By all accounts, Glenda Ritz has a daunting challenge as the next superintendent of public instruction. Across a state that has been at the forefront of the so-called education reform movement, recent legislation has incensed and motivated teachers in profound ways.
For the political among us, 2012 was solely focused on the election. From the early days in January with the Iowa caucuses to the ongoing transitions at the state and federal levels, the year was packed with action.
Single-parent families are at a significant economic disadvantage, and more black children in Indiana (42 percent) are living in poverty than are nationally (36 percent).
When Interstate 64 came to my hometown, I was too young to appreciate what an amazing engineering feat it was. To me, the construction zone was a wonderland of big trucks and other exotic-looking equipment.
Indiana seems to be experiencing a fresh outbreak of reefer madness.
Just north of the revived City Market, along the Alabama Street stretch of the Cultural Trail, stands a vacant landmark that has resisted redevelopment for almost a decade—the old City Hall.
Legacy can be a tricky word. Most leaders are interested in the legacy they will leave when their term ends or they step down from running an organization or entity; others, you could say, probably border on obsessed. Politicians, my reading of history has educated me, fall mostly into the obsessed category.
While the Republican brand in some quarters may be a bit tarnished these days, there is no doubting what it represents—the idea that we should have smaller government at all levels, and that government should stay out of our personal lives at least so far as taxation and guns are concerned.
Battle lines for the next General Assembly are evident already.
Here are six words I never imagined stringing together: I’m going to miss Mitch Daniels.
Mitch Daniels will leave the governor’s mansion to a chorus of hurrahs from budget-balancers, conservative pundits and the Republican Party, which wishes—now even more than before—that he had run for president. But what can other Midwestern states learn from the Daniels era?
Mitch Daniels had 48 former governors as role models when he took his oath of office. Now we can decide how he stands among them.
At some point over the past generation, people around the world entered what you might call the age of possibility. They became intolerant of any arrangement that might close off their personal options.
The Twinkie, it turns out, was introduced way back in 1930. In our memories, however, the iconic snack will forever be identified with the 1950s, when Hostess popularized the brand by sponsoring “The Howdy Doody Show.” And the demise of Hostess has unleashed a wave of baby boomer nostalgia for a seemingly more innocent time.
As Lyndon Johnson said, the two things that make leaders stupid are envy and sex.
A number of high-profile deaths over the past 15 years have increased awareness of sudden cardiac death in the national sports community and public at large, but also here on home turf.
Forget red states versus blue states. The color best representative of the 2012 election is green, as in greenbacks. The election was not only the most expensive in our nation’s history at $6 billion spent, but it also shattered the record by more than $700 million. More than 1,000 Super PACs were formed and they spent at least $970 million, much of it on negative television ads and direct mail.
After an election, it is just good manners to congratulate the winners and offer condolences to the losers. We wish the winners well and hope they succeed in the tough business of crafting and implementing good public policy. We thank those who did not win for giving their time and energy offering an alternative.
Are you tired of hearing about politics and the election? Then shake hands with a brother Elk, because I, too, am glad it’s over.
Across the country on Election Day sprang voices and signs of social acceptance from young people, gay people, women, immigrants of many decades and people with disabilities. America has changed, and will continue to. Americans are seeing the relationship between equal opportunity and economic opportunity.
