Storm Lake, possibly Iowa’s most diverse community, isn’t a Sanctuary City. The school district has no Sanctuary Schools, and the university isn’t a Sanctuary Campus. To my knowledge, it has never even been discussed by any of those entities...

Let it not be said that President Trump doesn’t try to deliver on his promises, even when the means of doing so are quite misguided...

The first job I ever had was mowing lawns, when I was barely big enough to push a mower. My first client was a semi-famous artist who lived in the big brick house down the street. He was old as dirt, grouchy, paid $2 that barely covered the gas; a demanding old fart who would send me back out on a blazing hot afternoon if a single leaf was left on the vast lawn or a single blade of grass was out of place...

So it’s Earth Day, and everybody is talking about what you can do for nature. But let’s take a moment to consider what nature can do for you...

My big sister was a bit of a hippie back in the day. Instead of Sesame Street, as a kid I was bopping around the bungalow to songs like John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance,” or Bob Marley’s “One Love.”...

Budgeting isn’t easy in a lean revenue year. The process of re-examining every line item for possible savings can be a good one when used judicially to weed out frivolous spending...

Whenever there is a shift in power, it comes to this - the abortion issue. It is the ultimate divisive factor, the societal line of scrimmage of our age, a political Mason-Dixon line that few dare to cross...

There is a whole lot of outcry about the rewrite of Iowa gun laws that has now been approved by both houses of the legislature, but most of it, I think, missed the point entirely...

By now, every kid in America has been warned more times than they care to remember. Be careful about what you post and send on your electronic devices - it can come back to bite you...

As I write to you today, it is the anniversary of the day in 1944 when Anne Frank decided to re-write her diary as an autobiography (as I am reminded by Garrison Keillor’s delicious site, “The Writer’s Almanac.”)...

The times, they are a-changin’. And I’m not sure that it’s for the better. By my count, at least 19 retail chains have announced plans in recent weeks to close thousands of their stores in communities around the country in 2017, throwing a vast number of employees out of work. It’s a full-scale retail epidemic, but it hasn’t really registered with the public yet...

Can’t even stand looking at my Facebook feed any more. Is there ANYBODY I know who isn’t on vacation in some wonderful, warm, exciting place right now?...

The president is taking a media beating for proposing a 100 percent cut for public broadcasting. Placing the big yellow bird and the big orange politician in the same panel is just too juicy for the cartoonists to resist...

The demise of the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit that targeted our county and two others is good and overdue news, if it in fact ends this lengthy court struggle that has pitted rural against urban and producers (crops) against consumers (water.)...

All the fuss and fury over Congressman Steve King’s provocative comments on race is based on a very mistaken perception - that King is tripping up, somehow, letting an unfiltered thought accidentally slip through on Facebook or Twitter or in the closing moments of some interview...

Some Republican Congress people are claiming that professional protesters are being paid to disrupt their town hall meetings with constituents, including our own Rep., Steve King...

Sometimes, words just don’t cut it. I was struggling with the idea of putting something in this space recognizing International Women’s Day, but how in the world do you put into words what mothers, sisters, daughters, all of your female cohorts, dear friends, mentors, partners in life or mischief, mean to you?...

Right now, if someone in our federal government told me the sky is blue, I’d walk outside expecting it to be orange with green polka dots...

Houston’s finest are in hot pursuit of America’s public enemy number one, the fiend who made off with Tom Brady’s Super Bowl jersey. At this hour, The Jerseynapper remains at large as America cowers, in fear of the next strike. An around-the-clock watch of Navy Seals has been stationed around LeBron’s sweat band...

If you could bottle the feeling that a few days of rare springlike weather provides in mid-February in northwest Iowa, you would be one filthy nouveau riche son of a gun...