Posted September 23, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Thirty-three years ago on a snowy Friday in November, the nightmare of mass school shootings shocked Iowa like it has never been shocked before. It was 3:40 p.m. A former University of Iowa graduate student with a brilliant scientific mind, and a .38-caliber revolver, walked into a conference room in
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Posted September 09, 2024in Stray Thoughts
I have fielded a bunch of emails, text messages and phone calls in the days since the school shooting in Winder, Georgia. Each one is from Perry, Iowa. Each one had the same question for me and the Iowa Freedom of Information Council. Each one came from a parent, teacher
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Posted August 26, 2024in Stray Thoughts
We are in the home stretch of another presidential campaign, and it is important for voters to be alert for the unintended consequences of candidates’ promises. Office-seekers and their supporters like to portray issues in terms of absolutes — as in, my position is the very best way to address
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Posted August 19, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Here we go again. Don’t be surprised if there is a hard-fought campaign between now and the November election over a guy named David May. You may not recognize his name. But you will in the weeks to come. May is the newest member of the Iowa Supreme Court. His
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Posted August 05, 2024in Stray Thoughts
During the 40 years I was a newspaper editor/manager, I strived to ensure the staff incorporated context into their articles. Sometimes, in a journalistic shorthand, that was described “the Iowa angle.” If there was a mass murder in Iowa, I would dip into my stash of clippings and find the
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Posted July 29, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Some memories stick with you — like that August day around 1960 when my parents loaded my two brothers and me into our Dodge Coronet and headed to the Iowa State Fair for the first time. Our excitement rivaled that of Abel Frakes’ family in the famous “State Fair” movies.
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Posted July 22, 2024in Stray Thoughts
For the past couple of years, Republicans often accused Joe Biden of dodging the media — refusing to sit for extended interviews, declining to be questioned in regular White House press conferences, depriving the public of the opportunity to see how he thinks on his feet and articulates his views.
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Posted July 08, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Do you remember that phrase our nation’s founders wrote in the preamble to the Constitution 237 years ago? The one about forming a more perfect union? We have hit some speed bumps in that quest, a couple that would rattle your teeth. I wonder when, and how, or if, we
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Posted July 01, 2024in Stray Thoughts
Through the years, justices on the Iowa Supreme Court typically avoid harsh or overzealous language in their decisions. That is why two separate dissenting opinions jumped out Friday when the court issued its long-anticipated decision on the Legislature’s latest attempt to ban nearly all abortions in Iowa. By a 4-3
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Posted June 24, 2024in Stray Thoughts
You know how some memories stick with you for no logical reason? One such memory involves my dad in the 1960s when I was a teenager. After World War II, my father worked for the City of Bloomfield, eventually becoming operator of the city’s water treatment plant. Pop graduated from
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