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| Poet's Corner: What's in your pocket? >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Often when I dig some change out of my jeans pocket to pay somebody for something, the pennies and nickels are accompanied by a big gob of blue ...more |
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| Friend pays homage to Vern Miller, Kansas lawman >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Vern Miller was a character.
To author and apparently good friend Mike Danford, he was Vern Miller: Legendary Kansas Lawman (iUniverse, 2009). To a substantial number of ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Transitory freedom >> Features | kooser |
| Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
A poem is an experience like any other, and we can learn as much or more about, say, an apple from a poem about an apple as from the apple ...more |
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| A Valentine's Day Story >> Features | mnelson |
| This is a true story of lost love and hope.
Back in the summer when I was 13 years old, we lived on the east side of Small Town Anywhere, U.S.A. I rode my bike a lot; almost every day. There ...more |
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| Geocaching: high tech treasure hunt >> Features | mariwinn |
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At right, Mattie Gilmore and her mom Kenna Peters check out coordinates on Kenna's Delorme Earthmate GPS. They were looking for the closest geocache hidden in Joplin.
Below, Mattie signs ...more |
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| Greg Dobbs takes us to the wrong lane >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
The term "foreign correspondent" for many conjures up the image of someone buckling their swash and charging bravely into battle to prove that the pen is mightier than ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Preserving Christmas memories >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Family photographs, how much they do capture in all their elbow-to-elbow awkwardness. In this poem, Ben Vogt of Nebraska describes a color ...more |
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| Baxter's heyday captured by Joplin author >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Some older cowhands along this Internet trail will recall the early Saturday cowboy shoot-'em-up movies at the Fox, Paramount or even the odoriferous Orpheum theaters.
...more |
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| Poetry Corner: Parental love revisited >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
There are lots of poems in which a poet expresses belated appreciation for a parent, and if you don't know Robert Hayden's poem, "Those Winter ...more |
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| Arkansas college head reminisces about friendship >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Often the most important things come in small packages and little moves do not loom large until years later.
That may be the major lesson in The Side-Yard Superhero by ...more |
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| Three authors offer tips for life >> Features | mariwinn |
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Two books, were called to our attention that in some way deal with finding a sense of self worth and with it dealing with what life offers.
Dougie Goes to School, the second in the "Dougie's ...more |
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| If the animals could talk... >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Often, fiction is truer than reality.
Sure, fans of "Survivor Samoa" on television would not believe that, perhaps, but author Mitch Jayne proves it again, in ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Cord not severed >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
An "aubade" is a poem about separation at dawn, but as you'll see, this one by Dore Kiesselbach, who lives in Minnesota, is about the complex ...more |
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| Searching for true love in the real world >> Features | mariwinn |
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Stephanie Rockey from the Washington, DC metropolitan area is the founder of a dating service called True Life Partners. She decided to share the knowledge she gained from hundreds of client ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Dad defined >> Features | kooser |
| Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
I tell my writing students that their most important task is to pay attention to what's going on around them. God is in the details, as we ...more |
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| Name your reading pleasure: dark side or not >> Features | staff |
| Vampires, whether in historical fiction or in modern novels requiring blood-curling realism, always are a source of fascination, especially for youngsters. But is there becoming too much obsession ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: The move >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
This column originates on the campus of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and at the beginning of each semester, we see parents helping their ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Growing older >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
For over 40 years, Mark Vinz, of Moorhead, Minnesota--poet, teacher, publisher--has been a prominent advocate for the literature of the Upper ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Childhood critic >> Features | kooser |
| Comments by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
There have been many poems written in which a photograph is described in detail, and this one by Margaret Kaufman, of the Bay Area in California, ...more |
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| Here's a trio of books to read to youngsters >> Features | staff |
| Research is showing that children who have been read to at an early age are better prepared to succeed in school. Reading aloud to children helps stimulate brain development as well as to provide an ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Loss of innocence >> Features | kooser |
| Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
There's lots of literature about the loss of innocence, because we all share in that loss and literature is about what we share. Here's a poem ...more |
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| Hidden strength of the quiet personality >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack Kennedy
Several years ago, every day I faced a quiet student in the front row of my English class. Every day I tried to get some oral response from this bright-looking soul in my ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Fleeting moments of life >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
American literature is rich with poems about the passage of time, and the inevitability of change, and how these affect us. Here is a poem by Kevin ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Another strike >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
We've published this column about American life for over four years, and we have finally found a poem about one of the great American pastimes, ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: What'dya say? >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
I've gotten to the age at which I am starting to strain to hear things, but I am glad to have gotten to that age, all the same. Here's a fine ...more |
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| St. Patty's Day--what's behind the tradition? >> Features | d-welch |
| by Daniel Patrick Welch
Sláinte agus saol agat! Good health and long life to you.
Another St. Patrick's Day is here, with its tacky kegs of green beer, leprechauns, lucky charms, fake plastic ...more |
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| English exposure to Cumandá >> Features | mariwinn |
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Noe O. Vaca ("Ozzie"), a former Ecuadoran educator but now an American citizen living in South Carolina, is spending his later years writing short stories and translating and interpreting ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Dad's mid-life crisis >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Ah, yes, the mid-life crisis. And there's a lot of mid-life in which it can happen. Jerry Lee Lewis sang of it so well in "He's thirty-nine and ...more |
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| Poetry Corner: Triggering memories >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Memories have a way of attaching themselves to objects, to details, to physical tasks, and here, George Bilgere, an Ohio poet, happens upon mixed ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Life after death goes on >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Here's a fine poem by Chris Forhan of Indiana, about surviving the loss of a parent, and which celebrates the lives that survive it, that go on. I ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: On conveying feelings >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
One of the most effective means for conveying strong emotion is to invest some real object with one's feelings, and then to let the object carry ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Touched by geometry >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Father and child doing a little math homework together; it's an everyday occurrence, but here, Russell Libby, a poet who writes from Three Sisters ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: A few flecks of red >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
The first two lines of this poem pose a question many of us may have thought about: how does snow make silence even more silent? And notice Robert ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Snip, snip >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Occupational hazards, well, you have to find yourself in the occupation to know about those. Here Minnie Bruce Pratt of Alabama gives us an inside ...more |
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| Former Globe columnist is memorialized >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack Kennedy
A slice of life
Willa Younger, unfortunately, may represent a declining art.
From 1977 for some 22 years, she was the food editor and a columnist for The Joplin Globe. ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Remembrance by a veteran >> Features | kooser |
| By Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
In celebration of Veteran's Day, here is a telling poem by Gary Dop, a Minnesota poet. The veterans of World War II, now old, are dying by the thousands. ...more |
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| Midwest internment of German PWs is exhibited >> Features | mariwinn |
| Camp Crowder in Neosho, one of 30 camps in Missouri, housed between 2,000 and 2500 German prisoners during World War II. There were about 380,000 German PWs in 660 camps in every US state except ...more |
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| Book reviews: Reading with the kinesthetic method >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack Kennedy
Titles can be deceptive, just like people.
A Recipe Book for Tutors; Teaching the Kinesthetic Learner by Cynthia Parsons (Rowman & Littlefield) may at first blush sound ...more |
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| Poet's corner: They'll be missed >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
When I was a boy, there were still a few veterans of the Spanish American War, and more of The Great War, or World War I, and now all those have ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Grade school science >> Features | kooser |
| Commentary by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Perhaps you made paper leaves when you were in grade school. I did. But are our memories as richly detailed as these by Washington, D.C. poet, ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Painting life >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
I've always loved shop talk, with its wonderful language of tools and techniques. This poem by D. Nurkse of Brooklyn, NY, is a perfect example. I ...more |
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| Book reviews: From Branson to Bible verses >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack Kennedy
Three varied volumes which might be worth a few minutes of non-demanding summer leisure time have crossed this reviewer's desk. If you do not expect much from them, these ...more |
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| A dose of cynicism for the uninitiated >> Features | mambo |
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Review by Mark Adams
"A light hearted romp" will not be found in any descriptions about The American Lie--Government by the People and Other Political Fables (Paradigm Publishers, July 2007), ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: On marriage >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
I don't often talk about poetic forms in this column, thinking that most of my readers aren't interested in how the clock works and would rather be ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Finding roots >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-2006
Sometimes I think that people are at their happiest when they're engaged in activities close to the work of the earliest humans: telling stories ...more |
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| The joy of communicating with horses >> Features | jkennedy |
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Review by Jack L. Kennedy
Several years ago, a little girl growing up with her big brothers in a farm town suburb of Kansas City met a horse.
She would tell stories of the part-Arabian, ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Fried things and tattoos >> Features | kooser |
| American Life in Poetry is edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06. He offers these two poems:
Texas poet R.S. Gwynn is a master of the light touch. Here he picks up on Gerard Manley ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: The age gap >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Though at the time it may not occur to us to call it "mentoring," there's likely to be a good deal of that sort of thing going on, wanted or ...more |
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| Inspirational books for gift-giving >> Features | jkennedy |
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Reviews by Jack L. Kennedy
It is often difficult to find the right words, written or oral, when you are under stress or need to comfort others.
Two authors of recent inspirational ...more |
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| All you want to know about Missouri trolleys >> Features | jkennedy |
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An early newspaper clipping shows conductors standing at a dangerous crossing where two rail lines intersected. An interesting book for the lover of trolleys--and not of Aaron Buerge's restaurants ...more |
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| Selections from small publishing houses >> Features | jkennedy |
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Reviews by Jack Kennedy
It is never the wrong time to pick up a good book, if you can find one. The current bibliographic buffet includes a variety of morsels, some tasty, some tantalizing ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: The Quarrel >> Features | kooser |
| Introduction by Ted Kooser, US Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Elsewhere in this newspaper you may find some advice for maintaining and repairing troubled relationships. Here, in a poem by Linda Pastan of ...more |
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| On being cynically realistic >> Features | mambo |
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Review by Mark Adams
"A light hearted romp" will not be found in any descriptions about The American Lie: Government by the People and Other Political Fables (Paradigm Publishers, July 2007), ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Veterans of the seventies >> Features | kooser |
| Post-traumatic stress disorder is a new name for "shell shock," a term once applied only to military veterans. Here the poet Marvin Bell describes a group of these emotionally damaged soldiers, ...more |
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| Can science and religion evolve together? >> Features | jkennedy |
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Review by Jack Kennedy
Sometimes, you can tell a book by its cover. That is evident from the moment you spy the dust jacket for Thank God for Evolution, with the subtitle How the marriage of ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Soaring with the chickens >> Features | admin2 |
| By James H. Boren, PhD
Two dozen chickens were hung on a lineNaked and gutted awaiting the signMarking approval to be served as a meal,Tender and wholesome with great food appeal.
“Wait ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: On old age >> Features | admin2 |
| Two poems hit our e-mail from American Life in Poetry about growing old. The first one tells about forced retirement and how a husband compares his situation to that of his wife; the second one ...more |
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| What is your carbon footprint? >> Features | mariwinn |
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Assisting to educate one million people in the next 12 months about global warming is the role assumed locally by David Gordon, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Pittsburg State ...more |
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| Novelist captures the spirit of the Ozarks >> Features | jkennedy |
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Ever meet a real, live ghost? That may seem like a chilling contradiction in terms until you read Fiddler's Ghost (Wildstone Media, 2007) by well-known Ozark folklorist Mitch Jayne. Jayne is a ...more |
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| Kids as killers is subject of book >> Features | jkennedy |
| by Jack L. Kennedy
"It can't happen here...."
Not long ago, many of us thought school violence, threats, intimidation and killing could not occur in our own schools, whether small rural ...more |
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| BTK killer incarcerated but still a mystery >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy--
Kennedy was night police reporter, then education writer, for the Wichita Eagle for nine years before leaving for the Lincoln, NE Journal in October, 1973--three months ...more |
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| First-time author entertains with P.I. yarn >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
This book is a mystery not only because it is a detective yarn, titled A Nick Turner PI Novel: Love's Worth by first-time writer F. D. Bersey Jr., but because the ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Round and round >> Features | d-welch |
| Round and Round
by Daniel Patrick Welch
On the occasion of the anniversary of US independence, this poem by Daniel Patrick Welch muses on the state of patriotism in the USA. In a brief jaunt ...more |
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| Is that fly a spy? >> Features | mambo |
| This piece was written as a reaction to Who's Watching You?, a book by Mick Farren and John Gibb that describes how the US government using the excuse of terrorism has stepped up its surveillence and ...more |
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| A look beneath the faces of history >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Thrown together in a small book that barely touches their accomplishments, what do 18 leaders have in common?
Not much, at least on the surface--and, perhaps, that is ...more |
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| New guides for ID-ing Missouri birds and flowers >> Features | sltimme |
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by Dr. Stephen L. Timme,professor of botany and director and curator of the Theodore M. Sperry Herbarium, Department of Biology, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS
Michael Roedel and ...more |
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| Caring for a mother with Alzheimer's >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
There is beauty in simplicity, even when both are colored by pain.
Disintegration, love and hope are the key factors in Deborah Shouse's Love in the Land of Dementia: ...more |
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| So, you want to be a writer?- Part one >> Features | mariwinn |
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Author/lecturer Kay Hively holds up a copy of Jon Cleary's 1977 novel, Vortex during a talk she gave for the Crowder College Friends of the Library on campus in Neosho. Cleary's story takes place ...more |
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| Meet the Madder Family >> Features | sltimme |
| by Dr. Stephen L. Timmeprofessor of botanyand director of the T. M. Sperry Herbarium, Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, KS.
A small bluet
While hiking at Wildcat Glade (just at the ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: WAR Eclipse >> Features | mambo |
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The lunar eclipse on March 3, 2007 brought to mind this war analogy as the rounds of news from Iraq continues.
WAR Eclipeby May Belle Osborne
Blood red moonEclipses the stainThe message ...more |
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| The killer's M.O. makes for a chilling tale >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
James L. Castner's novel The Tsantsa Homicides has something for just about everyone. It would be a mistake if the reader were to put it down before the often-chilling ...more |
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| Looking back: sweet memories and pathos >> Features | g-land |
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Interstate 40...the road home
by Greg A. Land
In high school I remember reading about 40-year reunions in my hometown newspaper, the Neosho Daily News. The people pictured seemed so ...more |
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| Hallucinogenic mushrooms and flying reindeer >> Features | mambo |
| Why do Santa's reindeer fly?The role of ancient mushroom-using shamans
by Mark Adams
These red and white mushrooms, Amanita muscaria, were found in an alpine forest around Creede, Colorado. A. ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: Taxes >> Features | pelican |
| Tax his land, tax his bed,Tax the table at which he's fed.Tax his tractor, tax his mule,Teach him taxes are the rule.Tax his cow, tax his goat,Tax his pants, tax his coat.Tax his ties, tax his ...more |
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| Ins and outs of deer hunting >> Features | mariwinn |
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Some people who prefer the well being of their ornamental plants and turf grass aren't a part of the group of deer admirers that wax poetic over the white tailed creatures that prance through their ...more |
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| Mindless Eating is a nourishing read >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
Mindless Eating may be the most nourishing book you read all year. It is full of tasty morsels dipped in a rich, creamy, sometimes sarcastic sauce of humor, spiced with ...more |
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| Science behind autumn's changing colors >> Features | sltimme |
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For those of us that live in the Ozarks, the fall is a time when many trees change from the monotonous green of spring and summer to various shades of reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. Unlike ...more |
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| Wagner authors book on Eisenhower republicanism >> Features | jkennedy |
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by Jack L. Kennedy
In 1952 a recent Joplin High School graduate enrolled at what is now Pittsburg State University went downtown to check out the environment. He found, at about Fourth and ...more |
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| Camping at Bushwhacker Lake Conservation Area >> Features | bgraber |
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When you plan to go camping, do just that. PLAN! Though I am not a newcomer to camping, I’m not a big time outfitter either.
I hadn’t been on a real, meaning more than one ...more |
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| Sid the Comic: on climactic change >> Features | sknowles |
| by Sid Knowles
I have decided it is time that I throw my hat into the global warming debate. With the increase in temperatures throughout the world the need for a hat might not be as great as it ...more |
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| Nocturnal sounds of owls are recorded >> Features | mariwinn |
| For those of us who think that owls only can be identified by the sound, "whooooo-whooooo," members of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, NY have produced a learning tool.
"Owls have a rich ...more |
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| So, do you still want to be a cop? >> Features | mariwinn |
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101 Reasons Why You Should Not Become a Cop is the provocative title chosen by author James Richard Warner. A police officer for over 19 years, Warner has collected experiences and challenges that ...more |
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| Surviving first date disasters >> Features | corie |
| “First dates are like job interviews with cocktails,” Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City” once said. The problem is many of us don’t know what to do during job ...more |
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| Pets are people, too >> Features | jwillis |
| How Could You?By Jim Willis
Hoping to be your party animal(Photo by Matt Taylor)
When I was a puppy, I entertained you with my antics and made you laugh. You called me your child, and despite a ...more |
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| Writer's Camp: Johnny of the fire pump >> Features | vilhotti |
| By Jerry Vilhotti--
When Johnny Pump could walk, his 11-year-old sister Alice in Wonderland would dance with him as she stood on her knees. She would kiss his neck and rub his leg as they waltzed ...more |
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| Poet's Corner: The Fly and I >> Features | mariwinn |
| Lavaun Bushnell says she is inspired by situations around her. A resident of Neosho, Bushnell expresses her emotion over the decision by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to allow MoArk, ...more |
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| Writer's Camp: A final dying >> Features | vilhotti |
| A storella by Jerry Vilhotti--
Biagi so much wanted to get up and feel the vigor he felt as a 16 year old borrowing Tami Mauriello's robe - the very same man who had staggered the great Joe Louis ...more |
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| Early Ozarkers demonstrated humor and ingenuity >> Features | d-burton |
| “The rural and Scot-Irish influence on the Ozarks is seen in the region’s philosophy which has often been couched in humor,” said Dr. Jim Wirth, human development specialist, ...more |
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| A tale of Jimmy Higgins >> Features | spbyers |
| Jimmy Higgins Arrives In Lost River Bridge
Copyright © Stephen P. Byers 2004
It was the summer of 1946. I remember like it was yesterday despite the elapse of forty-eight years. Cousin ...more |
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| Costa Rica--an environment at risk >> Features | mariwinn |
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While Costa Rica touts itself as one of the most bio-diverse regions in the world, for its visitors to view the flora and fauna in protected national parks and private wildlife reserves takes ...more |
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| Death Revisited >> Features | mariwinn |
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Intellectually we can commiserate with anyone who has experienced the death of a child. But, without firsthand knowledge we can't truly feel the anguish and grief. According to psychologists, ...more |
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