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March 31, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in The Culture Buzz

Greetings, Cultural Adventurers:

From Iowa’s cultural epicenter, Mainframe Studios at 900 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines, Iowa comes your Listener-supported Community Voice, the Award-Winning indie radio station, KFMG-LP 98.9 FM (streaming simultaneously at www.kfmg.org), bringing you music, literature & cultural content. Quote of the Week – “Our cultural diversity has most certainly shaped

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March 30, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Stray Thoughts

Respectful or not, America enables criticism and dissent

Noah Petersen and Priscilla Villarreal live 1,200 miles from each other, Petersen in Newton, Iowa; Villarreal in Laredo, Texas. They share a key connection despite that distance. Each has encountered government punishment for exercising their First Amendment rights. Both went to court to fight for their freedoms.  For Petersen, he had

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March 24, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in The Culture Buzz

Greetings, Cultural Adventurers:

From Iowa’s cultural epicenter, Mainframe Studios at 900 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines, Iowa comes your Listener-supported Community Voice, the Award-Winning indie radio station, KFMG-LP 98.9 FM (streaming simultaneously at www.kfmg.org), bringing you music, literature & cultural content. Quote of the Week – “I would maintain that thanks are the

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March 19, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Morain

The root cause of the war with Iran

In times of war (and that’s what the U.S. is engaged in with Iran, regardless of what our government calls it), there is usually more than one cause. That’s true in spades for the current conflict. From the American side, it’s the unsettling potential threat of eventual Iranian nuclear weapons.

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March 17, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in The Culture Buzz

Greetings, Cultural Adventurers:

From Iowa’s cultural epicenter, Mainframe Studios at 900 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines, Iowa comes your Listener-supported Community Voice, the Award-Winning indie radio station, KFMG-LP 98.9 FM (streaming simultaneously at www.kfmg.org), bringing you music, literature & cultural content. Quote of the Week – “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general

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March 16, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Stray Thoughts

Des Moines’ costly badge of secrecy

City leaders in Des Moines are making it difficult to understand why they selected the new police chief, considering how they have imposed a code of silence about their recent $975,000 payout to one of the candidates who did not get the job. The payout and, even worse, the sealed

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March 10, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in The Culture Buzz

Greetings, Cultural Adventurers:

From Iowa’s cultural epicenter, Mainframe Studios at 900 Keosauqua Way in Des Moines, Iowa comes your Listener-supported Community Voice, the Award-Winning indie radio station, KFMG-LP 98.9 FM (streaming simultaneously at www.kfmg.org), bringing you music, literature & cultural content. Quote of the Week – “It’s funny that we think of libraries as

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March 10, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Stray Thoughts

This was a man focused on rights and rainbows

The offices of the Des Moines Register’s opinion staff were mostly empty when my telephone rang late one afternoon about 15 years ago. The guard at the lobby security desk said two men were there and hoped I had time to meet with them. I said sure and invited them

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March 05, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Morain

JEFFERSON PROTECTED FIRST & FIFTH AMENDMENTS

When it comes to the First and Fifth Amendments, I’m a Jeffersonian Jeffersonian. The amendments are two of the ten in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. Thomas Jefferson didn’t write them, since he hadn’t yet returned to the U.S. after serving as Minister to France by the time James Madison

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March 04, 2026 by Brent Antisdel in Feature 1

Water wars in the 21st century

Water is the name humans give to the tasteless, odorless chemical bonding of two hydrogen molecules with one of oxygen — H2O. Don’t let its simplicity fool you. It is the molecule that made all life possible on Earth.   Comprising roughly 60% of the human body, water acts as

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