Courtesy of Beaverdale Books Review by Fay Jones Simon & Schuster June 3, 2014 $25 307 pp Laura McBride’s new novel offers an emotionally powerful tale about a different side of Las Vegas, where ordinary people call it home and try for a normal life. Inspired by an actual event
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October 08, 2014 by justin
in Belly Up To...
Going to a bar can feel so formal and anonymous. You walk in, show your ID to someone who will forget your name the second they hand it back to you, stand in line at the bar and watch as four or five other customers who came in after you
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October 08, 2014 by justin
in Food Dude
It’s becoming a common story that Iowans find endearing. New Yorkers visit here, discover that public schools actually work, that the quality of life is less stressful and that they can buy twice the house for half the money. Then they move families and friends here and open an outstanding
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October 08, 2014 by justin
in Film Review
“Inherent Vice” 1 star Rated R 149 minutes Comedy Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Joaquin Phoenix There’s no way to sugarcoat it; Paul Thomas Anderson has made two duds in a row. If his lackluster half-film “The Master” didn’t you put you off the director responsible for such instant classics
Read More →Professional biology research The job of determining stress levels in whales is itself apparently stressful. The most reliable information about tension lies in hormones most accurately measured by researchers’ boarding a boat, sidling up to a whale and waiting until it blasts snot out of its blowhole. By catching enough
Read More →Iowa native Ashton Kutcher and “That 70’s Show” co-star Mila Kunis are celebrating the birth of a baby girl… Kutcher said he plans to name his daughter after a motherly figure who had a profound impact on his life. Demi Moore is reportedly honored. One of two public pianos in
Read More →Boyz II Men “Collide” MSM There is something great about an old group making a really clever comeback. It reminds me of when the Beach Boys released “Kokomo” and we all remembered how great those guys can harmonize. They made us feel sexy and beachy all over again. Boyz II
Read More →Just before one of the last rehearsals for “Carrie: The Musical,” two of the leads treated everyone to a few bars of lovely harmony. This, too, was rehearsal, of course, one more run-through of a tricky duet between Carrie and her mother. Still, it turned heads, a soaring passage shared
Read More →Two of a kind Soulja Boy, 23, was arrested in Los Angeles earlier this year for possession of a loaded gun. Police found the gun in Soulja Boy’s car after pulling him over for running a stop sign. He was booked on a felony charge with a bail of $35,000.
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The Branstad regime: most scandalous ever?
Given Iowa’s reputation for clean government, it once was of no particular notoriety for an office holder to rank among Iowa’s “most scandalous ever.” Some Illinois politicians would kill for a record that good! Time was when a scandal at the capitol meant a public employee overstayed a lunch break.
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