Posted March 28, 2022in Stray Thoughts
Through history, some political leaders have been outstanding orators. Boy, could they talk. They knew how to mobilize and move people with their words. Think of Franklin Roosevelt and, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Or Ronald Reagan and, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
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Posted March 14, 2022in Stray Thoughts
Many years ago, I sat at the kitchen table of a pots-n-pans salesman from Pleasant Valley. We didn’t talk about cookware. He was laying out with lots of precision why the United States government had no legal basis for prosecuting him for willfully refusing to file federal income tax returns.
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Posted March 07, 2022in Stray Thoughts
Des Moines Superintendent Thomas Ahart has been a lightning rod during the past three years over the way Iowa’s public schools have responded to the Covid pandemic. Ahart announced last week that he is leaving, effective June 30. But the Des Moines school board ensured that Ahart will continue to
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Posted February 22, 2022in Stray Thoughts
There has been a lot of talk lately about why Iowa’s K-12 school districts need to be more transparent, and more accessible and more accountable, to parents and the rest of the tax-paying people of Iowa. That is the justification offered for a bulging backpack full of bills introduced in
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Posted February 08, 2022in Stray Thoughts
I’m confused, and I have a hunch I am not the only one. Are government mandates a bad thing — or are they good? My confusion comes because I hear what leaders in the Iowa Legislature and Gov. Kim Reynolds have said for months. It certainly seems as if, to
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Posted February 03, 2022in Stray Thoughts
A seat at the table. Iowa Senate Majority Leader Jack Whitver provided that succinct explanation last week of what his fellow Republicans are looking to provide to Iowa parents as the state’s K-12 school districts wrestle with a host of controversies. His colleague, Senate president Jake Chapman, set the tone
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Posted January 18, 2022in Stray Thoughts
I stumbled across a statistical tidbit the other day that probably will surprise many people. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that between 1900 and 2000, the state that grew the least in population, on a percentage basis, was Iowa. Read that again. No state had smaller population growth between 1900
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Posted January 10, 2022in Stray Thoughts
Typically, in the days leading up to the start of a new session of the Iowa Legislature, the attention is on lawmakers’ goals and priorities — and on the pledges they make to work together for the good of the people of Iowa. This year, however, Republican leaders who control
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Posted January 03, 2022in Stray Thoughts
Something came out of Colorado last week besides images of the destruction from a rapidly developing wildfire that roared through the area between Denver and Boulder.The fires consumed upwards of 1,000 homes in the suburban subdivisions of the Rockies’ eastern foothills in just a few hours.Besides the stunning devastation, the
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Posted December 27, 2021in Stray Thoughts
Minnesota and its government officials delivered an important lesson recently on how to provide justice — and their lesson should be taken to heart by their neighbors in Iowa.The contrast is jarring between the way government handled the deaths of Daunte Wright in Brooklyn Center, Minn., and Autumn Steele in
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