“Checkers?” That was the first question from the waiter as my girlfriend and I slid into a side booth at Tornado’s Pub & Grub. If you grab one of the booths inside the front door, you’re treated to a tabletop that doubles as a checkerboard — just one of the quaint eccentricities in this dive […]
Chad Cooper
Op-ed: Tiffany O’Donnell has surface style and troubling substance
By Chad Cooper, Cedar Rapids When Tiffany O’Donnell announced her candidacy for mayor of Cedar Rapids in late March, one couldn’t escape the notion that her campaign was being built on that bedrock of political popularity: name recognition. Press releases and media reports overflowed with mentions of O’Donnell’s years as a news anchor and highlighted […]

