LAST EVENING I FINISHED reading 365 Days of Wonder, Mr. Browne’s Precepts: A Quote for Every Day of the Year About Courage, Friendship, Love, and Kindness by R. J. Palacio. The book packs powerful quotes that inspire, uplift and, most of all, cause readers to pause and think. Exactly what we need. Especially this morning in the light of President Donald Trump’s latest reported vulgar comment on immigrants and his subsequent denial.
While reading those precepts, I simultaneously started reading The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess the President by Bandy Lee. I’m only 60 pages into this book. But nothing—bullying, narcissism, racism—I’ve read thus far, and tagged to the President, surprises me. Nothing.
What will come out of this man’s mouth next? When you’re a powerful world leader like the President, especially, words matter. As they do with all of us.
I realize that in writing this post, I’m not exactly being Minnesota Nice. While I respect the Office of the Presidency, I don’t respect this President.
Perhaps Mr. Trump should read 365 Days of Wonder, Mr. Browne’s Precepts: A Quote for Every Day of the Year About Courage, Friendship, Love, and Kindness. I’m returning the book to my library tomorrow…so it’s available for check out.
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NOTE: All comments are moderated. You can disagree with me. But please keep comments civil, considering that words do matter.
© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota Prairie Roots 
Hearing, listening & the drone of war August 14, 2025
Tags: Alaska, commentary, hearing, listening, listening exercise, meeting, news, President Donald Trump, President Vladimir Putin, Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, war
IF I LISTEN CLOSELY, I can hear the incessant chirp of crickets beneath the steady drone of traffic rushing past my house. I live along a busy street, where noise is a constant except in the deep hours of the night. Even then, though, the lone blare of a siren may pierce the night silence, enough to awaken me.
I hear lots of sounds. But that’s not the same as listening. There’s a difference. Hearing is simply taking in sound waves. But listening requires intentional focus. Not only physically hearing, but also paying attention, picking up on verbal and non-verbal cues, remaining quiet.
Many of us are not particularly good at listening. It requires discipline, silence and an understanding that whatever we hear holds significance. Chirping crickets signal the end of summer. Screeching sirens indicate an emergency. And when someone is speaking to me, it means they have something to say. And I need to listen.
I consider myself to be a pretty good listener. As a journalist, I really honed my listening skills, a necessity in covering any news story, doing any interview. And on a personal level, I’ve always been more interested in what others are saying than in hearing my own voice.
Therein lies the problem. Too many of us like the sound of our own voices. If someone starts sharing their own story, their own challenges, we tend to interject our own stories. That’s when a push “pause” seems appropriate. Our listening skills need to kick in as we clamp our lips in silence and remember that the conversation is not about us.
So all of this leads me to the meeting between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday in Anchorage, Alaska, to discuss the war in Ukraine. Noticeably absent will be Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Now you’d think, given the war is raging in Ukraine, that Zelenskyy should be at the table. He asked to be there. But, if the two other leaders heard, they didn’t listen. A pre-meeting conversation between Trump and Zelenskyy isn’t the same as including the Ukrainian president in the summit.
From all accounts, the Trump administration is now billing Friday’s meeting as a “listening exercise.” I find that to be an interesting choice of words. I can’t imagine that either Trump or Putin will really be “listening,” based on past meetings between the two and observations I’ve made about them. But, hey, maybe this time they really will hear the crickets chirping above the drone of war, the blaring of sirens.
© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling