Posted December 19, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Twelve drummers drumming… …but not as loud as the Isiserettes for new Drake basketball coach Jenny Lillis Baranczyk…for each and every Nada…and banker Kim Gillespie, now Kim Willis…for the two great teen-aged athletes in the Mike Grasso family — hockey player Patrick and golfer Victoria — and for police officer
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Posted December 12, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
You don’t stop and think much about Iowa Public Television. It’s just there. There with the news, with the debates, with “Iowa Press” and “Market to Market.” There at the State Fair, at the World Food Prize, at this lecture and that event. It’s always at the news, but it’s
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Posted December 05, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Sue Dvorsky is stepping down as chair of the state Democratic Party, Cityview has learned, and executive director Norm Sterzenbach is leaving as well. Party leaders will meet next weekend to pick the next chair, but in all likelihood the chairmanship will revert to being a non-salaried post. There’s some
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Posted November 28, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Don’t feel too bad for Kirk Ferentz. Sure, the stony-faced, gum-chewing University of Iowa football coach won only four games this fall, giving the Hawkeyes their worst season since 2000. And sure his team isn’t going to a bowl game for only the second time in 12 years. And sure
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Posted November 21, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
The Des Moines school system has a lot of deadbeat kids. Or maybe nice kids with deadbeat parents. Or maybe deadbeat kids with deadbeat parents. They’re skipping out on the money they owe the district for meals or after-school care or activity fees and the like. A lunch here, a
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Posted November 14, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Mike Gronstal is more powerful than ever. Gay marriage is a dead issue. Bob Vander Plaats is irrelevant. Bruce Rastetter has wasted a lot of money. Tom Harkin now has to decide whether to run. Steve King is in Congress for life. Leonard Boswell peaked the night he was robbed.
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Posted November 07, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Gerry Spence put on a show last week in Judge Robert Pratt’s federal courtroom. The flamboyant lawyer is representing Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee, who spent 26 years in prison for murder before the Iowa Supreme Court determined their trial was unfair. They were released in 2003 and never tried
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Posted October 31, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
A friend — a droll and witty man who once was well-known in central Iowa — has Alzheimer’s Disease, and he knows it. The other day, a couple of his old pals went to visit him in the Alzheimer’s facility where he now lives. They asked him if he knew
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Posted October 24, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
The race between Congressional incumbents Leonard Boswell and Tom Latham must be close. Or, at least, the disbursing agents in Washington must think it’s close. Between Oct. 2 and Oct. 18, the national parties and political action committees poured more than $1.8 million into political advertising in the third district.
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Posted October 17, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
I remember as a little boy riding the streetcars that ran down the middle of Ingersoll. I remember riding the Crocker streetcar with my grandmother to the very end of the line — on the west lawn of Roosevelt High School. I remember riding the Urbandale streetcar that ran through
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