columns

My first death threat came in the mail when I was 25 I had recently defeated a tax evader from Sioux Falls in a public debate over whether or...

Have you tired of your New Year’s resolution yet? Maybe you hoped to avoid the feeling of failure by not declaring one. That’s sort of the...

Epistemology is what we on the farm called "a $10 word." At $10, though, it's underpriced because epistemology — the study of what we believe,...

When mom's away, dads will ... panic? Well, kind of. Perhaps the better saying is, "When mom's away, dads will do their best, hopefully." While...

When I reflect on how elected officials should act, I think of a couple of South Dakota legislators I first met back in 1971. I reflect on the...

The 94th legislative session officially began Jan. 8, but the weekend leading up to it saw the swearing in of our new governor, constitutional...

This past week, President Donald Trump argued on national television that to end the opioid epidemic, Congress needed to fund the building of...

The last poem written by my favorite poet among writers of the Romantic Period is titled "On this day I complete my 36th year.'' Lord Byron wrote...

My time in office has reached the six-month mark, and it seems like only a couple of weeks ago I was sworn into the position. As the saying goes,...

The idea of the Dakotas being something different than a North and a South is not entirely new. There was the controversial idea in the 1980s...

I sat on the floor in the basement and cried. I cried while my 3-year-old’s voice bubbled and babbled a narrative for her dolls as they navigated...

Man, that ended badly. December limped to an ugly conclusion as nearly everyone from Wall Street to Main Street took a year-end pounding not...

One of the many things I love about the Christmas season are the carols. Most holidays have at least some songs that accompany them, but Christmas...

Back on the farm, we didn't have much opportunity for ice fishing. We had several small stock dams. A few of them even had bullheads now and...

Democrats now control the House for the first time since 2010. Yet they still have no discernible national political leader or a sweeping political...