Fifty years ago, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law by that most ardent lover of women---sarcasm---President John F. Kennedy. As he said, the Act was meant to be the end of the "unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job."  That was the age in which "Mad Men" is placed; an age in which white males were expected to have leadership roles. For everyone else, the notion that "any person born in the United States one day could …

   The United States Constitution protects the freedom of speech. Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution contains similar provisions. "Political speech" is speech that is amongst the most protected. That is speech meant solely for expression of political belief. When a law is challenged on the grounds that it infringes the First Amendment's protections of free speech, and the defendant(s) claim the speech is political, the court must subject the ordinance or law to the strict scrutiny test.…

   The lives of young people---from my perspective these days, that would be anyone under the age of 40, but, on a more general basis I mean people of high school age and younger---in 2013 are dominated by computer-based communications systems. Nearly all communications today could be said to be computer-based. A call from a rotary-dial telephone goes through a computer somewhere, instead of simple wires that lead to the Mayberry switchboard. By computer-based communications, I mean messages…

   When I thought about a title for this blog yesterday, I thought "the time has come to seriously consider..." Then I realized, the time is now.

   I have been a fan of football. I like to watch college and professional games. My Division III alma mater plays our foe each year in the Monon Bell Game, the oldest rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains. I grew up watching the Chicago Bears each Sunday. The only World Championship of a sports teams, of which I have been a lifelong fan,…

   About half of teens have been the victim of cyberbullying. Only ten percent (10%) of those kids tell their parents. The latter should not be a surprise. A kid---male or female, whatever ethnicity, color or religion---especially if the kid is a teenager, does not want to have to go to mom or dad and say, "I'm getting bullied." That was true over 40 years ago (Ah! I'm that old?) when I was a teenager. It is no less true today; maybe more so. When I was in school, the bullying took the form…

   One of the reasons I wanted to go away to college was to get away from people who intimidated others through violence---i.e., bullies. The last "bad" incident had been my junior year of high school, when I was slammed into a locker by two brothers who were jocks. They therefore were immune from most disciplinary measures the school could have taken, since most of the people in the high school responsible for discipline were coaches. Most, if not all, of the bullies I had encountered along…

   Dr. Dennis Cuddy will discuss with us today concepts of his book, "The Power Elite and the Secret Nazi Plan." We will stream "live" from Papa Roux's at 8950 East 10th Street. I have heard the food there is seriously good.

   Our guest panelist will be Gary Welsh of "Advance Indiana."

   "Operation Paperclip" was not a figment of someone's paranoid imagination. The Office of Strategic Services, at the end of World War II, saw great value in the abilities of German scientists who could help the United States. High among U.S. goals: secure the scientists who worked at the Reich's missile research center in Peenemunde.

   There were a few problems with the attainment of this goal. One problem was not the  scientists' desire to join the efforts of the United States…

   As Germany's army fell in the spring of 1945, then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered German citizens who lived near the death camps to walk through those camps. Eisenhower also brought the press into the camps to ensure no one later would question the monstrous extent of the Nazi government's actions against many groups, most prominently in our history books members of the Hebrew faith, but also Gypsies, gays, and those who had opposed Hitler. The Nuremberg trials of war criminals…

   Many times during my youth in mid-North Indiana, I would hear someone say, "Hitler mighta been a [fill in the blank, but the gist was murderous jerk], but ya gotta admit he was a genius." The speaker of such words nearly always explained that Hitler's economic and foreign policies had benefited the German people in that those policies brought der Fatherland out of its longtime depression and rid it of the bonds of the Treaty of Versailles.

   Hitler was not a "genius." I have seen…

   We were at a party in Chicago in the spring of 1983, as I recall. I had moved to the City with very little experience in large population centers. I had learned that people "tagged" buildings and that while some of the graffiti was art for the sake of art, albeit on the sides of buildings or other structures, the owners of which had were little enthused about what had been spray-painted during the night, much of the graffiti was gang-related. Gangs tagged walls to mark…

   We will stream "live" from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, at 38th Street and Michigan Road, from 11 am to 1 pm, to cover, for the second weekend, this year's Indianapolis International Film Festival. Our guests will include Qunicy Rose, filmmaker and director of "Miles to Go," a feature-length flick; an actor from a short film, "Rearview Mirror"; Craig Mince and Luke Sanders, from the Indianapolis International Film Festival; and members of a panel discussion that will take place after…

   Because much of my practice is focused in the areas of appeal and post-conviction relief, I frequently visit clients in correctional facilities in Indiana.

   One point to get out of the way is that if we had better systems of education and aid to the poor, provided jobs that paid meaningful wages to more people, and gave women of lower income more control over what are their reproductive rights, we probably would not need so many correctional facilities, a/k/a prisons. (I know…

   With the past week's revelations of communications between then-Governor Mitch Daniels and then-Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett (whom I thought was better either as a singer or as head men's basketball coach at University of Wisconsin), a lot of people have discussed the state of education both in Indiana and in the United States.

   Discussion of public affairs is good, but also can be scary.

  I fear for our educational system because of several elements.…

   Yesterday we streamed live from the Indianapolis International Film Festival at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. We shall do so again next Saturday.

   I said this on The Show and I have written this before, but, I'll say it in a different way. If one employs cost-benefit analysis, one would be hard-pressed to beat the value of the price of admission to the IFF. You will see films you otherwise would not see---almost certainly not in a theater, but equally unlikely on TV. Maybe one…

   We will stream live from the Indianapolis International Film Festival from the Indianapolis Museum of Art, 11 am-1 pm. This is a good value for the entertainment dollar. Check out their website and see all the films on-tap from July 18-28.

   In 1975 I helped organize students at DePauw to protest the University's denial of tenure to a professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The denial had the effect of termination of the professor's employment. DePauw, at the time (maybe still) required that a professor achieve tenure within seven years of that professor's employment, or the employment would end. The professor, Robert Fornaro, held a Ph.D., had published peer-review articles, and had been voted Professor of…

   The Indianapolis International Film Festival runs from July 18 to 28. If you go to their website, you can read the schedule of events. Many take place at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Most of the films are less than feature length. Last year was my first experience at such a festival. There were a couple of works for which I did not particularly care. Some were fantastic. We will stream live Saturday and have, as guests, directors and actors from films entered at the festival.

  …

   Last week, shortly before closing arguments began in State v. George Zimmerman, someone blogged about the view of the trial from the six seats that counted most at the end: the seats in the jury box. If one sets emotions aside, the reality of the jury becomes paramount.

   People can jest about a jury being made up of people not competent enough to get out of jury duty. However, every jury in front of which I have tried a case, once the oath is administered, has taken that oath and…

   We will stream live from 11 am to 1 pm from Good Earth, on Guilford, just north of the canal, in beautiful Broad Ripple. Our special guest host is Professor Teri Jett of Butler University. The focal topic will be farmers' rights, and the Pigford I and II cases and their progeny.