As a former college president, I am well aware that every university is a complicated ecosystem, not a linear widget factory.
From the first-year students' fall orientation to the board's annual budget-approval meeting, everything a healthy college does requires a shared sense of mission.
It doesn't matter whether the challenge we face is large or small, whether it's a statewide disaster or a crisis just on our own block - Nebraskans face it with courage, goodwill, and the unwavering conviction that we are part of one community of neighbors and friends.
Every day, across our state, we see grit and resilience.
Reducing everything immediately to good and evil is bad history - not only because it isn't true, but because reductionism is unpersuasive; it is boring. Good history, on the other hand, demands that one talk socratically - that one can present alternate viewpoints, not strawman arguments.
In policy arena after policy arena, Democrats respond to every failure of clunky government by proposing the addition of still more layers to 1960s-era bureaucracies as they break down.
We cannot let Obamacare expand geographically by setting up state exchanges, nor can we extend Obamacare's unlawful subsidies.
Obamacare cannot be fixed and Republicans must not extend this disastrous legislation.
Obamacare arrived also because Republicans failed to persuade the public that we could address the avalanche of problems government had already created by decades of interfering with the health-care market.
Democrats have long held an advantage over Republicans on health care, mostly due to a perceived empathy problem in my party.
Obamacare is not popular.
At our house we have come to conclude that building and strengthening character will require extreme measures and the intentional pursuit of gritty work experiences.
When I was a kid, we had airconditioning in the house... but we never used it.
We lack an educated, resilient citizenry capable of navigating the increasing complexities of daily life.
The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.
The word deepfake has become a generic noun for the use of machine-learning algorithms and facial-mapping technology to digitally manipulate people's voices, bodies and faces. And the technology is increasingly so realistic that the deepfakes are almost impossible to detect.
Rising political tribalism, shamelessly exaggerating our opponents' claims or behavior, is leaving us vulnerable: No one loves America's internal fighting - and our increasingly siloed news consumption - more than Vladimir Putin.
The NBA has prided itself on free expression. Its players and owners have a well-earned reputation for speaking out on social justice in the United States. Sadly, it seems woke capitalism stops at the water's edge.
The Chinese Communist Party and the American people are locked in conflict.
With a population of 1.4 billion, China is a lucrative market. But getting into that market isn't cheap. At best, the price of doing business in China is silence; at worst, it's reading talking points straight from the Chinese Communist Party. Beijing is not subtle about it.
