Shedding the skins of Hannah Montana
Miley Cyrus was not shocking at the Video Music Awards with her disturbing performance. There have been moments that have been shocking in pop culture, that have left us rumbling and rambling with eyebrows raised and aware that there has been a historical shift, a bubble of change just beneath
Read More →Paid for by taxpayers in… Des Moines
Amount: $2,828.99 To: BSNSports (Texas) For: Purchase of a four-inch stadium alumagoal for the James W. Cownie Soccer Park. Amount: $1,687.74 To: ColorFX For: Purchase order to have 66,000 forestry flyers printed for the city Water Works department in August. Amount: $1,620 To: Competitive Edge For: Purchase of
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Posted September 11, 2013in Locker Room
‘My lance is bigger’
It isn’t enough to simply read about history. One must immerse thy self in the subject to fully understand the time period and why it’s had a lasting affect on our lives today. For some (who are more financially secure) it can be as simple as hopping on a plane
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Posted September 11, 2013in The Sound
Zen and the art of Annalibera
Anna Gebhardt is kind of a Zen master when it comes to self-effacing humility. “I’m just learning as I go,” she said over coffee. “I don’t really know what I’m doing.” That’s not completely true. Gebhardt is a classically-trained singer with a solid collegiate background in opera. It should also
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Posted September 11, 2013in Joe's Neighborhood
The reincarnation of Mary Brubaker
“This is Midday with Mary Brubaker and Dolph Pulliam…” “The Mary Brubaker Show weekdays at 9 a.m. on KCCI TV 8.” “The Muscular Dystrophy Telethon, hosted by Mary Brubaker.” “ ‘Time Capsule’ with John Pascuzzi, Connie McBurney, Rick Swalwell and Mary Brubaker.” “Mary Brubaker interviews Jimmy Carter… Ted Kennedy… Jane
Read More →A move of panicked desperation
FIRST DOWN: It isn’t so much that Texas gave up 40 points and 550 rushing yards to BYU — although it sure as hell didn’t help matters — as it is the fact that Mack Brown was building toward 2013, that this was supposed to be the year, circled on
Read More →Spreadsheet parenting Loco Parentis: First-time mother Amy Webb proudly notates dozens of data points about her child each day and obsessively tracks their detailed progression by computer on spreadsheets, according to the provocative first-person account she wrote for Slate.com in July. In categories ranging from ordinary vital signs, to the
Read More →‘Revolutionary Summer’ is insightful confession
Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Harriet Leitch Knopf Publishing Group June 4, 2013 $26.95 219 pp. Pulizer Prize-winning American historian Joseph Ellis conducts an intensive study of the summer of 1776 in this great addition to the plentiful writings on the American Revolution, “Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American
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A lobotomy, depression and a mother’s revelation
My most vivid memories of my paternal grandmother date from my childhood, when my family and I visited Grandma and Grandpa Kirsch at their home in Fairmont, Minn. I remember Grandma hugging me and asking me how I was and generally making a big deal out of me. I pretended
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