Obama was our glamour shot; Trump, our reflection
I am not a Donald Trump supporter. My newspapers endorsed Bernie Sanders and Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio. I also know my country is strong enough to [...]
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Posted March 23, 2016in Guest Commentary
Posted January 27, 2016in Guest Commentary
The Iowa caucus: silk purse or sow’s ear?
Iowa lore has it that after Monday the only ones still caucus-minded will be hotels and motels and car-rental agencies wondering if they will ever collect money owed by candidates [...]
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Posted January 13, 2016in Guest Commentary
No bed of roses: Iowa loses the ‘Humor Bowl,’ too
Wasn’t that outrageous at the Rose Bowl? To recall lyrics from The Music Man and the pool table crisis in River City, “Make your blood boil? Well, I should say.” [...]
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Posted January 06, 2016in Guest Commentary
Iowa GOP caucus ignores warnings of the founding fathers
With the praise lavished upon the Iowa caucuses as grassroots democracy and the attention that supposedly makes Iowa “the center of the political universe,” perhaps it is worth hearing from [...]
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Posted December 09, 2015in Guest Commentary
A grab bag of thoughts, and happy holidays
Cue the organist: A popular church hymn begins, “Onward Christian soldiers, Marching as to war…” That’s appropriate for Gov. Terry Branstad and his cohorts, and lots of Iowans who want [...]
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Posted November 25, 2015in Guest Commentary
Hope for our city
The proposed Iowa Events Center Hotel will be the biggest boost Des Moines has seen in centuries. In terms of development, we haven’t seen something this game-changing since the Iowa [...]
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Posted November 25, 2015in Guest Commentary
Middle East 101
Thoughts from Fabrice Moussus, an international journalist living in Paris With what happened in Paris on Nov. 13, there is a feeling of deja vu from conflicts I have been in. It [...]
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Posted November 18, 2015in Guest Commentary
An Iowa GOP caucus vote for None of the Above
To no one’s surprise, Donald Trump did not call off his quest for the GOP presidential nomination — even though he was asked to do so in a July 15 [...]
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Posted November 04, 2015in Guest Commentary
Confessions of a margin of error maker
I stopped lying after I came out as an unapologetic gay man, now a long time ago. Being a closeted gay man was really the only secret I had, and [...]
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Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! God save Iowa and our Honorable Courts
The “Oyez” cry — a French/Middle English version of “Hear Ye!” — is heard at the start of U.S. Supreme Court sessions, but it could well serve as an announcement [...]
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