As I mentioned last week in my column, I’m on Wartburg’s spring break right now. It’s been an exciting opportunity to open my eyes and be fully immersed in our community once again after the long eight weeks of rigorous academics. My life at school is great, and I will never take that ...
I just found out that last Monday, March 1 was "World Compliment Day," but don't you think that paying or giving compliments should be more than just one day? My goodness, we have enough turmoil in the world today, that probably a "compliment" day should be every day. Just think of all the ...
It was a planned attack. A sort of coup d'état. A well thought out, planned, measured decision months in the making....and it happened like this. So, I wanted a dog. Ma wanted a dog. I knew she wanted a dog because every time a picture or a video of a wet nosed puppy came across her tablet, ...
Ten years ago, I was the lead sponsor on legislation that created an “Address Confidentiality Program” here in Iowa. The Iowa Legislature unanimously passed this law, creating Iowa’s Safe at Home program – a bipartisan effort to protect survivors of violent crimes. Administered by the ...
All my life, I’ve been a deep thinker. For whatever reason, I play with thoughts and ideas more than is probably necessary. I replay memories in my head — both successes and utter failures — trying to learn from them. With life moving at a rapid pace lately, I’ve found myself staying ...
That damn socialist mayor out in New York threatened to hike property taxes by 9.5% unless he can ram through a wealth tax. Wait a New York minute: Property taxes on our humble metal shed along Railroad Street shot up more than 70% this year. Potholes pock the streets and we can barely afford ...
A recently released U.S. House farm bill proposal underinvests in proven solutions farmers rely on to cut fertilizer waste, protect drinking water and reduce climate pollution, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). With mounting financial pressures on farmers, lawmakers should ...
The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a special and unique place in northernmost Alaska that supports calving caribou, denning polar bears, migratory birds that visit every state in the U.S., and is a sacred place of the Gwich’in people. However, it is also thought to ...
I started my career in rural Iowa in 1974 as an English, speech and reading teacher. Our students were top performers and the state’s education system was the gold standard. Educators and public schools in general were revered and respected by their communities. We didn’t have a lot of ...
So often in our lives, we settle for surface-level interactions. We nod, we smile, we move on. We keep things pleasant. We keep things easy. We keep things safe. But lately, I’ve been thinking about what happens when we don’t. In my life as of late, various situations (some I’ll ...