Big ROI in living a grateful life

Big ROI in living a grateful life

Gazette Column
Did the Thanksgiving holiday help you to physically feel better? If not, you may have been doing it wrong. Researchers have found that people who practice gratitude or thankfulness report a variety of very tangible benefits, including: • Stronger immune systems. • Lower blood pressure. • Fewer aches and pains. • Better sleep. • Increased interest in exercise and healthy eating. • Acting with more generosity and compassion. • Greater resiliency, including recovery from traumatic events. • Feeling less lonely and isolated. • Greater economic stability. • Reduced anxiety and depression. • More joy, optimism and happiness. These findings are courtesy of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which partnered with the University of California, Davis to launch a $5.6 million, three-year study project: Expanding…
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Plans for potential pipeline problems should be public

Plans for potential pipeline problems should be public

Gazette Column
Last week, Todd Stamm, vice president of the company that would operate the proposed Bakken oil pipeline, told Iowa Utilities Board members that threat assessments were created in relation to spill scenarios. According to a Des Moines Register report, those assessments include information about the scope and breadth of potential leaks. “It is just not information that I would suggest is information that you would want to be public as far as the physical location of where that location might be,” Stamm said in answer to why such information should be kept confidential. The proposed pipeline, under review by the Iowa Utilities Board for approval and eminent domain use, would carry about 450,000 barrels of crude oil each day from North Dakota to a distribution center in Illinois. The route…
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Learn to live despite risk, fear

Learn to live despite risk, fear

Gazette Column
Although only a handful of people know it, there was a time when I couldn’t get behind the wheel of a car without having a panic attack. It started late one night when I was traveling through fog on Hwy 151. I had just passed the Springville exit, heading toward Marion, when a deer materialized in front of me. I swerved, missed the animal, and lost control. The car took a nose dive into the median, pivoting while in the air. When it ended, the car rested across both lanes on the opposite side of the highway. The accident replayed in my dreams for weeks afterward. I woke up panting, heart racing. Suddenly I, a woman who has always loved to drive, was white knuckling the steering wheel with sweaty…
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Missouri professor no longer deserves position

Missouri professor no longer deserves position

Gazette Column
Communication department professor should uphold First Amendment University of Missouri Assistant Professor of Communication Melissa Click must be fired. If you’ve watched the video, then you are hereby excused from reading this rest of the column. If not, let me set the stage for you. The video, shot by MU junior Mark Schierbecker, begins by focusing on MU senior Tim Tai, who is holding a camera and being surrounded by a crowd of people who want him, and all other journalists, to leave Carnahan Quad where a temporary encampment was set up by student activists. Students, who had been actively and peacefully protesting the university’s lack of response to ongoing incidents of discrimination and racism, were celebrating the resignation of university system president Tim Wolfe and the decision by MU…
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Let’s remember, mourn all changed by Vietnam

Let’s remember, mourn all changed by Vietnam

Gazette Column
No matter how personal or distant the connection, it’s difficult to reconcile emotions surrounding the Vietnam War. Several readers, many of them veterans and friends, reached out to me after reading a series of articles by B.A. Morelli published last month in The Gazette. The articles revisit the decision by a then-20-year-old Marion man, Steve Smith, to violate federal law and burn his draft card in a brief but very public display on Oct. 20, 1965. Reaction to these pieces in which some of those interviewed call for a memorial or some other public acknowledgment of Smith’s action has been predominantly outrage, confusion and disappointment. “I lost friends in Vietnam,” one man said, “and I still haven’t stood before their names on the national memorial. And now someone wants to…
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Moving beyond projects to philosophy

Moving beyond projects to philosophy

Gazette Column
Since returning from the National Rural Assembly I’ve been reaching out to small town leaders and advocates with a question: “Why does so little of the federal grant money set aside for creative placemaking flow into Iowa?” The National Endowment for the Arts set up the Our Town grant program for creative placemaking and began issuing grants in 2011. Since that time, only two Iowa applications have been successful. Of all the money issued by the NEA for this purpose, less than 1 percent has flowed into Iowa communities. Responses to my question have been as varied as the backgrounds and experiences of the people I’ve asked. Some feel the national application process favors states on the coasts. Others lament a lack of the local partnerships required for such grants.…
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An opening, but not yet a mandate

An opening, but not yet a mandate

Gazette Column
Progressives in Iowa City are excited, and rightfully so, but shouldn’t be lulled into believing that electing a city council majority is the end game. Tuesday was historic for Iowa City municipal politics. In its most boiled down sense, the contest before voters was progressives vs. corporate interests — and, for the first time in long time in city races, the progressives overwhelmingly won. A slate, known as the “core four,” displaced two incumbents to claim a strong majority on the city council. The group has promised to reshape city policies, especially in terms of development and investment priorities. Think of it this way, if the new council had been making the decision on the Chauncey project, it wouldn’t have been approved. No doubt the dust-up surrounding three worker cottages…
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Minorities, especially, should cast a local ballot

Minorities, especially, should cast a local ballot

Gazette Column
There’s no doubt that a mere handful of votes can change the outcome of a city election, but there is even more at stake for Iowa’s underrepresented minority communities. Study voter turnout for any length of time and you’ll find political scientists who argue that increased engagement doesn’t provide significantly different election outcomes. But a look at the data behind such assertions shows their correlations are linked to the outcomes of national elections. About 62 percent of registered voters cast a ballot in the 2008 presidential election. In 2010, about 41 percent voted in congressional races and, in 2012, about 58 percent participated in the presidential election. The 2014 midterm elections in Iowa garnered a high turnout of 53.3 percent, a number praised by state officials. Yet, nationally, only about…
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