I’ve recently returned with my teenage-son from a two-week road trip. (His dad’s currently traveling in China.) We drove from South Dakota to see my parents in North Carolina, with many stops along the way….

Empty seats at the National Mall prior to the inauguration (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters) Today I will not attend the inauguration of Donald J. Trump. Nor will I watch it on television or listen to it…

WAKING IN TRUMP’S AMERICA Jan Steckel The Statue of Liberty’s arm is tired. She may have torn her rotator cuff. She still has dual citizenship, wonders if her passport is in order. She imagines lowering…
I submitted this piece some days ago to run in my local paper, The Brookings (SD) Register. But it’s likely to be obsolete before it’s run, since Mr. Trump is so quickly squandering my good…

This is a difficult day. I will spend it writing. I will spend it hoping, and praying in my way, that the man just elected President of the United States might, with our help, prove…
The following opinion piece was published today in The Brookings Register (Brookings, SD), my town’s newspaper. I composed and submitted it just prior to the recent killings in Louisiana, Minnesota and Texas. We’re just…

[This is a copy of a speak-out I submitted to the Brookings (SD) Register. It was published on March 15, 2016. Corrections made on March 16.] The other night I was cooking supper with my…