Posted March 31, 2021in Feature 2
A map of Des Moines outlines the 52 official neighborhood associations chartered by the city. These groups of hard-working volunteers aim at bettering the spaces surrounding their family, friends and anyone who lives nearby. Too often, local headlines are dominated by negativity, but these salt-of-the-earth laborers deserve recognition. We hope
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Posted March 03, 2021in Feature 2
Since 1995, the top 1 percent of American farm subsidy recipients have received 26 percent of subsidy payments, and the top 10 percent have been handed 78 percent of the total. The top 1 percent of wealth earners in the country got 26 percent of those. Fifty members of the
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Posted January 06, 2021in Feature 2
For three consecutive years in the 1970s, four German friends synchronized their vacations to tour America. They would fly into New York City, rent a car and drive to Las Vegas. The only overnight stop would be at my place, usually in the middle of the country. Otherwise, they took
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Posted December 02, 2020in Feature 2
The building that is now known as Buccaneer Arena opened 60 years ago. Back then, the Des Moines Buccaneers didn’t exist. Instead, the venue housed minor league professional franchises, but by the late 1970s, the rink was vacant and struggling to attract another team. At this same time, the 1980
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Posted November 04, 2020in Feature 2
In Blake Edwards’ 1959 film “Operation Petticoat,” a devious junior officer played by Tony Curtis seizes a moment of war panic to acquire some things of value. “In chaos, there is opportunity,” he says, driving off on a looting mission. The food industry has a long history of re-invention during
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Posted September 02, 2020in Feature 2
Humankind and its animal compatriots have maintained an adversarial dependency on each other for thousands of years, since long before planting and harvesting were discovered. Survival depended upon hunting and gathering for both sides. Prehistoric humans hunted in packs before the discovery of weapons that could put down a saber-toothed
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Posted August 05, 2020in Feature 2
They are contradictions on a bun, simultaneously the scourge of nutritionists and the piece de resistance for low carbohydrate and paleo dieters — without the bun. Although they have been around for at least 800 years, hamburgers celebrated their 100th birthday in the last decade. Despite being the most popular
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Posted July 01, 2020in Feature 2
The food business has long operated on the brink of terror. Before the 20th century, when the U.S. became the best-fed country in the history of the world, people were dependent on the whims of the apocalyptic horsemen to feed their families. Prayers and sacrifices were made to save the
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Posted April 01, 2020in Feature 2
What’s in a word? A rose may smell as sweet by any other name, but the gift of money doesn’t smell so much as speak. And it speaks the difference between magnificence and mediocrity, health and sickness, pride and shame, survival or death. Derived from the Greek words for “love
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Posted March 04, 2020in Feature 2
Humans yearn for orderliness: Where do things stand?… How high are those things stacked?… How far away is this?… What’s the pecking order of that? After understanding where stuff is in relation to other stuff, then our minds are free to ponder: Why?… What can we do to improve?… Who
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