A series of ads on TV over the last few months haven’t tripped my trigger. I have finally figured out why. In those ads, an older guy with a trimmed white mustache tries to teach middle-aged …

“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.” The Buena Vista County Bar Association believes the citizens of Buena Vista County deserve to have their elected and appointed representatives …

A recent report from the Institute of Legislative Analysis reveals significant shifts in voting behavior across both major political parties in Congress has occurred over the past three years. …

Following the floods in Northwest Iowa in 2024, the House Local Government Committee, of which I served as Chair, reported out of committee a bill that would become SF 619, which provided additional …

Two guys roam Scheels in West Des Moines, a bromance in the brew. Zach confides to Bobby that he likes Mepps spinners. Chartreuse. Bobby goes uh huh. So cool. Just two guys, doing what …

Climate change is at the root of high food prices. Drought on the Great Plains, from the Dakotas down to Texas, is driving cattle producers out of business. The pressure has been building for …

Hey Boomers! How many of you remember Iowa’s old-style license plates that began with the number for each county according to its alphabetical order? So license plates on cars registered in …

Iowa’s official state motto is, “Our liberties we prize, our rights we will maintain.” The right to live our lives freely and truly our own is under attack. I’d love to see some “Iowa …

You would think a school district readily knows its A-B-Cs. nnNot the Des Moines Public Schools — at least not when informing the public what its 6,600 employees were paid during the academic year …

As if your TV set were not inundated by enough political ads these days, you can expect a whole other set of them soon. The new load, probably coming your way after Labor Day, will try to …

Rob Sand falsely states, “As it stands, the private school voucher system requires no accountability over how tax money is being spent. There are no audits to check.” The Students First Act …

There are places that disappear from maps but never from memory. For me, Storm Lake’s baseball fields and diamonds are among them. When my family moved from Aplington (then population around …

I am elated! Six months of surgery and rehab will be over soon, in about two more months of rehab. My left knee replacement in January and my right knee in June have been a temporary life-adjusting …

Dad wore polished black wing tips and a blue suit 24/7. He went to the Elks Lodge every day and to Mass every Sunday. He did not spit on the sidewalk. He helped to defeat Hitler, Mussolini and …

The Senate Agriculture Committee failed to pass its version of the five-year farm bill last week because of an argument over nutrition funding. Majority Leader John Thune, R-SD, instinctively blamed …

“Spider-Man: Brand New Day” is drawing major attention both in Storm Lake and around the world. Superhero movies are certainly no longer in their heyday, but the Wall-Crawler maintains his unique …

We’ve been in Michigan for the last few days. Over the weekend we were in Benton Harbor for a wedding, then took a side trip to the Upper Peninsula to visit famed vacation getaway Mackinac Island. …

Every day is another chapter of “As the Administration Churns”, the unending saga of incompetent boobs and skeevy manospherians. In late July, during U.S. Senate hearings, Senator Bernie …

Game shows have one virtue Iowa’s open-records enforcement system does not: Winners and losers know on the spot what prizes are theirs to keep. Hendrik Van Pelt learned this firsthand.  …

Many officeholders strongly advocate openness in government. Let all unclassified information out, and good things will happen. That’s a good idea, as far as it goes. But openness alone, even coupled with advocacy proposals, falls short of progress. To close …