News coverage of breaking stories — such as the explosions at the Boston Marathon — are more miss than hit because of two fundamental flaws in such coverage. If you’re puzzled or confused by the breathless on-the-scene commentators, you should be. For one thing, almost everything we know about such
Read More →Since I originally wrote about the subject in 2008, Iowa has become a Mecca for data farms. The biggest names in digital communications have decided to build huge, new data farms in what used to be Iowa’s bountiful cornfields. Yes, the Iowa Economic Development Authority can add Google, Microsoft and
Read More →You may smile at the brevity, but here goes: Pencils don’t fail tests, hammers don’t build houses, cars don’t drive drunk. There are all kinds of laws on how to do things in this world, and most people who find themselves visited by law enforcement are not following those laws.
Read More →When my wife and I are among our elderly friends and I begin to tell a story, she often tells me: “You’ve already told them that one.” I agree but explain, “I know, but these old fogeys have forgotten it.” I feel that way about Iowans who may have forgotten
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Posted April 03, 2013in Guest Commentary
No need to be troubled if you were confused by Cityview’s April Fool’s edition — the one with the cover story about Des Moines police using android “robo-cops” for traffic tickets and such things. Even without April Fool!, day in and day out it’s more difficult to distinguish the jokes
Read More →“Jekyll and Hyde” is the perfect Broadway musical for the United States in the 21st Century. Major promotion indicates that it is the greatest musical of the century, but only 12-plus years out of 100 have gone by, so one might dismiss the hype. Hype! There is so much hype
Read More →Talk about Daniel in the lion’s den! Maybe Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal — an occasional visitor to Iowa because of his possible interest in being President some day — had better cross future visits off his list. That’s because in surveying the wreckage of the 2012 elections, Jindal told fellow
Read More →We have another chapter about right-wing attacks on cherished Iowa principles and how institutions and people who should know better let them get away with it. This chapter begins with a member of the Iowa Board of Regents and a spokesman for the ethanol industry upset with a University of
Read More →Three weeks in Australia — visiting one of our daughters — offered a respite from the Iowa winter, but not from Iowa issues. Reading Australian newspapers was like reading newspapers in Iowa. It wasn’t that international crises — like those in Syria, Israel and Algeria — dominated the news, but
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Ignoring reality: guns in America
Those liberals always seem to be spreading confusion and misinformation about guns. Wayne LaPierre isn’t the only one getting tired of it. All this business about changing laws is ridiculous when criminals have no intention of obeying the law. And what criminal is going to use a weapon obtained through legal methods? Everyone
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