Yesterday, the DePauw University football team won the Monon Bell for the fourth consecutive year, 41-20. Since at least 1999 I have watched the game streamed live at the “official” Indy site, Broad Ripple Tavern. (It’s extremely annoying when one repeats a garish 41-20 score.) 1/6

DePauw’s website has a logo for the game on the University’s website. Some people might not realize there actually is a bell for a traveling trophy. The Monon Bell, kept for the fourth year in a row by…

Alumni gather for reunions this weekend at DePauw University, my alma mater, a phrase that means “soul mother.” I remember looking from Bishop Roberts Hall (“BR”) across the Dells and feeling like I had found my home. During first year, we made quite a few 1/9

debate tournaments. A frequent opponent was DePauw’s arch rival, Wabash College, a males-only school. The “oldest rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains” is best known for The Monon Bell game. The rivalry plays out in other…

Today DePauw University, my alma mater, plays football against a team from Crawfordsville for the Monon Bell. This is “the oldest rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains,” but colleges and universities should not play a game that, long-term, leads to brain damage from “CTE”. 1/6

Chronic traumatic encephalopathy: progressive degenerative disease from repeated concussions & traumatic brain injuries. CTE destroys lives of players & their loved ones. College is a time to expand,…

   Tomorrow's Show will stream live from Moore's Bar, 17 South Indiana, in beautiful Greencastle, Indiana. DePauw University will host Wabash College, a school of cretinous misogynists located in Crawfordsville.

   Wabash has won the past four meetings. There use to be a debate each year, in a series known as the Monon Bell debates. Those debates were after my time. We debated Wabash, at tournaments and in audience settings, and won. I do not recall a loss to Wabash. The Monon Bell…

   In Salt Lake City, from November 19 to 24, chief negotiators will meet for a summit on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, described by one observer as "the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world's GDP."  "Pivotal Trans-Pacific Partnership Section Revealed," PopularResistance.org, 11/13/09. When one has to find out details of trade treaties from Wikileaks, one is left with a skeptical opinion of what the latest treaty holds.

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   Alums of DePauw and alums of Wabash should gather at the Broad Ripple Tavern around 5 p.m. as a counter to the males-only "stag" held at about the same time at the Murat. DePauw alumnae and Wabash transgender alums are welcome to attend the informal gathering at 735 Broad Ripple Avenue. The same cannot be said about the "stag," an event that was on hiatus from the late 1980s until a couple of years ago. Wear your school colors, or not. Saturday the game will be played at Blackstock…

   Private colleges have more latitude, in some respects, than public universities. Race is not part of that latitude. Bob Jones University originally did not accept African-Americans for enrollment. In 1970 BJU softened that position. Black students were accepted for enrollment, but interracial dating was prohibited. Students guilty of such conduct could be expelled. Even membership in an organization that espoused a belief that interracial dating should be allowed subjected a student to…

   This Saturday is the Monon Bell Game, the annual contest between the football teams of DePauw University and Wabash College. I graduated from DePauw. As I wrote last week, I received an e-mail invitation from the DePauw Alumni Association to the Monon Bell Stag, a party held, this year at the Murat, in which drinks are served, dinner had and humorous speakers speak. The "stag" did not occur for about a dozen years. Perhaps the notion of an all-male event for alumni of two schools, one of…

   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…

   Last weekend was DePauw University's alumni weekend. Because I was on a special five-year program for my degree at DePauw, I have two "reunion" years---anniversaries of graduations divisible by the number five.

   Putnam County, in which Greencastle and DePauw are located banned smoking in 2007 in public places. I spoke with a lot of people about the Indianapolis ban and the litigation over it. I was (pleasantly) surprised by the reaction of the alums with whom I spoke. Generally,…

   With a blizzard imminent—the first flakes of a projected 12 inches have just begun at 5:25 a.m., and the wind gusts—I want to relate my experiences during the infamous Blizzard of 1978.

   During January, DePauw University stages Winter Term, a month during which students take one course to have fun with knowledge. I had opted for a fifth year at DPU and had completed the four required WTs (two years of "varsity debate, attending the tournaments I would have attended had there been…

Hiatus as we re-gear for a better "Civil Discourse Now." And I returned from DePauw.

   We shall be on hiatus for the next couple of weeks as we re-gear The Show and the website. We shall upstream "live," but not immediately upon return June 23.

   The website also is under re-construction. I never had heard of "Ning" before we started "Civil Discourse Now." I thought "Ning" was the evil emperor on "Flash Gordon." While I am certain it is a platform service of…

Today, at the Broad Ripple Tavern, 745 Broad Ripple Avenue, Indianapolis, Mark Small, DePauw '78, and Carlos May, a Wabash alum and former Republican candidate for Congress will discuss/debate whether there are merits to single-gender post-secondary education. Paul Ogden will moderate. We start at 11:30 a.m. Kick-off for the Monon Bell game is a little after 1 pm. All, over  age 21, are welcome.