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, …

It has been six months since a 17-year-old Perry High School student walked out of a school bathroom and began shooting toward students who were having breakfast before heading to their classes on …

Most people go through life never stepping foot inside a courtroom. Most people, that is, except for attorneys, judges, journalists, the few of us chosen to be jurors, and an even more select group, …

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 …

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. …

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 …

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 …

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’ …

I really should not be surprised by some comments that represent what passes for civic dialogue in Iowa these days. The latest example leaves me shaking my head, not just at the events themselves but …

City leaders in Davenport have forgotten that city government there belongs to the people. It does not belong to the folks who were elected to city offices. This reminder is necessary because a …

A few months ago, I bumped into a former aide to Gov. Robert Ray. As we reminisced about the governor, our conversation turned to his nearly daily meetings with journalists. The aide said yes, those …

The word for today is optics — but not the kind where your eye doctor is an expert. Instead of eyeglasses, I am thinking about the kind of optics that result when the perception of some …