9by MARK FRANKE Poor Abraham Lincoln.  When I was in school during the dark ages of our republic, Lincoln was known as the Great Emancipator and the man who saved the Union. His birthday was observed but not as an “everybody gets a free day off work” holiday. Still, it was an important day remembering the significance of one of the two most important of our presidents. Then Abe ran into the cancel-culture mob. It…

Knocking Down KKK Straw Men IT IS THE MOST DISAPPOINTING piece of journalism you should ever hope to read — the Indianapolis Star’s “investigation” Wednesday of the “right wing” in Indiana. Please excuse the use of scare quotes here but the lack of definition in the article and its spurious intent require them. Here is the headline: “Same Goals, New Tactics: How Extremist Groups Have Weaponized Social Media to Push Agendas.” The rest is an irrelevant and inchoate reading of history, that and base characterizations.…

The Diversity Horizon CAN WE SEPARATE DIVERSITY from identity long enough to understand that when it is arbitrarily applied it weakens any effort? Probably not, but here is an attempt. If you are putting together a team and decide to ensure that one-third of them are from Kansas then you have denied yourself the untold talent/ability/energy of those non-Kansans who might have joined. You have gained nothing in return. You have lost competitive advantage. Yet, you can…

Lucas Oil Stadium: A Big Hole in the Roof IT WAS AN OUTRAGEOUS admission: Officials do not know the exact cost of the subsidized Lucas Oil stadium, specifically that part assigned to the retractable roof. The Colts had told the Indianapolis Star that the team was never given a “line item” on how much the roof added to the price of the stadium. Now Rick McKinney, a former member of the Hamilton County Council and the lone vote against…

Is China a Threat? by Mark Franke It is interesting to observe how public opinion can change in short order. Twenty or so years ago China was viewed as an ideal market for American goods as it began an economic liberalization away from state-controlled communism toward a somewhat freer market system. The thought was that the purchasing power of its peasant population would rise with this economic liberalization.  Now China is viewed by many as…

Woke Lives at the Art Museum ‘WHEN I HEAR the word culture, I reach for my Luger,” said Herman Goring. Good advice for those trying to follow the internal machinations of the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, as it likes to now be called. Culture in Indianapolis, once known as Nap Town and a wide spot in a cornfield, is a sensitive topic for the haut mode there. They are constantly on guard for any cultural slip that might give them…

Big Ag and Coconut Cream Pies ‘THE GREAT PROBLEM of our age is the tendency of people to assume that economic growth is a universal cure for all ills, while it often brings new problems and exacerbates existing ones,” wrote the British economist E.F. Schumacher.  That is nowhere more true than in farming, where the notion that endless growth, a feature of industrial agriculture, is beneficial in all aspects. And to put it most simply, there is…

by Mark Franke My hometown minor league baseball team, the Fort Wayne TinCaps, has a bad habit of taking called third strikes. For the baseball agnostics out there, this means the batter doesn’t swing at a pitch and strikes out by doing nothing. It is extremely frustrating to the fans in the stands. I can only guess the reaction of the coaching staff. The other night, the TinCaps were rallying in the ninth inning from…

‘Isn’t the Way This Works’ ECONOMISTS TALK ABOUT “moral hazards,” that is, situations where someone takes on excessive risk because they do not have to bear the full consequences of that risk. Essentially, it’s the idea that if someone is insulated from the negative effects of their risky behavior, they might act less cautiously than they otherwise would. Our society is creating walking, driving moral hazards. Parents, teachers, somebody, is raising children who think they are immune…

Smaller Is Better, Local Is Best “THE AIM IS TO HAVE a society in which the great majority of people own their own homes and farms and small businesses,” wrote the Christian apologist C.K. Chesterton. That is, smaller is better and local is best in the organization of human affairs. “To be free and to be independent is to be a part of something bigger than oneself,” Chesterton wrote. “The idea is to get back to a society…