Posted March 11, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Like many people who call this state home, I have long taken an interest in the careers and achievements of people who have gotten their start in Iowa. As a kid, I was fascinated to walk through that two-room cottage in West Branch, knowing a president of the United States,
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Posted February 12, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Voters have busy lives — families to care for, jobs demanding their attention, bills to worry about. So, they can be forgiven if they do not closely track their government leaders’ statements and actions. Sometimes voters may find discrepancies between what politicians say and what they do. Here is one
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Posted February 05, 2024in Stray Thoughts
One of the fallacies of politics these days is the notion of simple solutions. Regardless of whether the problem is immigration, the homeless, gun ownership or transgender people, too many leaders or would-be leaders want us believe government can take simple actions to make a complex problem go away. Rarely
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Posted January 29, 2024in Stray Thoughts
These days, with political campaigns that seem to go on forever, Iowans may not recognize the significance of what occurred at polling places across the state on November 5, 1968. Voters approved an amendment to the Iowa Constitution that day, ending the Legislature’s practice of only meeting every other year.
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Posted January 17, 2024in Stray Thoughts
The increasing secrecy by Iowa law enforcement and their lawyers about identifying people by name raises important questions underlying public confidence in the critical work of first-responders. The question deals with whether police can or should refuse to identify persons involved in incidents and crimes. Despite Iowa’s history of openness
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Posted January 08, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Like many Iowans, my thoughts have been rather chaotic since the horrible news from Perry High School last week. The events were so sad and senseless. A 17-year-old student was dead, having shot himself. An 11-year-old sixth-grader, known for his big smile and cheerful outlook, was dead from three gunshot
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Posted December 26, 2023in Stray Thoughts
We Iowans apparently have been kidding ourselves. Somehow, as we focus on taxes, water quality and allegations of big-government overreach, as we wrestle with immigration, inflation, drug abuse, school choice and women’s reproductive freedom, and as we contemplate transgender issues, academic freedom, religious rights and free speech on college campuses,
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Posted December 18, 2023in Stray Thoughts
I really should not be surprised by some comments that represent what passes for civic dialogue in Iowa these days. The latest example leaves me shaking my head, not just at the events themselves but at the reactions. Mrs. Gentry, my history and government teacher in high school, would be
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Posted December 11, 2023in Stray Thoughts
City leaders in Davenport have forgotten that city government there belongs to the people. It does not belong to the folks who were elected to city offices. This reminder is necessary because a troubling series of events that is unlike any I have seen in five decades of monitoring the
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Posted November 28, 2023in Stray Thoughts
A few months ago, I bumped into a former aide to Gov. Robert Ray. As we reminisced about the governor, our conversation turned to his nearly daily meetings with journalists. The aide said yes, those press conferences provided reporters with access to the governor and his comments on issues the
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