At a time when coarseness and disrespect seems to be the norm in our civic and political dialogue, Ed Stimpson was from an older and...

Secretary of State William Seward drafted Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863 establishing the last Thursday of November as a national...

Been wondering if there is any good news in the world? Wonder no more. Just in time for the Thanksgiving dinner comes new evidence – from...

News today that President Obama is set to announce his Afghanistan strategy next week. He certainly has been getting a lot of advice and...

For me the answer is easy – W.B. Yeats. In December 1923, nearly 86 years ago, Yeats won the Nobel Prize for literature and made much of...

The Washington Post has a great piece today on Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus of Montana and his former top aide Jim...

It is a cliche to say it, but they don’t make ’em like former New Mexico Governor Bruce King any more. King died last week at the age of...

LDS Church Apostle Dallin Oaks gave a speech a while back at the church’s growing and impressive school at Rexburg – BYU Idaho – that...

The wonderful Marilyn Shuler will be honored this weekend with the Light of Philanthropy Award presented annually by St. Luke’s Hospital....

When I noted a few weeks back that President Obama had made a good and interesting selection – former GOP Congressman Jim Leach of Iowa –...

Barack Obama got off a wonderful line last week when he spoke to more than 500 of the nation’s tribal leaders at a major conference in...

There is a fundamental rule in politics – the first and most important rule, perhaps – that is ignored by any politician at considerable...

While I wait for the warmth of spring and the baseball fan’s certainty that opening day (148 days away by my count) brings all things new...

The late, great Commissioner of Baseball, Bart Giamatti, while serving as President of Yale, said: “All I ever wanted to be president of...

We are a two party nation and – with apologies to the 1840’s Whig Party – the party out of power always finds a way to claw back to...

Is there a better actress in the world than Helen Mirren? OK, maybe Meryl Streep, but it would be a close contest…or a tie. Ever since...

Here is the opening graph of a Washington Post piece that ran on November 1st: “The debate over whether to let states opt out of any...

On All Souls Day, a remembrance of those we love and live among us in memory, two poems by John Updike and W.B. Yeats. I can’t get this...

On All Souls Day, a remembrance of those we love and live among us in memory, two poems by John Updike and W.B. Yeats. I can’t get this...

Crapo Draws “Opponent” Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, occupying (and defending in 2010) what is perhaps the safest seat in the Senate, has an...