I finally had a chance to dig into the Green New Deal legislation. First thoughts: Ambitious and ridiculous. Folks what has been proposed with such enthusiasm and excitement by freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey it just isn’t possible...

This week the House took steps to send $90 million new dollars to schools for the next school year. It matches the dollar amount proposed by the governor in her budget in mid-January. The bills to increase funding for schools do so through what's known as Supplement State Aid. ...

The chart that I have included in my annual outlook presentation longer than I can remember is the Purdue University 29-year corn price cycle. The corn price cycle starts with a base equilibrium lasting about a decade, followed by a launch when prices respond positively to having built a demand base, and then a spike higher when a drought or some other fundamental exacerbates supply and demand tightness stetting the price high for the cycle. ...

Grace and peace to you! I hope that this finds your soul well. I pray that this will be a service to you. I don’t know if you have noticed but our world has a lot of ideas about service. What does that word really mean? Service, Stephan Graves has given the definition as: Finding the focus and energy for others that you have for yourself. ...

Cupid's aim can sometimes be random, so whether you find yourself with the love-of-your-life or making plans with your best friend, don't be afraid to celebrate Valentine's Day on your own terms this year. Each year at this time, the romance blitz starts with the ominous question: "What are you doing for Valentine's Day?"The holiday doesn't have to just be about amore...

Dahlias have been a fixture in summer flower gardens for generations. But it may be time to update your idea of dahlias! With hundreds of varieties to choose from in a fabulous array of colors, shapes and flower sizes, it is no surprise the National Garden Bureau has declared 2019 the Year of the Dahlia. Join the celebration and brighten your garden with dahlias this year...

Those who know me well know that I don’t watch TV. In my apartment, covered in dust, the flatscreen lies completely unplugged from any form of electricity. I don’t watch any late night news, any talk shows, cartoons or even the film-buff channels. Despite my cord cutting ways, HBO bringing “True Detective” back for a third season got me back to watching a currently airing TV show like a regular person, albeit on a computer...

What kind of dreams do young Iowa girls dream as they sit on the sloping roof of a rural Iowa hog house and stare at the endless sky? It's hard to imagine that Michelle Johnson, Spencer native, retired Air Force lieutenant general, senior vice president of the National Basketball Association, and lucky for me, a friend, ever dreamed of the life she came to live when she sat on that roof and daydreamed...

Assuming the weather didn't freeze us all where we stood, a number of the faces in your local newsroom will have visited Des Moines to receive their various awards at the Iowa Better Newspaper Association Convention and Trade Show this past weekend. ...

The Internal Revenue Service is officially accepting and processing federal tax returns for tax year 2018. The IRS expects more than 150 million individual tax returns to be filed this season and has already received several million in the opening hours...

My wife, Jane, has gotten me to occasionally watch the HGTV shows "Fixer Upper" with Chip and Joanna Gaines and the "Property Brothers" with Drew and Jonathan Scott. What fascinates me about those shows is the lack of imagination that people have who cannot picture something that is not explicitly in front of them. ...

As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences sets for its 91st celebration of The Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 24, the gathering of Hollywood's movers and shakers looks to restore some of the luster to one of tinseltown's grandest traditions. Despite recent years of controversy, lower levels of viewer support and attempts to expand what it means to be an Oscar-worthy film, the award is more than just a gold-plated statuette of a bald guy. ...

Consider giving your valentine something different this year. Select an indoor plant with heart shaped leaves or flowers. Anthuriums are an easy-to-grow, low maintenance, long-blooming indoor plant. The red, pink or white heart shaped flowers rise above glossy green leaves...

During the recent “life threatening cold temperatures,” I had a chance to do a little nature photography on my drive home. I always like to call it “National Geographic” work, because although nature is beautiful I don’t really get too many excuses to photograph animals. It turned out that over on the east side of town there were about 20 deer looking for food near the roadway...

Go ahead, list five benefits of corn. Let's see — nutrition, cleaner burning blended fuel, environmentally-friendly packing peanuts, seasonal home decor ... that's more of a use, um ... I need a little help. So, I'd like to take the National Corn Growers Association up on the offer they made to educate Bud Light on the benefits of corn. ...

I will be loading up and heading to Des Moines Wednesday morning for a three-day gathering of friends as the Iowa Newspaper Association kicks off its annual convention with board meetings of the association. It will be a milestone convention for me as it will mark the end of my decade-long tenure on the association's foundation board of directors. ...

On Monday, the House of Representatives held an election contest to settle a disputed election in House District 55. House District 55 was decided by nine votes. However, there were 29 ballots set aside because they were received by the auditor's office after election day...

There are very few things harder for a parent is to watch a child work toward a goal only to come up just short. Saturday Spencer hosted the high school wrestling sectional. My sophomore Case, Spencer Tiger lightweight at 106, had been working toward this all year, looking to be one of the top two wrestlers in the sectional who would move on to Orange City for districts next Saturday — just a step away from a state berth...

Is the economy real? President Donald Trump describes it in historical terms as the greatest economy that the country has ever experienced and then takes the credit of course. There are good numbers on the employment front, both high employment and growing wages. The tax cut is a windfall to those making money. Sure wish that we (farmers) could put it to better use...

I heard someone say once, “There is no such thing as a pointless pain, in the life of the child of God.” Thinking of that statement has really encouraged me through the years, not because I like to suffer pain, but I’m reminded that the pain I go through has a purpose. ...

Welcome to the fifth annual “Obligatory Super Bowl Column” where I generally make inaccurate predictions about the biggest football game of the year and unnecessarily insult players, coaches, networks, TV personalities, advertisements and fans that bug me...

Everyone has experiences that shaped them as a young person. One of those experiences for me was contest speech in high school. During my four-year speech career, I made some of my most meaningful and enduring friendships. The experience was instrumental in helping me find my place in the world, gain the confidence to express myself, and it laid the foundation for skills I use daily in every facet of life...

After almost two decades, my family’s dachshund, Taffy, passed away the other week. She had nearly lived to see her 19th birthday, although she was surely in poor shape for a party. The eyes which were so bright and inquisitive in the summer of 2000 had clouded many years before now, she had become very thin compared to her golden years and I’m sure there was a level of suffering for any dachshund to live that long. ...

According to the weather folks, it's gonna be a little chilly here in northwest Iowa for a couple of days. And by "a little chilly" I mean highs forecast in negative territory and lows set to hit the "Whoa, Nelly!" range. We knew it was coming. After all, we've been blessed with some downright balmy conditions thus far this winter, aside from a day here and there, like last week, that made us wish we had grabbed the hat from the hook before heading out the door...

Tuesday the state of New York’s legislators celebrated and my heart sank. The state, which has some of the most liberal abortion rights laws in the nation, took the continued assault on life and the right-to-life for our most defenseless a step further earlier this week when it boldly and proudly passed legislation affording women the right to terminate their pregnancy up to the point of delivery in the interest of the health of the mother. ...

Not too long ago, I was worried there would be no snow on the lakes for Winter Games. Then we got snow on snow on snow, as the song goes, and not a small amount was in everyone's driveway. I even saw some fill a mailbox that was left open when the plow came by one morning. So I, like many of us, shrugged on my warmest clothing earlier in the morning than I might have liked and cleared the way before breakfast — or after dinner depending on which of this season's snowfalls we're discussing...

We have so many great opportunities for youth in northwest Iowa, even in the middle of winter! All you need to know is where to look! Today, we have a guest writer, Katie Leusink, who is an Iowa State University Extension and Outreach County youth coordinator for Sioux County, explaining more information about the upcoming STEM Fest at Dordt College...

Back on Dec. 20, 2018, my husband, Tom, known to many throughout our community as “Pastor Tom” or “Coach Tom,” depending on what venue he happens to be living out his passions and gifts, underwent a serious open heart surgery at St. Mary’s Hospital at Mayo in Rochester, Minnesota. ...

Growing up in Iowa, I was relatively unexposed to the regional cultural differences of this great country. There was no racial diversity in Royal 50 years ago when I was a young man with a total white population here, mostly Danes and Germans. Everything we learned about race relations we saw on TV or experienced only by traveling to other regions of the country. ...

Did you know that 94 percent of all traffic crashes are due to driver error? These crashes are preventable, and the Iowa State Patrol will be working with our enforcement partners throughout the Winter Games period to reduce these crashes. The Iowa State Patrol will be partnering with the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Office and Iowa Department of Natural Resources Enforcement to add an additional traffic enforcement presence to Lakes area roads during the event...

Impress your guests with a garden, container and dinner table filled with tasty and colorful winning tomato varieties. Small-fruited varieties are perfect for salads and snacking and those with larger fruit ideal for slicing, canning and sauces. These winning tomatoes were tested nationally by All-America Selections, a nonprofit plant trialing organization (all-americaselections.org). ...

I’ll start this column with the biggest news of the week: Houston has traded Carmelo to the Bulls. Ha! I’m just kidding. Well, kidding that that’s big news. It is a thing that has happened. It just doesn’t matter. No, of course, the big talk of the day is that astounding day of football we all just witnessed Sunday...

Do you have a FILE? Financial, investments-insurance, legal documents and estate management folder Something not often thought about or planed ahead of time is what instructions we would leave our loved ones to ensure you have control over your future plans and all important areas of your life if something were to happen to you. ...

What is real? In ancient Greece, the philosopher Plato made the case in “Republic” that our reality is bound to our senses. His story, “Allegory of the Cave,” tells of a number of people chained inside a cave from birth facing a wall, where shadows are cast. ...

January and February in my house is the time for baking, and braising, and crockpots simmering all day long. There's just something about below zero temperatures that sends me back to the cupboard of cookbooks. It must be genetic, as I have always associated the scent of soup in the air with childhood winters, and my son is also a wintertime chef...

Poor Mercutio. A prime example of a man hurt most by the quarrel to which he's not part. Some have said the Shakespeare character's death in Romeo and Juliet is the point at which the classic story ceases to be an Elizabethan-aged story of two hormone-driven teenagers. In other words, it's the point at which things get serious. It's no longer funny. It's no longer adorable. It's serious...

The 88th Iowa General Assembly was called to order on Monday, Jan. 14. Much of the first week of session is ceremonial. On Monday, Speaker Linda Upmeyer, Majority Leader Chris Hagenow and Speaker Pro Tem Matt Windschitl gave their opening remarks. Their remarks were consistent and clear: we need to move beyond the campaign, the rhetoric and work together for Iowa...

I don’t normally pass along many Facebook requests to repost. Honestly I don’t spend near as much time as I used to perusing Facebook these days. It seems like a lot of political back-and-forth and people making remarks to one another they would normally not say to each other face-to-face...

U.S. Rep. Steve King got more infamous while I was gone on vacation. He was one of the dominant story lines for a couple of national news cycle. It was his racist white supremacist comments that continued to bring the heat. He is the product of the openness that I believe was encouraged by Donald Trump for racist white supremacists to come out of the closet, making their views public. ...

Revival is not a product or a program. Revival is a move of God. We cannot design a program good enough to give God a send-off toward revival. We can’t work it up. We can’t predict it, but when it is present you know it is here. In our community there is a revival of the good news of Jesus Christ; his death, burial and resurrection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). ...

Soon it begins. Wednesday when I wrote this column, the predicted high temperature was 27 degrees, but temperatures are expected to dip as low as negative 7 this weekend with a 90 percent chance of snow on Friday, according to theweatherchannel.com. Though the days have begun to become longer, northwest Iowa will soon experience its brunt of winter cold and snow. I fear the winter woes Iowans know all too well are upon us...

In 2017, Iowa legislators passed a bill making marijuana for medical use legal in Iowa. Dec. 1 of last year, five dispensaries in Iowa opened their doors. With medical marijuana in Iowa there come many stipulations. In order for anyone to purchase marijuana at a dispensary, which is the only legal place in Iowa they can buy it, they must have a registration card. ...

Lift your spirits and improve your indoor environment by taking part in the indoor gardening movement. An apartment or home filled with tropical, succulent and flowering plants can provide beauty, extend your garden season, improve air quality and create a peaceful environment to de-stress...

I grew up in northwest Iowa. I married a northwest Iowa boy. I raised my son in northwest Iowa. I have found the people of this area to be kind, giving, fair, accepting and supportive. I love the country roads and friendly cities. There's an ease to life here off the interstate. ...

Heisman Trophy winning quarterback Kyler Murray, or as Alabama defensive lineman Quinnen Williams called him ahead of the Tide’s playoff game against the Oklahoma Sooners “Calamari,” (He’s a bit of a mumbler.) publicly stated he declared for the NFL draft Monday with a very flashy Tweet...

Before adult coloring books, meditation coloring books and a coloring book for kids about 9/11 and the assassination of Osama bin Laden (it’s real), there was a time in the mid-2000s when parody coloring books were all the rage online, reviving a genre of coloring book started in the 1960s. Clocking in at about four or five pages, the satire was typically reminiscent of MAD magazine...

Big orange snowplows should be easy to see, but in the midst of a winter snowstorm, it can become difficult. The Iowa Department of Transportation continues to make accident prevention while plowing a priority. Snowplow trucks typically travel around 35 mph or less. When they hit drifts, they can throw large snow clouds around them. This can disrupt the vision of drivers in vehicles traveling around the plows and potentially create increased risks for crashes...

It's now official. This particular government funding gap has caused the longest continuous shutdown on record. However, this isn't the time to gloat. Not in my opinion anyway. I'm of the opinion this should be getting fixed as soon as possible. In fact, I believe most Americans are with me on that, it's just a question of how...

I would have to say Friday may have provided me with the most disappointing news I have received in quite some time. Quite frankly I spent the better part of the afternoon working with office door closed, getting my work completed while trying to sort through my feelings of frustration and discouragement...

One of the best ways to share what 4-Hers learn is to invite a guest writer. This week’s Clover Corner is written by 4-Her Molly Crew. Crew is a sophomore at Spencer High School and is the daughter of Pete and Andrea Crew of Spencer. ---...