Cartoons and Indiana

 Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on the impeachment inquiry

Cartoon: Mike Luckovich on Republicans blaming Democrats 

Cartoon: Trump's new campaign slogan 

The 15 Worst Schools In Indiana Today 

Were These Three Indiana Restaurants Cursed by Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives? 

Muncie mayor candidates outline plans to prevent mass shootings  

 I used to like rye whiskey. That I barely drink nowadays is not why I link you to The 9 Best Affordable Rye Whiskeys to Drink Right Now, but because of:

Make no mistake — there are some very pricey bottles of rye whiskey out there like Michter’s 10 Year Old, Thomas H. Handy (part of the annual Buffalo Trace Antique Collection), WhistlePig Boss Hog and some Kentucky Owl rye batches. But the category is also full of inexpensive, high-quality options, mostly from the bigger distilleries in Kentucky and MGP in Indiana. Some of these are on the immature side at around four years old, but that’s okay! There are many who believe rye can shine at a younger age than bourbon.

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George Dickel Rye

Dickel does make a little rye whiskey at its Tennessee distillery, which recently turned up in the Collaboration Blend made in partnership with Colorado distillery Leopold Bros. But the core rye whiskey is made from a mash bill of 95% rye and 5% malted barley at MGP in Indiana (now known as Ross & Squibb), the factory-like operation that produces a whole lot of whiskey for a whole lot of other brands. This is classic MGP rye, with a big hit of spice on the front end that fades into notes of vanilla, caramel and oak. It does exactly what it was intended to do at a low price point.

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Redemption Rye

Redemption is another brand that sources from MGP, using that same 95% rye mash bill. But it’s all about barrel selection and blending, and the team at Redemption are experts at coming up with a quality whiskey built for use in cocktails without emptying your wallet. There are some other higher-end expressions to check out as well, like the rum cask finish and 10-year-old barrel-proof rye, but the core release is an affordable rye whiskey that’s ideal for your home bar and gets right to the point.

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Hard Truth High Road Rye

MGP isn’t the only rye whiskey game in the state of Indiana anymore. Hard Truth Distilling Co. entered the field in 2015 and has come into its own with this 93-proof, sweet mash rye (meaning no backset from previous distillations is included in each new distillation). The mash bill is 55% rye, 36% corn and 9% malted barley, a change from the distillery’s original mash bill of 94% rye. This is approachable, tasty and affordable and a great example of what the craft world is doing with rye whiskey.

Who knew Indiana had this much influence?

Finally, In the interests of all: How Eugene V Debs turned American republicanism against the chiefs of capitalism – and became a true crusader for freedom:

Graduating from the paint shop to a job as a locomotive fireman, his mother pleaded with Debs to quit the railroads after an accident killed two of his colleagues. An abysmal safety record and negligible compensation for injured railwaymen were just some of the many indignities of the ruthless business practices of avaricious industrialists. Before wisely heeding his mother’s warnings, Debs joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, subsequently rising to become its Grand Secretary and editing the widely read Firemen’s Magazine for well over a decade. From this editorial perch, he could be far from militant, initially opposing strikes and delivering moralistic sermons on the Brotherhood’s motto of benevolence, sobriety and industry. His new prominence would even lead to his election as a Democratic member of the Indiana House of Representatives in the mid-1880s. But sensing the limitations of both the state legislature and the conservative craft unionism of the Brotherhood, he sought a different vehicle to advance the interests of railroad workers.

What began to disturb Debs was the despotic power of corporations and the judicially sanctioned violence that could be unleashed on workers who resisted attempts to sack them or suppress their wages. As he later remarked, their combined influence let loose ‘deputy marshals armed with pistols and clubs and supported by troops with gleaming bayonets and shotted guns’, and has ‘vanished liberty from the land.’ He came to feel that citizens could no longer be counted as free when they were under the thumb of a plutocratic ruling class backed by a corrupt judiciary and the violence of hired ‘Pinkerton’ strikebreakers, with helpless workers even coming to resemble slaves. That language of slavery was shocking, even hyperbolic, but it allowed Debs to associate the plight of workers with the two great republican bids for emancipation in the country’s history: the fight for independence against the political slavery supposedly imposed by the British, and the more recent attack on chattel slavery that had led to the Civil War.

A Hoosier.

sch 10/8