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Opinion

Flu shots provide potentially lifesaving protection

Editorials

With the whole world seemingly focused on how fast the COVID-19 vaccine can be administered, we must not forget the importance of an older vaccine: the flu shot. Just about everyone has called in sick at some point, saying they had the flu when they were sniffling, sneezing, maybe running a ...

If I were a carpenter

Local Columns

Where we live in the western suburbs of Des Moines there is building activity in all directions. The beautiful cornfield behind our house when we moved here nearly five years ago is now a new townhouse development. Some of the units show “sold” signs before they are completed. It has ...

Fine tune for more walleyes

Local Columns

Avid ice angler John Crane and I talked on the phone recently. He has been doing a lot of ice fishing in his home area of north central Minnesota and on this particular day he had been after walleyes. After my usual questions of “wadja’ catch” and “wadja catch’em on”, the ...

Centrist coalition helped pass relief bill

Editorials

For months, Americans’ pleas for Congress to give us more financial help in coping with COVID-19 have fallen on political ears — much worse than merely deaf ones — in Washington. Exactly why lawmakers were unable to agree on a second CARES Act is open to debate. Republican loyalists ...

What can be said of 2020?

Local Columns

It’s a brand-new year and we’re all hoping that 2021 will be a better year than 2020. The past year was rough and especially cruel. Nearly all of us have lost someone dear to the coronavirus. In coming decades people will recount tales of the pandemic to grandchildren many times over. ...

Fishing just for fishing

Local Columns

It’s a new year and a new fishing season. Let’s think a bit about fishing and why we like to go fishing, through the ice or on open water. Let’s think just a bit. Not too much. Fishing is different things to different people. Some folks go fishing to catch a meal of fish. Others ...