As American democracy dissolves before our eyes and we seem to be on the verge of war with, uh, Canada, Iowa legislators turn their attention to the pressing matter of (I am not making this up) stopping...

My winter coat has had a minor tear along a seam near the right pocket since earlier this winter. I noticed it when I first picked it up at the beginning of winter. And I probably should have grabbed...

Spring is coming. How do I know? I just got my first seed catalog in the mail. If you too are interested in planting seeds then you should visit Cole Library’s Seed Share located on the first floor. What...

In this time of uncertainty regarding government funding, many supporters of Southeast Linn Community Center have reached out with concerns about impacts on the organization. While we do not receive any...

Recently, I was looking out the upstairs bedroom window at water dripping off an icicle. (Now that I’m retired, I have time to devote to really important work.) I began to wonder why the water didn’t...

In his autobiography, Ben Franklin describes how, as a naïve young bumpkin, he got off the boat in Philadelphia in 1723, scruffy and hungry. He had a few coins in his pocket but he didn’t know what...

Okay, I know Groundhog Day is over and that famous, and probably heavily sedated Philadelphia marmot with the unspellable first name saw his shadow and went back to bed. Same as any sensible person. We...

The playwright George Bernard Shaw once wrote, “You don’t stop laughing when you grow old; you grow old when you stop laughing.” It’s one of those greeting card-type sayings that sound good until...

For the past month, my personal laptop has developed a range of quirks. It started with the g and h keys of the laptop no longer registering when I typed. Or, as was the case before they failed, requiring...

After years of mocking our local meteorologists for being the only profession where you can be wrong half the time and still keep your job, the truth comes out at last. We love our local weather people...

We all have ways to decompress from stress in our lives. A lot of my time off is spent watching movies and talking about movies with others on social media. One of the other areas I’ve found a release...

Maybe it’s the time of year. Or maybe Iowa is just a quiet place generally. But while Los Angeles burns to the ground and parts of Missouri are getting buried under 14 inches of snow, the stories that...