Rural Roots and American Rainbows

Last weekend saw one of Washington’s most prominent figures pass away. Sen. John McCain died Saturday after a difficult battle with brain cancer, fading into the pages of history, leaving the ranks of true American patriots one short. McCain represented my home state, Arizona, for more than three decades. After two terms as a Congressman,…

There is a saying, “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” It comes from the bard himself, William Shakespeare, in the play “Henry IV, Part 2.” Who would have guessed that a line written more than 400 years ago to describe English royalty would become so relevant in an American beauty pageant? Gretchen Carlson,…

Farming can be more of a game of chance than any you’d find in Atlantic City or Las Vegas, and the stakes are much higher. There could be too much rain, or not enough. Maybe some uninvited insects decide to set up shop and ruin the crops. A tornado might mow down the cornfield, or…

Wisconsin is well known for its fields of green and farms as far as the eye can see. In Shawano County, almost 46 percent of the land is agricultural, with dairy farms making up a huge chunk of it. Many of these farms have been passed down from generation to generation, many evolving to keep…

Signs are everywhere. There are sandwich boards, neon signs, small signs, large signs, all saying one thing in a thousand different ways — come check me out. When I first moved to Shawano more than seven years ago, I did a lot of exploring around the area. One of the places I came across was…

Every time someone uses the phrase “moral obligation,” I worry that my eyes are going to roll so far back in my head that I won’t be able to get them positioned forward again and stumble aimlessly for the rest of my life. This morning, I awoke to an opinion from NewNowNext, a website powered…

(Note to readers: I’ve started writing a regular column for the weekend edition of The Shawano Leader. Here is this week’s piece.) America is filled with amazing people, good people, people who come together and help their friends, neighbors and even strangers when they are in need. America is also filled with really sick puppies….

We seem to be at risk in America of losing the moral high ground. In its place, we’ve discovered a bridge of hypocrisy. Exhibit A is Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The press secretary for President Donald Trump decided to go out for dinner with some friends at a restaurant called the Red Hen in Virginia. She…

We have met the thought police, but it is a group you would never expect. It’s in an organization dedicated to libraries, which are houses of great knowledge of all kinds. Reading is power, but the organization in question apparently doesn’t want the public to have too much power as it belittles one of the…

You would think that the world ended Monday with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on whether a baker could refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. You would think that civil rights had gone back a couple of hundred years because the court ruled in favor of the plaintiff and not for…

You’ve heard the expression about “driving while black,” which is used to describe the feelings of discrimination black people feel when they’re pulled over by the police. You could probably add a variation of that term, “drinking coffee while black,” in light of what happened in a Pennsylvania Starbucks to two black men who dared…