You are here

Category: Opinion

View from my window: Chicken advice

This is going to be another circuitous column. Promise you will read to the end. Guaranteed to bring you JOY. Our son and his family are on a short vacation. Their two dogs came to stay with us, and I am doing the morning and evening chicken chores for their 11 adult chickens and one rooster who is named Winter…

Read More

Freedom

~a column by Colleen O’Brien Kamala Harris, Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election, has made freedom ring from every podium she’s stood behind for a mere two weeks. Freedom is the cornerstone of her campaign supporting her insistence that “We will never go back.” What a refreshing fistful of words those are, for they are hopeful, invigorating and with…

Read More

It’s pure joy

~a column by Colleen O’Brien The Democrats have been able to back away from peering into an open grave because President Joe Biden relinquished his plan to win the presidency of the United States for a second term. As soon as he voiced his good, sad, difficult decision, he immediately presented his vice-president Kamala Harris as the ideal Democrat to…

Read More

Education Savings Account or Education Spending Accounts?

~by Victoria Riley, GCNO publisher Here’s a question for you: Why is Iowa’s program that uses millions of state tax dollars to pay students’ tuition at non-public schools called the Education Savings Account (ESA) program? There is no saving involved, but more and more spending of public dollars for a private cause. Education Spending Account would be a more descriptive…

Read More

View from my window: Values

With this November’s presidential election drawing closer, and the recent changes of the players at the national level, I’m thinking about the values these candidates carry. With individuals seeking office at every level – county elections, state representatives, Congressional seats, and of course, the presidential election – I want to vote for someone who will reflect my values. Values defined:…

Read More

What happened to Iowa Nice?

~a column by GCNO publisher Victoria Riley I’ve told people many times that ‘Iowa Nice’ is real, that Iowans are friendly, considerate, respectful people. If I take a cue from those who are ‘in charge’ in Iowa, I need to quit saying that. If Iowa Nice were real, Gov Kim Reynolds and other elected officials would have responded to President…

Read More

Too much of too much

~a column by Colleen O’Brien Had it been a novel instead of real life, this past week would never have made it to the publisher’s desk. As fact of real life, it was also too much of too much, a poorly written novel because it had too many plots for one piece of fiction, let alone fact: we became party…

Read More

What does the word ‘inherent’ mean?

~a column by Colleen O’Brien Inherent:  a natural part of something that cannot be separated from it. –Meriam Webster Dictionary The Republican presumptive presidential nominee said recently that the U.S. is not an inherently racist or evil country or that any race or ethnicity is inherently racist or evil. That’s true. But he is a little confused because no one…

Read More

View from My Window: Cows and Daisy Dairy

~by Mary Weaver “Hey diddle diddle, the cat, and the fiddle. The cow jumped over the moon.” I remember my mom reading that nursery rhyme to me, and there was a drawing of the cow jumping over the moon. It seemed unrealistic, but it rhymed, and the sing song drone of words lulled me into my afternoon nap as a…

Read More