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By Conservative Professor

The nation turned to our town this week and screams in sickening horror with us over the murder and abuse of a child. Why do we care? Why do they care?

It goes beyond tabloid shows and egotistical media hunting days after the disappearance for a story. It goes beyond headline grabbing Facebook profiles. It goes to the heart of where we walk and drive and live and breathe.

We care because we are horrified evil lives among us.  We care because we have few answers. We care because we are screaming for a life raft after the ship has sunk.

We are aghast that a child, once in our midst, suffered for years and those in charge of her care not only caused, but also contributed to her demise.

We surged through our holidays focused on the perfect gift for someone on a list. We have angst over the right color of socks to wear with pants. And, seemingly, out of nowhere, we have discovered utter pain and the worst, unimaginable crime has taken place where we live. We suddenly are staring at a shattered perspective in our community’s mirror.

There are friends who will never be with her again. There are teachers, and bus drivers, and other 3rd graders who will be forever untouched. There are police and firemen and medical professionals who have been on the front line of the crime. We care because we know so many are grieving.

We are scared for the other two children involved.

We turn to our own children and have to explain that there are people who do horrible crimes when all we want is to tell them life will be O.K.  And we know it doesn’t always turn out that way.

We want answers as a society to try to understand how we can possibly, ever so possibly, prevent this from ever coming close to happening again.

We can point, now, to the awful judgement her mother and many others showed towards Aliahna. But it is not enough to shout out our disdain.

We  must make demands of our prosecutors, our judges, and our lawmakers to do everything we can to keep sexual predators and offenders away from our children. We know the penalties for dismembering a body are no where near what they should be. We are not doing enough.

“Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them”. — Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)”

I walked into my classroom this week, midway through the semester, and see 4 students. That’s all. Out of 24 who were signed up and 23 who showed up the first week, all I had in front of me were these students. These are all who I will see the rest of the semester.

No, it’s not that so many realized they failed-in fact not one student of mine left failing. Was the problem me? No, not by the appearance of every classroom I peered into and those I continue to gauge. No, not by the comments made by other professors. “It’s just what happens at this point,” stated a colleague. Read the rest of this entry »

Once upon a time, a man wanted to run a small business in a growing city. He was sure he would prosper. His business grew and grew and grew, until one day when the body politic interferred. The man’s business began to be mired in paperwork. The legality of simple cooking at his Chuck Wagon barbecue restaurant came into question. The man became distraught. The man died. His name was Bruce Marshall.

What happened, unfortunately, was a pattern repeated in the years following. Between the smoking ban’s effect on small taverns/club owners and the health official’s petty enforcement of ordinances, many a man lost a business. Read the rest of this entry »

Sources tell us republican Fort Wayne City Councilwoman Liz Brown will announce her intentions to run for Mayor of Fort Wayne within the next 2 weeks.

Allen County Council woman Paula Hughes will make her run for mayor official next Tuesday, September 28.

Yesterday wasn’t as though I could forget. 9 years after the events surrounding the terrorism attacks on the United States, I was deluged with politician’s statements, event invitations and memorial speeches on AM radio. But I also wasn’t feeling particularly deep about the date, as it happened nearly a decade ago. Read the rest of this entry »

AWB reporting from the 3rd District Caucus in Columbia City:

3rd round vote to put Stuzman on the ballot. Caucus is over:

Stutzman–260

Thonert–2

Wright-1

Stutzman is the official winner.

AWB reporting from 3rd District Caucus in Columbia City:

Caucus is voting again with Stuzman, Thonert and Wright to replace Souder in Congress.

Thonert and Wright apparently left the caucus without ‘signing off’ to replace Souder on the November Ballot.

2nd Round results from AWB, reporting from 3rd District Caucus in Columbia City:

204 needed to win

Marlin Stutzman–229

Liz Brown–39

Ryan Elijah–46

Bob Thomas–17

Randy Borror–69

AWB Reporting from 3rd District Congressional Caucus in Columbia City:

Round 1 voting:

Need 21 to stay on after first ballot. 204 to win.

Marlin Stutzman–180

Liz Brown–46

Randy Borror–67

Ryan Elijah–43

Lonnie Powell–1

Greg Dickman–0

Mike Foster–5

Rachel Grubb–1

Richard Thonert–0

Soctt Welsh–0

Bob Morris–16

Dennis Wright–11

Joe Schomburg–4

Bob Thomas–21

Wes Culver–11

AWB reporting from 3rd District Caucus in Columbia City:

407 Delegates here. Voting starts soon.

AWB reports from the 3rd District Congressional Caucus in Columbia City:

Precinct Committeeman Dave Dupee, from Allen County, made a motion to have the same candidate be nominated in the voting for both the Special Election and General Election. They are currently in recess and are discussing rules.

Motion was withdrawn.

Voting may start in half an hour or so.