‘Pieowa’ showcases rural Iowa-ness
Pie is a stand-in for Iowa itself in many ways in a feature-length documentary from director Beth M. Howard, an Iowa filmmaker who is now on a national tour with [...]
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Posted September 03, 2025in Political Mercury
Posted August 06, 2025in Political Mercury
‘I’ve been through hell,’ says Jan. 6 Capitol Police officer
A Capitol Police officer who stood the ground between hundreds of members of Congress and insurrectionists during the Jan. 6 attack says he thinks often about that day — a [...]
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Posted July 02, 2025in Political Mercury
We will all be dead by 2030, credentialed forecast on artificial intelligence predicts
The opening line of AI 2027, a forecast about the exponential explosion of artificial intelligence, is jaw-dropping. “We predict the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be [...]
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Posted June 04, 2025in Political Mercury
Sand urges Democrats to listen to other Iowans, not scold
Rob Sand knows the outcome at the polls next year depends not just on how Iowans respond to him, the gubernatorial candidate atop his ticket, but Democrat voters themselves. Do [...]
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Posted April 30, 2025in Political Mercury
Why Josh Turek is Iowa Democrats’ best candidate for U.S. Senate
Many politicians can persuade you to believe in them. That’s a commonly reached feat. But the defining leaders, elected officials like Tom Harkin, Robert Ray, Henry Wallace and Harold Hughes, [...]
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Posted April 02, 2025in Political Mercury
‘Yellowstone’ is the most anti-adoption series in TV history
Any conflicted pregnant woman who watched the just-concluded Paramount series sensation “Yellowstone” likely scheduled an abortion before the final cowboy deserted Kevin Coster and Taylor Sheridan’s fictional Montana ranch. Costner should reimburse [...]
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Posted March 05, 2025in Political Mercury
The next big Trans fight isn’t what you think
Compound interest. Of all the strands of imagination and provocations and fear and excitement that engage one during Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jonathan Weiner’s terrific book, “Long For This World: The [...]
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Posted February 05, 2025in Political Mercury
President Jimmy Carter taught my late father — and me — about ‘they say’ sourcing in journalism
The conversation came rushing back to me sometime between the Carter grandchildren’s heart-tugging memories and Andrew Young’s magisterial closing eulogy during the funeral for President Jimmy Carter. As a 10-year-old boy, I thrilled [...]
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Posted January 01, 2025in Political Mercury
JD Vance’s boyhood mistaken gay confession story smacks of head-spinning inflation
In reading the-then (and now-again) publishing sensation “Hillbilly Elegy” eight years ago as it announced a culture-crashing new voice, I found myself stopping at points in the book, both angry and doubtful [...]
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Posted December 04, 2024in Political Mercury
Kill Hal: ‘Numb and dumb is no way to go through life’
I am Dave. If you are online at all, you are Dave. We all are. Human editors, real ones, survive at near-extinction levels. Seeing one at work these days is [...]
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