Mitt Romney has bragged about his abilities as a business person. He has pushed his record in the private sector, as a corporate executive, in the course of touting how he would address problems in the economy in a way superior to President Obama’s.

   1) Realize Romney jokingly referred to himself has having been unemployed for over ten years. But that is not a joke in the sense that he has been out of the private sector, operating a business, for that period.

   2)…

   Saturday’s Show will consider matters somewhat related to the current round of primaries.

   Whom would you rank as the best president of all time? Whom would you say was the worst? Whom would you say was (here comes a phrase that is perhaps an oxymoron) the most mediocre president? I refer here to POTUS. The President of the United States. For sake of clarity, we would not count those individuals who served as president under the Articles of Confederation, as the nature of the job…

   Because the Super Bowl® has occupied Indianapolis, the NFL® flew in (at City expense, of course) a special photographer for book-ins at the Marion County Jail. Actually, the effort was to make sure one person was not available to take those head shots. The NFL had sought to hire the photographer responsible for the most famous head shot of all time. Long after Nick Nolte has retired, and 48 Hours is mentioned more frequently in trivia contents than discussions of really cool…

   And the day has arrived. We begin shooting at 11 a.m. at Big Hat Books. Big Hat is located at 6510 Cornell Avenue, immediately north of the Brewpub, just north of 65^th. Cornell runs parallel to the Monon Trail. For those of you who might not be familiar with Broad Ripple, Google®  the address (as I presume you are on a computer if you are reading this blog).

   The City of Consolidated Indianapolis and Marion County has, in place, a silly ordinance meant to cater (more…

   Who will make the money from Indianapolis’s hosting of the Super Bowl®?

   1) The number of locally-owned businesses downtown (or anyplace, for that matter) has declined significantly over the past decade. The hotels are national chains—Marriott, Hilton, Westin, or spin-offs. The bellpeople, housekeeping staff, and other personnel will earn their paychecks and maybe receive some well-deserved tips. The Slippery Noodle Inn and St. Elmo’s, the last I checked, are locally-owned. The…

   Bernard P. Fife was a lawman. He wore a badge—issued to him by Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry. On the lot where they shot "The Andy Griffith Show," Barney Fife was a lawman—so long as the cameras were rolling, he was acting within the script, and all the other actors stayed in character. In other words, he was a fictional lawman. Barney Fife also is the first example of whom people think of an overly-zealous, authoritative person who should not have even one bullet on his…

   Would this person be in her/his right mind?

   Mr. League, a wealthy person, announces he wants to throw a party, in a private residence, for a lot of his wealthy friends. He has certain requirements, but insists he pay—nothing. He receives several responses. He picks Mr. Indy (I’m trying to make identities vague here), because Mr. Indy not only will not charge Mr. League any rent, but will pay all the costs—security, food, beverages (and Mr. League’s pals like to drink), and…

   One would think a small shop would be the kind of local business politicians (of either major party) would want to benefit from a publicly-subsidized event. After all, each election cycle "small business" is an often-used phrase to extol candidates’ virtues. I never have heard a politician speak ill of "small business" as a concept.

   Let’s say a locally-owned sandwich shop, within one mile of Lucas Oil Stadium (or in Broad Ripple, on Mass Ave, or in Fountain Square) displays a…

   The First Amendment to the United States Constitution reads, in relevant part:

  "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech..."

   Article I, sec. 9 of the Indiana Constitution (Article I is our State’s Bill of Rights) reads:

      "No law shall be passed, restraining the free interchange of thought and opinion, or restricting the right to speak,    write, or print, freely on any subject whatever: but for the abuse of that right, every person…

   Next Saturday, January 28, 2012, at 11:00 a.m., "Civil Discourse Now" will film one or more acts of civil disobedience. What is "civil disobedience"? Black’s Law Dctionary: "A deliberate but nonviolent act of lawbreaking to call attention to a particular law or set of laws of questionable legitimacy or morality."

   This is real, folks. This is as real as it gets. The conduct will address corporate greed and oppression as well as efforts to quash free speech.

  …

   I lived in Wisconsin for three-and-a-half weeks. In April, 1979, I was recently graduated from college and unemployed. I had dubbed the place in which I lived, on Home Avenue in Kokomo, "The Slum." If the movie "Stripes" had been out, maybe I would have enlisted. Instead, I decided to go to Madison, Wisconsin. A fraternity brother and his future wife had transferred to the University of Wisconsin. I had visited once, and the place seemed ultra-cool.

   Unfortunately, a lot of other…

   Bob Dylan sang, "You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." The Weathermen, later changed to Weather Underground, named themselves after that lyric. The on-line forecast for tday shows: (1) a predicted high temperature of 56 degrees, (2) a current temperature of 57, (3) a seventy percent (70%) chance of rain, (4) current conditions include rain, and (5) I hear rain beating against the walls of the house.

   This disconnect (current popular word) was played out…

   The Indiana General Assembly is comprised of he House of Representatives (100 members) and the Senate (50 members). Members of the House serve two-year terms. Members of the Senate serve four-year terms. Every two years all of the seats of the House and half of the seats of the Senate are on the ballot.

   That means all of the current members of the House and half of the members of the Senate (absent a member here or there who resigned because of scandal; such is politics) ran for…

   Until the mid-1960s, as I recall from growing up, there only were two bookstores in Kokomo. One was on the town square. The place was closed-in, shelves floor-to-ceiling, with the feel of a book shoppe in a 1930s movie about London. I only went into the place once or twice. As was frequently the case, the old man had a grudge against the owner or one of the counter people for a slight, real or imagined, from long before. Only after I had graduated from college and stopped there on a whim…

   The latest word is Democratic members of Indiana’s General Assembly want to issue of Right to Work ("RTW") placed on the ballot as a referendum on the November ballot. House Speaker Brian Bosma has said the idea is reasonable and he will listen to debate on the matter. Former Speaker, Rep. Patrick Bauer of South Bend makes a good point when he says since RTW was not debated in the last election, the matter should be placed before the people of Indiana.

   That is an excellent…

   Here are few things to know about the Right to Work ("RTW") legislation, the vote in the Indiana General Assembly for which has been held off for several days (before the inevitable, it would seem, passage):

   1) Compulsory union membership is not an issue.

   NLRB v. GM, 373 U.S. 734 (1963) held that people cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. However, employees can be compelled to pay toward the costs of negotiations on wages and benefits.…

   We were taught in Civics, freshman year of high school, that the Constitution created an experiment, in which individual States could experiment with variations of law. Out of all the experimentation would come improvements, along with some failures.

   One dynamic of the Constitutional Convention that was overlooked was the competition between the States. After all, that was a significant reason for Hamilton’s, Madison’s, and the other delegates’ departure from the charter they…

   Once more, we go to the Orwellian aspects of the legislation called  "Right to Work" ("RTW"). Who would be so left-wing in their radicalism as to assert that a human eing has a right to work in her/his job? Oh, that’s right—the same folks who are so protective of Indiana’s status as an at-will employment State. "At-will" means an employer can fire a worker—and Mitt Romney has said he loves firing people—for anything, except, generally, reasons based on race, gender, religion,…

  "Right to Work" ("RTW") sounds like a great idea. Why should anyone be deterred fro a "right to work"? If something is a "right," it should be protected by law.

  The wording of HB 1028 is similar to the other two bills pending before our General Assembly:

"Makes it a Class A misdemeanor to require an individual to: (1) become or remain a               member of a labor organization; (2) pay dues, fees, or other charges to a labor               organization; or (3) pay to a…

   George Orwell’s fame is derived from two books: Animal Farm and 1984. From the latter came the linguistic Newspeak, the language promoted by the State. Today, when one speaks of something as "Orwellian," usually it is in the context of a "good" label applied to something most would consider bad.

   Presently before the Indiana General Assembly are two bills in the House of Representatives (HB 1028 and 1043) and one in the Senate (SB 0395) that are considered "right to…