Criminology for the Clueless WE LOST INTEREST in the gun-control debate a couple of decades ago when one side began piling up incontrovertible data that crime was not the fault of inanimate objects but rather of a society that left fatherless young men aimlessly roaming the streets at night. The pile is about to my waist now. At the same time, the argument of the other side required only that you unquestioningly accept the blood libel…