To the editor, Iowa Nice. A term many of us have probably heard on multiple occasions. It has been displayed in recent past when a tornado hit Greene County and destroyed Larsons’ farmstead and damaged many others. Hundreds of volunteers showed up for cleanup. It has been displayed when a farmer has illness or injury with a crop in the…
Read MoreCategory: Opinion
Trust and love
~a column by Colleen O’Brien I’ve had an infusion of joy for a month, and the intensity of it flows on around the country through millions, much to the chagrin of the other side. Republican media is lying ever more enthusiastically, most recently about Harris’s past as a communist. Not true, of course. A progressive thinker and doer is not…
Read MoreThe difference between good and really bad
~a column by Colleen O’Brien The Press once again is making a big deal – not about Trump and his daily lies – but, this time, about Tim Walz and a miss-speak of his years ago. Leave it, Press-folks. Keep on task. If you must cover Turmp, at least cover him completely, lies and all. Oh! Did I misspell his…
Read MoreView 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 MoreFreedom
~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 MoreIt’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 MoreEducation 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 MoreView 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 MoreWhat 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 MoreToo 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‘Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.’
~a column by Colleen O’Brien This sentence above was a 1960’s typing class drill that filled a full line on an 11 by 8 1/2 piece of typing paper* and seems an apt approach to life in these United States right now. This country is in need of calming down, and the typing drill came to mind after the shooting…
Read MoreView from my window: Artificial Intelligence and seed corn
Readers, this title seems incongruent, but let me fully explain. You will have to read to the end of the document. Is AI a help or an annoyance? I am not tech savvy, but I really dislike the intrusion of Artificial Intelligence into my life. Let me explain some of my annoyances. I have several Zoom meetings each week. Since…
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