A floating barn and 150 pairs of boots • Iowa Capital Dispatch
In Buggy Land, cattle sometimes break through fencing and wander out onto the road. But cattle don’t fly through the air here the way they do in Ireland. They don’t [...]
Season with a dash of memory • Iowa Capital Dispatch
Dear readers, Merry Yuletide! I’m posting a few singular greetings from holidays past: postcards from a bygone era, with images of a simpler time portraying a slower pace of life. [...]
Iowa has lost a rare public servant and friend, Jim Leach • Iowa Capi…
Iowa and the nation lost a rare public servant last week. And Deba Leach lost her husband, Jim. Former Congressman Jim Leach was a moderate-to-liberal Republican representing Iowa’s eastern congressional [...]
We are all diminished by Iowa’s hunt for phantom illegal voters • Iow…
This week, Paul Pate tried to clean up his mess. Iowa’s top election official insisted at a news conference on Wednesday it is the federal government’s fault that he ordered county [...]
Our nation’s founders warned us about this. • Iowa Capital Dispatch
We often hear that the reason for adopting the Constitution was to limit the powers of the national government. As a matter of historical accuracy, this is wrong. We already [...]
Forget about a rivalry, just enjoy the show • Iowa Capital Dispatch
Back in the 1990s, I spent a lot of time in England because my then-boyfriend was a Brit. Of course I got used to things like saying “Sorry” instead of [...]
Ruth Harkin memoir shows wit, retrospection of pathbreaking Iowan who…
When I pulled up to the Harkin home in Cumming to interview Ruth Harkin, a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It’s where Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin grew up and [...]
Bringing back the bluebirds • Iowa Capital Dispatch
I let down the front wall of the bluebird house, the gateway to the inside of the box, and saw four eggs – three blue and one white – in [...]
Come together for World Refugee Day • Iowa Capital Dispatch
World Refugee Day is observed nationally on June 20 each year across the globe. It’s a day dedicated to raising awareness of the situation of refugees around the world. On [...]
Controlled burn at Cedar Bluffs aids prairie reconstruction • Iowa Ca…
Violet the Dog and I spent yesterday morning observing a controlled burn at Cedar Bluffs Natural Area. Chris Clingan, director of Mahaska County Conservation asked me to to tag along [...]
Colder winters in Iowa actually prove that global warming is a realit…
The No. 1 argument climate-change deniers use to “prove” that global warming is not happening is the fact that there have numerous examples of historically low winter temperatures in the [...]
The rituals of American football reflect our society
Tomorrow is New Year’s Day, and football fans worldwide will gather to watch college football bowl games in homes, bars, and if they are lucky, in stadiums across the country. [...]
Banned from the ballot? It’s happened in Iowa before
Someone asked me a few weeks ago who was the most interesting politician I had ever covered. After thinking a few moments, I said one of the most interesting was [...]
My brief chat with ChatGPT 4 on the pitfalls of year-end predictions
December brings the barrage of an inescapable seasonal ritual. Of course, I’m talking about the tendency for people—many perhaps too woozy on eggnog — to try to sum up the [...]