Winners

Des Moines' Food Not Bombs group - which collects food that would otherwise be thrown away and uses it to prepare warm meals for the hungry - won a significant victory last week when the city's cops agreed not to arrest the volunteers for serving free Saturday lunches at Nollen Plaza to homeless people and other low-income residents. Group organizer Adam Senecaut says the Civic Center brass has raised a fuss about the group a couple of times this year, most recently on June 24, apparently because the hoi-palloi thought their public service was giving the Capital City a low-rent image during the glitzy Des Moines Arts Festival. Senecaut says he thinks the city backed down because the news coverage was embarrassing. However, he's not convinced that Food Not Bombs is out of the woods: There's been talk of requiring the group to get operating permits, and that could spell trouble. In about 25 other cities across the United States, he says, Food Not Bombs chapters have been forced out of public spaces when cities refused to grant them permits. Food Not Bombs has two goals: feeding people, and showing how wasteful our society has become. Although New City Market donates fresh produce to the charitable organization, most of the group's food is salvaged from other grocery stores and restaurants just before it hits the dumpsters. "Believe it or not, a lot of places throw things away," Senecaut says, even while the food is still fresh. He calls the city's cease-fire "a rare victory, for now at least. I have a feeling it's not over yet."

Losers

We could see it coming 6,700 darkened TouchPlay machines away. After the controversial gambling machines were barred from gas stations, grocery stores and bars on May 4, the investors who'd sunk significant amounts of cash into them threatened legal action against the state. Now they're making good on that threat. On June 26, 30 investors sued the Iowa Lottery, Gov. Tom Vilsack, Attorney General Tom Miller and other officials for damages resulting from the early termination of the fated slot-machine look-alikes. We've said it before, but the Iowa Legislature should be slapped with the "loser" stick on this one. The same lawmakers who approved TouchPlay watched as the machines were installed in thousands of retail joints, then reversed their position and ordered the massive unplugging on May 4, to the detriment of local business owners, who'd come to rely on the green generated by the machines. The state then refused to compensate TouchPlay owners for their losses - despite the fact that these owners were operating on a five-year business-plan promise from the Iowa Lottery.On the other hand, while we understand why TouchPlay investors are pissed off, they need to tone down the transparent "ethics" schtick just a tad. Radio Iowa interviewed Joleen Hedley, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, who owns a Dubuque laundromat that once housed TouchPlay machines. She whined that the suit had nothing to do with gambling; it was all about "Iowa values" - values that were smashed, she said, when the state broke its promise. We're not sure the TouchPlay folks can justify wading into the altruistic waters of "values," "ethics" and "respect" (vocabulary employed by TouchPlay investors in the last few days) when these investors knew the majority of their best clients were low-income residents who often dumped cash they didn't have into the machines.

It was bound to happen: Apparently Iowa's Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley has stayed in public office long enough for his Alzheimer's to kick in. Who can make sense of his proposal to make it illegal - or more illegal - for pimps to peddle women's assets without paying taxes? This is kind of like the way cops arrest people on drug-distribution charges, and then - in fits of joie de vivre - they write extra tickets for the dealers' "failure to affix drug-tax stamps" to their wares (because all law-abiding crank suppliers ought to pay their fair share of sales tax). "It's a no-brainer to have the IRS go after sex traffickers," Grassley says in a press release. "Prosecuting tax code violations can get these guys off the street and yank from their grasp the girls and women they exploit." Grassley the feminist. Who knew. CV

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