14 May 2020 There is considerable debate in the public sphere about whether or not we should be wearing masks to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, and for good reason. We have no large prospective trials that have clearly demonstrated the efficacy of mask use in slowing a pandemic spread. The scientific literature that […]

04 May 2020 We need to find a way to move forward. We can’t stay in this place forever. Where we end up won’t be what we remember as normal, at least not at first. And, it may end up being very different. We also have an opportunity to end up somewhere better than where […]

02 March 2020 “And, another one gone, and another one gone. Another one bites the dust.”Queen In my last post, One Republican’s Take on the Democratic Candidates, written just prior to the Iowa caucus, I focused upon nine of the eleven candidates then still running. A month later, and we’re down to five, the evening […]

I’ve been so busy with on-the-ground Better Angels activities that I haven’t had time to update this blog in over two months. I apologize for that, and thought I’d try to make amends with a review of recent activity, and an outline of plans for the future.

I wasn’t going to write about the whole Carson King / Anheuser-Busch / Des Moines Register fiasco, but given the aftershocks that are still reverberating here in Iowa, I feel I must.

This is nearly old news by now, but Ellen DeGeneres attended a Cowboys football game the weekend before last (she was rooting for the Packers), and had to defend her friendship with President George W. Bush, who was sitting next to her. If you were living under a rock in the past week, you can catch […]

07 October 2019 Since our Iowa Outreach Project launched a month ago, we’ve held six public viewings of the Better Angels: Reuniting America documentary. The first one was at Graceland University in Lamoni, and we’ve since held screenings at public libraries in Polk City, Newton, Dubuque, Eldridge, and Burlington.The viewing in Newton was jointly cosponsored by the Jasper County Republicans and the […]

Like most Americans above a certain age, I remember that morning in 2001 vividly. I was in my thoracic surgery clinic in Indiana when the first two planes hit. I watched the news coverage along with clinic staff and patients in the waiting room. It brought back memories of watching the opening salvos of Operation Desert Storm in […]

I’ve been away from this website for several months, as I’ve been focusing most of my efforts on reducing political polarization and restoring civil discourse through my role as the state coordinator for Better Angels in Iowa. Today, though, I feel I have to post something, if only for myself. Read at your own risk, […]

After all the rather depressing news I’ve shared recently about political polarization and corruption, I’m eager to begin writing about some positive subjects! Today, I’m going to be sharing some of my recent experiences, and after a short vacation, I’ll be introducing new ways of looking at politics and public policy, and then begin diving […]

I want to add a few comments and links regarding my recent several posts on political polarization and corruption. Some of these came to my attention after my posts, others were actually released after my posts, and a few I just couldn’t find a good place for at the time, so I am adding this […]

As I hope I’ve successfully laid out in the past few posts, I think we face some serious threats to the future of our Republic. These include polarization and disengagement by a large section of voters at the grassroots level, and systemic corruption of our politics, particularly at the federal level. These are much more […]

I received a lot of feedback on my last post about political corruption, most of it positive and encouraging. But, based upon a few of the comments, I think I need to better clarify what I mean by political corruption in the broadest sense, which is corruption of our political system. Hence, this particular series […]

In my last post, on political polarization, I claimed that while polarization is harmful in and of itself, it is not a primary problem. Rather, it is a symptom of an underlying disease; namely, political corruption. Again, not so much of individual politicians, but corruption of our system. This is not in dispute by those […]

Probably like everyone else, I have a diverse group of acquaintances. Family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, patients, and a load of people I’ve met during my forays into politics. Not everyone agrees entirely with my political views; in fact, only a minority even come close. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong and I’m right, just that […]

We made it through an enjoyable holidays, and then I became very ill for a couple of weeks. I’m well on the mend now, but behind in what I’d hoped to accomplish by now. We’re in the process of revamping my old campaign website, so pardon the dust, as the saying goes. The new website […]

Twenty-five years ago, I was a chief general surgery resident at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu. Early on Christmas Eve morning in 1993, I was called to the Emergency Room to see a young soldier who had fallen several stories from a hotel balcony in Waikiki. Lee had multiple injuries, to include a closed […]

Last night, I attended the 2nd Annual Jasper County Bipartisan Community Feed, sponsored by the Jasper County Republican and Democratic parties. In the photo above is a representative from the Salvation Army and the chairs of the two parties. As it was last year, the attendees tended to segregate based upon party, which always reminds me […]

The photo above is from 24 years ago, when Julie and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving as a couple. We had gotten married only a few months earlier, I had completed my general surgery residency and was now a staff surgeon at Fort Stewart, and we had purchased our first home together. Thanksgiving is my […]