by Mark Franke With the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, there are a lot of new books written about this major event. Most focus on the Declaration’s language and its meaning, especially its most memorable sentence in the second paragraph. One historian, Stanford’s Michael Auslin, has taken a refreshingly different approach by telling the story of the physical document throughout our history. And it is an intriguing story, one replete with disappearances, changes in…

A Murder Most ‘Random’ IT WAS MY FAULT. Even after a gracious interview with a Capital Chronicle columnist, Stacey Compton, I didn’t get my point across, the ideological gap being just too wide. I wanted to object to the reflexive description in recent murder stories of black-on-white violence as “random.” It is anything but that.  In its statistical context, the word means “being governed by or involving equal chances for each item.” That would not describe the National FBI Supplementary Homicide report that…

The Fraud of Official Art “Whenever I hear the word ‘culture,’ I reach for my Lugar.” —  Hermann Göring THE MAYOR this week unveiled “The Garner,” our city’s latest acquisition of outdoor art. It is shown above so you can judge for yourself but let me say I find it hopelessly abstruse. It took even the artist himself, Sacho Primo, the winner of a global competition for goodness sake, considerable effort to describe it: “The installation is composed of six…

by Dan Eichenberger, M.D. With Father’s Day approaching, the cultural conversation about men, fathers, and masculinity deserves more care than slogans usually allow. This is a season when many families pause to honor fathers, grandfathers, mentors and father figures whose steady presence has shaped lives in quiet but lasting ways. For that reason, the way society speaks about masculinity matters. The term “toxic masculinity” was never intended as a broad indictment of men. It was coined…

Alternative Families by the Numbers THE GOVERNOR is getting grief over declaring June “Nuclear Family Month.” Does he think there’s something wrong with non-nuclear families? Well, there’s a two-part answer to that, and some aren’t going to like the second part. First, let’s acknowledging that raising a family, any family, is a heroic endeavor. Raising a family as a single parent is especially so when it comes with the emotional throes of a divorce. One kind of family does not diminish another.…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D., and Gary McGowan, Ph.D. In 1996, we presented a paper at a conference arguing that “science textbooks do not present an accurate account of how scientific inquiry was conducted and is conducted now.”  Subsequently, our paper, “Attribution, Cooperation, Science, and Girls,” was published. We focused on textbooks for chemistry, G. McGowan’s disciplinary area. Often, chemistry textbooks attributed discoveries to a single person though discovery is the result of people collaborating and…

by Maryann O. Keating, Ph.D. Democrats and Republicans tend not to discuss politics at social events. Recently, however, conversation at a local restaurant converged into two shared concerns: growing income inequality and oligarchy, the excessive influence of the wealthy.   Oligarchies concentrate power in the hands of elites who direct government policy for their own benefit, with ordinary citizens having little say. Oligarchy takes many forms: rule by royalty, religious leaders, military officers, business leaders or…

by Mark Franke I saw a recent news report of a school classroom in Tennessee that got a very practical lesson in why America has an official Pledge of Allegiance.  A substitute teacher was surprised that most students remained seated during the school’s recitation of the Pledge. Confused, he asked them why. Most couldn’t provide an answer other than some said they didn’t agree with several of the nation’s current policies. It became, as professional…

A BSU Prof’s Defense of Islam CERTAIN PUBLIC POSITIONS are so poorly reasoned that it is best to let them just sit — let them sit moldering as events unfold. Such is the widely published defense of Islam by Dr. Michael Hicks, the George and Frances Ball Distinguished Professor of Economics at Ball State University and director of its Center for Business and Economic Research. Hicks’s view is noteworthy in that his proclamation for Islam — he relates Muslims to the Amish and thinks Thomas Jefferson would…

by Mark Franke Why has rage become the dominant form of political expression? Why has violence against persons and property become acceptable to a growing percentage of our young people? And how are these excesses against law and justice claimed to be done in the name of democracy, and with a straight face? More importantly, is democracy nothing more than the exercise of the will of the current electoral majority? Jonathan Turley’s “Rage and the…