I am answering a recent letter writer who wondered why Jim Zabel wasn’t in the service during World War II (Your View, June 20). A car fell on Jim, and he seriously injured his foot while trying to change a flat tire. This apparently happened after he graduated from Davenport
Read More →Last week I survived something I will forever deem the most treacherous act of technological perpetration in my life, full stop. After almost eight years of uninterrupted service, Google shuttered its longstanding RSS reading service, Google Reader. RSS (Rich Site Summary) feeds are the paper delivery boy of the Internet.
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Posted July 10, 2013in Film Review
“The Lone Ranger” 3 stars PG-13 149 minutes Action Starring: Johnny Depp, Armie Hammer, William Fichtner Perhaps more important than what Gore Verbinski’s gleefully postmodern Western isn’t, is what it is. Written by two screenwriters from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” franchise, along with Justin Haythe (“Revolutionary Road”), this deconstructionist
Read More →It’s safe to say that Annalibera got its 80/35 slot on the strength of its Gross Domestic Product performance in April. It’s also safe to say that it made the most of its chance to kick things off. Anna Gebhardt can really sing. If any of Des Moines’ rap and
Read More →We are knee deep in festival season here in the capital city. 80/35 just put a bow on its sixth installment, and now we’re just two weeks away from Rock Cornstalk, taking place at Blank Park Zoo Field. Line-up includes Adam Gontier, Thousand Foot Krutch, (HED)PE, Taproot, Smile Empty Soul,
Read More →Aaron Sorkin perfects the cable-news drama in its second season I hated the first season of “The Newsroom,” Aaron Sorkin’s attempt to create a smart, fast-talking show about cable news. Sorkin’s journalism setting didn’t feel authentic, as his White House setting did in “The West Wing.” And Jeff Daniels made
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Posted July 10, 2013in Cover Story
The girls of summer are back, and they grace our pages again with our fourth annual Cityview Swimsuit Edition. In our first two years, we published a totally separate magazine and distributed it independently. Last year, after input from readers and advertisers, we opted to publish it in the pages
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Posted July 10, 2013in Food Dude
Summer, not spring, is the season of rebirth in central Iowa, especially in years like this when plantings are delayed by record-setting rainfall. I spent last week gadding about various places looking for seasonal goodies. At Waterfront’s annual Door County Fish Boil, I not only found Wisconsin whitefish served with
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Posted July 10, 2013in Political Mercury
Wild Rose Entertainment is, in the parlance of its business, “all in” with plans to develop a casino complex in Jefferson, said company CEO Gary Kirke. If Greene County voters are with them, Wild Rose intends to do in Jefferson what it did in Emmetsburg in May of 2006: open
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Branstad, Iowa both need intervention
“Iowans don’t want a governor and Branstad is as close as they can get.” That characterization of Gov. Terry Branstad was offered decades ago by then Des Moines Register columnist Donald Kaul. Now, after Branstad is back in office after a 12-year hiatus, an update would be: “Branstad likes being
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