General

Our gratitude goes out to those who have helped us build and maintain the Prairie Fire network: our contributors, advertisers, distributors, many faithful volunteers, and all of you who have given guidance and support. A special thanks goes to Oakcreek Printing who ahs come through for us month after month. And lastly, of course we thank our 33,000-plus readers, who will be the ultimate judge of our success.

We look forward to another year of being the progressive voice of the Great Plains!

By Robert K. Hitchcock

The continent of Africa is often seen as a continent in decline, one in which droughts, famine, disease, poverty, failed states, economic stagnation and poorly thought-out development projects are pervasive. As Jared Diamond asked in his recent book, “Collapse” (2005), “Is the African continent doomed eternally to wars, poverty, and devastating diseases? I think not.” All one has to do is to look at book titles: “Africa in Crisis,” “Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth, and Re­sources in Sierra Leone,” “Prisoners of Freedom: Human Rights and the African Poor,” and “Conflicts over Land and Water in Africa.” Africa was characterized by “The Economist” (May 13, 2000) as “the hopeless continent.” If one sees the film “Darwin’s Nightmare,” one cannot help but despair at the massive environmental, social and economic problems facing the populations residing in and around Lake Victoria. Yet Africa received only 3 percent of the world’s Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the early part of the new millennium.

By Eli S. Chesen

While this essay offers up at least a partial and, I think, inevitable solution to a worldwide shortage of accessible energy, the ironic inspiration for this piece is derived from the most recent incarnation of the “Indiana Jones” genre: “The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” This iteration of the popular Spielberg-Harrison Ford series features a now-geriatric Indiana Jones.

By Eli S. Chesen

In a recent conversation with friend and biologist Ben Hanelt, Ph.D., University of New Mexico, I was given to realize that E. O. Wilson, famed Harvard bio-social-anthropologist, has offered considerable evidence that there is much more behind the deforestation of Brazil and North Carolina than mere economic, fuel-based gluttony.

By Eli S. Chesen

Carbon, carbon, carbon: What’s a person to do? Society’s worry du jour goes something like this: We have an insatiable carbonaceous appetite for oil, coal, ethanol and natural gas, and we have, already, in a single century, picked and burned the low-lying fruit from the derrick. In the meantime, there smolders an ongoing debate over the whys and wherefores of ethanol, wind, synfuels, nuclear, photovoltaic and other alternative sources of energy.

By Arthur I. Zygielbaum

At the end of February 2008, there was a brief flare-up of stories about a spy satellite about to fall from the sky. The stories ended almost as rapidly as the satellite, after it was pulverized by a Navy missile. While that story faded, it is important to note that there are tens of thousands of objects in earth orbit. Some are useful—like communications satellites. Some are not—like thousands of frozen drops of nuclear reactor coolant leaking from Soviet-era satellites. Unless they are in extremely high orbits, all of these objects will eventually return to earth.

By Eli S. Chesen

Countless parents subscribe to the notion that exposing their child to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart might convert their progeny into prodigy. The commonly held delusion here is that equipped with a handbook and handful of CDs, Johnnie has an advantage over those other kids who are growing up on Twisted Sister and Mötley Crüe. Unconventional wisdom says that even brief exposure to the 18th century musical savant will make your kid smarter and, after all, Mozart had pushy parents, too.

“Polking Around”
June 4, 1970

We entered a world of fantasy yesterday. Not the fantasy world of the Pentagon, who use B52 bombers in fighting a guerrilla war; nor the fantasy world of Vice President Agnew, in which he is right and everybody else is wrong; but the fantastic world of breakfast foods on the shelf at Stromburg’s IGA.

By Stephen Griffith

Feb. 9, 2008, 8:30 p.m. I’m just home from the first-ever Nebraska presidential caucuses. I’m hoarse - not a good thing for a minister on Saturday night. Some impressions:

By Eli S. Chesen

A recent news story out of Texas tells us of a loving mother having ghostwritten a winning essay, “My Daddy Died This Year in Iraq,” on behalf of her daughter, which would have given the six-year-old four tickets to a Hannah Montana concert and a makeover replete with a Hannah Montana hairpiece. The stakes were frighteningly high in this contest.

By Kristin Van Tassel

The second week of December, an ice storm hit the Plains states, and thousands of families lost power, some for a week or more.

My family was among them, and the experience gave me an epiphany I call the Light Bulb Theory of Materialism. Never mind the other manifestations of electricity - climate control, communication, transportation, mass production. The light bulb is the foundation of consumption.

By Apar K. Ganti, M.D.

Advance care planning (ACP) represents a way for patients to put down their wishes regarding the kind of care they would like to receive in the event they are unable to make their own decisions due to illness. However, current estimates suggest that less than 10 percent of adults in the United States have engaged in advance care planning. One of the major reasons that patients and physicians are unlikely to initiate discussions regarding this issue is that it inevitably raises the issue of death and dying. It has also been anecdotally believed that discussion of "negative" information may have an adverse effect on the patient, who, as in the setting of cancer care, comes to the doctor hoping for cure.

By Monica Pribil

If you’ve ever tried to quit smoking or chewing tobacco, you know it’s hard. It’s hard because nicotine is a very addictive drug. In fact, it’s common for tobacco users to try to quit five to seven times before they finally do. Each time you try to quit though, you learn more about what works for you and eventually you can succeed.

By Maxine Moul

Caring for those less fortunate has been a hallmark for Nebraska from its earliest days. Raising barns and harvesting crops for neighbors in need are traditions that have been passed down through the generations, and we still read of farm families who gather for spring plantings or urban folks who open their wallets and their hearts to those less fortunate.

By Dave Bomberger

Benjamin Franklin once observed, “An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.” There is as much truth in that statement today as there was in Franklin’s time. Education contributes to the success of individuals and to the productivity and competitiveness of the United States. The importance of education is especially significant as the American workplace evolves. During the past five years alone, job opportunities requiring a postsecondary education have increased almost nine times faster than jobs requiring a high school diploma or less.

By Kandra Hahn

This is my journal and travelogue of a trip on Amtrak from Lincoln to Chicago. I had urgent family business in Chicago. I’d had nothing but bad experiences recently on airlines, and I needed a break. I’d always liked trains but worried about the extra time it took and usually gave in and flew. I loved the spacious seats and the expansive hours reading, doing needlework, sleeping, sitting in the observation car or at leisurely meals in the dining car, chatting with perfect strangers I would never see again. These days I had to add in the sheer luxury of boarding with a six-ounce bottle of hand lotion and not having to stand barefoot, dumping my laptop computer into a plastic dishpan before sending it through an X-ray machine.