President Joe Biden’s initial message about unity struck just the right chord at this moment in history. We’ve rarely been more divided, and the times call for coming together to overcome very difficult circumstances.

Whether you love or hate Donald Trump; whether you’re enthusiastic about Joe Biden or disspirited by his election, I’d like you to try something:

Kansas leaders shouldn’t be so buddy-buddy with Missouri

African American Poetry, Library of America, 968 pages, 2020.

The phrase “Build it and they will come” holds true. Several years ago I decided I would like a tree allée in my landscape.

There was a brief moment when we were Facebook. Sorta.

I would like to offer some thoughts following the regrettable breach or our National Capitol.

We’ve learned a lot about the coronavirus in the past 10 months. For instance: The problem is not playing football. The problem is house parties.

Marshall, Mann are a disgrace

Here’s what this is going to come down to: What exactly are “high crimes and misdemeanors”?

Marshall, Mann not worthy of the offices they hold

The practical question before the U.S. Congress is likely to come down to whether to convict Donald Trump of high crimes and misdemeanors, after he’s already out of office. The answer to that is, most emphatically, yes.

Kansas has been my home all my life. I have been asked what I like about living in Kansas. There could be several reasons as a response. The one that I often give is the weather. It is always changing and never dull.

Protesting electoral votes not Marshall’s job

There’s something I think many of us can agree upon: the internet giants need to be cut down to size. Google and Facebook — and maybe Twitter — just simply have too much power. If you’re a liberal or a conservative, you can probably accept that as a premise at this point.

If there’s a silver lining to the riots in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, it’s this: Democracy won out.

I trace the insurrection upstream to separate traits of human behavior.

As I read somewhere, “Wow, that escalated slowly!”

Shame on Roger Marshall for election vote

Jerry Moran is showing the way forward for Kansas Republicans, simply by doing his job.

I am a conservative Republican. Therefore, I must strictly adhere to the United States Constitution. The Constitution clearly limits the role of Congress with respect to presidential elections to the counting of electoral votes that have been certified by the states. The states, consistent w…

There’s one question on lots of minds right now, and it has nothing to do with the Electoral College, or the Chiefs, or even what’s new on Netflix.

Scientific research and technological advances have helped societies progress in ways that our early ancestors would never have imagined. The new vaccines in recent news are evidence that basic research is integral to creating new disease countermeasures.

The Gardener is always evaluating the environment, looking at what is working and problem solving issues. Even with the gardening season on the down low, thinking about the garden does not end.

Back when I went to school, this was always the hardest part of the year: The long slog between Christmas break and spring break. In 2021, that’s going to be true for the rest of us, too. Back to that in a minute.

Really meaningful moments, I’ve often thought, occur spontaneously, without much warning.

I picked a heck of a year to quit drinking.

The Mercury’s annual newsroom exercise of determining the top stories of the year reminded me of what Larry Bird said to all the other guys in the three-point shooting contest at the height of his powers: Who’s playing for second?

Pat Roberts, who is retiring from the U.S. Senate, has a long history of service to the nation, and to Kansas. You can read all about that elsewhere. The Mercury has already published a good story on that subject. We have covered Sen. Roberts for many years in one way or another.

County should inform

A friend tells me there’s a piece of cheese on a fishing hook that floats about 18 inches in front of my face, roughly 6 inches above my direct line of sight. It’s just floating along, waiting for me.

The 2020 growing season didn’t hold a lot of surprises in my opinion. There were both wet and dry periods.

Gibbs: Why we stopped reporting outbreaks

Happy Christmas Eve. Perhaps more than ever, 2020 is the moment for this day to shine.

The next school year will be a lot closer to normal. At least that’s what it’s beginning to look like.

So the latest argument against giving you the information you had previously been getting about coronavirus outbreaks here is, I guess, that giving you that information might make you erroneously stay away from the locations that had the outbreaks.

I attended a Zoom funeral recently, one of the more 2020 things I’ve done this year.

It is the season of gifts. Both in giving and receiving. Let’s for a moment focus on the receiving. Horticulture benefits the wealth and health of every citizen and every community. Here are just a few of the gifts we receive from plants.

Right off the bat, we should tell you that in this newspaper, we don’t use “Dr.” as a courtesy title for people who’ve earned doctorates that aren’t in the medical (or veterinary or dental) field.

Oh, right. The Indians. About that…

The county health department now wants to keep you entirely in the dark about coronavirus outbreaks here. If you think you have a need to know about outbreaks, the county just doesn’t care. Sorry. They have other priorities.

The start of the post-Trump era in Kansas Republican circles has not been terribly encouraging.

Nothing has really changed in the coronavirus pandemic since it first hit here last spring.

New rec center should not charge user fees

Plants make our outdoor and indoor living spaces enjoyable. Nature provides assistance, if not outright care, of plants outdoors. The indoor plants rely totally on the care that they are given.

As the nation’s premier center for large animal agricultural research, training and diagnostics, the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) will have several vets on staff. In this case, I’m talking about veterans, not veterinarians — although, we will have several of both on our team.