General

By Randall Moody

“Randy Moody, meet Andy Rooney.”

Say that out loud a few times and you may catch the humor of the moment when I first met the recently deceased “60 Minutes” commentator and CBS News icon.

By Brad Stephan, RN, BSN, BA

As a nurse, allow me to sum up the traditional medical model driving the health care industry, as follows: We sit and wait for the phone to ring. Of course, the “we” is the health care provider—physicians, nurses, hospitals, etc.—and the person at the other end of that phone is you, a typical patient whose symptoms have progressed to the point of being self-evident or intolerable. In other words, the traditional medical model represents “reactive medicine,” which is so 20th century! And, now, here’s the problem: Our 21st-century budget cannot afford 20th-century medicine, particularly with the added burden of an aging population coupled with a struggling economy. Something (or, more precisely, someone) has got to give.

By Paul Nathenson, RN, ND

Prevention begins with recognizing the causation of chronic illness, including cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory illness. There are five controllable factors related to health and disease prevention and one uncontrollable factor, which is genetics. The five controllable factors include smoking status, nutrition, stress management, exercise and sleep. The first one is easy; it has been well documented and widely publicized that smoking cigarettes causes cancer—not just lung cancer but breast cancer, cervical cancer and a variety of other carcinomas. It should be clear by now that you shouldn’t smoke and that you should avoid second-hand smoke, which has been thought by some to be more dangerous that the act of smoking.

By Jon Bailey

Chronic diseases and conditions such as heart disease, cancer, strokes and diabetes are responsible for seven of 10 American deaths each year and 75 percent of the nation’s health spending. Many behaviors lead to poor health and these chronic conditions—behaviors such as tobacco use, poor diet, physical inactivity and alcohol abuse. Such is the case of today’s American health care system—the need to address diseases and conditions that, in many cases, are preventable. Little-recognized provisions of the Affordable Care Act seek to change the health care system by placing a greater emphasis on health and by promoting strategies that will help create healthier people and healthier communities.

By Kandra Hahn

It’s Norfolk, Nebraska. Saturday, June 18, 2011.

Cloris Leachman, 85, Oscar and Emmy winner, beautifully dressed in a cocktail ensemble, has just accepted the Johnny Carson Comedy Legend trophy. As the show closes, she stands, pulls down her pants and moons the crowd of 1,200.

By Shannon J. Peterson

Despite some flooding this summer, most of Nebraska is open and ready to welcome visitors. In fact, it’s the perfect time of year to get out and explore the state.

By J. L. Schmidt

It came to me some years ago as I steered the car off the Interstate and onto one of Nebraska’s secondary roads. I was doing it as much for me as for my two young sons in the back seat of the station wagon.

I don’t want these kids to grow up and think that Nebraska is an endless stretch of four-lane highways, rest areas and fast food restaurants, I told my wife. I want them to see and remember the places and things that we experienced as kids.

By Paul Nathenson, RN

In order to maintain a healthy weight, it is important to understand the mechanisms that cause weight gain. Once you have an understanding of what causes weight gain, you will be in a position to make the right nutrition choices, and you will be able to avoid being fooled by diet foods or even some foods labeled as healthy that actually cause weight gain.

By Gene R. Bedient

Our adventure in Algeria began when my spouse, Gwen Bedient, decided to apply for employment with the U.S. Foreign Service. In January 2010 we received notice that she had been accepted and was being invited to Washington for orientation. Because I have been working toward retirement after 41 years with the Bedient Pipe Organ Company, the timing seemed ideal because living outside of the continental United States had been a dream of ours. A sudden shifting-of-gear was necessary to set in motion the many arrangements that needed to be made prior to her reporting to D.C. for training on March 15. Shortly after arrival, she learned that her first assignment would be at the American Embassy in Algiers, capital city of Algeria on the northern African coast. My retirement plans were launched.

By Heather Sarles

At one time the Otoes and Missourias, along with the Winnebago and Iowa Tribes, were part of a single tribe that lived in the Great Lakes Region of the United States. In the 16th century the tribes separated from each other and migrated west and south, although they still lived near each other in the lower Missouri River Valley.

By Tim Montgomery

Now that National Bicycle Month is drawing to a close, National Trails Day offers another reason to celebrate trails. Trails have long provided corridors to link resources necessary for human survival. Today’s trails infrastructure are no different, continuing to provide transportation links within and between communities, safe routes to work and school, opportunities for economic development and options for physical activity and improved health.

By Georgeann Wearin

Hardly anyone takes a journey anymore. Life is lived at a fast pace and is rarely savored or enjoyed. Travelers pop in a DVD so children in the back seat will be entertained, teenagers with flying fingers text endlessly and thus do not have to visit with boring adults.

By Paul Gottlieb and Kay Pearse

After more than a decade of drought, Queenslanders in Australia were revelling in a return to a more regular summer season in 2011. The gardens were greening up, the cicadas and frogs were chirping again and we could shower for longer than the three minutes required during the extended water restrictions.

The source of Brisbane’s water, Wivenhoe Dam, had dropped to just 16 percent during the drought, and now it was full to overflowing. At the peak of the flood, it reached 190 percent capacity—which includes 100 percent of its water supply and 90 percent of its flood mitigation capacity.

By Eli S. Chesen

We are leaving Iraq, contemplating the building of mosques in Manhattan, quibbling with our founding fathers’ church-versus-state paradigm, and in the meantime various and sundry indigenous religious wars are conflagrating in locations beyond the awareness of the geographically challenged. We have been killing each other for hundreds of thousands of years as uncivilizations argued over who was or was not a genuine prophet speaking for this God or that God.

By Justin Van Wart and Charles Francis

Organic” on a label at the local grocery store usually prompts thoughts of a pesticide-free, exceptionally nutritious and better-tasting product. While there is evidence pointing to the superior quality of some organic products, there is also evidence to the contrary. In the midst of this confusion, does the word organic mean anything? How does a product become certified as organic and what faith can we have in the label? It is no wonder that consumers are confused.

By Robert Peterson

What does it cost to keep a person in prison? According to the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services, the average cost of incarceration per inmate each year in Nebraska is over $27,000.

By Charles Nicholas, Dee Aguilar and Sarah Quandahl

Elder heroes behave very differently from younger ones: their journeys are often inward rather than outward, backward rather than forward, slow and intentional rather than fast and impetuous. But their actions are just as heroic, if not more so, for the stakes are higher, time is short and the flesh is weak. Victory, and it’s far from guaranteed, is full acceptance and then a willingness to let it go as one helps others to prepare for the ascendancy of the next generation. This is what we call the elderquest—the search for wisdom, connection and integrity in later life, and those who go on this quest are providing us with new and more positive narratives for successful aging.

By Kandra Haha

My friend Pat Knapp and I have come to Washington, D.C., for Emmy-winning comedian Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity. I saw him announce it on his show Sept. 17 and thought right away about going. Pat, a Lincoln, Neb. lawyer, read about it and sent an e-mail to a group of friends with the subject line, “OH MY GOD I WANT TO GO!!!” I replied and, typical of me, had already checked flights and prices. Our friends demurred, citing preexisting sanity. Pat and I had plane tickets and a room in a couple of days.

By Kandra Hahn

“Oh, come on now, you didn’t sit up here and expect not to get picked on.” Comedian Lisa Lampanelli is at the edge of the stage at the Pershing Center in Lincoln, Neb., on Sept. 24, scanning for targets.

By Darrell Scott

It’s been over seven years since I came from my home in Nashville, Tenn., to play music in central Nebraska, mostly at The Listening Room in Hastings. Believe me, I have my reasons for returning again and again as I do, but first let me tell you my history with central Nebraska and Hastings.