“Con” in this context is slang for “confidence game” — an effort to deceive or defraud someone, usually out of money or property. Dictionary.com defines a “long con” this way: “an elaborate confidence game that develops in several stages over an extended period of time wherein ...

As I was scrolling through Facebook a few weeks ago I saw a quote that struck me, “I promise to teach my babies to love your babies. Period.” As a mother of three young boys — one with a disability — and having worked with individuals with intellectual disabilities and severe mental ...

We weren’t going to normalize this. Remember that? Remember the way many of us solemnly vowed we would always maintain the ability to be outraged, hold on to our capacity for shock? Well, after almost four years that have passed like geologic time, that declaration feels like an artifact ...

A deadline is looming. Millions of lives, trillions of dollars, and our democracy all hang on whether we show up to meet it. I don’t mean the election. I mean the census. Every 10 years, the Census Bureau attempts to count every person living in this country — regardless of location, ...

“Nurtured and pampered by parents who didn’t want to make the mistakes of the previous generation, millennials are confident, ambitious and achievement oriented. They also have high expectations...tend to seek new challenges...and aren’t afraid to question authority.” The Balance ...

On Aug. 23, 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer. The original video, which only included the last moments of the incident, gave no context for the incident. But further video and police reports made clear what happened. According to ...

There was a milestone of note recently, and it is a shame there was not a big public celebration. Twenty years ago, Gov. Tom Vilsack and the Iowa Legislature had the foresight to create a program that has brought important changes to communities large and small across Iowa. The program was ...

The left and its media allies are warning Americans not to expect a winner on election night. If Donald Trump leads on Nov. 3, the victory will be nothing more than a “red mirage,” says Josh Mendelsohn, whose firm consults for the Democratic National Committee. In the days or weeks ...

If a few sports walkouts can force change on the national level, imagine what an Amazon or Wal-Mart walkout could do. First, the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court in their playoff game against the Orlando Magic. Then other teams followed suit, leading to a three-day wildcat strike in ...

Since April, I’ve been telling my students that their generation will be the ultimate storytellers of this pandemic, as COVID-19’s legacy will surely endure for decades. This semester, I’ve taken it a step further and required them to keep pandemic diaries. Their weekly 500-word entries ...

The coronavirus has changed the way we work, in many cases forever. The pandemic has also brought into sharp focus the powerless state of workers here in Iowa and the employer-driven policies that intentionally keep it that way. State policymakers are crafting strategies now that will shape ...

Dear Dietitian, I recently lost forty pounds to get my cholesterol level down. My LDL went from 150 to 117, and I’d like to get it down to 100. I am 70 years old, and the doctor wants me to gain a few pounds! He says if I were to get sick, I would need some extra weight as a safeguard. How ...

“Understand this, my dear brothers and sisters: You must all be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry.” James 1:19  A little bit louder for those in the back. James’ 2,000-year-old words are either ridiculous or revolutionary. We live in an uncomfortably loud ...

Families gotta start back getting together for Sunday dinner and family reunions...not just funerals. Shared by Linda Pohren on Facebook. Dressed up as Mrs. Santa Claus, Linda Pohren hugs her brother, Jim, who died from “The Virus.” I don’t want to hear again, “Do you know anyone ...

Every good thing comes to an end. Since our founding — based on ideas and principles rather than race or nationality — America grew to become the world’s most dominant power by the end of World War II. By the 1990s, once we won the Cold War, there was nobody else even close. Now we are ...

On Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden was finally forced to confront the left-wing violence that has been plaguing America’s major cities for months on end: riots in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Seattle, among other cities. For a full week, the ...

Afew weeks ago, President Donald Trump proposed a payroll tax holiday to Americans earning less than $100,000 per year. The gesture is better described as a deferral of the payroll tax burden until April 2021, and that has some people worried. They should be. Talking about his plan, the ...

Starting back to school this year, especially during COVID-19, is going to look different this year. We know that. Administrators, principals, staff and teachers are discovering ways to teach and reach children in new and creative ways. People don’t have to look far on social media to find ...

Public health experts have given us a long list of ways we can help prevent the spread of COVID-19. Unfortunately for Iowa’s universities, students, faculty and college towns, finger-pointing has yet to be proven effective at warding off infections. Index fingers are getting a lot of ...

To all the students, parents, and educators we serve, welcome back! Having students back in school — whether virtually or in person — provides some of the normalcy and structure we all need right now. The teachers and school administrators I talk with have truly missed having kids in their ...