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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: Insomnia >> Features | kooser |
| If one believes television commercials, insomnia, that thief of sleep, torments humans in ever-increasing numbers. Rynn Williams, a poet working in Brooklyn, New York, tries here to identify its ...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 just a ...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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| Poet's Corner: Matinee >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Here is a lovely poem about survival by Patrick Phillips of New York. People sometimes ask me "What are poems for?" and Matinee is an example ...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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| Poet's Corner: Visitation >> Features | kooser |
| Edited by Ted Kooser, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006
Each of the senses has a way of evoking time and place. In this bittersweet poem by Jeffrey Harrison of Massachusetts, birdsong offers ...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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| Poet's Corner: E. Hobbs' two-car courtship >> Features | kooser |
| Edited bY Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate, 2004-06
Not only do we have road rage, but it seems we have road love, too. Here Elizabeth Hobbs of Maine offers us a two-car courtship. Be careful with ...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 night, camping ...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 interviews, let alone first dates. We ...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, University of Missouri ...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 Emery and ...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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