Leaders of our local grassroots group, "We the People of South-Central Kansas," challenged us to write letters for the local newspaper about things that have angered us. There are so many! This is one. Are you angry yet? Our current president apparently thinks every public area of our country belongs to him. If you disagree, you are a traitor. Now, he’s trying to sell our National Parks to benefit his corporate sponsors and buddies.

"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

In this month's Stop Data Centers series, we'll begin looking at the ways that data centers threats are already changing voters' minds and transforming the midterm elections.

I sit in front of a fan with a glass of ice water to check the weather forecast. With a heat dome settling on top of us, we’ll see a week of triple-digit highs and daily heat advisories. There were three heat domes over the US in one month this summer. Ours is comparatively mild when you consider that on July 26, the heat index in western Illinois was 130 F.

A North Carolina congregation has wiped out millions in medical debt for neighbors they'll never meet.

It's confusing, isn't it? The super-majority Republican-dominated legislature in Topeka has put a question on our ballot for the August primary election. If you're like me, you have questions about this question. Why are the people who are worried about voter fraud pushing us to "elect" our Supreme Court Justices? If there's so much voter fraud, how did they get elected themselves?

Watch now | What has made America great has always been the American people.

Understanding the importance of the August primary and the Kansas Governor race, and opportunities to support the latest VOTE NO effort to protect Kansas courts.

When billionaires and corporate interests rig the rules for themselves, it will take more than business as usual to stop them. Every gain working people have ever won came from collective action — and...

My name is Jess and I was a high school Literature teacher for 16 years until I decided to run as a Democrat in a rural, red district in Missouri. I bring you news and politics from Missouri and beyon...

Watch this poetic expedition between two islanders, one from the Marshall Islands and one from Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), connecting their realities of melting glaciers and rising sea levels.

As protests go, the record-setting attendance at No Kings 3 events held across the nation and around the world in March made history. Here in Cowley County, the two events people could join attracted 350 protestors, double the attendance at the last No Kings event in October. Events nationwide drew an estimated 8 million people. But these notable efforts were dwarfed by another historic protest: Earth Day 1970, when 20 million people gathered in local events to demand action on environmental issues.

Third Act is actively engaged in coalitions with Public Citizen, Food & Water Watch, the Athena Coalition, and other environmental and community groups to demand a halt in the rapid expansion of A...

A whole decade has passed since the launch of Sundrop Sonata, the first suspense tale in my series of piano-oriented novels. With the recent release of its 2nd edition under the imprint of Prairie Island Press, I have had a chance to review and update the story and found it astonishingly relevant to our situation today, ten years later. The storyline of…

Recently, I ordered a book that was reviewed in a post by Jess Piper, author of the substack “View from Rural Missouri.” The book, Dear Marty, We Crapped in Our Nest, was written by Art Cullen, editor of the Storm Lake Times in rural Iowa, and published by Ice Cube Press. Cullen was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 2017 for his series on agricultural surface water pollution in Iowa.

On four years of war in Ukraine

**We have the power and are claiming it together. No Thrones. No Crowns. No Kings.** What began in 2025 as a single day of defiance has become a sustained national resistance to tyranny, spreading fr...

Join us in Topeka at the Capitol Rotunda for a gathering centered on a simple truth: every person deserves access to the basic necessities that allow them to live with dignity. Together, we’ll raise o...

YouTube video by Jess Craven 101

A solar panel is the new peace sign

Here we are in a new year, 2026. As I consider options for my future, I realize that nothing about life is simple. If events in 2025 didn’t prove that, I don’t know what would. I entered a new decade in my life last year, and you’d think I would have it figured out by now. But such is not the case.