I have been called a lot of not so pleasant names in my 40-something years of living on this planet, and most of them were true.   However, whenever I get called a “liberal” I have to take a little bit of an issue.

In the wake of recent legal decisions, my position on same-sex marriage has gotten some folks rather worked up. Usually these are people who spend a rather unhealthy amount of time obsessing over other people’s sex lives as opposed to going out and having one of their own.  I’ve always said if you don’t like gay marriage, don’t marry someone who’s gay.

I’ve always  considered myself more fiscally conservative and socially libertarian.  I support vouchers and school choice, as well as right to work, reducing welfare and reforming entitlements.  I think the income tax should be replaced by a consumption tax.  However when it comes to people’s private parts, I believe they are just that, private.

In a nutshell if the issue doesn’t cost me money or infringe on my personal freedom or property, I have a hard time getting worked up over it.   Same-sex marriage falls into that category.  I just don’t see how two individuals who have given their informed consent to be in a lifelong relationship and legally assume responsibility for each other is a bad thing.

And please spare me the “what about the children”?   I can make an argument that on average that people who can’t have children on their own sometimes make better parents than ones who can since they have to jump through more hoops to get them and they can’t just go hook up in a bar one night and then leave us taxpayers with the bill for the next 18 years.

And while we’re leaving the ridiculous argument about can someone marry their horse?  That was an episode of Jerry Springer.

I could go on all day about this, but I have more important things to do.  But in a nutshell, there is nothing “liberal” about supporting or not opposing same-sex marriage. If anything folks who label themselves as conservatives should celebrate consenting adults exercising their personal liberty and freedom and agreeing to take responsibility for each other.  Would you rather the government do it?

Now I have to go buy some flowers for my wife because that’s the only marriage I get excited over.

When I go down the list of things that I worry about, the Ebola virus is not one of them.

As you may be aware the Center for Disease Control announced Monday the first diagnosed case of Ebola here in the United States.   According to media reports, the unidentified man left Liberia on September 19 and arrived in the United States on September 20.  He did not show any symptoms of Ebola and he is now in an isolation unit in a Dallas hospital.

Now this is the point where people start to freak out and images from The Walking Dead or a George Romero film start to come into play.

I am always amazed at the paranoia when it comes to this sort of thing, especially since Ebola is not an airborne pathogen.  You have to come into physical contact with the person.  Or you have to exchange bodily fluids.

So unless you’ve been to Liberia lately, or have exchanged urine, saliva, feces, vomit, or semen with someone with Ebola, then I don’t think you have anything to worry about either.

There are plenty of other things in this world to be paranoid about, just look over your shoulder.

Although I am more of a “Target” person, I find myself in the odd position of using this space to defend Wal-Mart.

I was recently in my boyhood neighborhood on the South side of Chicago checking on my parents who are getting up there in years.  I took my Dad grocery shopping and instead of hitting the usual Jewel-Osco, he wanted to go to Wal-Mart instead.

The store in the Chatham neighborhood,  near 85^th Street and the Dan Ryan expressway  and a seven-year long battle took place before it could locate on the site of a former steel company.

When Wal-Mart unveiled its original plans, it was met with opposition from unions and activists, who according to media reports at the time used every political and zoning trick in the book to try and keep it out of the city.

And then the recession hit; people needed jobs and more importantly, Chicago needed tax revenue.

The store has been a welcome shot in the arm for that area.   The folks in that neighborhood are employed and they have a grocery store that is reasonably priced.  In addition, development has started to go up around Wal-Mart.  There is a Lowe’s hardware store next door and more plans are in the work to bring more businesses to the area.

Now there are those of you who will complain about Wal-Mart’s wages and benefits, however if you do some investigation, you’ll find that the retailer’s full-time employees don’t do too badly and part-time employees can move up the ladder if they stay long enough.  And seeing what the wages were for a lot of the folks didn’t have a job BEFORE Wal-Mart showed up, I don’t think they’re complaining too much.

So does all this mean I will switch to Wal-Mart instead of Target?   Not at all.  But for thousands of families on Chicago’s south side, Wal-Mart is perfect for them.

Whenever I am asked whether Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard will run for a third term, my answer is pretty simple.  It depends on the day you catch him; some days he is gung ho, other days he’s ready to call it a day.

Ballard ignited a lot of speculation about his future this past week when he confirmed to a local reporter that he’d been having some conversations with Cathedral High School to possibly takeover as their President.

That news (which I speculate was leaked by a Democrat with ties to the school) got Indy’s political class in a tizzy.

But putting the feeding frenzy aside, it’s easy to see why Ballard hasn’t made a decision yet.   As I’ve written in other forums, while he enjoys being Mayor as he gets older, he’ll be 60 this year, there’s always the question about the energy for another political campaign, especially when you have a city to run also.

In addition, Cathedral isn’t the only place that’s had the Mayor on its radar screen.  And whatever decision Ballard makes won’t be a solo one, his wife Winnie will have a lot of say in his decision to run.

If he does run, it will be tough race, but I think he can win.  The Democrats’ own polling, I hear, has him beating both Joe Hogsett and Ed DeLaney.    If he doesn’t run, there are a lot of names being thrown out as to who might run in his stead, the one that peaks my curiosity the most is IMPD Chief Rick Hite.

Regardless, I can assure whatever decision Ballard reaches it will be both thoughtful and balanced and have the best interests of his family and city at heart.   And while I would like to see him hold the office for a third time, if he decides to call it a day the fact that he beat the Marion County Democrats twice is a nice consolation prize.

Normally when I go cover a city budget address, I don’t expect to walk into the middle of a controversy.

Here’s what happened.  I went to the Indy City-County Council meeting Monday night to cover the Mayor Greg Ballard’s budget address.  In the Council Chambers, several Democratic Councilors displayed signs saying “Hands Up…Don’t Shoot”  And it included a stick-like figure with his hands up.  This is obviously the Councilors trying to show “solidarity” with what’s going on Ferguson, MO.

I have several issues with this.

1. We still don’t know all the facts with respect to what happened.
2. This was done on the day of the 10th anniversary of the death of IMPD Officer Jake Laird.
3. Numerous young black men have been gunned down in Indy this year by other black men and no one has displayed a sign for them.

Now with that said, I did send a text message to two of the Councilors (there were about six total) who displayed the signs to find out what they were thinking.  One declined, but Vop Osili of District 15, did get back with me.  Here was his response…

“The issue of white police officer-on-black-youth homicide has pervasive nationally for generations.  So many people, me included, feel increasing sensitivity about the ease with which kids (and I am aware many are far from being angels) can be singled out, gunned down and the person responsible walk away and resume life in a fairly short time.  There is no humor here and no disrespect to the memory of our slain officer, none whatsoever.  But there is a generational fear in so, so many families and decades of public nonchalance have hardened people to the plight.”

I fully understand that in some communities there is tension between the black community and law enforcement, and I will give Osili some props for getting back with me even though we disagree.

However, and you knew that was coming, I don’t think the Indianapolis City-County Council was the right place to do this sort of thing. I think it sends the wrong message and only causes more problems than it hopes to address because I think it can be interpreted as something against all law enforcement and not one individual who might have gone rogue.

What do you think?

I’ve been out of town for a few days, but even in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan my wife and I couldn’t get away from news coverage of what’s going on in Ferguson, MO.

I think I can speak somewhat intelligently on this seeing how I spent three years going to law school in St. Louis, so I am somewhat familiar with the lay of the land.

With respect to Ferguson, it is a classic example of how everything that could go wrong did.

The robbery over a pack of cheap cigars, police overreaching by arresting journalists, outsiders coming in and looting, you name it.

But deep at heart with this entire situation is the issue of relationships, particularly between police and the communities that they serve.

The Ferguson Police Department did not look like the community it represents, nor did it have the relationship with the business and faith-based community that it should have, because if it did, a lot of this might have been avoided.

That is something that should never be lost on Indianapolis and other major cities. No matter how many police you put on the street, it won’t make a difference unless the department has an open, honest and trustworthy relationship with the community that it serves.

People don’t take to the streets for the last thing you did, it’s all the other stuff beforehand that should have been dealt with a long time ago.

Just a few thoughts; it’s nice to be back.

There is a new exhibit coming to the Marion County Public Library this week that is definitely going to stir a lot of controversy, but more importantly I hope it stirs a lot of thought.

It is called “Kin Killin Kin”.  Yes, the initials are KKK.

And no, we’re are not talking about something out of “Birth of Nation” or “Roots”.   We are talking about artist James Pate telling a story that if it were not tragic, it would be almost laughable.

It tells the story of urban youth violence and the fact that more African-American males are more likely to be killed by other Black males than anyone else.  Here in Indianapolis where blacks make up about 27 percent of the population, for the first half of this year blacks have made up approximately 70 percent of the murder victims and in cases where the racial identity of both the victim and suspect were know, blacks killing other blacks were at least a third of the murders.

As my wife once told me “who needs the Klan to kill us when we have each other”?

Pate’s images make that same point, however as an artist he goes further in what is described as a “visual call-to-action to find solutions to youth and gun violence in the community and created in hopes of engaging our youth and community in acknowledging that harsh reality of gun violence, and to dialogue positive alternatives and solutions towards negative behavior.”

If you get a chance, check it out.  I think this is pretty powerful stuff.

The ISTEP+ test scores are in and guess what, despite the crocodile tears of the status quo, students continue to make improvements.

As you may have seen, according to the Indiana Department of Education 80.7% of Indiana students in public schools passed the English/Language Arts portion of the test, up from 79.5% in 2013. In Math, 83.5% passed, up from 83.0% in 2013.   Finally, 74.7% of Indiana students passed both English/Language Arts and Math, up from 73.7% last year.

Our friends at Chalkbeat Indiana have a database where you can look up your kid;s school and see how they did.

Remember last year, when we had the ISTEP test glitch and the education establishment wanted to have the exams thrown out, but it turned out students overall did better than the year before, and they clammed up.

Now the big concern is a new test to meet federal standards and No Child Left Behind, and once again, there will be more whining about high stakes testing.  But if you look at the results, the kids seem to be handling things just well, maybe the adults could learn a thing or two from them.