Brace yourself: The Iowa Straw Poll, endorsed by the State GOP, will return this summer in its role as a quadrennial horror story. Given how the maligned Poll was brought back to life, perhaps Zombie Burgers will be catered in. The Iowa Straw Poll, which, even Republicans admit, gouges presidential
Read More →In time we’ll likely enjoy the orange pudding, a Christmas gift from one of our daughters. Or maybe, we can have it bronzed as a reminder of the terror-filled age we’ve inflicted upon ourselves — and keeping such pudding or fruitcake around for a long time can be a tradition.
Read More →A time-honored maxim in business in particular and life in general is “Stick to what you do best” or “Stick to what you know best.” Both are variations on the need to stay focused, as in “Stick to your knitting.” That advice comes to mind as one surveys the Iowa
Read More →It was just a place my car broke down on my way to Colorado. All the city had been to me was a name, the place where the paper I used to deliver came from. Close by my Quad-Cities home, but not as close as Iowa City. Bigger, more distant.
Read More →Tale I: Next to the biblical “In the beginning…,” the best-recalled opening line in literature likely is, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” Given today’s “times,” if you believe the recent campaign ads, we might shorten
Read More →By now, just about everyone agrees that the Ames-Des Moines East high school football game should have been played Oct. 17 and not cancelled by Ames and the Iowa High School Athletic Association because some jerk was said to have threatened to maybe harm those who attended the game. The
Read More →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.
Read More →Taking the low road, but with thesaurus in hand, here are some thoughts about political advertising these days, with the venting tempered by a thoughtful ending. Still, how many more campaign ads can we take without worrying about the end of civic and civil life? Enough already with political ads!
Read More →If you are distressed by political ads and the horror stories and lies about what candidates have done or threaten to do, maybe you should welcome such dismay as a diversion from what’s going on in real life. Here are five real horror stories — not the nonsense of political
Read More →
A ‘dirty’ deal on those burdensome regulations
By Randy Evans You hear a lot of politicians talking these days about burdensome government regulations. Gov. Terry Branstad is one of them. But a proposed regulation moving through state government leaves citizens with the clear impression that the state is engineering a change that is advantageous to certain businesses
Read More →