Standing on a hill overlooking a green pasture, Rachel Ritland and I watched a group of cattle at the bottom of the valley. I pulled my jacket tight against the frigid wind, but Ritland, co-director of 3rd District of the United States Border Collie Handlers’ Association (USBCHA), didn’t seem to mind. She focused intently on […]
Achilles Fergus Seastrom
Posted inCommunity/News
Local faith leaders discuss ways to resist Christian nationalism: ‘We have a responsibility to cause some good trouble’
A group of Johnson County faith leaders gathered in an independent town hall on Tuesday, May 27 to speak against harm caused by the Trump of administration. Uniting under the name Voices of Faith, speakers in the group represented a variety of religious beliefs, primarily Christian denominations. The Voices of Faith Town Hall gathered at […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘It was necessary to become activists’: LGBTQ-affirming Iowa religious groups find church in quiet rooms, loud rallies
Sunday services of the Ames Friends Meeting are held at their meetinghouse on S Maple Avenue, marked by a sign in the front yard declaring “All are welcome.” I visited on a sunny spring morning. Beams of sunlight seemed to make the houseplants against the walls glow. Occasional birdsong seeped through a barely open window. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
‘Teach someone to love something and they’ll take care of it’: Paddle Fest wants more people, fewer fish floating in Iowa waterways
Everything in nature is connected, including us. Humans have been struggling with this concept since Alexander von Humboldt, in the mid-19th century and somewhat radically for the time, suggested that all of nature is an interconnected ecosystem. Even if this idea may seem obvious to us in the 21st century, we still struggle with it, […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
‘Our joy is resistance’: Des Moines church to host fourth Trans Lives Festival on March 30
Within the first weeks of 2024 and the current Iowa legislative session, dozens of bills were introduced posing threats to the safety, healthcare access and legal recognition of transgender, nonbinary and gender nonconforming children and adults. As the fight against these bills continues to rage inside the State Capitol, the First Unitarian Church of Des […]
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Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge’s growing bison population is also restoring long-gone prairie species
On June 4, 1888, the Barnum and Bailey Circus rolled into Keokuk, Iowa with all its wonders — hyenas, lions, leopards, a whole contingent of elephants, trick ponies, trapezists, contortionists, leapers and tumblers and trained monkeys — in tow. But the circus’s manager, J.A. Bailey, the same Bailey of the name Barnum and Bailey, saw […]
