Each summer at schools across Iowa, a new batch of kindergartners heads in the front door for the first time. Not surprisingly, there are occasional tears. Some flow from the new students who are apprehensive about what may await them inside. Some come from the...
Back in my working days, back when I supervised The Des Moines Register’s business news staff, one of the columnists confessed to our readers that he had trouble balancing his checkbook. My boss didn’t think a business columnist had any business making such a...
If our households operated the way the United States does, members of our extended families would be planning an intervention to get us to see the error of our ways. Why? Fifteen years ago, our household was on track to pay off our assorted debts. We were doing...
One of the nastiest controversies in local government in Iowa in many years was the impeachment in May of Muscatine Mayor Diana Broderson by the city council. I’m not here to pass judgment on the council’s decision. That’s something Muscatine residents can do in...
When you look at the world around us --- with its hatred and bitterness, with its disagreements and divisiveness --- the quality most lacking today is empathy. We find it difficult, if not impossible, to put ourselves in each other’s shoes and see events and issues...
A scab on the memories of lots of Americans was yanked off the other week with the airing of the first segments of Ken Burns’ new documentary on the Vietnam war. The film brought to life the horrors and heartbreak of Vietnam and those events from 50 years ago that...
The biggest under-reported news event from the past two weeks involves a crime of gigantic proportions that directly affects about half of the people living in the United States. Of course, Melania Trump’s choice of footwear for a trip to hurricane-ravaged Texas a...
When is Iowa going to catch up with the rest of the nation? Every week or two, another case makes headlines around the United States when a police officer acts in a way that many people find troubling. Typically, within a few weeks, police video of the incident is...
Where are our priorities, Iowa? Two news stories that grabbed the headlines in Iowa last week leave me shaking my head and asking, is this really what we want from our state government? The first was news that the Iowa Office of the Long-Term Care Ombudsman has...
Don’t come knocking on my door looking for support for the Trump administration’s latest effort to get rid of what the president likes to call job-killing regulations. Why? I will answer that question, but first let me tell you about my brother-in-law, Jim. He grew...
