The best April Fool joke to completely blind side me was pulled off by my reporters at one of the newspapers I edited during the early 1980s. They were a spunky crew: Two graduates from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut; the son of the guy who managed Madison Square Garden; a ...

When I was a kid I enjoyed listening to older folks talk about the changes they had seen during their lifetimes and their first-time experiences. First time driving a tractor, first time seeing an airplane, first time they had electricity on their farm … I enjoyed their stories. Thinking ...

Zipping down today’s interstate highways it’s easy to forget what Iowa’s highways were like just 70 years ago. Too young to remember? Well, let me fill you in. Though some two-lane highways were being widened at the time, many of Iowa’s primary roads and bridges were too narrow for ...

This is for you with pain in your eyes. Years ago, I stood where you stand. I wrote those words way back in 1987 when I was managing editor of a Connecticut newspaper and a volunteer rape crisis counselor. I remember it was in the spring because I had just announced I was leaving the job ...

In my profession we are called upon to help, serve, defend and stand up for the unfortunate or people who can’t do it for themselves, for whatever reason that may be. It is kind of odd to think back and realize that is exactly how my dad brought me up to act each and every day. He did it ...

In some circles the term “relativism” is a dirty word. Moral relativism, for instance, holds to the belief that ethical truths depend on the people holding them. I disagree with this type of relativism. On the other hand (as a lawyer might say) there is a relativism that cannot be denied. ...