Posted December 26, 2012in Featured Story, Political Mercury
State Rep. Dan Muhlbauer, D-Manilla, says Iowa lawmakers should ban semi-automatic guns and “start taking them” from owners who refuse to surrender any illegal firearms through a buy-back program. In an interview, a fiery Muhlbauer, the chairman of the Iowa House Democratic Rural Caucus with a reputation for often voting
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Posted December 26, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The three great cuisines of classical history — Chinese, Roman and Ottoman — all developed as spoils of empire. From Zheng He and Marco Polo to Ibn Battuta and Columbus, history’s greatest adventurers trekked around the world seeking new foods as much as anything else. From Bistro 43 and Sage
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Posted December 26, 2012in Civic Skinny, Featured Story
Politics makes strange bedfellows.Or bedfellows make strange politics. Roxanne Conlin, high-profile lawyer and onetime Democratic candidate for governor and, later, for senator, and her husband, developer James Conlin, have sued the city of Des Moines, and last week the suit was moved to federal district court. It’s all about windows.
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Posted December 19, 2012in Featured Story, Political Mercury
What the hell is going on in that house? That’s what I thought routinely in Lake Worth, Fla., as I’d hear the cries of kids in the house next to me. Some screaming. Just strange stuff. It’s been 20 years since I lived there during an internship for The Palm
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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 19, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The local restaurant scene seemed oblivious to any economic slump this year. The number of openings tripled the number of closings in 2012. New additions ranged from the spectacular (Exile) to the ubiquitous (fro-yo’s), from the reborn (Buzzard Billy’s) to relocated (Bambino’s) and from first-course specialists (The Standard) to desserts-only
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Posted December 12, 2012in Featured Story, Food Dude
The year 2012 brought the water dragon. For Iowa that meant far more dragon breath than water. The hottest, driest summer in decades resulted in a 4 percent drop in major agricultural production. Iowa wine growers, though, reported bumper crops. Restaurant news was similarly ambivalent. Many of the best new
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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 12, 2012in Featured Story, Political Mercury
Back in June of 2007, when then U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, of Idaho, took his infamous wide stance in that Minneapolis airport men’s restroom, much of the discussion centered on whether he was a closeted homosexual looking for surreptitious action. For those who don’t remember the story, an undercover officer
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Posted December 11, 2012in Featured Story, Iowa Watchdog
DES MOINES — Overtime costs for state employees has skyrocketed, putting Iowa taxpayers on the hook for an additional $9.4 million in worker costs compared to five years ago, according to an Iowa Watchdog analysis of state figures. Overtime expenses in fiscal 2011 reached $24.3 million – a 63 percent
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