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Editorials and columns

Electrification of rural America

If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past 12 months, it’s that as a general population, we love electricity. On Christmas Eve, December 1940, my family homestead farmhouse experienced the glow of artificial light for the first time. My Great-Uncle John wrote me a Christmas greeting and included a story about the first time they had power in the house. I read the letter the same day that we received our satellite internet for the farm in the mail, Christmas Eve, December 2021. The farmhouse, built in the 1920’s, has been home to now the 4th generation of the family lineage. ...

‘I dream things that never were……………’

George Bernard Shaw’s quote, used by Robert F. Kennedy in his 1968 campaign, challenges us to dream. The full quote is: “Some men see things as they are and ask why, I dream things that never were and ask why not.” However, our instant focused society is moving so fast we don’t take enough time to contemplate, to dream. Archibald MacLeish in his prose “Crisis of The Heart” faults us for failing to (dream) imagine and desire. So many ills of society and culture remain and even deepen in their tragic suffering because we fail to (dream), imagine, and then desire. A CRISIS ...

Where is the arc of justice headed?

Former President Barack Obama liked to quote the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s line that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Of course, what was an expression of optimism for the moral reformer King was more in the nature of a victory spike of the football for ...

Welcome back, Christopher Columbus

Sometimes Humpty Dumpty can be put back together again. Back in 2020, during the spasm of violence in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, vandals in Baltimore, Maryland, tore down a statue of Christopher Columbus. They shattered the figure of the iconic explorer and tossed the ...

Does social media really addict us?

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp are running content very harmful to children. So said a jury in New Mexico that just slapped their owner, Meta, with a $375 million fine. The state accused the company of spreading pornographic images and helping adults contact vulnerable children. Meta ...

War and morality

War is the most horrific series of events upon which any government can engage. It is systematic, industrialized, indiscriminate killing. It kills innocent adults and little girls. It often ruins the post-war lives of the killers. It is young men violently fighting old men's power games. It is ...