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Local Columns

On Nature: Arctic Under Attack

The coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is a special and unique place in northernmost Alaska that supports calving caribou, denning polar bears, migratory birds that visit every state in the U.S., and is a sacred place of the Gwich’in people. However, it is also thought to ...

The Lenten Lifestyle

Lent began as a way for professing Catholics to remind themselves of the value of repentance. Many people believe that giving something up or fasting for Lent is a way to attain God’s blessing and grace. But the Bible teaches that grace cannot be earned; grace is, by definition, a gift. Also, ...

Fairy Tales Part 5: Happily Ever After

They say that who you are is a product of the books you read and the people you spend time with. They also say that kids are sponges, that the brain reaches 90% of its adult size by age 7, and that these early years lay the foundation of learning and personality that will last the rest of their ...

Dengler Domain: Beef

Beef. It’s what’s for dinner. Well, for some, Argentinian beef. On February 6, President Trump signed an executive order to permit “an additional 80,000 metric tons of lean beef trimmings per year from Argentina to be imported tariff-free in four quarterly tranches of 20,000 metric tons ...

On Nature: Energy Choices

The U.S. needs a great amount of new energy, mostly due to the massive data centers that power artificial intelligence. This electricity should be provided at the lowest cost, with the fewest environmental impacts, and as quickly as possible. The answer would seem to be a mix of electrical ...

Heather’s Highlights: County Government and You, January 2025

January 2026 has come and gone and cold temperatures are here, per normal Iowa weather. The Supervisors had our organizational meeting to start off the year, and I will continue to serve as Vice-Chair. The Boards I will represent for Tama County are the following: Tama County Economic ...

Dengler Domain: Labor

For a person who is not actively farming, I spend a lot of my time thinking about agriculture. One question which has puzzled me is how farmers are expected to have a second job. What other profession has this expectation? No one tells a doctor, lawyer, or HR person, they need another job to ...

The Lord’s Work

“And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Colossians 3:17 Today, you and I have work to do. In his first letter to the Corinthians, when the apostle Paul instructed the church to welcome Timothy ...

Fairy Tales Part 4: In The Real World

Last fall, I wrote several articles about fairy tales (accessible here, here, and here) as an essential part of our cultural inheritance from Christian medieval Europe, stories that teach us about the real world of good and evil described in the Bible by shaping a child’s imagination. But so ...

Fairy Tales Part 3: Shrek

Shrek is a 2001 animated comedy movie featuring the voice acting of Mike Myers and Eddie Murphy. The movie begins with a telling of a fairy tale from a beautiful gilded book, much like the beginning of Disney’s Snow White and Cinderella.The story is the traditional St. George fairy tale: the ...