By Anthony Arroyo, Des Moines ICE is a continuation of America’s oldest tradition: state-sanctioned violence against people of color, especially Latinos. It grows out of a history that has always needed someone to be labeled alien, invader, criminal, deportable. Language becomes a weapon. Once a group is reduced to a threat, their humanity becomes optional. For decades, the United […]
Op-Ed
Posted inLetters
Thoughts on a terror campaign from an Iowan living in Minneapolis
I am no journalist, no reporter, and also not inclined to repackage the uncomplicated and readily evident facts of the last few weeks from my home here in Minneapolis, pretending there’s some fresh angle or hot take you haven’t been privy to. You can believe your eyes when you see the videos of ICE agents murdering […]
Posted inOpinion
Democrats are still playing by ‘West Wing’ rules, and it’s costing us everything
Aaron Sorkin’s The West Wing holds a special place in the hearts of nearly every consumer of American political media. It’s hard not to admire the fast-paced dialogue, the earnest idealism and the morally upstanding characters who populate the Bartlet administration. The show was a masterpiece. But no matter how real it seemed, it was […]
Posted inLetters
Op-ed: Conservative politics depend on disremembering
By gregory wickencamp, Iowa City “Separate accommodations are not inherently unequal,” according to a new Iowa bill targeting trans people. Read that again. If those words sound familiar, they should. The same language was used to legally justify Jim Crow era abuses until 1954. That’s when the Supreme Court ruled that separate conditions are inherently […]
Posted inEastern Iowa
Wayback tours: John Prine at the Paramount, 10 years ago
Sept. 14, 2013. It was hot and muggy during the day, and somehow even muggier at night. Perhaps it was similar to a late summer night on Lake Marie, which was the name of my favorite John Prine song at the time. To this day, I think of Prine as the ideal road trip artist. […]
Posted inOpinion
Letter: The closure of Kirkwood Iowa City is a setback for our democracy
Scroll down for the English translation A inicios del mes de enero de este año las autoridades de Kirkwood Community College anunciaron el traslado del campus Iowa City a Coralville. Y también comunicaron la venta del campus al precio de siete millones y medio de dólares. Las reacciones por parte de estudiantes, profesores, ex-alumnos, no […]
Posted inArts & Entertainment
Essay: RAGBRAI’s one-note music lineup is an insult to riders
This is the 50th anniversary of the RAGBRAI, the yearly summer bike ride from the Missouri to the Mississippi. I remember the first one happened when I was in high school. Between being a fan of Donald Kaul and John Karras’ writing in the Des Moines Register and hanging out at the local hippie bike […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Essay: A Floridian encounters beauty, love, bad weather and discomforting deja vu in Iowa
I knew nothing about Iowa before I knew it was taking my partner away from me. The original plan was to break up at the end of the summer, before college; four years later, we’ve somehow made the long distance work. The first time I visited Billy in Iowa was fall 2019. Since then, I’ve […]
Posted inCommunity/News
En Español: Machismo, masculinity and boys (part two)
El mes pasado, hablé del juego peligroso que nuestra sociedad requiere de nuestros chicos. Nuestra cultura en su totalidad incentiva este juego; el panorama mundial de los medios de comunicación está lleno de ejemplos autoproclamados por chicos jóvenes. Es casi bastante que la idea de la crianza de hombres buenos de los niños parece imposible. […]
Posted inLetters
Essay: I am not strong by choice
By Teri Underhill, Norwalk In the summer of 2022, I went with my halau (hula group) to the Big Island of Hawai’i. During this trip, we chanted, danced, hiked, cried, laughed and more. We went to the top of Mauna Kea for the sunrise, celebrated the full moon of Hina (Goddess of the Moon), was […]
Posted inCommunity/News
En Español: Machismo, toxic masculinity and boys (part one)
Machismo, masculinidad y chicos Al fin de 2022, la policía en Romania detuvo a Andrew Tate como parte de su investigación del tráfico de personas. Si no sabes quien es Andrew Tate debes preguntar al chico adolescente más cerca de ti. La probabilidad es gran que él sabe quien es Tate y que él es […]
Posted inBread & Butter Dining Guide
Sacraments
As an annoyingly inquisitive child with parents who encouraged critical thinking, I struggled to believe in God. We still went to church on Church holidays, though — not out of a sense of obligation, but out of an appreciation of ritual. The multisensory stimulations of Catholic mass enchanted and mystified me, with the silk and […]
