Posted November 04, 2015in Cover Story
Bill Maher is the closest any of us alive today will get to fulfilling every definition of the word “iconoclast.” In the Byzantine era, some 700 years after the events depicted in the Bible, iconoclasts were people who literally destroyed religious imagery. Maher — a loudly outspoken atheist — has
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Posted October 28, 2015in Cover Story
Horror movies and ghost stories were once virtually exclusive to Halloween, the day in which thrill seekers indulge in haunted houses with chainsaw-wielding, masked serial killers who invoke blood-curdling screams. But not anymore. Society’s lust for a good scare now stretches well beyond a single day of the year. For
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Posted October 21, 2015in Cover Story
Yet another summer has come and gone, and we find ourselves in the midst of fall, waiting for winter to wrap its chilly arms around us. Many of us think of summer as a time to relax, put our feet up and finally get around to reading that stack of
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Posted October 07, 2015in Cover Story
One of the biggest joys of seeing Des Moines grow and improve during the past decade or so is the fact that we now live in a town that features professional sports year-round. Between the Iowa Barnstormers, Iowa Cubs and Iowa Energy, winter, spring and summer are all well stocked
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Posted September 30, 2015in Cover Story
The honeymoon is the paradox of romance. Theoretically, it plays out as scripted in bridal show dreams conjured from the promotions of high-end resorts. Like all things theoretical, honeymoons sometimes fail the test of real-world complications such as delayed flights, missed connections, downgraded rooms, bad weather and unrealistic expectations. The
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Posted September 23, 2015in Cover Story
When people see the cover of this issue, they sometimes ask, “100 bars? Isn’t that pretty much all of them in Des Moines?” Those people clearly don’t know the metro area very well. The Des Moines area is home to hundreds — plural — of bars, restaurants and other quirky places
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Posted September 16, 2015in Cover Story
Have you been looking forward to the gymnastics competitions at the 2016 Olympics? There may be a whole other reason to get excited. The International Pole Dance Fitness Association (IPDFA) says they are seeking to gain the International Olympic Committee’s recognition of pole dance as a sport. All signs are
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Posted September 09, 2015in Cover Story
They are on national television in front of millions of viewers; they are in photos in nationally known magazines and online. Still, you don’t know their faces or their names. They are the thankless ones — the referees. Iowa is a hotbed for high-level officials with a long, rich history.
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Posted September 02, 2015in Cover Story
The Hy-Vee Triathlon had a rich, if not spectacularly long, history. Started in 2007, the event immediately made waves in the racing world by offering the largest prize in triathlon history, $200,000 each for the men’s and women’s elite winners. That would be a trend that Hy-Vee would continue throughout
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Posted August 26, 2015in Cover Story
Call it Mussolini’s Revenge. The Italian dictator didn’t fare too well in World War II, but since then, pizza has conquered America. Before that war, pizza was either obscure or unknown in Des Moines. Today it’s ubiquitous, being made from scratch in convenience stores like Casey’s and QT, in neighborhood
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