Posted July 06, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Buried words, like buried treasures, sometimes surprise and enrich. But buried landmines only create problems now, and later. Such is the case with a passage buried in a 71-page Iowa Supreme Court decision last month. In a unanimous ruling, the court decided that a law authorizing Iowa prisons to block
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Posted June 22, 2026in Stray Thoughts
As Americans celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday with parades, speeches, fireworks and other patriotic traditions, much attention will focus on familiar symbols of our history — monuments, battlefields, historic landmarks. Yet Independence Day also lets us reflect on lesser-known stories of people and places that illuminate the ideals on
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Posted June 15, 2026in Stray Thoughts
It has been a while since you heard a United States leader say, “The fault is mine alone.” If you visit Abilene, Kansas, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Museum offers countless artifacts of leadership — far from the battlefields of Europe and the White House where the five-star general left
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Posted June 09, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Here we go again. If the University of Iowa and Iowa attorney general’s office get their way, a legacy gift from a grateful and accomplished graduate will no longer help students like him. The graduate, Ezra L. Totton, was an esteemed chemist during the latter half of the 20th century.
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Posted June 01, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Here’s betting District Judge Adria Kester does not read the Aspen Daily News. That Colorado newspaper’s front-page slogan declares, “If you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.” What happened to Judge Kester occurred outside of her usual venue — the 22 courthouses of north-central and northwest Iowa where,
Read More →My lunchtime conversation with an old friend recently never got to the Major League Baseball races, the WNBA or Caitlin Clark. We skipped over the weather and never got around to how corn and soybean plantings were progressing. Instead, we spent a goodly amount of time analyzing the preamble to
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Posted May 19, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Because of his intimidating style, the legendary 1950s baseball pitcher Sal Maglie was known as “The Barber.” His brush-back pitches came sooooo close batters felt as if they were getting a shave. Considering his nickname, it’s probably best that “The Barber” is no longer with us, lest he find himself
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Posted May 11, 2026in Stray Thoughts
At the risk of blurring the increasingly fuzzy line between church and state, here is a Gospel reading for public employees and elected officials, according to Matthew: “But blessed are your eyes, for they see; and your ears, for they hear.” Unfortunately, it does not take much looking these days
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Posted April 21, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Come July, Iowa employers may want to add an ominous warning on their job application forms: tell a lie and you could go to jail. That’s right — no more puffing the resume with false degrees from the University of Okoboji or Faber College. And do not claim to have
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Posted March 30, 2026in Stray Thoughts
Noah Petersen and Priscilla Villarreal live 1,200 miles from each other, Petersen in Newton, Iowa; Villarreal in Laredo, Texas. They share a key connection despite that distance. Each has encountered government punishment for exercising their First Amendment rights. Both went to court to fight for their freedoms. For Petersen, he had
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