Cut the length of the carcass, opening the chest cavity by cutting through the breast bone. Cut deeply around the anus to loosen the intestine. Split the pelvic bone by slicing through its center with a sturdy knife or cutting through with a small saw or hand ax.
Yesterday we attended a memorial service hosted by the NICU staff in memory of the babies who have died in the last year. It was a really nice service--a mix of readings, reflections and music, all with a contemplative, comforting tone. They read the names of all the babies and presented a rose to each family who attended. One of Will's doctors shared some thoughts about caring for our children and the impact each one made on him and all the staff. He said he knew we all had holes in our hearts and that his words would not patch them, but he let us know that the staff too feels that emptiness and wishes there had been more they could do. It drives their research, he said, propelling them daily toward potential answers to the riddles of prematurity and neonatal disease. We knew all along from our interactions with the NICU staff that they were all just as committed to Will's life as we were. It was nice to hear that on some level his life still touches them. He is no mere statistic.
A man who lived with 5-year-old Evelyn Miller and her mother has been indicted by a federal grand jury on child pornography charges.
Casey Frederiksen, 26, was charged with one count of child pornography posession Thursday night. Court documents were unsealed today.
According to officials, Frederiksen possessed computer images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
Frederiksen lived in the Floyd apartment with Evelyn Miller, whose body was found in the Cedar River in July. Her death was ruled a homicide, and authorities have made no arrests in the case. Frederiksen is the father of Evelyn's two younger brothers, who also lived in the apartment.
FACT: The Rainforest is supported by a broad, non-evil coalition. Contrast the special interests behind the opposition with the diversity of voices who have lined up to support this important initiative. The Rainforest project has been praised by both the Des Moines Register and the Iowa Malaria Specialist News. It has received bipartisan support in Congress, including sponsorship by Democratic Senator Tom Harkin and Republican Senator Charles Grassley. It has been endorsed by the Iowa Glassmakers Association's Executive Committee to Re-Elect Grassley, and Glassworkers Union Local 162's Campaign to Re-Elect Harkin.
Now that you know the facts, it's easy to see why the United States Congress was first in line to invest in this incredible opportunity for America. These elected leaders recognized the shrewd wisdom of Iowa's unofficial motto -- "if you build it, they will come." And if for some reason they still don't come, America's leaders know that they can can always rely on Iowa's time-honored Plan B -- add slot machines. Then, visitors to Coralville's famous Rainforest Casino will be repeating Iowa's other unofficial motto: "Is this Heaven? No, it's the Lounge's $8.95 Dinner Buffet."
Thank you for your recent story about local efforts to help save the companion animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. ("Locals not forgetting furry victims," Sept. 21).
My partner, Jake Roos, was a member of the crew that traveled to New Orleans to rescue animals. Almost immediately after the crew returned, he turned around and went straight back. His reports are haunting.
A few days ago he broke into a boarded-up house because he noticed that the mini-blinds in the windows had been bent in an odd pattern. Inside he found a cat and a dachshund who had been without food and water for more than three weeks, barely alive.
Thousands of animals died after Katrina because trained animal protection agents were made to wait outside the city for permission from authorities to enter flooded areas. Our government kept rescue crews out of New Orleans for nearly a week and ordered citizens to abandon their animals -- some at gunpoint. Many of these people would no sooner abandon an animal to drown or starve to death than they would abandon a child, but the federal government left them with no choice. This betrayal is inexcusable.
President Bush and FEMA should take a look around New Orleans and pause for a moment to consider the suffering their inept handling of this disaster created for companion animals and their human families.
Leana Stormont
Norfolk, VA
Jill Gaulding, a UI associate professor of law, said on Thursday that pink represents a reinforcement of a sexist stereotype, because the color, which is typically associated with girls, is being used to depict opponents in a demeaning tone.
She advocates either completely changing the color of the visitor's locker room or painting both the Hawkeyes' and the opponents' rooms the same color. Though she doesn't blame the university, she said the university needs to take initiative to ameliorate the issue.
"I've been wearing pink to demonstrate that I like pink. Pink is not the problem," Gaulding said. "The problem is that lots of people think that the point of the pink locker room is to put down women."
I regard UI adjunct law lecturer Erin Buzuvis' view, along with her several colleagues who claim that "pink is regarded as the color of little girls and feminine men" by men who are "sexist and homophobic," as immature and small-minded, doing nothing but promoting the concept they claim to deplore...
...There is the distinct possibility that if pink is both a calming color and a sexual describer, then all opposing teams visiting the confines of Kinnick that whip the Hawkeyes must also be quite well-adjusted to their sexuality. This raises the question, Is having a pink locker room demeaning or rather a chance for young men to grow beyond the immature and narrow-minded thinking promulgated by Buzuvis' belief of the color pink?
I started this blog in September of 2005 to comment on Iowa issues of note. The site mainly focuses on news, politics, religion and culture.
Most of the content stems from Eastern Iowa sources, but occasionally topics from the entire state arise.
I have concealed my identity because I work for an Iowa news organization.
The owner of a large mixed-breed German shepherd dog has had the animal euthanized, but not before it bit two of her children and caused them to undergo treatment for rabies.Throw the book at this "mother" who valued her stupid, menacing dog over her children. Never allow her to have any pets ever again.
Adrian Jean Frye, 27, of 3310 Tremont Ave., Davenport, was charged with child endangerment after she failed to treat the second of two dog bites to her young children. According to Davenport police, Frye’s dog bit her 8-year-old child in July, and a case worker told her to remove the animal from her home.
Later that month, police said the dog caused serious injuries to Frye’s 3-year-old daughter. One scalp laceration measured 7-by-2 centimeters and the second was on the child’s face. Frye did not seek medical attention for the bites, police said.
Ten days later, Frye called authorities because of the injury. The 3-year-old was taken to the hospital where the bites were found to be infected but no sutures could be made. Police said the child will have a large scar on her head.
Frye had the dog euthanized at the Humane Society of Scott County, according to police, but claimed it had not bitten anyone and was not vaccinated.
Both children later underwent shots for rabies.
Frye posted a $13,000 bond after her Sept. 13 arrest. She will be arraigned Oct. 27 in Scott County District Court on the felony-level charge of child endangerment with bodily injury.
Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says he's not happy with changes to a U-S-D-A program that pays farmers to take land out of production as a conservation measure. The administration proposal would enroll only 20-percent of the current Conservation Reserve Program acres into long-term 10 to 15 years contracts -- giving the rest a two-year or five-year extensions.
Harkin, a Democrat, says he's not happy with the extensions for some of the C-R-P acres. He says, "Even C-R-P acres that have the lowest environmental benefits, in the bottom 20-percent, are gonna get a two-year extension under this plan. So, again I'm struck that the administration reaffirmed their commitment to filling the full allotment of the C-R-P acres, but they continue to support a capped allotment for the C-S-P program, the Conservation Security Program."
Get a life, people. It's only a coat of paint and a little pink plumbing. On the other hand, judging by their on-field performance so far this season, perhaps the Hawks have been suiting up in the wrong locker room.
In addition to several other initiatives, the UI will develop a Latino and Latina Studies Program to improve that minority group's recruitment, UI President David Skorton said during his annual keynote address Wednesday afternoon...
Skorton said the university also will develop a program to seek new funds for international exchange with predominantly Islamic countries in Southeast Asia, which have become increasingly isolated from the United States in recent years...
Diana Davies, the director of International Programs, praised Skorton's speech for addressing the need for better relations with Islamic students.
"It's clearly a need after 9/11, with new restrictions on travel and rules imposed by the state department" that led to declines in international students, she said. "I think [Skorton] is right on when he says we need to focus on this group that has felt so unwanted in this country in the last few years."
As a member of a modeling and photography website, I weed through offers such as the Women of Iowa Swimsuit Calendar every day with careful discretion. Although I am confident enough to be comfortable with my sexuality and have had many lucrative offers to pose "Maxim-style," I choose to pose in only portrait, casual, and swimsuit styles. There is a fine line between producing a sexy picture that embraces the beauty of womanhood and perpetuating the subjugation of our sex with a crude, aggressively sexual picture. The creators of the Women of Iowa Calendar do not cross this line.
When contacted to do the calendar, I struggled over the decision but ultimately chose to participate after visiting www.campustowncalendars.com and viewing sample pictures. What I found was a group of smiling, healthy, natural, ethnically diverse women in tasteful poses.
The message the calendar sends is that these women are not only intelligent and confident, but they possess a natural allure that every woman can choose to use to her advantage.
If women are forced to be ashamed of our bodies and deny ourselves the natural sexual allure we possess, then we live in a society of repression.
I feel just as sexy fully clothed as I do in a swimsuit, but I believe that my body is beautiful and that it is represented tastefully and positively in the professional pictures taken for the Women of Iowa Calendar. I will be proud to show the calendar to my future children and grandchildren.
The culprit here is not Campustown Calendars but rather malicious and irresponsible journalism. The only objectification or exploitation that occurred was when the Daily Iowan ran last week's awful front-page picture (Sept. 19) without my knowledge or consent.
Nicole Oehmen
Women of Iowa Calendar model
One problem facing Iowa Democrats this year is how to talk about the state's problems without hurting Gov. Tom Vilsack's presidential aspirations.Deacon Blouin has two major problems. 1. His entire growth agenda is based on taxing the hell out of the people in order to give money to corporations that compete with our own Main Street businesses. That it is a huge turnoff to a lot of Democrats. Add into the mix that - 2. He's a pro-life Catholic - and you'll find come election day that Jim Ross Nussle will be moving into Terrace Hill while some Green or Yogic Flyer gets a ton of votes, further fracturing the Democratic Party in Iowa.
Vilsack wants the world to think everything is hunky-dory out here in Iowa, thanks largely to his efforts. But Democrats trying to win the governorship and capture control of the Legislature want to talk about what they'd do to solve Iowa's problems.
In their view, things aren't so peachy.
A good example comes from the Iowa Policy Project, a left-of-center think tank bankrolled by unions and liberal donors and run by former Democratic state Rep. David Osterberg and former Democratic legislative candidate Mike Owen. "The jobs created in the Iowa economy since 2001 have fallen far short of providing the wages and benefits enjoyed during the late 1990s," the group said in a recent report.
"The Iowa economy has been slower to rebound from the recession than the country as a whole. Job quality has declined and employment has failed to keep pace with population growth. The result has been a significant decline in incomes since the pre-recession peak in 2000; by 2003-04, Iowa had fallen to seventh place among the nine-state peer group in terms of median household income. And while poverty rates in Iowa have remained below the national average for some time, the recession produced a sharp increase in the incidence of poverty among the Iowa population as a whole and among children in particular."
(Remember, these are Democrats talking here, and their man has been governor the entire time.)
Don't forget the recent report from Entrepreneur magazine that ranked Iowa last among the 50 states when it comes to being a good place to start a business.
The best example of the tension inside the Democratic Party comes over the Iowa Values Fund, the governor's big economic-development initiative that makes grants to businesses to attract and keep them in Iowa. One of the Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Ed Fallon, is winning his best applause lines by attacking the fund as "corporate welfare."
Hurricane victims face cold winter
The two recent hurricanes haven't just hurt the local residents who had their houses washed away, but they are going to affect — and continue affecting — everyone else, including Iowans. But it will have the most impact on the poor, who are already just barely holding on to life.
On average, households are going to spend $500 more than they did last year on energy. Does anyone honestly think wages have grown as quickly as energy prices? This doesn't concern most of us, because we'll be able to eat and heat our houses. The families barely making it before the hurricanes won't be making it this winter.
A U.S. Justice Department official describes it as "one of the most unique or egregious abuses of process" he's ever seen in Iowa's federal bankruptcy courts.
A national bankruptcy expert says it's the kind of case that led Congress earlier this year to crack down on debtors who milk the system with multiple filings.
Prosecutors call it a scheme "to frustrate the legitimate interests of creditors," and they allege the perpetrators are a Des Moines police detective and his relatives.
Federal authorities say Detective Franklin Irvin Jr., his wife and two of their sons have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection eight times in the past 14 years, despite a federal law that limits debtors to one financial slate-cleaning every six years.
This fall, residents in 26 Iowa communities will vote on whether their cities should offer telecommunications services.Nowhere in this article is the name Clark McLeod mentioned. He's one of the main people behind OpportunityIowa and somebody who will earn a mint by sucking hundreds of millions of tax dollars from Iowans who won't use or won't want city-based telecommunication services.
The movement to put the issue on November ballots is driven largely by OpportunityIowa, a nonprofit group that supports formation of municipal telecommunications utilities.
Private-sector companies such as Mediacom and Qwest oppose the effort as unfair competition.
As whorehouses go, so they say, this was quite classy, run by a leggy blonde madame remembered as “Lucille.”
Jim Arpy, a Quad-City Times reporter who sometimes cruised the late-night streets in a squad car, remembers cutting through “215’s” alley one 3 a.m. to see one of Davenport’s most prominent elected officials exiting the alley-side door.
There’s the story, too, of the toothless geezer who got all dolled up once a week. Knocking on Lucille’s door, he’d slip the dentures from his shirt pocket and insert them into his mouth, so as to greet the Madame with a pearly smile...
But it was towels that finally did in Lucille’s. Davenport police were in cahoots with the feds, said retired officer Dick Fee. In helping to get the goods on “215” for tax evasion in the late 1940s, Fee perched on a ladder inside a utility substation. He had a movie camera to count customers, but lacked evidence of hanky-panky.
Not until lawmen caught on that every patron was given a towel did they have a case. They tracked a Davenport laundry that supplied the towels; they got the laundry’s books; they got the goods on Lucille. The joint was padlocked.
The pink locker room is a red herring. Collegiate football is a barbaric sport that glorifies physical violence. The players receive preferential treatment because their activity is lucrative. Then, when some of the players abuse their privileges, either by poor academic performance or by off the field behavior, the University looks the other way. It's a shameful.
Singling out the pink locker room misses the entire point. The entire sport, as it is currently practiced, is objectionable from a feminist viewpoint. Changing the locker room color to a neutral color is just re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.
When a feminist scholar objects to only the pink locker room, the message received is that everything else regarding collegiate football at Iowa is acceptable from a feminist perspective.
As to your larger feminist critique of college football, I'm not sure if EBuz agrees with you. But assuming that she does, I don't see why she has to take on every feminist fight just because she takes on one. I'd guess that she stands about a million times greater chance of getting the locker room color changed than she does of getting UI to drop football.
RE: football at Iowa, I'll expand a little bit. If Ebuz is concerned about the implicit message behind a pink locker room, how would she feel about what is actually being said in the *IOWA* locker room or on the Iowa practice field about the opposing team. I'm sure everyone reading this can imagine that it is much more offensive than some pink paint.
Changing the pink locker room won't change a thing. It's a symptom, not a cause. Want to get rid of mysogynism and violence? Then stop activities that celebrate it. Repainting the locker room will just make us feel good about ourselves and sweep everything under the rug.
But to me, the "passive" rationale was bound up in the same gendered overtones as "sissy" and "girls bedrooms" so I was reading this particular passage as proposing one, unified, rationale -- read the word "passive" as rape-able, dominable, emasculated, etc. In other words, in my humble opinion, "passive" was just one more piece of the gendered rationale that included the "sissy" and "girlie" quotes. I was sure to mention the separate, alternative, psychology rationale, but I did not attribute that to this passage of the autobiography.
But as Gaulding points out, whether he's on the record or not with mixed or singular motives is not at all the point. To me, the point is how the message is received,and I believe the message appears as a "sissy" or "girlie man" type insult.
Trash-talking is a routine part of competitive play, is all of that objectionable on sexist or homophobic grounds as well because it is a pattern of alpha-male predatory behavior?What a fascist. That's a full-blown FemiNazi on display. Notice the lack of irony or sarcasm in SB's posts. This person is completely serious. And deranged.
The point I'm driving at, of course, is that the most egregious acts of sexism are spoken and acted out on the football field. It's tough to imagine a more compelling example of alpha-male behavior out of control, short of gunplay. One grown man hitting another so hard that he has a concussion or tears a knee ligament, and the fans "ooh"ing at each hard hit as it happens.
Lastly, what is most concerning to you, as a feminist professor of law? What is painted on locker room wall? Or what 70,000 people are cheering about? You have a rare pedestal that most of us don't, and will never have. Naturally, you have the right to choose whatever issues you want, but this observer finds the pink locker room a curious choice.
SB: Like EBuz, I appreciate your careful fact checking, and your powerful feminist beliefs. I would say we are all on the same side here and should avoid being distracted by internal differences. But that is just my opinion.Large number? What a small world you live in.
I think you and EBuz see this problem differently in part because you view the relationship between sex and competive sports differently. Your approach tends toward "difference feminism," in a particular form that elevates some of the (supposed) feminine characteristics and denigrates some of the (supposed) masculine characteristics. EBuz and I happen to subscribe to a different version of feminism ("liberal" or "structural" feminism), which is much more skepical of supposed sex differences. We do not think competitive physical sports are bad, of and by themselves. In fact, we enjoy them, and I know my young daughters do too! Come join us on the ice sometime, if you want to see whether you might enjoy it too.
I think we can agree to disagree about the split between difference and structural feminism, and try to support one another when our viewpoints point in the same direction. The pink locker room falls into that category, even if it would be low on your priority list and higher on ours.
As to the "accuracy in citing" business, I want to refer you to the dialogue on EBuz's blog. When the issue was raised there, I responded to it much more thoroughly than I did here, and I would urge you to review what is written there before you draw any final conclusions about what EBuz was arguing and how she argued it.
I am a stickler for ethics, too, and, understanding EBuz's argument as I do, I see absolutely no reason to critique her citing ethics here. I think that to the extent you see a problem, it is because you are misunderstanding her argument. (Again, see the discussion on EBuz's blog for a fuller explanation of this misunderstanding.)
Interestingly, the person who might be subject to criticism along the lines you are pursuing is Bob Bowlsby. Unlike EBuz's argument, Bob Bowlsby's argument depends on whether Hayden Fry had mixed motives or a single (acceptable) motive. Given this stance, it was inappropriate for Bob Bowlsby to cite to the "pink is soothing" evidence without acknowledging the "pink is girlie and sissy" evidence (assuming that he knew about it).
But I would not waste my time on this nicety. As I keep saying, the question is whether it makes sense for the University to continue this tradition, given the large number of people who believe that the tradition rests on a slur against women and/or the so-called "sissies."
Buzuvis voiced her concerns Tuesday at a public hearing on UI's NCAA certification review. She said that although she did not think painting the locker room pink intentionally was homophobic, it was perceived that way now.Ohhhhhh, we get it. Erin Buzuvis thinks the color pink is homophobic. What a color fascist. It's time that these people stopped pushing their twisted pigment agenda onto others.
"Pink is regarded as the color of little girls or the color of effeminate men," she said.
Buzuvis' criticism of the locker room has drawn support and scorn since she posted her view Thursday on her Web site. The entry had drawn 280 replies as of Tuesday evening. The postings ranged from those defending Buzuvis' position to a few anonymous posters threatening her life.Those comments sure are difficult to shut off, aren't they?
Buzuvis said she was not challenging Fry's decision to paint the walls, but rather wanted the certification steering committee to consider adding the issue to its final report.What are you asking for then?
"I'm not asking you to take out the urinals," she said. "I'm not asking you to paint the walls."
Jill Gaulding, an associate UI law professor, wants the locker room changed.What does that mean? You don't want any more men's football at the University of Iowa? Or would you merely like it redecorated according to the Code Of Queer-Based, Dictatorial, Taxpayer-Teet-Sucking, Left-Wing Color Fascists? Surely that won't be enough, and some day you'll call for the renaming of the football stadium to honor some insipid lefty climber broad like Mary Sue Coleman because you'll deem Nile Kinnick as a Republican Warmonger Jock.
"I want the locker room gone," said Gaulding
[Gaulding] added that Fry's intentions were no longer the point.It's how you perceive the pink locker room now. It's all about you, you, you, you, and how the only thing you want to have any control over in your life is the color of the opposing football team's locker room.
"It's a problem about how people perceive the pink locker room now," she said. "And how they're going to perceive it in the future."
Dave Franker, a law student of Buzuvis', described himself as a Hawkeye football fan and Hayden Fry fan. But he does not support the pink locker room.Er, that's not the same Dave Franker moonbat who ran against Jim Leach last year, is it?
"It's not just about free speech," he said. "It's about stereotypes and negative depictions."
Kim Marra, an associate professor in theater arts, who described herself as "queer-identified," said she had never heard of the pink locker room in her 16 years at Iowa until it was reported the visitors' locker room would remain pink as part of the Kinnick Stadium renovations. But she said she thought painting it pink promoted homophobia.If Queer Kim is so queer-identified, then don't you think perhaps over the past 16 years of living in queer-happy Iowa City there might be a single instance of queer-hatred directed at queer-identified types because of those pink locker rooms? It wasn't until all these queer-looking, queer-friendly, and queer-identified types started getting their queer menstrual cups in a queer twist that the public ever thought to associate "homophobia" with pink locker rooms.
Pat Cain, chairwoman of the certification review steering committee and a UI vice provost, said at the start of Tuesday's meeting that though disagreements are welcome in a university setting, hateful speech is not.It's amazing that one can be so educated and so allegedly intelligent, but they still can't figure out how to turn the comments off or require registration. What a bunch of dummies.
"I take her concerns seriously," Cain said of the derogatory entries on Buzuvis' blog.
Buzuvis said after the meeting that she had not received any death threats by phone or through e-mail and that all the comments were on her blog.Once again, this whole thing boils down to the irresponsibility on the part of Erin Buzuvis to leave the comments section in her personal blog wide open for any and all to post anonymously.
"With a pink locker room, you're saying that, 'You are a girlie man. You are weak, like a girl,' " Buzuvis said. "That implies that girls are non-dominant, therefore lesser. And that is offensive."
A recent study by the National Policy Research Council, published in Entrepreneur magazine, ranked Iowa last out of 50 states in small business development. State Representative and gubernatorial candidate Ed Fallon (D-Des Moines) called the ranking “disappointing.”
“I’m sorry to see results, after all the work Governor Vilsack and the Iowa Department of Economic Development have done in an effort to improve Iowa’s business climate,” Fallon said. “But it’s time Iowans realized the present approach isn’t growing Iowa’s values or economy. It’s simply throwing Iowa’s money down a rat hole...”
“There are numerous examples of businesses that receive millions of dollars in government assistance, but leave anyway,” Fallon said. “We need to invest in businesses with ties to our community, businesses that aren’t going anywhere, and businesses that really do enhance Iowa’s values. Small businesses pay our workers fair wages with benefits, pay taxes to support our public services and reinvest their profits in our community.”
I'm answering your question "Now, what would make you stay here after you graduate?"
I've lived in Iowa for almost 23 years. Eighty-five percent of that time was within 25 miles of Ames. There is nothing that will make me stay.
Although I could get a job having something to do with my major, my minor or my teaching certificate, I am leaving the state.
This has nothing to do with a lack of jobs, a lack of entertainment or nightlife or anything that the Register and our state legislature have commented about. I, like many others, simply need to experience life outside of Iowa...
Joel Taylor
Senior
Political Science
Day 2- I had plenty of time to unpack and steam my clothes as the other contestants were still having photos taken for the internet. My room mate was Miss Wisconsin Teen USA, we had met this spring, so already knew each other. That evening we were taken to go laser bowling by a police motorcade of six motorcycles and three police cars that escorted the two chartered busses full to teenage contestants. This is how we would travel to all of our events and rehearsals. We didn't stop at stop signs or traffic lights, just like a presidential motorcade.
The Des Moines City Council gave "Bad Kids" the green light Monday to crash a motorcycle from a 7-story parking garage onto a downtown street.
The crash is expected to take place Sunday from the top of the Wells Fargo Financial parking ramp. It will be part of a DVD release tentatively titled "Bad Kids, Volume III."
The stunt has the city's blessing, despite child-safety advocates' warnings that it might prompt copycat crashes. Supporters, however, say the stunt could draw other filmmakers to central Iowa.
"Why would we not do this?" City Councilwoman Christine Hensley asked Monday. "They do it in other parts of the country."
Bad Kids Inc. is a California video-production company. Much of "Bad Kids, Volume III" was shot in Iowa. The parking-ramp crash is the "climax scene" in the stunt video, said Tom Wheeler, manager of the Iowa Film Office.
Bad Kids Inc.'s president, Shannon Larson, is an Iowa native. He declined Monday to give specifics about the production.
Past volumes are known as "Street Session." One Web site that sells the video said viewers will witness "crashes, fights, sexy ladies and most importantly the wildest street rides ever."
The project is important to Iowa's film business, Wheeler said. Permission from the city is "a message to other filmmakers that we're open for business," he added...
Wells Fargo Financial spokesman Steve Carlson said the company granted permission for the unmanned stunt as "a way of supporting the community and supporting the arts."
U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, who's seeking the Republican nomination for governor, on Monday called for a requirement that all gasoline sold in the state be blended with ethanol.
It's part of his package aimed at making 20 percent of the energy consumed in Iowa be from renewable sources.
"I believe consumers have made the choice," Nussle said, noting that 70 percent of the gasoline currently sold in the state is blended with ethanol.
"I believe it's time we make every gallon of gas either ethanol or biodiesel."
"It is deeply offensive and completely unacceptable thata spirited public discussionsome bonehead, imported East Coast law professor who blogged about the pink locker rooms at Kinnick Stadium not knowing jack about Hayden Fry' s history, psychology degree, and what he meant to Iowans in the early 1980s after enduring a generation of rotten football teams ever since beating California 38-12 in the 1959 Rose Bowl, has been degraded bythreats of violenceher inability to shut off the comments section of her personal blog from the usual bunch of crank phone callers who hide under the black veil of anonymity. I ask that the entire University of Iowa community, including alumni and supporters,join me in condemning those threatsshow this former John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, and Barney Frank voter just how easy it is to turn off comments within Blogger's Settings tab.
"The University of Iowa administrationwelcomes an open and civilized debate on this issueis only making a big deal out of it because we just bought Blogger off of Google for $4 trillion dollars and Chuck Grassley helped secure $250 billion of the financing through the Hurricane Katrina relief bill and the rest came via a loan soon-to-be secured from David Oman via UBG Financial. However, threats of violence will not be tolerated except from scholarship basketball players who have a problem with stealing cell phones, violating no-contact orders, and stealing f***ing laptops from ex-girlfriends. For that reason, today I am asking the Office of the General Counsel, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the Department of Public Safety toreview these threats and to take appropriate actions based on their findingsdick around on the taxpayer's dime for a few months with no conclusion other than Professor Buzuvis should have shut off the comments section in her blog, something we'll conveniently fail to mention in the final report.
"As we go forward, it is appropriate to remind everyoneof our core values, including the vigilant protection of free expression — for people on both sides of this issuethat my house cost $3 million to renovate and I got a smaller raise than ISU's President. I ask everyone who takes an interest in this debate especially the hairy wing of the anti-sex Feminasty crowd, who hate all sports except bi-curious Field Hockey to recommit themselves tothe principles of honesty, fairness, personal integrity and civility.shitting all over the legacy of Hayden Fry, especially now that Ferentz's team sucks ass just like the Hawkeye days of yore.
Maybe we should even rename Kinnick Stadium because he was nothing but a Republican warmonger jock. I think Mary Sue Coleman Stadium sounds nice."
I noticed you criticized the DI for inflating the 100,000 figure for war protesters in D.C. over the weekend. I don't think you went far enough.
Although I consider myself somewhat socially liberal, I found the article reeking of bias not normally found on the front page of newspapers.
First off, let's look at resource bias: the DI sent a reporter and a photographer to D.C. to give glowing coverage of the protest. How often has the DI sent reporters to chronicle some conservative event? Let's see... never.
Second, the reporter refers to anti-war protesters as "activists," "sign-toting objectors," "performance artists," and other such neutral/positive words. In contrast, the writer refers to opponents of the protestors as "right-wing."
Apparently, legislators have just become aware of the popularity of Texas Hold’em. Although that’s a sure sign the fad is about to end, lawmakers say they want “clarity’’ in Iowa’s laws governing the game.Read the whole thing.
They’re worried folks don’t know it’s not OK to play high-stakes games in your basement or to host a big money tournament down at your neighborhood bar.
Gee, where would Iowans get the idea at that big money, high-stakes gambling was legally acceptable? Maybe it was at the riverboat, racetrack, convenience store, hardware store, bait shop, sports bar, or grocery store.
I am not exactly sure who you are or what you represent, even after reading Frequently Annoying Questions. This makes it difficult for me to understand your angle.Why would we want to spend the weekend with a bunch of smelly Saddam-appeasing Socialists, Communists, America Haters, Jew-haters, and dictator lovers when we can just watch the entire thing unfold on web sites, Flickr, and CSPAM?
Your blog appears to make many assumptions about my motivation for attending the rally based on one sentence from the Associated Press and an excerpt from a speech Bush gave three years ago. The real story is that you should have been in D.C. covering the event yourself. Hundreds of thousands of people attended and no less than 160 Iowans traveled many hours to take a stand. Nothing was mentioned in the Des Moines Register about this, and nothing of importance was mentioned by you.
Des Moines city officials are threatening to take over a local businessman's property because it doesn't meet their standards for an eclectic neighborhood.
The governor and the Legislature need to stop such strong-arm tactics. This is civic thuggery. State officials need to impose additional restrictions on the ability of governments to take private property from people for economic-development projects.
When I look at Iowa's recent political landscape, I see mostly solid, earnest types who try to do right by their constituents but would hardly capture the imagination of the nation's youth. Maybe that's why I'm pulling for the implausible Coralville rainforest project. If businessman Ted Townsend and his group succeed, it would send the message that just about anything is possible in Iowa.
Bankrupt software developer Charlie Hudson said he's not sure if the new law would force him into Chapter 13, but he wasn't willing to take the chance.We are always skeptical of the "medical bills" mention. What does that involve? How much is it? We know insurance doesn't cover everything, but the media is always evasive about this aspect of medical bills vs total debt.
"It definitely got me going," said Hudson, 58, who has been in and out of work for four years. In July, he moved his family to Iowa for a job that pays well but isn't guaranteed to last.
Hudson racked up $29,000 in credit-card debt and unpaid medical bills after the economy went south in 2001. He sold his house in Golden last year to help pay down his debt. When he filed for bankruptcy in July, Hudson claimed assets worth less than $6,000, including two cars, furniture and a computer.
"I didn't really want to do this, but then looking at the numbers and seeing where I'm at ... I realized I can't attempt to pay back all this," he said.
Hudson's income, though unpredictable, is high enough that he could be affected by the tough provisions of the new law.
Ray and Norma Salas of Denver have built up $88,000 in debt on at least seven credit cards during the last 18 years, according to their filing. They sought Chapter 7 protection in July."We tried everything we could, but nothing worked" - REALLY? Over the past 18 years did you ever try cutting up all your credit cards, living below your means, and paying your debt off? No, you didn't.
"We tried everything we could, but nothing worked," Ray Salas said. "These credit-card companies keep sending you the papers, and they make it so easy. Just fill out the paperwork and send it in."
Ray is a stock worker at a home-improvement store, and Norma is a part-time retail cashier.
Another couple from Brighton owed $133,000 on 20 credit cards. The husband, a mechanical engineer who has been in and out of work since 2001, earned $30,000 last year.20 credit cards! Are you crazy? What was wrong with your life that, say, 13 credit cards couldn't have made better?
"We could have solved this problem before now, but the credit-card companies don't listen until they receive that bankruptcy notice," said the man, who asked that his name not be published.
whily yor googling the greenways for dirt on their farm subsidies why don't you google how much a tractor, or a combine costs. You might think twice about assuming they have a lot of money.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun accepting applications for the Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFGP). Fire departments can submit applications through 5 p.m. Fri., Oct. 2, 2005...
"These funds can help first responders buy needed equipment, update technology and pay for essential training," said Sen. Tom Harkin. "I encourage fire departments in Iowa, particularly those in rural areas, to apply for these grants...
Although the program assists rural, urban and suburban fire departments throughout the United States, it places a particular emphasis on rural fire departments. It requires that at least 60 percent of the funding must go to volunteer fire departments. This means that towns like Webster and Sigourney are not competing against Des Moines or Cedar Rapids. Additionally, the program requires only a 10 percent match in local funding. In today's economy, this makes it possible for small fire departments to take advantage of the program.
Opponents of the war in Iraq rallied by the thousands Saturday to demand the return of U.S. troops, staging a day of protest, song and remembrance of the dead in marches through Washington, other U.S. cities and capitals abroad.
More than 2,000 people gathered on the Ellipse hours before the showcase demonstration past the White House, the first wave of what organizers said would be the largest Washington rally since the war began.
“We have to get involved,” said Erika McCroskey, 27, who came from Des Moines, Iowa, with her younger sister and mother for her first demonstration, traveling in just one of the buses that poured into the capital from far-flung places.
“Bush Lied, Thousands Died,” said one sign. “End the Occupation,” said another.
I was joined at Air Force One by Erika McCroskey today. She's from right here in the Des Moines area. Erika, stand up for me. Erika is an AmeriCorps volunteer. She decided she is going to do something with her life by helping others. I was reading that -- and Erika, she's going to Bolivia to help somebody in need there. I said, Erika, why are you going? She said, my mother raised me in the spirit of service.
You see, the great strength of America are the Erikas. I call them soldiers in the armies of compassion, people that don't need a government law to tell them to love a neighbor just like they'd like to be loved themselves, people who have heard a call that's much bigger than government.
You know, our fellow citizens say to me, what can I do to help in the war against terror? I tell them to love somebody in need. If you want to fight evil, do some good. What's happening in America as a result of the attack is that people are now understanding that patriotism is more than just putting your hand over your heart and saying the Pledge of Allegiance with the words "under God" in it. (Applause.)
A patriot -- a patriot is somebody who assumes the personal responsibility to help somebody in need. And that's happening in this country. Our culture is changing from one that has said, if it feels good, just go ahead and do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else, to a culture in which each of us understand we're responsible for the decisions we make in life.
Whoever you are:We did some fact-checking. We went to Jennifer Oman's web site after we visited the Des Moines Register's web site in the Life section.
Bullying people through their spouses is low, even for you with no name and no face. In your persistent tirade against David Oman and the proposed rainforest, you mention that Jennifer Oman is employed by the Register. She isn't and never has been. Her syndicated column did run in the paper for several years, but she's retired from that. You really need to do some fact-checking.
Your site is disturbing in many other ways, too. It is so easy to cower behind anonymity and make rude, snide and possibly libelous remarks about hard-working journalists who are held accountable for what they write because their articles are bylined. Who are you? No one knows. Why don't you stand up and be held accountable? Because someone might sue your pathetic ass?We usually don't knock too many journalists for what they write in proper news articles. That's pretty rare, but it does happen. We normally knock opinions written under the black veil of anonymity by certain Editorial Boards. We also love whacking the occasional guest op-ed and the usual gang of letter to the editor writers. Who needs a joke department when Iowa is literally bursting at the seams with humorous talent?
Do you have a real job? Are you a reporter wannabe who couldn't make it in a newsroom due to laziness, incompetence or both? Or do you, as a columnist you've defiled suggested, just sit around in your underwear all day being caustic and doing your boring, predictable and hateful little blog?We're for Ed Fallon. We're for alternative energy. We're for a peaceful and Democratic Iraq. We're for poor people being able to get affordable housing. We're for communities where neighbors know each other. We're for helping little kids who are battling cancer or serious burns. We're for store owners who are trying to fix things up. We're for people who put their own money back into their community at their own discretion. And a whole lot more.
Have you ever been FOR anything in your miserable, irrelevant life? Please, inquiring minds want to know. Who you are. What you've ever done to help solve a problem. And, this most of all, if your mother ever regrets not having had an abortion.
At 11:23 AM, Craig Brown said...
You wrote.. "The factual question of whether pink actually does have calming effect on our psyches is beside the point." Actually, that is EXACTLY the point. That's exactly why they were painted pink, for that reason and that reason alone. Hayden Fry is a fan of psychology an honorable man who has done more for minority groups than 99% of football coaches in America by inviting the first african-american to play football in the then all-white Southwest Conference. Please don't drag his name through the mud any longer with this silly arguement.
Since the 1980s, University of Iowa's football stadium, Kinnick Stadium, has been notorious for the pink walls of the visiting team's locker rooms. The tradition of the pink walls is attributed to former coach Hayden Fry. By one account, Fry was a former psych major who understood the psychological effect of pink as a "calming" color. The more plausible explanation is Fry's own. His autobiography reports that he chose the pink walls because "pink is often found in girl's bedrooms, and because of that some consider it a sissy color." Hayden Fry, A High Porch Picnic (1999).
This year, as part of a multi-million dollar renovation, Iowa decided to "honor" coach Fry by retaining the pink walls and installing pink lockers, urinals, sinks, etc.
KCRG-TV (channel nine) called me today because someone told them I had an opinion on the issue. Being interviewed me today (UPDATE: broadcast/story here) about why I think this is an unfortunate decision helped me to think through many of the reasons why I think this gesture is sexist and homophobic.
At 10:07 AM, Anonymous said...
This comment thread quite literally turns my stomach.
Every one of you that made personal attacks against the author of this blog should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves. You are an embarrasment to our entire state.
It takes quite a man to hide behind an internet blog and post comments like "kick her in the box" or "go to hell you fucking bitch, I hope you get AIDS".
I disagree with the original point, as well, but part of what makes this a great country is that we all have the freedom to voice our opinions. That same freedom gave some of you the opportunity to post pre-adolescent drivel in a public forum, and it gives me the right to call you out for it.
EBuz - don't let hateful words get ya down. We're not all imbecilic misogynists.
At 10:16 AM, Guy hiding behind his computer said...
"It takes quite a man to hide behind an internet blog and post comments..."
Great post anonymous. I agree totally.
At 10:22 AM, travisharvey5155540704 said...
Once you leave the liberal oasis of Iowa City you will realize your viewpoints arent very popular with the rest of the state. You should move back to the east coast to be comforted be your like minded buddies and try to figure out why you lost the election. You read the wrong books and associate with like minded people which strengthens your ass backwards viewpoints. Then they allow you to force those warped views on college students who are impressionable and their grades may reflect it if they openly disagree with you. Unlike some of these cowards Im posting my name and phone # GO Hawks I'll be in Columbus representing
CORALVILLE -- Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, remains committed to funding a $180 million rain forest project and would not withdraw a $50 million federal grant to pay for Hurricane Katrina relief, Grassley's press secretary Beth Pellett confirmed Thursday.
Pellett said she spoke with the senator about the topic, and said Grassley was committed to keeping the federal Department of Energy grant going to The Environmental Project.
While Grassley did propose the idea of an across-the-board spending freeze to fund Katrina relief Wednesday, Pellett said the project was not being targeted.
"He's never brought up the rain forest in helping to pay for Katrina," Pellett said. "It's other people bringing it up to him."
The project involves building a 4.5 acre enclosed rain forest along with a 1 million gallon aquarium and teaching space. It would anchor the Iowa River Landing development, which is under construction southeast of Interstate 80 and First Avenue.
The land still remains in Coralville's hands, however, as project and city officials hammer out the details of a contract defining the conditions of transferring the land. Two city councilors have said they no longer support transferring the land. Councilor John Lundell said he would join them in that stance unless the transfer contract was finished quickly and there was a complete change in the decision-making leadership of the project.
During his news conference Wednesday, Grassley said he expected most of the cost cutting to fund up to $200 billion in Hurricane Katrina relief would come in the fiscal year 2007 budget. That budgeting process will begin in about three months.
But the money was appropriated for the project in fiscal year 2004, with a contract signed between the Department of Energy and the Iowa Child Foundation -- the project's funding agency. David Oman, executive director of the project, said Grassley had challenged Iowa last year to undertake non-traditional projects and said he was glad to see the senator maintain that commitment to stretching the envelope
"The project is well-known, but often times not well understood," he said. "It is very non-traditional, different, nothing like it in the country or even in this hemisphere."
City Administrator Kelly Hayworth said the grant dollars were essential to success in the project.
"They're absolutely critical because that really serves as the foundation for everything that we're working on," he said.
He also disagreed with those who would move money from the project, saying that there was a multitude of projects across the nation that had received federal funding.
"Different people have different opinions," he said. "What one person can term as a waste is obviously not in another particular case. So I think it's unfair to target this one particular project."
Brian Quirke, public information officer for the U.S. Department of Energy, said they've been directed by Congress to provide the $50 million grant for the project to draw on. But he left the door open for members of Congress to change their minds.
"If Congress tells us to do something different, we will accommodate that direction as well," he said.
Local war protesters will take their message to Washington, D.C., this weekend as part of a massive demonstration - potentially the largest since the beginning of the war on Iraq.
Nearly 60 activists from the Iowa City community, including members of the War Resisters League of Iowa City and the UI Antiwar Committee, will travel to the Capital for the "Peace and Justice" festival, which is expected to draw thousands of demonstrators.
"I would be absolutely shocked if fewer than 10,000 people showed up," said Brian Gryzlak, a member of the UI Antiwar Committee, who organized the bus trip. "Sentiment against the war has increased over the last couple months."
The three-day protest will kick off in front of the White House at 11:30 a.m. Saturday with a rally, followed by an afternoon march.
Cindy Sheehan, who gained national attention last month after holding a protest outside President Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, will speak at the event.
"She's become, to some extent, the face of the antiwar movement and to a very real extent, the voice of it," Gryzlak said
A lot of people couldn't leave New Orleans because they lacked transportation. Many had no money to buy gas or funds to go to a hotel outside the evacuated area. We're talking about people who daily confront a different economic reality.
The fact they were not part of the city's evacuation strategy speaks to something worse than racism. It speaks to a disregard for those of lesser economic means.
I'm not a fan of George W. Bush, but I don't think he hates black people.
George Wallace, the original George W., hated black people.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, suggested Wednesday that an across-the-board federal spending freeze could help pay for Hurricane Katrina recovery costs.
"It could all come in one year, or it could be spread out over several years," Grassley said in a conference call with Iowa reporters.
Blocking automatic adjustment of federal programs to inflation also could generate more revenue, Grassley said, noting that the standard deduction on income taxes also is indexed to inflation.
"If we did that, it would bring in X number of dollars. That would bring in some revenue. That would be a tax increase," Grassley said.
The man engaged to the mother of slain 5-year-old Evelyn Miller was taken to the hospital Wednesday night following an apparent suicide attempt.
Lying on his stomach and with his bandaged wrists restrained behind his back, Casey Frederiksen was carried from his back yard on a stretcher and placed into an ambulance at about 7:15 p.m...
...A woman visiting neighbors at the time of Wednesday's incident said Frederiksen exited through the back door of the house about 10 minutes after police entered.
"Casey came running out. I guess he was refusing to go and they tackled him," the woman said.
Neighbors reported hearing yelling and screaming coming from the house just before police and paramedics arrived.
"There was an argument going on and it was mostly her yelling," the woman said.
Several neighbors also reported seeing a bloody knife thrown from the front door onto the lawn after police entered the house.
Miller left a short time after the ambulance departed with Frederiksen with a woman who, neighbors say, works with the Department of Human Services.
Some Iowa Democrats who back abortion rights, though, have been reluctant to back Blouin because he is pro-life. Gronstal, who describes himself as pro-choice, says Blouin's stand on abortion wasn't a deal breaker. Gronstal says he doesn't agree with any of the candidates on every single issue. "As a matter of fact, I don't agree with my wife on every single issue,"
"The majority of the people, you could walk up to them on the street and have a conversation, and they'll talk to you as if they've known you forever," said City Councilman Gene Horn.
Horn knows the difference because he's moved around.
"I've lived several different places, but when I came back here, it wasn't like I was a stranger [even though] I didn't know everyone," said Horn. "[I] didn't feel out of place."
"It's a different way of life," said fellow Councilman Gary Harris. "You have none of the traffic, the rat race. Here, if you want to go fishing, you can be at a pond in five minutes. [And] I don't think we have the crime they have in a bigger town."
Harris has worked as a grocery manager and a postal employee around Iowa.
"In Des Moines, I only knew one or two of my neighbors," he said. "It was a cold town, as far as friendliness."
"People here go talk to their neighbor," said Horn. "Everybody knows who their neighbor is."
In fact, an extensive Iowa State University study of small towns found that 71 percent reported knowing the names of at least half the people in Moulton and 92 percent of Moulton residents "feel at home."
Apparently, that goes for "newcomers" as well.
Christine White, 77, moved to Moulton four years ago after she and her daughters had difficulty finding her retirement housing in Bloomfield.
She told The Courier that she was treated with kindness, not suspicion. Her new neighbors invited White to church, to dinners and to card games. From the very first day, she felt welcome.
She also said she appreciates the amenities that are nearby.
"I'm half a block from the Christian church, I live right across the street from the city park, and half a block from two beauticians - and that's a must when you get to be older."
Some Iowa lawmakers want to restrict government’s ability to force the sale of property for economic development.
Several legislators say the use of eminent domain can hinder a property owner’s rights. Some city leaders in Des Moines say it promotes development.
The U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year reinforced the authority of government to buy property against the will of its owner. Such authority allows cities and county’s to run roughshod over property rights, some lawmakers said.
“What we’re looking at is something that would prevent governments from condemning private property and then turning it over to another private property owner,” said Rep. Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha.
Eminent domain is frequently used to acquire property for roads, but property rights advocates say it has been increasing used to push projects they think will boost property values.
“If it’s for a public project, that’s one thing, but to take it from one and give to another is a different issue altogether,” said Iowa House Speaker Christopher Rants, R-Sioux City.
President Bush promised last week to replace the floodwaters of the Gulf Coast with a sea of federal dollars, and just about the only criticism from Democrats is that whatever he plans to spend isn't enough.
So it's a done deal. The government is going to spend upward of $250 billion in Louisiana and Mississippi. So where is the government, already scheduled to spend about $425 billion more than it takes in next year, going to get the money?
How about Coralville?
One suggestion gathering support across the nation is that it may be time for local and regional boosters all over the country to put their favorite projects on "hold" for a year or two. Fairly or not, the oft-modified plan to build a massive environmental educational center near Coralville has become the poster child for critics of government waste. The $50 million tacked onto last year's energy bill to subsidize The Environmental Project is dwarfed by other highly questionable allocations, like a quarter of a billion dollars to build a bridge in Alaska linking a community of 50 people with one of 8,000, but the concept of an indoor rain forest in Iowa strikes a lot of people as beyond bizarre.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley often rails against corporate tax cheats, but cheated taxpayers himself by earmarking $50 million for an indoor rainforest scheme in Iowa. No wonder we have $300 billion deficits.
In Wednesday's Sept. 7 article, "Readers favor higher state athletic eligibility standards," I disliked any thoughts of putting added pressure on students to perform well in each and every class. As a former high school athlete, I shudder to think what raising the bar on grades would do.
Athletes should not be directed any special attention, but the standards addressed are similar to the universities'. High school should be a time of building an education and enjoying social or after-school participation.
I respect the goal for higher education. I am afraid, however, students who have a difficult time learning will drop out of school if they can't meet the higher standards. I agree added stress of passing each class will discourage kids from taking certain classes or from participating in athletic events.
Students who put education first may not participate in other activities because they fear their grades could be close to the D- border.
High school is a time that every kid should enjoy. Students have time to worry about getting a 2.0 grade point to stay academically eligible at the next level.
Ongoing battles in Congress over hurricane relief, tax cuts and spending likely mean that proposals to revamp Social Security are dead until next year, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Ia., said Tuesday.
Grassley, in an interview with The Des Moines Register, acknowledged that putting the debate off until 2006 and a midterm election year means it would be "very difficult" to accomplish any major changes, including the voluntary personal accounts for Social Security championed by President Bush.
But Grassley, the chairman of the committee that would write an overhaul plan, said that Social Security will have to take a back seat this fall to hurricane-related legislation and possibly prolonged negotiations over the budget and tax cuts.
As Curves for Women fitness centers sprouted up in cities and small towns around Iowa, some failed to collect sales taxes from their customers.
And now the Iowa Department of Revenue is asking franchise owners to ante up tax payments that could amount to more than $500,000, a state of Iowa official said.
Dozens of Curves locations across the state have been notified they owe additional taxes, and a total of 18 stores — including Davenport — have protested those assessments.
A Web site for Curves lists 114 locations in Iowa.
Some Curves owners have claimed their services are exempt from Iowa sales taxes because they are providing instruction to their members. Instructional services are not subject to the state sales tax.
But David Casey, policy manager for the Iowa Department of Revenue, said Curves owners were informed more than two years ago they were subject to the state sales tax.
Casey said the state considers Curves’ services to be the same as membership fees at health clubs, which are taxed. Business owners who are found not to have collected sales taxes from their customers could find that the tax bill comes out of their own pocket, Casey said.
Last week, Gov. Tom Vilsack responded to Hurricane Katrina by promoting individual and family emergency-preparation plans. (September is National Preparedness Month.) A new state website, bereadyiowa.gov (Er, no, you Idiots, it's http://www.bereadyiowa.org/), stresses awareness and emergency-supply kits...
...A vital part of disaster preparation is assembling the supplies necessary to keep citizens alive and healthy in a catastrophe - water, generators, and emergency shelters. From a logistical standpoint, such relief agencies as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Red Cross are simply not capable of delivering the supplies quickly enough. State governments must take responsibility for the basic safety measures...
...However, FEMA's atrocious response to Hurricane Katrina has proven that states cannot rely on the federal government to bail them out in a catastrophe.
Iowa Congressman Leonard Boswell is recovering from abdominal surgery at a hospital in Washington, D-C.Heck, that could be anything. Maybe he's getting a penis extension. We get those emails all the time.
Boswell underwent an operation today for removal of what was called an "abdominal mass." Spokesman Eric Witte says Boswell is expected to be in the hospital for a few weeks.
Witte declined to discuss other details of the surgery, saying the family is asking that Boswell's medical privacy be respected. According to Witte, the 71-year-old Iowa Democrat will be able to return to a normal schedule when he gets out of the hospital.
Boswell says nothing in his health will prevent him from running for re-election next year and he fully intends to do.
In the Clarke College soccer media guide sophomore Adam Mennig lists politics as one of his hobbies. He was not kidding. Mennig turned 20 on Friday but earlier last week was elected to a spot on the Dubuque School Board. The 2004 graduate of Dubuque Hempstead High School says he has been interested in politics for several years and "Just caught the bug I guess."
It was not the first time Mennig ran for a seat on the school board. He lost in his first run last year. Even though he is a full-time student and involved in a sport Mennig says he will have the time it takes to be a board member. He says a lot of people on the board have families and jobs. He says he considers school his job and soccer his kid. Mennig says being a life-long resident of Dubuque helped him as he says he had lots of supportive friends and people he played soccer with that got the word out.
The Great River Gateway collection of projects received $250,000 more than what the Vision Iowa Board was prepared to give because of Mayor Mike Edwards' influence, said City Manager Bruce Slagle.
During a discussion at Monday's City Council meeting about the $5.25 million Vision Iowa grant awarded to the Great River Gateway project last year, Slagle said the amount would have been only $5 million if not for Edwards, who also sits on the Vision Iowa Board.
Slagle said that not too many people are aware of that information, but they should know...
The Vision Iowa Board, Slagle said, wanted to award a $4 million Vision Iowa grant and a $1 million Community Attraction and Tourism grant, but then Edwards intervened.
Edwards said he approached Michael Gartner, former Vision Iowa board president, and asked him if he could up the amount by $400,000.
Gartner said he would attempt to get $250,000 more, Edwards said.
"Gartner went to the rest of the board, pleaded his case and got the rest of the money," he said.
Sioux City police have made a couple of arrests in hurricane scams. Over the past week police have been receiving reports of people claiming to be victims of Hurricane Katrina to fraudulently obtain assistance from the American Red Cross. Police arrested 33-year-old Pamela Ann Anderson and 26-year-old Heather Ann Hamilton, both of Sioux City. Both are charged with fraudulent practice in the second degree. Sioux City police say more arrests are expected.
SPENCER, Iowa (AP) -- Iowa needs to put more E-85 fuel at gasoline stations so more drivers can use it, state Agriculture Secretary Patty Judge said.
E-85 is a blend of 85 percent corn-based ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. While E-85 can be found in more than a dozen cities across the state, Judge said Iowa needs to do more to make it more available...
One problem in Iowa, she noted, that must be corrected involves tank limitations at service stations. Many retailers offer straight unleaded fuel in one tank, while reserving the other tank for the 10 percent blend ethanol (E-10). The situation leaves the E-85 alternative without a space on the shelf.
Bowhunters are scheduled to begin killing deer within the [Cedar Rapids] city limits on Oct. 1 to thin the 2,400 deer that officials have estimated live in the area.
The hunters will be allowed to shoot only on private property with... the permission of the landowner. They must hunt alone, wear camouflage and be at least 5 feet above the ground when they shoot, said Dave Nichols, who heads the lethal force subcommittee of the city's Urban Deer Task Force...
Scottie Diers, a new member of the Urban Deer Task Force, opposed the bowhunt in the 8-2 vote to allow it. She said at the group's meeting this month that she would be out banging pots and pans to scare deer away from hunters.
Nichols said state law prohibits residents from disrupting a hunt.
Narcisse on Monday requested a recount of the election, in which unofficial tallies show he fell 86 votes short of gaining one of three seats...
Narcisse has criticized the consolidation of voting precincts since Polk County Auditor Michael Mauro announced the money-saving move in mid-July. In the two days after the election, Narcisse sent out mass e-mails to supporters and others blasting Mauro's plan.
"I know the voters wanted me on the school board," Narcisse wrote. "Political powers, however, jacked this election."
Mauro called the accusations ridiculous and unfounded. He said steps were taken to inform voters of the changes. Increased voter turnout suggests that people across the city were able to find the right places to vote, he added...
Narcisse has said that up to 200 people were turned away from North High School. That allegation came from Quinn, who said a poll worker told him that up to 200 people were sent away at North because they were at the wrong polling place.
When contacted by the Register, one poll worker estimated that seven or eight people were sent to a different polling place. Another estimated 40 people were sent to a different polling site.
"Oh, my, no," said poll worker LaVon Hoffman when asked whether 200 people were sent elsewhere.
At North, 226 people voted on Election Day. During the past two years, an average of 191 people voted.
One reason Nussle is winning the argument is that he's no Jim Lightfoot. Nussle's campaign is fast-moving and run by a young, but talented staff. Lightfoot's campaign was lethargic and run by his wife.
Nussle's wife is on the road making friends, not in the office making mistakes.
I just wanted to take a minute and say: Nice front-page crotch shot ("Women of Iowa Swimsuit Calendar," Sept. 19).
My laudatory remarks don't stop there (how could they?): Next, I read the first paragraph. Such a brilliant - not to mention original - likening of the female body as something to be preyed upon. I would have never thought of that metaphor! How titillating! Never have I ever seen such a "fun" and "whimsical" treatment of stalking and sexual exploitation!
Then, of course there was the whammy - how the camera became a weapon! Such a delightful rendering of violence against women! Who needs Katrina and suicide bombings when you have color photos of bikinis on bikes? H-O-T, people!
Silly university, missed out on quite the photo op! But at least we still have you, Daily Iowan, to put the hilarity back in journalism! You have surely outdone yourselves!
A leaner, fitter and healthier Lee County could very well emerge from a wellness initiative made possible by a federal grant recently awarded to the Lee County Health Department.
The two-part, $63,750 grant obtained through the Sen. Tom Harkin Wellness Grant program and Iowa Department of Public Health will be used for a pilot nutritional and physical activity program in four Keokuk schools and a countywide fitness program.
Lee County's share came from a total of $2.7 million awarded to 28 public and private organizations throughout Iowa...
The health department chose the Keokuk School District for the pilot program because the after-school program already is in place and the district has a high rate of free and reduced cost lunches.
Also, Lee County's over-weight and obesity rate is higher than the state average and the state's rates are above the national norm, Schilling said.
On September 15, the Iowa ACLU sued Iowa on behalf of the Green and Libertarian Parties, to overturn state practices that force all voters to register as Republican, Democratic or Independent. Iowa is one of only two states that doesn’t have a blank line on the voter registration form, in the “political party” question. The other is Kansas. The case is Iowa Libertarian Party et al v Culver, federal court, 4:05cv-521. Minor parties have won on this issue in New York, New Jersey, Oklahoma and Colorado, but lost in Iowa and North Carolina. However, the losses in Iowa and North Carolina were many years ago, before the age of computerized voter registration records.
Authorities have found an out-of-the way plot of marijuana plants near the town of Peterson in northwest Iowa, but the plot's cultivator hasn't been found yet. Clay County Sheriff Randy Krukow says they've seized four-thousand marijuana plants from the plot Experts say each plant will produce about a pound of pot. That 4,000 pounds would translate into about four million dollars on the street, according to the sheriff. The discovery is part of a sweep that involved a National Guard helicopter. A deputy in the helicopter discovered the plot among some trees in a small clearing. The deputy took some pictures, and a judge granted a search warrant. The sheriff says they haven't determined who was cultivating the plot because it was in such a remote location. "This is back in the timber and it's a remote area that unless you had a right to be there, you would not find it," he says. Sheriff Krukow believes this bust will put at least a temporary dent in the drug trade in the Spencer area.
The Gypsum City Off-Highway Vehicle Park being created south of Fort Dodge received a boost Thursday with the award of a $413,330 grant.
The park near the intersection of Webster County road P-59 and 219th Street will consist of trails for ATVs and dirt bikes, an area for teaching OHV safety and eventually a clubhouse and campground.
The OHV park grant was the biggest single award to emerge from a $1.3 million federal grant to the state. The Iowa Department of Transportation divided up the federal money between projects throughout the state.
‘‘This grant is the one I’m most interested in because Helen Miller and I helped make it possible to get the land from the gypsum companies,’’ said state Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge. ‘‘This is really good news for our area.’’
‘‘I don’t see this as pork, I see this as good public policy,’’ Beall added.
Gov. Tom Vilsack this morning agreed with veterans groups by choosing a central Iowa site along Interstate 80 as the location for a new Iowa Veterans Cemetery...
Construction of the cemetery is expected to cost about $8 million and will be funded by a federal grant.
Saying students need to be better prepared to face worldwide competition, U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle, R-Iowa, joined North Scott High School faculty and students Tuesday in celebrating an $800,000 federal grant to help incoming and graduating high school students prepare for the next level of their education.
The Smaller Learning Communities grant is part of a federal program aimed at boosting education by providing smaller learning centers in larger high schools. At North Scott, it will help freshman get more contact with teachers and parents, while the money also will help older students prepare for the work force and college in the hopes that, in the case of college-bound kids, they’ll be able to enter at a higher level.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Patty Judge Thursday announced that the Iowa Agricultural Innovation Center has received a federal USDA grant, securing $300,000 to create a Cooperative Accelerator within the center.
"This grant will allow the Center to develop a cooperative accelerator, which will further assist producers with value-added initiatives by providing them with training and workshops to assist them with their marketing and strategic plans as well as providing much needed technical expertise on developing a cooperative structure," Judge said.
The Iowa Transportation Commission on Tuesday awarded a total of $1.3 million in federal grant money for recreational trail projects statewide.
The projects are:
Boone/Hamilton/Webster counties: $18,150 to install official Iowa Water Trail signs, informational kiosks, bridge signs and warning signs, and to design maps for water trails on the Boone and Des Moines rivers.
Decorah/Winneshiek County: $95,000 to develop a two-mile trail between Decorah and the Iowa State Fish Hatchery at Siewer's Spring.
Department of Natural Resources: $120,000 to help pay costs of a summer maintenance crew for five state-designated all-terrain vehicle parks over five years; $160,000 to purchase two snow-grooming machines to maintain Iowa snowmobile trails; $288,185 for trail development and restoration statewide.
Hamilton County/Webster City : $151,131 to help construct a 2.5-mile trail crossing the Boone River into Briggs Woods State Park. The new trail will connect two existing trails.
Hardin County: $72,700 to enhance 49 miles of the Iowa River Water Trail in Hardin County, including access, public safety, directional signs, education and handicapped accessibility.
Waterloo: $28,959 to purchase one track loader to groom and maintain all-terrain vehicle parks in Iowa.
Webster County : $413,330 for development of the Fort Dodge Off-Highway Vehicle Park for use by all-terrain vehicles, dirt bikes, snowmobiles and other activities.
Rural Scott County residents who rely on the McCausland Fire Department got some good news last week when it was announced that the department was the recipient of a $173,000 federal grant.
The cost of the tank locks were paid for through a $300,000 federal drug task force grant sponsored by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin and channeled through the Iowa Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy, Christianson said.
In an effort to censor images from Katrina, the Federal Emergency Management Agency issued a Sept. 6 statement saying that it did not want the media taking photographs of the bodies being recovered in New Orleans. A similar kind of un-American government censorship was instituted about photographs of coffins of fallen soldiers in Iraq.How about a little respect for the families of the victims?
The administration's policy of deliberately misleading the American public has been illustrated in the political aftermath of Katrina. The Times reported on Sept. 5 that in effort to divert blame from the Bush administration, the White House - spearheaded by Bush's master political strategist and Mr. Potato Head enthusiast, Karl Rove, and White House communications director, Dan Bartlett - has begun a push to fault state and local officials for the appalling response to Katrina. If the Bush administration is going to continue in its policy of deceiving the American public, the media must hold Bush officials accountable by asking hard questions about the government's preparation and response to Hurricane Katrina.What a bunch of bitter, angry, partisan and clueless assholes we have working in the media today. And even if this is just a stupid college rag, the monopoly corporate newspapers around the country are full of idiots like Mr Fitzgibbons. He should have no problem finding a job with those incestuous types once he graduates.
Organizers are still looking for one more woman to fill out the 13-member calendar troupe. More than 40 applicants are vying to fill the vacancy, said Bradley Mullen, a fourth-year medical student and co-owner of CampusTown Calendars, which is producing the project.
"We have a very diverse group" of women, he said. "We are looking for someone who has a lot of personality, is really outgoing, and takes care of her body."
Two of those women for the calendar, set for a mid-October release, are "Hott" - literally.
UI seniors Abigail and Ashley Hott are twin sisters and models for the calendar, which exclusively features UI females.
Coincidentally, both Hotts are double majors.
"It was a really good experience," Ashley Hott said. "I'd like to keep doing things like this."
Abigail Hott added that the photo shoot was "a good time."
"The guys were really nice and professional," she said.
The production is not associated with the UI nor will it use any of the university's trademarked material or pictures of university property in the calendar, Mullen said.
"We prefer not to be associated with the [calendar], and we'll just leave it at that," said Steve Parrott, the director of University Relations, citing a "range of different reasons" for the school's decision to distance itself from the calendar.
We've profiled Senator Harkin's Homeland Security Pork tours in which he's doled out $225,000 in FEMA pork over two years to the fire department in a town of 1100 people, over $109,000 to a fire department serving a town of 600 people, and a town of 409 people got over $170,000 for a new fire truck. Also, a town of 823 people got $17,000 for a thermal imaging camera. You know that's just a drop in the bucket.I noticed that Instapundit had a piece this morning about people in Alaska who were lobbying to have the $320 million given to them for a "bridge to nowhere" redirected to the Katrina rebuilding efforts. Bozeman MT also agreed to return $4 million designated for a parking garage.You don't mean the PorkForest, do you???? (Snark, snark. - Ed)
Hmmmmmmm. Do you think there might be a project in the State of Iowa where we could possibly find, oh I don't know, maybe $50 million?
Obviously you truely are a moron if you can't understand the fact that there will be NO GOLFERS on the course during the months that deer season is taking place. Or do you plan on wearing a snowmobile suit and using hockey sticks for clubs ? I can see it now. The greenskeeper out on the course with his snowblower clearing the greens for morons like you. Yeah Right !That's one of the nicer posts. Quite a few of them are full of profanity. They're all funny!
Here's where your suppose to open mouth and insert foot. You have no clue what the hell you are talking about and this article clearly shows a perfect example or your ignorance and stupidity.
South Clay: Michael Hildebrand and Troy Mayland were uncontested for their seats on the South Clay School Board. They received 11 and 10 votes, respectively, with another six write-ins. With 765 registered voters in the district, voter turnout was 2.22 percent.
The message from Des Moines officials is conform or get out regarding development in the East Village. But, you see, they don't really want Brad Hamilton and his two small businesses to meet an unwritten set of guidelines, as they say. No, they want him gone.
They want to make room for developers who will put in upscale boutiques or more over-priced downtown living. The truth is the city sees dollar signs from prettied-up new buildings, via more taxes. Plus, the city has plugged $11 million worth of improvements and planters into the area and doesn't want that ruined by something that isn't up to snuff.
Councilman Archie Brooks, on the other hand sees the potential for big checks from "development" supporters for his re-election war chest.
Meanwhile, there is Hamilton, who is just the little guy in all this, trying to make his way. He's making improvements as fast as he can, at the pace of a small businessman. Is he being stubborn? Yep and why shouldn't he be? Doesn't he have the same right to develop the economy as some guy who can flash $450 grand to try and move him out? He does.
Des Moines city leaders should come straight on the subject of long-term goals for the East Village. Their fight with Brad Hamilton appears to be for the sole purpose of removing all character from the area. If Des Moines is to keep the eclectic vibe in that part of town, then its small-business owners and their property need to be protected. And, if council members truly wish for an area consisting of luxury housing, high-end restaurants/shops, uniform buildings, then maybe they should resign and move across from Jordan Creek.
Matt Farnsworth admits he's "high maintenance" when it comes to filmmaking.
But the actor/director/producer of "Iowa," the newly-release movie filmed in Centerville and other parts of Appanoose County two years ago, said he has taken his time in making the sure the film is just right.
Audiences will get the chance to see the final product at 7 p.m. tonight when it premieres at the Majestic Theater in Centerville.
In an interview with The Courier, Farnsworth said the film has been a real labor of love.
"We're really excited about the release of the film there [in Centerville]," he said. "[The film] is what I envisioned because I was in control of this particular project."
The film is described as a "cautionary tale of love, crime, fantasy and addiction that follows two young Iowa lovers who decide to go into the 'batch' business - cooking their own methamphetamine - only to watch it burn a searing hole in their lives."
Farnsworth shot the independent film in Appanoose County in May and June of 2003. He and fiancee Diane Foster co-starred in the film, along with actors Michael T. Weiss, Rosanna Arquette and John Savage.
Farnsworth said he was compelled to tell the story of how meth has ravaged rural parts of the country, including southern Iowa and Centerville, which was home to his grandparents, the late Beryl and Thelma Farnsworth.
And filming in Iowa meant working with Iowa natives and local and area residents.
"They were great ... they were much better than the people in Los Angeles," Farnsworth said. "They had open arms for us.
"Everybody there really does work hard," he said, citing the Iowa work ethic.
Although tonight's showing is a first for Iowa, it's not the first time the movie has been shown.
The film opened at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York, an event founded in part by Academy Award-winning actor Robert DeNiro.
And at Tribeca, the film received several rave reviews.
Farnsworth said while the film has entertainment value, "Iowa" is a serious and harrowing look at the effects of methamphetamine use.
Thursday, September 8, 2005 9:03 AM CDT
Today marks two years since Taylor was diagnosed with this terrible disease... I still have a hard time understanding "why"... everything happens for a reason or so they say but this is one that I still after two years cannot recognize the reasoning behind!
I hate not knowing what caused the cancer that invaded my little girls life... is it something that could have been prevented?
When you get pregnant and have a baby you anticipate sleepless nights to a crying baby but you never anticipate it being sleepless nights because you can't get tomorrow out of your mind, the fact that you don't know if this precious baby will still be here tomorrow!
You also anticipate some childhood illneses and maybe missing a little work here and there to a sick child but the thought that your child could become termilly ill overnight and that you could be quitting your job to care for this child that has become so suddenly ill is something that just never crosses the mind of a new parent!
We were blessed with nineteen wonderful months with this healthy, beautiful baby girl that we had ever so longed to have and then our lives turned completely upside down right before our very eyes! We were living a near perfect life or so we thought and were trying to become pregnant again to add to this picture perfect family not knowing that our future held such trying times!
I never imagined spending nine months of pregnancy by the bedside of my sick lil' girl, holding her hand and telling her that it would be alright when in reality I really was uncertain myself... I never imagined sharing the same toilet bowl, taking turns on who was going to be sick, Mommy with morning sickness or Taylor because of chemo... at times I feel jipped, as if I wasn't allowed to enjoy my pregnancy the way I wanted. When you find out you are pregnant this is usually a happy time but I truthfully didn't know what to be feeling... I was scared... scared for our future!
Taylor has been such a blessing to us and eveyday is precious... I will never take my children for granted!
I truely believe Sydney is a blessing as well... this little girl has given all of us strength to keep fighting! Taylor was so excited to become a big sister... they were instant friends from the start! Taylor enjoys teaching her sister new things as Sydney enjoys being able to just tag along!
There have been times in this journey that Taylor seemed so weak and no matter what we did we couldn't find that sparkle in her eyes... but then there was Sydney... we'd place her in the hospital bed next to her sister and the sparkle just magically appeared out of nowhere!
We don't know what the future holds but we continue to Fully Rely On God (F.R.O.G), to hold on to the Hope for the future and to Believe in Miracles... Taylor is our Miracle!
Clearly the Quad-City Times editorial staff believes President Bush is incompetent and has been all along. If Daddy hadn’t been president, then George would never have figured out where the White House was located.
We are fortunate the president is provided Secret Service Agents, so they can guide him about the White House and Washington D.C. so he doesn’t miss meetings.
No question he planned 9/11 so he could justify a war with Afghanistan and Iraq. Of course how he was able to get bin Laden to play into his hands, we will never know, but then he is mighty shrewd. Then again if the wars were about oil, why didn’t he just declare war on the Middle East during his first day of office — drop a few bombs that kill humans, but do no damage to buildings and infrastructure and the oil would have been ours? Must be shortsighted.
Now Katrina is a horse of a different color. No doubt he called on Mother Nature to request a category five hurricane to wipe out New Orleans. Is it conceivable he can communicate via some mystic or occult ceremonies of which we know nothing at this time? I’m certain the media will be able to find this out through unbiased investigations on which to report their findings.
I’ll leave you to your conscience on how you report about President Bush and the ones truly to blame for the lack of proper performance of their duty to New Orleans.
Louisiana as a state has, over the past couple of decades, became increasingly Republican. This is because Republicans have taken over the cracker vote just to upset Kanye West. And the only way Karl Rove was going to make Louisiana more of a solidly Republican state was to remove the Democrats in NOLA. Rove made this possible by not having George W. Bush sign Kyoto so that global warming would get worse. Why do you think they want all the glaciers to melt? Because Democrats live in coastal towns like San Francisco, Portland, and Ann Arbor.
Rove knew, thanks to the National Weather Service, that this would usher in a hurricane so that oil companies could gouge customers and Halliburton could be brought in on Dick Cheney's orders to clean up. A byproduct of this hurricane would be flooding caused by broken levees that Bush underfunded in 2001 that would flush out all the blacks (or kill the dumb ones who wouldn't leave the funked-up polluted waters - Ed.) and move them to "safe" states like Texas. There, in places like Houston at the Plantationdome (the 21st century's version of Japanese-American concentration camps - Ed.), Grandma Bush could hand out $2000 debit "reparation" cards so that they could buy back the black man and woman's vote to the Republican side. After all, the refugees didn't get their own flat-screen TVs like the looters did, so it's only fair.
So you're probably thinking, "Why did the Hurricane turn and hit Mississippi?" Well, duhhhh! The governor in Mississippi is Haley Barbour, the former head of the RNC. A lackey. Rove clearly thought that causing more destruction in places like Biloxi would take the heat off of NOLA, but the right-wing media persisted in placing Jerry Rivers and Alexander Vanderbilt in the thick of things. Sean Penn tried to gum up everything by going down to NOLA and rescuing people with his entourage and personal photographer, but Rove probably paid a mole to unplug the bottom of his boat and the media - except for that pesky Drudge and a few of those bloggas - didn't pay attention.
Now we find out that the Red Cross was ordered by the Louisiana Homeland Security department to not bring food and water to refugees in the Superdome and Convention Center areas in NOLA in order to speed the evacuation. See, this is another part of Rove's plot. Elizabeth Dole used to head the Red Cross, so that's just another right-wing tool. And the "Red Cross" - isn't that the Confederate Flag?
Everything is working according to Karl Rove's plan. We heard it's called Operation Emancipation, but it's more like Operation Genocide. Whoever hasn't left will be forced out, shot, or will die of cholera.
We're telling you: the smartest people in NOLA are the freedom fighters who are staying behind and shooting at crackers trying to get the cell phone towers back online. Too bad Moveon.org can't recruit some more insurgents in there to help, but the unemployment rate is really low and the illegals from Mexico only want to pick veggies, smoke Endo, and get laid. Where's George Soros when you need him? Even a billionaire is no match against whoever is controlling the US Treasury.
Several federal lawmakers including Sen. Tom Harkin, D–Iowa, are calling for an investigation into reports of gasoline price gouging...
"Fair gasoline prices are critical for families and business throughout Iowa and around the country," said Harkin in a press release Thursday. "We must be sure that these prices are not artificially high."
...To claim that Republicans, and the conservative movement more generally, have helped minorities such as African Americans, Latinos, women, and gays is absurd, and it flies directly in the face of history. To give credit where it's due, the Republican Party did indeed free the slaves. But does it bother anyone else that the last great thing a Republican did for minority rights happened 140 years ago?...
Blacks, for example, had the technical right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment since 1868, but the states did not provide the means for them to exercise that right until the federal government intervened with the Voting Rights Act in the 1960s. Liberals, recognizing the need for federal intrusion on the states, made that happen...
Women, too, would have a lesser role in American life but for liberal activism. Just think about where the society would be without such liberals as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Betty Friedan. Now, it's hard to believe in everything they've stood for over the years, but their progressive ideas have given women a much greater equality. If you look at the definition of conservative, though, you see a philosophy opposed to change. Indeed, conservatives wish to conserve and preserve what already exists. Conservatives, by definition, are opposed to radical social change - not necessarily out of racism or anything else evil - but because that is the essence of their political philosophy.
The recent devastation from Hurricane Katrina has dominated the headlines and our thoughts. As I write, President Bush is just returning from his first up-close look at the damage. So where has he been?
Bush’s presence on the ground would have made absolutely no practical difference. It would, however, have boosted the morale of those doing real work and symbolized our national concern. Bush blew it.
Charges of racism are unfair. Even if you refuse to credit administration officials with human decency, you must admit they have the political savvy to realize that leaving people to die devastates approval ratings.
This flawed response has more to do with Bush and Co.s’ myopic focus on terrorism. By diverting federal emergency management funds and training to prepare for terrorist attacks, they left us woefully unprepared for a natural disaster of this scope.
Why can’t we find money to improve a levee that protects half a million people, yet can commit more than $50 million to a rainforest in Coralville and $200 million to a bridge in Alaska that will serve a few hundred?
Using a camera radar system to catch speeders and motorists who run stoplights in Burlington is something Police Major Dan Luttenegger believes would make the city a much safer place.
Mayor Mike Edwards, however, said Tuesday that he doesn't believe the City Council would ever vote in favor of resorting to such a system...
"I'm not looking at it as a money generator, but I'm sure the council will," he said. "That's exactly what Davenport uses that money for ... Basically, they're employing a couple of people with the revenue generated by that. But that's not my purpose ... The big thing is the safety factor. I mean, it's eliminated major accidents at a lot of these intersections in Davenport. They're starting to track their stats and stuff and it's making a hell of a difference. People know it's there..."
Rear end collisions are up in Davenport, Iowa according to a study of data comparing accidents from October 2003 to June 2004 and the same time period a year later after red light cameras were installed. Gary Statz, the city's traffic engineer says that the report also shows angle collisions are down, but "not significantly."
At Kimberly and Welcome Way, for example, the average number of accidents overall jumped from 12 to 14.7 as a result of a 220 percent increase in the number of rear end collisions
"From our data it is very apparent that the wrecks have nothing to do with the cameras," said Statz as he explained to the Daily Nonpareil how the cameras were only responsible for the accidents that didn't happen. Davenport has issued 3600 tickets, generating $234,000 in revenue, half of which goes to bankrupt Australian vendor Transol.
Besides Davenport, the only other Iowa city to use cameras is Council Bluffs which generated $9230 in its first week of operation. Australian camera vendor Redflex will receive 76.9 percent of the revenue.
The editor’s invitation read, “Help us put out a better newspaper . . . . The Des Moines Register is your paper and ours . . . . that’s why we have the Reader Advisory Board.” The editor said he wanted to be held “accountable for being the best paper we can be. Critique us. Question us.”
The offer sounded perfect. I have read the Register since I moved to Des Moines in 1962 to go to college, and had always liked the paper. But in recent years I had become a critic, driven by a belief that the paper wasn’t as good as it used to be...
And what was the thinking when, on October 27, 2004, the Register endorsed a congressional candidate whom the editorial page had described less than a month earlier as “a national embarrassment”? [now-former Editor and Vice President Paul] Anger said the rationale was to “move the editorial page more to the center.”
I am not sure who you are, but I will not dare rebuttal such a personal and senseless attack. Obviously, you are still asphyxiated by the democrat vs. republican polemics. This is not about that and anyone with a post-secondary education would know that. Please do not waist my time with your sensationalized antics. Don't not write me again, you are not about help.
India Dennis
Academic Advisor
236W Pomerantz Center
Iowa City, IA 52242
SLIPKNOT drummer Joey Jordison spoke to Launch Radio Networks about the group's upcoming live album, "9.0 Live", due out on November 1 via Roadrunner Records. The disc was recorded at shows in Singapore, Las Vegas, and the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka. Jordison told Launch that the band is working hard to make the CD/DVD package more than just a time-filler between studio albums. "I'm not a big fan of live records, but the way we're putting this together, it's gonna be almost like buying another SLIPKNOT record," he said. "We're really gonna package it and make it a special piece. And, you know, we'll have a live video to go along with it and everything, so I'm looking forward to that as well."
Among the 20 tracks slated for inclusion on "9.0 Live" are live versions of "Pulse of the Maggots", "Duality", "Vermilion", "Left Behind" and "Wait And Bleed".
The Iowa-based group will kick off the "Subliminal Verses Tour: The Final Volume" on October 14 in Cincinnati, Ohio. This will be the band's final run in support of its 2004 release, "Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses)", which has sold 1.19 million copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
The University of Iowa is set to receive about $2 million to fund two projects aimed at spurring economic growth regionally and statewide.
The Iowa state Board of Regents on Wednesday approved funding for UI's projects as well as seven others outlined by Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa. Funding for the initiatives comes from the state's Grow Iowa Values Fund...
UI's share of the $5 million includes $1.4 million for a program called the Iowa Startup and Entrepreneurship Fund. This program would support a competitive request-for-proposals process to identify and support commercialization projects based on the university's or partnering company's intellectual property.
UI's proposal for ISTART names four businesses with high potential for recruitment or advancement in Iowa including companies housed at the UI Technology Innovation Center. Hay said ISTART is intended to yield short-term gains.
In addition, $525,000 would go to the Iowa Growth and Development Fund, or IGROW, which would fund investment for long-term growth of Iowa-based businesses and sustain growth of industries that provide high-paying jobs...
Regent and economic development committee chairwoman Ruth Harkin said she was impressed by the proposals presented by the three regent universities.
"I'm very encouraged by the kind of teamwork and support of the universities to really contribute to economic development in Iowa," she said.
Regents President Michael Gartner said he suspected UI would have no problem finding companies to participate, calling it an "easy sell."
