‘Humbility’

~a column by Colleen O’Brien Humbility is a made-up word. It either belongs to Mr. Rogers, inveterate in his coining of new offerings for a dictionary, or I just made it up. Humbility sounds like him, and he might have defined it in his kind, Mr. Rogers manner as “the way you are when you’re not acting like you’re better…

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Future Ready Iowa Alliance recommendations told

Gov. Kim Reynolds and Lt. Gov. Adam Gregg announced new Future Ready Iowa Alliance recommendations Tuesday. The recommendations are a major step forward in achieving the Reynolds/Gregg administration’s No. 1 goal: 70 percent of Iowa’s workforce having education or training beyond high school by the year 2025. In order to achieve that goal, an additional 127,700 Iowans need to earn…

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Letter to the editor – Bruce Banister

To the editor, Dick Finch’s recent letter made many, many good points. So much of our taxes, often disguised as “grants”, are going to pay for pie in the sky projects. Vision 2020 should have taken a trip to Dr. Terry Brown’s office for a check up before squandering $98,000 on a “study” which suggests we build a sports complex…

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Back door

~a column by Colleen O’Brien When I was in grade school, most of the friends in my little Iowa farm town were back door kids, like me. We went out our back door to play and knocked at each others’ back doors so they would come and play with us. It was the entry to the great outdoors and the…

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Read it and weep

~a column by Colleen O’Brien Al Gore’s new book, An Inconvenient Sequel, Truth to Power, is a convenient handbook on how to save the earth, and in the process, ourselves. If we don’t save it, we will be wandering in the wilderness that is encroaching and soon after that we will be gone. The book offers solid information and ways…

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Not quite a free Cuba

~a column by Colleen O’Brien I went to Cuba last week. I wanted to go because for 50 years we weren’t allowed. I wanted to go because of Havana, the infamous city of mystery with a wild history only 90 miles from our country’s most southern point. I found Havana to be as intriguing as I thought it would be.…

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Letter to the editor – Dick Finch

To the editor, The cause of money shortages with federal, state, county or city is poor management. It’s not that they do not collect enough taxes and fees. They simply waste too much of it on the uncontrolled welfare assistance and disability payments. Some of these are very important for people who have had debilitating accidents or sickness, but why…

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