When I worked on the calendar for The Show, I was a week ahead of myself. The Indianapolis International Film Festival is next week. This weekend we will shoot at the Broad Ripple Farmer's Market and discuss, amongst other topics, the farm bill presently before Congress, and lawsuits in Federal courts that affect the rights of small farmers, primarily women and Latino farmers. Special guest co-host will be Terri Jett, professor of political science at Butler. We will stream from 11 am to…

   The United States Navy gloated yesterday over the first successful landing of a drone aircraft onto the deck of an aircraft carrier. The Vice-Admiral in charge boasted "history" that our children and grandchildren and grandchildren would mention, had been made.

   I would say there should be no boasting. I would agree with the last part, but for different reasons than the Rear Admiral.

   Warfare advances technology. Sometimes those advancements are good. Many times they are…

   I will have more to write about the details, but last year we covered the Indianapolis International Film Festival. "Civil Discourse Now" is honored to be allowed to cover the festival again. Joining me as a guest panelist will be Terry Jett, professor of political science at Butler University. The festival is probably one of the best entertainment expenditures to be made in Indy. For the money one pays, the films provide a different perspective than one usually obtains. There are a lot…

   A couple of years ago I happened to find a web page, via a link on The Kokomo Tribune (pronounced "TRIB-une" for those native to Howard County), to the Peter Heck Show. The image on the link was of an old-fashioned radio microphone. What I discovered surprised me, in a few ways. First, I found it difficult to believe people still rejected such matters of science as evolution or that homosexuals exist. Second, I questioned the propriety of a photograph that supposedly depicts a pile of…

   This does not mean the Jerry Garcia/tie-dyed shirt/be careful when you drink Kool-aid type of gathering. This is a horror movie festival. We will stream live from the Wyndham---what once was the Adam's Mark Hotel. It is on Sam Jones Parkway, what used to be the Airport Parkway, near old Weir Cook Airport. Some of the people who will be there are Gary Busey, Linda Blair, and former wrestling super-star Rowdy Roddy Piper. There is a cover charge.

   Candidates ran for office. They promised a certain approach to govern, amongst the most important  that the government would not be a theocracy and everyone would be considered equal. 2012 elections were won by a candidate for president whom people trusted to keep his word. Immediately he backtracked. He assumed "near-dictatorial power to enact a hastily written constitution---one that, Islamists crowed, lacked many basic right."  TribLive, 6/29/13. People, angry over this turn of events…

   John Adams wrote that July 2 would go down in history as the day this country declared its independence from England. A different date appears on the formal document that memorializes the "birth" of this country. Of course, there are other minor errors in modern knowledge about the initial events that gave start to what became the United States of America. Our country was born in irony or paradox, but perhaps hypocrisy would be as good an adjective.

   All men are created equal and…

   That is not a partial recollection of my attendance of a concert in the 1970s.

   Yesterday we had an excellent Show. Guest panelists were Miah Akston, Andrew Kirch, and Jeff Cox at Claude & Annie's, 9351 East 141st Street, Fishers. If you did not catch The Show when it streamed "live," it will be re-aired this week on Indiana Talks dot com.

   We got home and I went out onto the deck to read, go on-line to check some things for The Show, and to smoke a cigar. The…

   The United States Supreme Court certainly was busy this week. Guest panelists Miah Akston, Andrew D. Kirch, and Jeff Cox will discuss with me (Paul continues on his vacation) the DOMA, Prop 8, and Civil Rights Act cases handed down by the Roberts Court.

   Each of the cases has interesting nuances. The Prop 8 case had a bizarre combination of justices join in a single dissenting opinion. Usually when justices of such diverse views as Justices Kennedy, Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor…

   The action at the United States Supreme Court this week was fast and furious as decisions in several cases were issued. This reminds me of 1973 to 1974 when we would return from classes at DePauw and learn about some new ruling in regard to the Nixon White House.

   The Show will stream live at 11am until 1pm from Claude & Annie's, 9251 East 141st Street, Fishers, on the southwest corner of 141st Street and SR 37.  You must be 21 years of age or older to enter the…

Dear Mayor Ballard:

   How are you? I know you have been busy, what with the new cricket field proposal (and, to be fair, games to be included on the schedule there would include hurling and Australian rules football; I always wanted to be one of the guys in the white hats and raincoats in the end zone who wave the little flags in Australian rules football---I watched it back when ESPN first started and had nothing with which to program between real games). Your travel schedule must…

   Contracts for City towing services used to be bid out competitively, with the City divided into districts and the bids let out accordingly. From a lifelong experience around the process of competitive bids (father and brother were contractors), I have known it to consist of several steps. 1) Specifications, blueprint, etc., for the project or service are issued; 2) A date and time by which bids must be submitted are set; 3) Bidders usually are required to have insurance and performance…

   Sheila Kennedy, a friend of The Show and one of the best bloggers in Indianapolis, had an interesting blog yesterday about Margaret Doughty, a woman who has lived in the United States for 30 years and recently applied for citizenship. When asked what apparently is a "standard" question on her application for citizenship, about whether she would take up arms to defend the country, Doughty answered:

  "I am sure the law would never require a 64-year-old woman like myself to bear…

   Once information is in the system, it is gone.

   The shocking news yesterday was that someone or some country had hacked into the computer syste4ms and taken designs of the latest spiffy fighter developed by the United States, the F-35. (ABC News.) Why anyone in the military would place design plans for anything of a classified nature on computers accessible by the internet gives one an indication of military intelligence. I knew a computer sciences guy at Purdue who, in 1985,…

   "100% Reimbursement for your trade ... Any customer trading in a 2002-2012 model will receive 100% of the factory full base model MSRP when new." [FN1]

   The 8 1/2" x 14" envelope had required no signature. The postal carrier had folded it and pushed it through the slot of the front door. I saw it on the rug when I got home. The word "URGENT"---yes, in caps---appeared three times on the front of the envelope, although the letters were slightly smaller on one "urgent." There was no…

   John Sandford is the pen name of a St. Paul-Minneapolis journalist who writes novels. Most of the novels he has written have been in the "Prey" series. Perhaps John D. MacDonald started this method of titles/series with his Travis McGee novels. Each book included, in its title, a color. The series was about a self-described "marine salvage" expert who, in return for half the money a person lost to a con artist or thief, retrieve the monies lost. MacDonald started the McGee series in the…

   On Saturday, June 22, from 11 am to 1 pm we shall stream live from the Road Dog Saloon, 4861 Southeastern Avenue. Road Dog is one of the Indianapolis bars that has been hit hard by the ill-conceived smoking ban enacted last year that took effect June 1, 2013.

   Also, Happy Nomad Girl will be in town. Usually she has phoned into The Show from wherever she happens to be. This weekend we shall have a chance to meet her, talk with her in person, and get a look at the van in which she…

   Every Thursday, we do a 20-minute or so bit with Gary Snyder on his "The Gary Snyder Show."

   Gary Snyder started the "Indiana Talks" internet network of Indiana-based talk "radio"---although few are terrestrial radio---shows at the start of the year. The network is carried on Live365 under "talk," and also at several places on the internet. Since sources for local news coverage have expired with great frequency in recent years, thanks in large part to the internet, it only seems…

   Join us from 11 am to 1 pm on Saturday, June 15, as guest panelists Clarke Kahlo and Dan Sockrider discuss plans for development in Broad Ripple---and other matters of local, state, national, and international importance.

   When I lived in Chicago, just off Fullerton and Clark on Arlington Place, no one I knew who lived in the neighborhood owned a car. If one owned a car, there was the problem of where to park. To park on the street was a crap shoot as (1) spaces were rare and (2) if one left anything of value in plain view---a paperback book on a front seat, for example, there was the risk a wino would smash in a window to sell the paperback for a quarter. (Such is the price one pays for existence within a…