Opinion

You wouldn’t think early December to be the time for field trips.

Since I am unemployed and unemployable, I am blessed with the luxury of deciding how I spend my time. That is not necessarily a good thing as I am a soft target for church- and community-related volunteer jobs. It’s my own fault, so I won’t blame anyone else for the fact that my days are usually filled with meetings, volunteer work jobs and non-degree graduate school classes.

I have visited Bethlehem only once and that was nearly 50 years ago, but I will never forget the experience. As is true of other Christians, I came not as a tourist, but as a pilgrim. Tourists are attracted to sacred sites for many reasons. Some come out of curiosity. Some come because they’ve been told by friends or travel books that the site is a “must see.” Others might come for the simple reason that the site is famous for drawing crowds, and crowds can’t be wrong, can they?

(Anderson) Herald Bulletin

Americans are fed up with politics. That’s the obvious conclusion of a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, which found many of us have “unrelentingly negative” views of politics and elected officials.

Indiana became a state 207 years ago. All of our governors and U.S. senators have been white guys. So have all our House speakers, Senate presidents, House Ways & Means and Senate Finance and Appropriation committee chairs.

The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette

I’m calling the time we live in the ‘Great Discordance’ between the perceptions Americans have about the economy and the actual state of the economy. By nearly every measure we are in a period of remarkably strong economic performance. This is especially true of those measures economists typically use to judge the overall strength of an economy.

The (Columbus) Republic

Time tends to quiet the tumults and turbulences of the past.