Winners

The year 2008. Let’s hope it’s better than 2007. Also, to those who gutted out the New Year promises they made for themselves for 2007 and made the rest of us look like gravy sucking pigs, congrats.

Iowans are encouraged to take time today to participate in our democratic process known as the Iowa caucuses. Every four years, the nation watches as we gather at poling places to show our support for Democrats and/or Republicans. And though we haven’t had the best track record at choosing a president, we must continue to prove to those around the country who doubt whether we should maintain our first-in-the-nation-caucus status that we’re politically engaged. It’s good for Iowa’s image and Iowa’s economy — even if it means enduring a few of the same stale stereotypes by the national media every four years.

Enrollment at Iowa’s 15 community colleges is up 2.4 percent from a year ago. This fall, the Iowa Department of Education reports, 87,072 students enrolled in community colleges and that 93 percent of them are from Iowa. With the radical increase in cost to attend state universities, is it any wonder more and more young Iowans are turning to community colleges for an affordable, college education?

Losers

Maybe they didn’t like the questions. Maybe they aren’t all that interested in the opinions of Cityview readers. Whatever their reason, shame on the vast majority of Republican presidential candidates for refusing to answer the questions presented to them for the Caucus guide in this issue (we’re looking at you, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, Mitt Romney and Fred Thompson). We understand that nearly every media outlet on earth (and three other planets) are vying for your attention, but one would think speaking directly to 75,000 highly educated, highly involved readership in the capital city of the nation’s first presidential contest would be on your list of priorities.  

It was supposed to jumpstart development and encourage other businesses to locate in the southeast-side’s Agrimergent Technology Park, but now the ethanol plant proposed by Vision Fuels Des Moines may have lost one of its biggest supporters, Mayor Frank Cownie. The mayor said officials should pull the plug on plans for a multimillion-dollar ethanol plant unless backers nail down financing for the project by Feb. 1. The city owns the land, and with the project already delayed, due in no small part to an industry-wide slowdown in the biofuels business, there are some who say there could be better uses for the public property. The company remains optimistic about the Feb. 1 deadline.

Anthony Bowman, the second of two Iowa Hawkeye football players accused of felony credit card fraud, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge last week. Bowman’s guilty plea reduced charges against him to aggravated misdemeanor, punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine between $625 and $6,250. Bowman’s deal is similar to the one teammate Dominique Douglas reached earlier in December. Both players were arrested for making purchases with an unidentified credit card. Both players were suspended from the team and sat out the 2007 season. Douglas has notified school officials he will transfer. Let’s hope Bowman follows him out of the state.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport will pay $13.6 million as part of a proposed settlement with people who say they were sexually abused by priests or other employees of the diocese. The diocese agreed to a $37 million settlement with 156 people who filed claims in the diocese’s bankruptcy case. Its insurance company will pay more than $19 million and the sale of its headquarters is expected to generate another $3.9 million to help cover the cost of the settlement. Let’s hope some lessons were learned.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners and world leaders condemned last week’s murder of Pakistan’s most famous opposition leader and defender of democracy, Benazir Bhutto. The government blamed al-Qaida and the Taliban for her assassination. Pundits fear Bhutto’s death will set back the United States’ efforts to restore democracy in the nuclear-armed nation, a U.S. ally in the war on terror. In other terrorist news, as of press time, Osama bin Laden is reportedly set to release a new Internet message discussing Iraq and the insurgent Islamic State of Iraq. Just another day in the Middle East, eh?

It’s bad enough for some men that they can’t get it up, now the results of a study suggest an association between erectile dysfunction and an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. That’s the word from a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, which found that the autonomic nervous system, which regulates involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and digestion, is often affected by Parkinson’s disease, and erectile function, which is controlled by the autonomic system. The school examined questions using data from more than 32,000 men. CV

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