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,…

   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…

   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…

   "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…

   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…

   Children in the early 1960s were taught about the discovery of the New World. Christopher Columbus was depicted as a courageous gambler. Contrary to widely-held belief, we were taught, he thought the World was round. He took his case to the benevolent monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella, who decided to gamble on this well-intentioned man of vision. Columbus set sail with three ships, the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. As the voyage west grew longer, his crews became mutinous.…

   One could argue people should try to reach inside themselves, each to find that "noble savage" of whom Jean Jacques Rousseau once wrote. Between romps with his latest wealthy female backer, Rousseau envisioned a primordial figure who was innocent and resourceful. The "noble savage" had no need for government or the social contract, the fictional agreement a person makes with the sovereign in which the former trades freedom for security from the latter. 

   There would appear to…

   On my father's side of the family, construction contractors go back at least three generations. Starting at the age of eight, I worked Saturday mornings for 50 cents per hour to clean the office and shop areas of my old man's plumbing, heating & air-conditioning place of business (always called, by him, "The Shop"). He gave me a choice: that or I could attend catechism classes. I chose dollars over deity. Later, he went solely into commercial sheet metal work. I continued to put in…

   Speaker of the House John Boehner denied this weekend there are enough votes in the House of Representatives to pass what is called a "clean" bill to fund the Federal government. A "clean bill," in the context of the current shutdown, would be a bill that authorizes funding of the Federal government without any extraneous provisions, i.e. provisions to de-fund the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. President Obama addressed the Speaker's statement and asked the Speaker send…

   The noted political philosopher Andy Warhol---seriously, the pop-culture artist who made money when he painted a picture of a Campbell's Soup can on canvas and proved, as Marshall McLuhan once wrote, "Art is anything you can get away with"---once observed something to the effect that everyone should have 15 minutes of fame. Americans apparently have taken this notion to heart, as political issues are fed, one at a time, into a media pressure-cooker and occupy the public's limited…

   We shall stream "live" from the Rehab Bar and Grill, 5135 South Emerson, from 11 am to 1 pm. If you head south on Emerson, go through the intersection at Thompson Road. A K-Mart is on the corner. Go south a bit more to the strip center in K-Mart's backyard. Joining us as guest panelists:

   Jeff Kunkel is a well-known occultist; musician, composer and multi-instrumentalist; author, writer and philosopher; historian of tarot cards; and a student of Celtic (not Boston NBA team)…

   Gary Snyder's "Round Table," if you have not heard it, is a political discussion that runs weeknights on "Indiana Talks," roughly from 8:30 to 9. Last night I was privileged to be a guest, along with Pepper Snyder, who co-hosts a show on "Indiana Talks," and Andrew Markle, who is a candidate for Indiana House from the 99th District. At some point our conversation turned to American education. Mr. Markle is under the mistaken impression that Finland, to which many people look and regard as…

   People posted comments yesterday and the day before to the effect nothing has changed for them since the Federal government shutdown. The phenomenon is reminiscent of people in the 1800s scoffed at the notion little organisms they could not see with the naked eye (viruses) or practices in which their people had engaged for centuries (obtaining water downstream from where people deposited human waste) could cause disease. Tuesday seemed like any other day. 

   I would like to point…

   Sometimes aspects of one's life criss-cross, then, more infrequently, they come together to form a nexus.

   Yesterday, at about this time, shortly after 5 a.m., I tried to get onto one the health insurance marketplace for people who live in Indiana. I could not get through. Finally a customer service rep came onto the chat box, apologized for the backlog and asked that I try back later. Later I learned there had been over one million (1,000,000) hits on the website before 7 a.m.…

   As I prepared for yesterday's debate with Andrew Kirch and Miah Akston, I focused on the insurance exchanges and possible rates of premiums under Obamacare, presently scheduled to take effect day after tomorrow. The reasons for the focus were selfish, to a large degree. I have a pre-existing condition, about which I have made no secrets. I blogged a series about multiple sclerosis and the Mini-Marathon last year with a reprise this year. Rates for health insurance will fall. With multiple…

   Public discourse about the Affordable Care Act a/k/a Obamacare has sorely lacked facts. A few weeks ago, on "Civil Discourse Now," Ryan Ripley of "We Are Libertarians" and I engaged in civil and, I thought, informative debate about whether ACA/Obamacare was or is constitutional.  

   Today Miah Akston of "The Uncontrollables" and "Creating Miah" and Andrew D. Kirch will join me from 11 am to 1 pm to discuss/debate/argue generally about ACA/Obamacare.

   There are a lot of…

   I have a pre-existing condition, multiple sclerosis. Sarah is a cancer survivor. We were soaked by health insurance premiums, of almost two grand a month. I got us switched to a PPO last year for a significantly lower premium, under $600 total. One problem is the prescription drug coverage is not nearly as good as what my policy had been. Nonetheless, that monthly number was lowered.

   Since last year, even after we obtained the PPO coverage, I have shopped for major medical…

   Serial killers fascinate the American public. "Silence of the Lambs" is only one example of a work from Hollywood, or whatever geographical location one uses to describe film/TV, that glorifies serial killers. Fascination does not equate with cheerleading, but some parts of that fascination overlap. Jack the Ripper might have been the first serial killer to gain notoriety. More recently, when Ted Bundy was tried, he had groupies who sat in court each day and hung on his every word and…

   Whether the color is blue, an example I used last week, or red, as I shall use today, the question still is the same. Do States, or their political subdivisions such as counties and cities, have power, under the United States Constitution, to outlaw whatever conduct they wish under so-called police powers of the States? I use the color red today as I found studies that have determined the color red can cause some people to become angry. I will address that in a moment.

   Paul…

   An aspiring but ultimately (at best) mediocre Austrian artist attempted to take over Germany in a Munich beer hall. Adolf Hitler learned from the experience. Later he sought to take over Germany---finally becoming a citizen along the way---by using the system. Although his National Socialist Workers Party, the nickname for which, "Nazi," derived from the acronym of German words, at first garnered few followers and not many more votes, ultimately, Hitler succeeded in his quest. Hitler's…