We still have a city manager form of government, ... While we can certainly suggest things to the manager, it is for the city manager to suggest things to commissioners.

All government wars are unjust.

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes.

In our own time we have seen domination spread over the social landscape to a point where it is beyond all human control. Compared to this stupendous mobilization of materials, of wealth, of human intellect, of human labor for the single goal of domination, all other recent human achievements pale to almost trivial significance. Our art, science, medicine, literature, music and "charitable" acts seem like mere droppings from a table on which gory feasts on the spoils of conquest have engaged the attention of a system whose appetite for rule is utterly unrestrained.

If Iowa has this image that we have a squeaky-clean government, this is a few drops of mud. But have we been buried under an avalanche of mud? No. Not yet, anyway.

The federal government is not putting appropriate resources on the borders. It's unfair to ask local officials, who are essentially volunteers, to address public policy.