The indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry is as woeful as Congressional Republicans’ threat of a lawsuit against President Obama. At first I wrote “silly,” but changed the adjective, because the criminal action in Texas and the civil action in (presumably) a United States District Court waste public resources and open balance-of-powers questions to litigation.

   First, a word about the Texas situation. I do not like Governor Perry. I consider myself to be left-wing, if that term…

   Sorry, Mayor Gregory "I've Never Met a Tax Raise I Couldn't Okay or a Well-connected Donor I Couldn't Benefit" Ballard and his coterie of campaign contributors will not be on Civil Discourse Now. Instead, two guests today have studied the cronyism that is YOUR Indianapolis city political system for several years.

   Pat Andrews, who blogs at “Had Enough Indy?” and Gary Welsh, of “Advance Indiana” will be our guests when we stream live today from The Sinking Ship, 4923 North…

   I was wakened about 3 a.m. The voice came from the kitchen. I rose, closed the bedroom door quietly behind me, and started to reach for the wall switch. Simultaneously I noticed a strange glow of sufficient strength to find my way, and a voice hiss, “Lights stay out.”

   The latter annoyed me. “This is my house.”

   “Not while Hizzoner’s in it, it ain’t,” the voice hissed in a familiar accent.

   In May I wrote about a seance I had arranged. With corruption so rife in…

   Apparently Mayor Ballard, before he leaves office, wants to commit Indianapolis to as many long-term leases—if he cannot sell City assets cheap—as possible. His latest contract is with a New Jersey waste management corporation—we neither make these things up nor need to make them up. Okay, so the fictional Tony Soprano ran a waste management company in “The Sopranos.” Tony was an environmental sort of guy.

   The pitch of Covanta, the company in question, is that they turn waste into…

   The column was below the fold, but still on page one of Sunday’s edition of what was a fairly good newspaper.  The Indianapolis Star consists of a lot of ads (to make money in a time when many people read the stories the day before on the internet the paper prints the next day; such is technology), sections provided by McNew a/k/a USA Today, a few good articles, and, well, the rest.

   Matthew Tully did not disappoint (if one anticipated he would provide his usual contribution to “the…

   Indianapolis needs a new building for its courts, jail, and police.

   The Ballard administration has floated an idea. The City pays for construction, then hands over the keys to a foreign conglomerate and pays rent to that new landlord.

   Wait—why would be build a structure, give the structure away (i.e., “sell” it for an absurdly low price), and pay rent to the entity to which it was given?

   Here are possible reasons:

   1) The entity that will charge rent and make…

   On “Property Lines” at the IBJ, a blog by Scott Olson announced: “A local developer plans to build a five-story office building on the site of a closed American Legion post in Broad Ripple.  At 85 feet, the ambitious project would be the tallest in the village, even topping by 10 feet Browning Investment, Inc.’s proposed retail-and-apartment development on College Avenue near the Central Canal.”  

   Olson continues: “The Broad Ripple Village Association’s [BRVA] land-use and…

   Republican candidate for the United States Senate in Iowa, Joni Ernst—who has run a TV ad in which she fires a handgun in a practice range, a metaphor on how “tough” she would be if elected—has been the subject of a story on The Daily Beast.  There the candidate was shown speaing on September 13, 2013, at “a forum held by the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition” in which Ernst said, among other things, Congress should not pass laws “that the states would consider nullifying” and “we’ve…

   Matthew Tully’s column in the Sunday edition of the shell of the former Indianapolis Star depressed me.

   I was not depressed about his recitation of aspects of crime in Broad Ripple. I have been depressed about crime here for a while.  His reference to a person’s smartphone app showing red over the Broad Ripple area—“indicating [Broad Ripple’]s depressing crime statistics.  That, he said, is what potential home buyers will see”—did not surprise me.  Crime has been on the uprise…

   Today’s Show will stream from Perk Up, 6536 Cornell Avenue, in Broad Ripple. We shall discuss whether there should be a constitutional convention, and the impact were such a convention to be held. Fellow host Matt Stone and I welcome three guest panelists for this conversation.

   Paul Mannweiler is former speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives.  He received his bachelor’s degree from IU and his JD from Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis. He has written a couple of…

  People want simple solutions to complex problems. Simple solutions reassure. If solutions are too complex, people lost interest.

   Ignorance tends to instill fear.  Fear can lead to violence.

   People speak of the “Founders” of this country, and oftentimes use “Founders” to refer to the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia.  I disagree with application of “Founders” to the convention delegates.  A “founder” is one who “founds or establishes.”  The…

   On Saturday, July 23, we shall, from 11 am to 1 pm, discuss the idea advanced by some today to hold a constitutional convention, under Article V of the Constitution.

   What type of document would such a convention today produce, as compared to the document produced by the Framers in 1787.

   For a document that established the structure of our government, the Constitution is short, even with the Bill of Rights, adopted after the Convention, are added.

   Could today’s…

   A gentleman knocked on the side door this evening. He had a padded sort of clipboard in one hand, wore a shirt with a patch of a logo for "Protection One." He said "we" are following up on Broad Ripple residents, like me, who had attended a meeting last spring and who expressed satisfaction with our home security systems. He asked if my name is Mark, if our home security system was the same as the decals in our windows, and if we are satisfied with our home system. I told him our security…

   In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson made a strong case that the Soviet Union had placed intermediate-range ballistic missiles—with ranges sufficient to hit targets, such as New York City and Washington, D.C.—in Cuba. The Ambassador used photographs taken from U-2 spy planes to show what was on an island only 90 miles or so from the tip of Florida. In regard to a response from the Soviet Union’s ambassador, Stevenson…

   In 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, United States Ambassador to the United Nations Adlai Stevenson made a strong case that the Soviet Union had placed intermediate-range ballistic missiles—with ranges sufficient to hit targets, such as New York City and Washington, D.C.—in Cuba. The Ambassador used photographs taken from U-2 spy planes to show what was on an island only 90 miles or so from the tip of Florida. In regard to a response from the Soviet Union’s ambassador, Stevenson…

   Big studio movies—films that play in cineplexes and were produced with big budgets—are the primary fare for moviegoers. Four of the top five films at the box office last week make on shudder at the level of intellectual content of such works.  First was “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.”  The first part of the original string of “Planet of the Apes” films, with Charlton (“Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape—and you can take away my gun when you pry off the fingers of my cold dead…

   The Indianapolis International Film Festival starts Thursday. Do yourself a favor: go to indyfilmfest.org and read the descriptions of the films, then check the schedules. If you find a description or two interest you, you should try to attend.

   The films shown at the Indianapolis International Film Festival do not feature car chases or shootouts. The films have off-beat storylines and a lot of talent. You might not like some of the films you see there.

   How many films have…

   The Zionsville school board has tabled, for now, a proposal to randomly test students for drugs.  Those not familiar with such tests should realize they can consist of tests of blood, saliva, urine, or hair.  Results can indicate “false positives,” and so a positive test usually is followed by another test to confirm presence of whatever the illicit substance might have been revealed in the first test.

   One parent was quoted: “If you want to test my child, test my child!”

  …

   One’s cynicism increases with age, and as one lives each day in a City whose Mayor is Greg Ballard.

   When the town hall-type meetings were held last year to discuss the proposed Whole Foods development on College Avenue, the “Envision” plan for Broad Ripple was discussed. The people who “Envision” change in Broad Ripple wanted to convert more areas to be pedestrian-friendly. There was talk of conversion of parts of Broad Ripple Avenue to a pedestrians-only mall. Pedestrians would…

   There have been calls for the States to convene to make changes to the United States Constitution. Article V of the Constitution provides:

   “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this…