Why are we so surprised?

Des Moines resident Pam Glazebrook is either the most na•ve individual on the face of the Earth or she's the dumbest. If you'll recall, Glazebrook is the individual who, along with her husband, Randy, left their 18-year-old son home alone for a week while the two of them went camping, and upon returning were shocked to find that the boy had had a huge party. Making Glazebrook insufferable as well as oblivious, is the fact that she's chosen to take her story of poor parenting to the press and tried to position it as a cautionary tale for others. Kids misbehave when adults aren't around, she says. Pam, babe, we already know. >> more

By Michael Swanger michael@dmcityview.com

Successful roots music artists covet what they know and Noah Earle, a third generation singer-songwriter from Columbia, Mo., is no exception.
"I've spent a lot of time in the country," he says, "so I try to add a lyrical orientation that would be idiosyncratic to a Midwestern frame of reference." >> more

Register's new cuts are lower than low

No longer able to absorb the soaring cost of rubber prices, The Des Moines Register did what most chic liberal corporations do - they passed their inconvenient costs on to a segment of society least able to afford them. We refer to the daily's recently implemented charge to their own now-pissed-off paperboys, of $1.90 per 1,000 copies, to offset runaway inflation on the price of all things, rubber bands. >> more

School spirit took a beating when a few overly politically correct parents complained about Roosevelt High School's senior awards for "best legs" and "best butt," preventing the students from receiving them at the senior banquet. Because the titles, branded "sexist" and "inappropriate," are awarded each year in good fun, and to both sexes, mind you, we here at Cityview have decided to give these students their hard-earned awards ourselves. >> more