Winners

Finally, Des Moines residents can exhale. With bombings in Spain and London terrorizing Europe in the past year, and "credible" security threats to New York City and Baltimore just this month, area residents were waiting for Al Qaeda to hit the United States where it really hurts: Central Iowa. After all, everyone knows that when terrorists in the Middle East sit down to brainstorm their next American target, 801 Grand is right up there with the Brooklyn Bridge; and, just because there is not one shred of evidence that Des Moines is facing any semblance of a terror threat, that doesn't mean we shouldn't spend millions to make sure we're protected from it. Forget that the entire metro barely boasts the population of just one subway line in Boston, or that even our fellow Americans can't identify Iowa on a map (that's the potato state, right?), last week city leaders decided administrators need to find $1.4 million in an already over-burdened budget to staff a new 10-member (and two-dog) anti-terror unit at the Des Moines Police Department. To hell with the fact that it already takes an hour to get a police officer on the scene when your car window is smashed in or your entire vehicle is obliterated by a drunk driver, or that domestic abuse perpetrators too often get a virtually free pass due to strained police investigation resources, or that drug abuse remain one of the state's outstanding characteristics. What we really need is to get our law enforcement priorities straight when it comes to the vague and unlikely threat of terrorism. Still, Osama will likely take what he can get.

Never mind that Iowa's real team was the victim of some of the most horrendous officiating in the history of college football (a pair of "retrieved" fumbles on the same drive would have put Michigan down 21-0 and the Iowa Hawkeyes well on their way to yet another Big 10 championship), still posts a better record, is only one game away from being bowl eligible and got horrendously fucked by a conspiracy with ABC Sports to help the Wolverines avoid their most horrible start in decades, all the talk this weekend was about the Iowa State Cyclones and their commanding performance over the worst team in the nation, Oklahoma State. In what was deemed "a pillow fight" by pre-season prognosticators, only a team playing in the impotent Big XII North would have a shot at a conference title after starting 0-3, giving local media types much to chew on in their anticipation of ISU's hopes for a "wild finish" against some of the poorest competition on planet Earth.

Losers

Another week, another gaping crack in our supposed foundation in education. As community colleges have become an increasingly vital forum for secondary education, a report released by The College Board last week tested the patience of local two-year college students who learned that the supposedly affordable alternative to a four-year institution is still costing them a whole lot more than their counterparts around the country. According to the report, the more than 82,000 Iowans hitting the books at community colleges are getting walloped by drastically higher prices than those in other states, shelling out more than $3,200 for a full course load last year, while the national average didn't even break $2,200. Ranked 10th in the nation in expensive two-year education, administrators pointed out that policymakers might be well served by some remedial math classes themselves so they can grasp the arithmetic disconnect between the rising number of community college students and the lagging amount of state aid. CV

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