Opinion
On Nature: Birds warn of climate change
Local Columns
In olden days miners took canaries into the mine to give them an early warning if toxic gases were present. Now birds in the natural world are giving us a warning. Over the past 50 years, more than 60% of the wintering North American bird species have shifted their winter range northward, ...
Iowa court’s unfair message to rural property owners: ‘Take one for the team’
Editorials
In 1972, Gordon Garrison purchased 300 acres of farmland in Emmet County, a rectangle near the Minnesota border one county to the east of the Iowa Great Lakes. The Iowa State University agricultural engineering graduate began raising sheep and crops. He also set about working to restore the ...
Rural America needs investment in home construction repair
Local Columns
Communities in every corner of the country now struggle with a lack of affordable homes, an ailment long associated with fast-growing urban areas. I used to think that if the market would take care of any problem facing rural communities, it would take care of housing. If we could get jobs, ...
Dengler Domain: Summer Food
Local Columns
Certain foods only feel right during the summer. Gnawing on a hot dog in negative twenty-degree weather does not make sense. It’s best to enjoy the summer foods during the right time of the year, and there are only a few foods that truly matter. Watermelon is one of these foods. Have you ...
Our first president left us lessons on civility and humility
Editorials
When George Washington was 6 years old, he received a hatchet as a gift and immediately tested it on his father’s cherry tree. His father saw the damaged tree and asked his son if he had done the deed. The boy confessed with his most famous maxim: “I cannot tell a lie.” The story itself ...
Dengler Domain: Farm
Local Columns
Last week, the North Tama Telegraph published an article about residents stopping Iowa Select Farms from putting up a CAFO in Tama County. The aura of building next to the homestead of the “Butter Cow Lady” was one reason it was doomed despite Iowa Select Farms receiving DNR approval. This ...
On Nature: Remembering the Passenger Pigeon
Local Columns
The last Passenger Pigeon died over 100 years ago. I would like to reflect on its passing with the eloquent words of Aldo Leopold, On a Monument to the Pigeon, Sand County Almanac, 1949. “There will always be passenger pigeons in book and in museums, but these are effigies and ...
Advocacy group helps Tama Co. residents stop large Iowa Select CAFO
Editorials
It’s easy to build a concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) in Iowa. Weak regulations and a powerful pork industry make Iowa the country’s leading pork producer. While CAFOs aren’t easy to stop in Iowa, local residents from Tama County showed that it can be done with some grit, ...
