Posted May 13, 2024in Stray Thoughts
You don’t often hear anyone extol the benefits of the Covid pandemic. But I did few weeks ago — when I stood before the Storm Lake Kiwanis club and talked about government transparency in Iowa. I did not wade into the debate over masks, social distancing or vaccinations. It was
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Posted May 07, 2024in Stray Thoughts
The events of the past six months in Israel and Gaza have me wishing it were possible to have just one more lunch with a friend who died four years ago. My friend was Jewish. In today’s vocabulary, he would be called an ardent Zionist. He had little patience for
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Posted May 01, 2024in Stray Thoughts
The Legislature took an important step last week in voting to toughen penalties for state and local officials who violate a key government transparency tool, Iowa’s open meetings law. Unfortunately, lawmakers’ actions may not be enough to reverse the love for secrecy that too many government boards and councils demonstrate.
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Posted April 15, 2024in Stray Thoughts
“Unsustainable” is a fascinating word, especially when it is used in government and politics. Merriam-Webster, the dictionary folks, tell us unsustainable means something cannot be continued or supported. But in governmental affairs, that definition sometimes gets changed. Instead of something truly being incapable of continuing, the word often means the
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Posted April 01, 2024in Stray Thoughts
City officials in Davenport have managed to accomplish the impossible this year: They have brought Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature together to agree on something. The two parties have bickered over topics like changes to the Area Education Agencies, liability protection for farm chemical manufacturers, making birth control pills
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Posted March 25, 2024in Stray Thoughts
No problem is so big that we can’t run from it — or at least avoid thinking about it. That’s human nature. There are many concerns that should command our attention but do not. Too often we hope or assume a serious problem will go away or will spare us.
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Posted March 18, 2024in Stray Thoughts
What were they thinking? That is a question I ask myself a lot lately. Those were the first words out of my mouth when the Manhattan district attorney had to postpone Donald Trump’s New York criminal trial on the alleged hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels — the delay
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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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