Many months have passed since I have written in this blog. These have not been idle months. They have been filled with personal discovery and growth, accompanied by changes in life's expression. I am not given to expounding endlessly the play-by-play of my life. The accumulation of experiences over time, combined with the suspension of over-thinking and -analyzing them, can create a wonderful thrust of understanding and evolution at a carefully chosen moment. Words fall short, so I am often silent. read more »

By Robert C. Koehler

Tribune Media Services

The news went straight to the Dad Zone of my heart and I thought about my 20-year-old daughter finishing up her junior year in St. Paul, Minn. I thought about book bags and attitude, tentative career plans and those uncomfortable plastic chairs with the flip-up elbow rests — the stuff of a young person’s becoming — and then I went numb with grief.

On the most ordinary of ordinary days this week, on a different campus but in my mind the same campus, the future was shattered with a methodical popping noise. read more »

Two days after the Utah delegation to the Department of Peace conference visited the office of Senator Orin Hatch, the front page of the Salt Lake Tribune contained an article quoting the Senator as saying "Those who prepared only for the military defeat of Saddam's forces committed such a profound error that it will be a lesson learned read more »

As some 60 state coordinators finished up their pre-conference meeting on Friday, waves of peace-makers began filling up the lobby. These early arrivals filled the ballroom to capacity to watch the theatrical production The Gift of Peace by playwright Stacey Martino. read more »

There is growing evidence that the universal need for peace and peace-building is becoming mainstream, common sense. Below is a New York Times discussion in which conservative historian Max Boot endorses the creation of a Department of Peace. I added emphasis to the paragraph about that. read more »