Opinion

       Christina Green had just joined her school’s Student Council.      Brishell Jones was preparing to go to culinary school.      Christina had family who loved to travel to unique and remote parts of the Caribbean. Brishell did, too – she was learning to play the steel drums in Trindad, where her father lives.

    Speaking to a nation bitterly divided and nearing the end of a bloody, soul-searing Civil War, Abraham Lincoln first took a stand. He cleverly criticized those who supported slavery while praying to God for victory – and then said, “but let us not judge, lest we be judged.” He went on to say he hoped the war would be over soon, while adding that if the war lasted long enough to shed as much blood as the slaves had shed and cost as much as slavery had benefited the American economy, then America would simply have to say, “ "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.

Vinton Today gave us a chance to try something many dream of, but never get the chance to do....work from home.   Before you try it, you have this idea that you will sit at your computer in your jammies, with a hot cup of coffee, while you work. That might be true. What no one tells you, is that it's sometimes much harder to actually get anything done while working at home.

       In order to enlighten us city folk journalists about the realities of farm life so we can write better stories about farming, the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Newspaper Association sponsor occasional educational events for city-born farm writers.      I attended such an event about five years ago, with about two dozen other journalists from around Iowa.

       After learning what you received for Christmas from friends, family, neighbors, customers, associates, and your ex-sister-in-law’s first husband’s second cousin, whom you may or may not have briefly dated in college, you now know exactly how many of those gifts you plan to give to someone else next Christmas.

       A 30-year-old nickname that made its way back to the headlines of early 2011 has had many in the American media digging up old newspaper articles to find out why, and how, California’s new – and former – top excecutive ended up being labeled as “Governor Moonbeam.”     How I wish Mike Royko could see the news now.

Tonight I turned on the computer after a few hours completely off line, checked into Facebook, had those warm fuzzies as I commented about how we had just had our whole family out for our Christmas get together, and how fun it was to see everyone around, and how I was feeling so blessed that everyone is happy and healthy.  I clicked the "share" button then my page updated and immediately I said, "EW!", shivered and hit the button that hid THAT post.

       Every year at this time, we hear people talking again about "resolutions."      Lose weight.      Stop smoking.      Spend less time watching TV.      Say nicer things about my bosses/colleagues/relatives – or at least stop saying what we think of them in front of our children.

       It only takes, according to people who like to count this stuff, about 17 days for the average American to say, "Oh, never mind" to his or her New Year's Resolutions.      Tonight – December 31, 2010 – the people who have with nothing to better to do are standing up at some city street, looking up to the sky to let some giant piece of metal tell them it’s January.

       In a few months, perhaps, the unwilling occupants of the new Benton County Law Enforcement Center will hear the sound most-often associated with prisons: The echo of a door clanging shut.     From the outside, it appears as though the building is nearly ready for use. Most exterior brick work has been finished.