Civil Discourse Now

Where the far left and far right overlap for fun and enlightenment

All Blog Posts (1,683)

Today's Show: White River Yacht Club, 1400 East 74th Street, a celebration of veterans and no politics.

   I moved to Broad Ripple in 1987, at the start of my second year of law school. There are aspects of Broad Ripple one must live here to understand. For example, for several years I thought Christ the King was a portable casino under a big tent. Also, I never understood how to find Conner's Pub, only that under certain circumstances, I ended up there, sort of like explorers stumbled onto Shangri-la, but without the mountains and snow and with a juke box heavy on my kind of music as beer was…

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Added by Mark Small on November 9, 2013 at 6:41am — No Comments

Veterans and hypocrisy.

   My father was vague about what he did in the years 1929 to about 1935. He maintained several stories that, when later I considered them, were inconsistent or simply did not make sense. He said he served in the United States Army, variously as an artillery person or a pilot of biplanes. Enlistment in the military was something many men in the depression that hit agricultural communities of the United States and in the Later Great Depression sought out. In the military, one had a job, three…

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Added by Mark Small on November 8, 2013 at 7:16am — No Comments

Veterans Day show, a bad M*A*S*H episode remembered, and the White River Yacht Club from 11 am to 1 pm.

   In an episode pf M*A*SH, Hawkeye becomes angry at an infantry officer. The officer insists on taking his unit back up into the hills to recover the bodies of members of his unit killed in battle the previous night. Hawkeye emphasizes the pointlessness in risking lives for those already dead. When I saw the episode---not as a re-run, but I have seen it since---I had worked construction, during school breaks, with a veteran of the Korean War (or, more accurately in history books, "police…

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Added by Mark Small on November 7, 2013 at 6:42am — No Comments

Matt Stone, blogger at "Indy Student," to join CDN on a more regular basis.

   Matt Stone has been a guest panelist every few weeks since our podcast began in early 2011. Last Saturday our Show focused on breast cancer. Matt did an excellent interview of his mother, a breast cancer survivor, and his sister. Matt blogged, over at his blog site "Indy Student," about the difficulty an interview of such a personal nature poses. You can listen to the interview, and the entire Show, on the Civil Discourse Now Face Book page, Live365, or at Indiana Talks. Our three guest…

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Added by Mark Small on November 5, 2013 at 6:35am — No Comments

Veterans' Day show: from the White River Yacht Club.

   A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me why Veterans' Day traditionally was celebrated on November 11. The reason is linked to the official end of World War I. The Treaty of Versailles took effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918. Some people who were in the trenches in Europe described how the sounds of gunfire suddenly came to a stop. World War I was fully mechanized brutality that wiped out a generation in Britain, France, Germany and the other…

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Added by Mark Small on November 4, 2013 at 7:16am — No Comments

November 2 Show: breast cancer awareness with survivors and a medical school researcher mfrom Mike's Pub, 5135 South Emerson.

   Breast cancer hits many people. On Saturday, November 2, from 11 am to 1 pm, Civil Discourse Now will stream live from Mike's Pub at 5135 South Emerson Avenue. Our focal topic will be breast cancer. Several breast cancer survivors will be guests. Also, skyping in from the Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, will be Randolph Elble, Ph.D., who conducts research at the school's Simmons Cancer Institute and Department of Pharmacology.  

Added by Mark Small on November 2, 2013 at 5:52am — No Comments

An alternative to The Monon Bell "stag" on November 13.

   Many people hype the 1960s as a decade of, well, decadence. From my extensive field research in the 1970s, and interviews of people who were in their late teens or early 20s and either in college or the military or both in the 1960s, the period, particularly after release of The Beatles' album "Revolver"---as an arbitrary, perhaps, but no less accurate gauge of change in there---was a time in which conventional mores were tossed aside to some degree. With all due respect---a cliche that…

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Added by Mark Small on October 31, 2013 at 6:14am — No Comments

New Ross, Indiana: We shall return for another Show.

   How people determine "hits" on a website, podcast or other individual shows or posts on the internet is, like so much of the internet (at least to this holder of a Bachelor of Arts degree) something of a mystery. Numbers can be derived from various places, but nothing seems to consolidate or total all of the hits from all of the places. The previous record for "hits" for a blog on this website was after the storm hit the State Fair and I wrote about the contract the daughter of the…

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Added by Mark Small on October 29, 2013 at 5:55am — No Comments

Death sport on its way to Indianapolis with East side's Elysian Fields cricket venue.

   A death in the sport of cricket---not the safe, barroom dart game made safer still when played with plastic-tipped darts, but the competition in which players wear padded, white uniforms and brandish clubs to swing at spherical projectiles---has occurred in South Africa. Thirty-two-year-old Darryn Randall was struck in the head while at bat in the town of Alice in the Southeast Cape. He had been a world-class cricketer. He was struck in the head during a match. There was no indication…

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Added by Mark Small on October 28, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

New Ross, Indiana: A place so very good.

   A town loses its high school and over the next 40 years sees people move away. Residents take action and do very cool things to rejuvenate the place. Civil Discourse Now streamed from such a place yesterday.

   In 1971 New Ross High School was consolidated with other schools to form Southmont High School. New Ross is located about ten miles southeast of Crawfordsville on U.S. 136. Wikipedia gives the town's population, from the 2010 census, as 367. Several years ago, residents…

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Added by Mark Small on October 27, 2013 at 5:53am — No Comments

New Ross, Indiana: Today's Show, a festival, and a crisp autmn day.

   New Ross is located on U.S. 136 12 miles southeast of Crawfordsville. The 2010 census placed the population at 347. The town has its own zip code (47968) and fire station. Three years ago residents decided to put on a play to raise money  for the Leland Cornett Memorial Park, a nature park. The money is handled by a 501(c)(3) organization. The first year, the play was put on by members of the New Ross High School class of 1971, the last year of the school's existence. The next's year's…

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Added by Mark Small on October 26, 2013 at 6:12am — No Comments

Hallowe'en this weekend, tits Nov 2, vets Nov 9, and the Monon Bell Show Nov 16 streamed live from Moores Bar.

   This weekend's Show we shall discuss Hallowe'en, as well as current matters in the news.

   Next weekend the focal topic will be breast cancer. Guests will include survivors of the disease (of whom my wife, Sarah, is one). The topic is very serious, but there will be some humor. There has to be some humor in the face of such a terrible malady.

   November 9 we shall stream live from the White River Yacht Club and engage guest panelists who include military veterans, since…

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Added by Mark Small on October 25, 2013 at 5:57am — No Comments

Saudi Arabia has assumed a chilly stance toward the United States.

   Saudi Arabia has long been seen as an ally of the United States. This is a general concept embraced in various columns and articles. United States military forces were allowed to stage actions on the peninsula for the 1991 Gulf War. This apparently upset Osama bin Laden. He was aghast that the holy ground of the peninsula upon which his religion was born should be touched by the combat boots of infidels.

   A lot of people in this country do not realize "Saudi Arabia" means Arabia…

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Added by Mark Small on October 24, 2013 at 6:00am — No Comments

Baseball: The season is too long and the World Series already should have been over by now. Sheesh.

   WARNING: The following blog contains discussion of baseball, a sport many people find boring. If you are prone to narcoleptic episodes, or profess to find baseball "boring" while, in the next breath, you gush enthusiasm for what, in this country, is called "soccer," please read no further.

   I take this break from argument over over-population and other serious matters to address an issue very personal to me. As I have written here, and stated on "Civil Discourse Now," several…

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Added by Mark Small on October 23, 2013 at 6:27am — No Comments

Paul Ogden misses the point on over-population.

   Over at Ogden on Politics, my good friend---always be wary when someone, in a political context, refers to another person as "my very good friend"; either a jab or pursuit of a job will follow---Paul Ogden has missed another point. He refers to an item written by a Catholic priest, Father John Hollowell, about a sign hung in a Northview High School, Brazil, Indiana, hallway that promotes the idea "Zero Population Growth/It's Up to You, No More Than Two." Paul's blog, and Father…

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Added by Mark Small on October 22, 2013 at 5:54am — No Comments

Indiana Voter ID law: perhaps re-litigation will produce different results.

   In 2008, the United States Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 881, upheld Indiana's voter ID law. The case had come up from the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Judicial Circuit, where Judge Richard Posner, in a 2-1 decision, held the law was constitutional. Recently, in an interview on HuffPostLive, Judge Posner acknowledged the decision was wrong and the dissent at the Seventh, written by the late Judge Terence Evans,…

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Added by Mark Small on October 21, 2013 at 6:11am — No Comments

"Body, Mind, Spirit": this week's Show streamed "live" from the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

   We will stream live from "Body, Mind, Spirit," on Saturday from 11 am to 1 pm for this week's "Civil Discourse Now." "Body, Mind, Spirit" is an exposition of people and providers in the holistic movement. As I blogged earlier this week, the website, http://bmse.net/bmseweb/event/eventhome.php, gives more details of booths where one can see "the best advances in alternative health and as always the nation's finest selections of…

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Added by Mark Small on October 18, 2013 at 5:47am — No Comments

Paul Ogden misses the point (again) on the tactic of counter-primarying.

   Paul Ogden replied to my modest proposal, of a couple of days ago, that voters in open primary States should cross over, or threaten to cross over, in primaries to protect the seats of those members of the United States House of Representatives who have resisted threats by tea baggers (a name originally used by such groups) to primary Republican incumbents who are not sufficiently right-wing. The premises for my argument were that in Congressional districts such as the district in which I…

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Added by Mark Small on October 17, 2013 at 6:07am — No Comments

This weekend: Body Mind Spirit at the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

   "Body Mind Spirit" stages expositions around the country. This weekend one such exposition will be at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. As the release for the exposition states:

  "Body Mind Spirit brings refreshed energy to the holistic movement in 2013. Join us for the latest in new thought presentations, the best advances in alternative health and as always the nation's finest selections of psychics and mediums. This year we have themed our events 'Time to Explore' and we invite…

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Added by Mark Small on October 16, 2013 at 5:43am — No Comments

A modest proposal: tell tea baggers we will cross over to protect incumbent Republicans who lean moderate.

   Math, when applied to Congress, can be a strange thing. "Majority" used to mean, in the United States Senate, 60 votes. In the United States House of Representatives, it used to mean 218 votes. Now the nation is perched on the edge of that hackneyed fiscal cliff. The reason, in large part, is the threat tea baggers, who hold fewer than 50 seats in the House. That is around 12 percent of the House Membership.

   In an abstract to an article, "Getting Primaried: The Growth and…

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Added by Mark Small on October 15, 2013 at 5:52am — 1 Comment

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