As I write this, it is the first Monday in August 2019 and it is snowing in downtown Iowa City. Tiny pieces of Styrofoam are drifting lazily down onto my car in the Clock Tower Parking Ramp and the alley outside. They polka-dot the sidewalk and form tiny drifts up against curbs and walls, as they have done in this area of downtown for weeks now. […]
By Dustin M., Iowa Medical Classification Center Correctional Facility (Oakdale Prison) I wrote this song in a dusty piano closet while in the throes of anger towards the system we are trapped in. The song is long. Part of it I sing with a beautiful voice and part of it I rap. There are stops, […]
I write to implore the Iowa City Community School District to stand firm on their previous decisions to not put SROs (school resource officers) in our schools. I am certain that those who advocate for their placement in our schools come from a place of caring, but I fear they will have an opposite effect on our community, […]
Personhood? Who has recently tangled themselves in that labyrinth and fallen for the heartbeat cliche? And how ironic that the Christians, for millennia the purveyors of patriarchal prejudice and, too often, downright hate, with its resulting mayhem, how ironic that they have fixated on the heart as an indicator of anything. […]
By Jeff Biggers. Iowa City’s recycling and composting program, thanks to environmental wizard Jennifer Jordan, the city’s amazing resource management superintendent, has been making solid gains in dealing with CO2 and methane emissions. So, why is IC’s Climate Action Plan such a joke? […]
By Mary Gravitt DEMOCRATS! WAKE UP! Nominate Cathy Glasson to challenge Joni Ernst in 2020. Like the majority of Republican/Tea Party senators, Ernst is more interested in maintaining political power and Trump’s approval than serving the interests of Iowans or the American peoples. Iowa has been out of political balance since Senator Tom Harkin retired. […]
By Miriam Kashia, North Liberty Four South East Junior High boys, homemade signs in hand, hands a bit shaky, voices soft but determined, showed up for the fourth Friday in a row at the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) administration building to demand action from the Iowa City school board and its superintendent and […]
By Mary Gravitt, Iowa City Dave Loebsack has decided to retire from Congress. Now it’s announced that the 2nd Congressional District is in danger of being lost to the Kochtopus. The only answer to this is to draft Ross Wilburn to take Loebsack’s place on the ballot in 2020. Wilburn has political experience, having served […]
By Antonia Russo “In a nation of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.” —Hunter S. Thompson Iowa casinos want the out-of-state billionaire carpetbaggers like DraftKings and FanDuel to serve as bookies for the casinos — handling their sports and fantasy games wagers. These online gambling companies are a direct threat to the casinos, and […]
“Don’t worry; they don’t have a band tonight. I called ahead to make sure,” my husband said about the restaurant where we were thinking of eating that evening. Though we’d technically passed the threshold already, I think that was the moment we officially entered our 30s. I had to tease him about being old and […]
State Representative Bobby Kaufmann’s gambling bill would legalize on-site and online college and professional sports betting, as well as daily fantasy sports sites (DraftKings and FanDuel). This is a massive expansion of gambling. The demand for this comes from the gambling industry, with its out-of-state billionaires, and from the state, for revenue — not from ordinary Iowans.
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By Massimo Paciotto Biggers and Alex Howe At South East Junior High School, we expect excellence. In an age of undeniable and catastrophic climate change, this means we expect excellence in climate action from our teachers and administrators, our district superintendent and the Iowa City school board. As students at South East Junior High School, […]
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