Change how we celebrate Memorial Day, a day of remembrance for those who died in service of the USA. 1) Drop policies that only create more veterans. Absent surprise attack, military can be deployed only after declaration of war. (Const. Art. I, sec 8.) 1/5

Administrations, GOP & Dem, more easily order attacks when the Constitution is shoved aside. Less military use = fewer veterans, living & dead. 2) Cut the defense budget by 50%. It doesn’t take a genius to realize you…

Remember: June 5 at 7 p.m., the City-County Council will vote on a $625 million bond issue to finish & run a hotel after the group that started it couldn’t find a bank to take the risk. I’m not a fan of big banks. A bank that can loan high nine figures is “big.” Also, they want profits. 1/7

Loans provide profits in the interest borrowers pay. Borrowers usually pay interest when their business succeeds. If a bank declines an opportunity to invest, one may infer the risk of…

June 5: Indy’s City-County Council votes on a $625 million bond issue to finish & run a hotel. A group started it, but (apparently) could not find a bank to loan on a bad risk. In our “free market” economy, businesses, increasingly not local, squeeze every penny out of States & cities. 1/4

Their threat is to build in a different city to which all those tax revenues & jobs will go. There’s no magic. Cost-benefit analysis tells businesses, including banks, a project’s odds…

In the waning hours of the legislative session and w/o public debate, Indiana’s General Assembly passed, and Governor Holcomb signed, a measure that creates a new tax district w/in the original one-mile square platted for the City of Indianapolis in 1821. Money is needed downtown. 1/5

Fewer jobs exist downtown. Of course, when the new Criminal Justice Center was built a couple of miles away, quite a few jobs were sucked out of downtown. At least none of the money from the new tax…

In the waning hours of the legislative session and w/o public debate, Indiana’s General Assembly passed, and Governor Holcomb signed, a measure that creates a new tax district w/in the original one-mile square platted for the City of Indianapolis in 1821. Money is needed downtown. 1/5

Fewer jobs exist downtown. Of course, when the new Criminal Justice Center was built a couple of miles away, quite a few jobs were sucked out of downtown. At least none of the money from the new tax…

Gun violence shouldn’t bore America. Three dead like yesterday in New Mexico, 30 years ago, merited a few thoughts & a dozen prayers, but now 3 dead (in a State w/5 elector votes) can’t get either heads-up-the-orifice trumpers or any deities to expend a furrowed brow or a Hail Mary.1/4

God takes my calls. She said those who help themselves means State legislatures are on the hook. God, however, overlooks a salient feature of gun violence. Gun nuts say more guns = less crime. Gun…

We pause blog/tweets about The Constitution & ignorance (of Hamilton County preacher Micah Beckwith) to discuss people fr south of the Rio Grande who seek to cross the U.S. border. Too often ppl ask only: how do we keep them out? We should ask: why do they want in? 1/8

First, many cross Mexico fr other countries to get here. Axios reported 4/6/23 as “recently as FY 2019, 92% of all Border Patrol apprehensions [] migrants fr Mexico or [] the Northern Triangle Guatemala, Honduras…

I’m honored: Tuesday on “Mouthwash,” John Schmitz’s podcast, Hamilton County preacher Micah Beckwith called me an idiot. Beckwith says: “America was absolutely founded on Christian values. You have to be ignorant to think otherwise. The writings of our 1/7

Framers and the founding documents are very clear on that.” Beckwith does not identify values or how they are uniquely Christian. 1) In a 10/24/19 video, “The Church’s role in politics,” Beckwith says you can’t be moral if you are a…

Kids who are “different” or speak out can be/often are ostracized. Example: voluntary group prayer isn’t voluntary if kids who choose not to participate are made fun of. The younger the kids, the less they understand impact of their actions. Micah Beckwith is a Hamilton 1/5

County preacher spirited onto Ham East Public Library Board (HEPLB) by Ham Co Council w/o public notice or listing on agenda & w/little notice before a vote. 15 other candidates werent considered. This is…

Elementary & secondary education today is different from our experience. Kids know a lot about tech & probably chuckle as someone (like me) tries to share a video (like the public service ad (PSA) I hope you see. Kids’ knowledge of tech is cool. Kids are familiar w/PSA’s topic. 1/6

What isn’t cool: kids have to know ways to survive mass shootings. Congrats go to Guy Relford, host of “The Gun Guy” on Indy station WIBC, who advocates gun culture & a view of the 2nd Amendment…

4/30: Micah Beckwith, a Hanilton County preacher who has sought political power, wrote: “America was absolutely founded on Christian values. You have to be ignorant to think otherwise. The writings of our Framers and the founding documents are very clear on that.” 1/6

Beckwith’s “Christian values” must include slavery & racism. “The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior…

Monty Python: “No one knows when to expect The Spanish Inquisition!” An inquisition is a persistent, grueling examination conducted w/o regard for the examinee’s dignity or civil rights. Black’s Law Dict., 10th ed., p. 913. We know when to expect Micah Beckwith, a Hamilton 1/7

County preacher. His move toward worldly power has been steady. Beckwith ran in the 2020 GOP primary for INCD 5, eventually won by Victoria Spartz who won’t seek re-election in 2024. Beckwith was gifted the next…

Another day in America & more people dead from guns. How many deaths did the latest spate of shootings prevent? Gun people get highly technical (e.g., “‘AR’ don’t stand for no ‘assault rifle’, dumbass”) & you’d think they’d have calculated a coefficient. But Jethro’s School 1/4

of Brain Surgery, Double-Ought Spyin’ & Fry Cookery (a/k/a 3rd grade) is tough. In undergrad I stalled guns. During a meeting of faculty chairs, deans & student leaders at DePauw University in…

It’s near the start of a speech barely five minutes long. In 8th grade it seemed every night our “regular programming” was interrupted by a “Special Report” or “Bulletin.” Tonight I made sure the line was correct & tweeted, then watched all of Robert Kennedy’s speech in Indy. 1/5

In a park around 22nd & Central, he told a crowd that Martin Luther King had been shot & killed. The tweet to which I’d replied (“The mathematician?”) struck me. People who say “guns made this…

Some say this U.S. Supreme Court has no clear identity w/John Roberts, its Chief Justice, as past Courts. I disagree. The integrity is consistent. E.g., Justice Clarence Thomas is the latest: his billionaire buddy Harlan Crow pd tuition 4 Thomas’s grand nephew, raised by Thomas as 1/7

a son. Crow dissed any who question his largesse, saying he’s long attempted to help “at-risk youth.” A youth in Thomas’s household is “at-risk” if s/he fails to learn only a SCOTUS justice can enjoy…

Epidemiology can determine if A causes B & deals w/“incidence, distribution & possible control of diseases & other factors relating to health.” Gun makers’ focus on humanitarian goal of killing more people more quickly neglects sales. E.g., causes of death usually are determined only 1/5

by autopsy but a 1964 Surgeon General’s report linked mainstream smoke (MSM) to cancer. Adult smokers went from 42% to 19%. (2014). Big Tobacco, for yrs, knew from their own studies that…

I have an opponent in tomorrow’s primary for City-County Council Distr 2, here in Indy. I’m running in the GOP to fight forces of bigotry & ignorance. From fliers put out by Matt Hills, you can’t tell he’s GOP in a blue district in the bluest of counties. His #1 priority,“keeping our 1/7

Neighborhoods safe,” is ducky but his proposals suck, e.g., permanently re-establishing office of Director of Public Safety.” That adds, or re-labels. an office in the bureaucracy. (Taste great?…

Tomorrow, May 2, is the primary election. Here in Indy/Marion County, the office of Mayor and the 25 seats on the City-County Council are up for grabs. We can’t allow one of the two “major” political parties to be run by forces of bigotry & ignorance. After a lifetime of voting, & 1/5

sometimes volunteering to work, for the Democratic Party, I’m running in the GOP primary for City-County Council District 2, a very blue district. Matt Hills, my opponent, in the mailers I’ve…