Jonathan Narcisse is a former Des Moines School Board member known for his outspoken and oftentimes controversial nature. He is an independent candidate for governor and will appear on the November 2 ballot with his self-started Iowa Party. You have a rather eclectic background in Iowa politics. You co-chaired the Polk County Democratic Party in [...]

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Bob Vander Plaats, a businessman from Sioux City, has run for the governorship of Iowa three times and has never come close to winning it. After he lost the most recent Republican primary to Terry Branstad he founded an organization called Iowa For Freedom whose goal is to unseat the three state Supreme Court justices [...]

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Frederick Kirschenmann is a distinguished fellow and former director at the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture at Iowa State University and supporter of Democrat Francis Thicke’s campaign for secretary of agriculture. In the six-year period from 1988 until 1994, Herman Daly served as the World Bank’s senior environmental economist. During that time he tried to [...]

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Specialist Christopher Robinson is a member of the Iowa Army National Guard who will be deployed to Afghanistan during 2010 and 2011. This is part two of his series of dispatches on the war. Three years ago, I went through Camp Shelby for the first time, during the mobilization for Iraq. Little has changed here [...]

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This is a short piece about waste management in the City of Ames. Not a sexy topic, but one that comes up in conversation with surprising frequency. Sometimes I will say something like, “I can’t believe the city thinks that burning trash is ‘renewable energy.’ I mean, sure we keep making more of it, but [...]

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I’ve unfortunately not gotten around to seeing Iowa City’s So Much Fun live yet, but I’m hoping to remedy that situation, because this album has a lot going for it. First of all, the band’s name: So Much Fun is about as good of a band name as you could ask for. Who doesn’t like [...]

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In part one of our descent into filth – the exploration of the unknown drunkard-prince of Ames, Archibald Crouton – we were left with nothing but questions. Who was the man? Where had he gone and why did he go? Little more than uncovering the only two known photos of Crouton has been accomplished. And [...]

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Ain’t it funny how Sounds Otherwise unnoticed  Dominate the audioscape when you’re sitting Silent, Away from all the bars, the lights, the beer The distraction and preoccupations  Human makes for itself? You’ve gotta make a hell of a racket to stop ‘em looking at the telly The ambulance, painfully loud from this distance, is just [...]

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Specialist Christopher Robinson is a member of the Iowa Army National Guard who will be deployed to Afghanistan during 2010 and 2011. Throughout the course of his deployment, he will send reflections on his experience as a soldier in a controversial military engagement. The Eve of Deployment Sunlight rides low on the wall, making the [...]

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The following article was originally submitted as a letter to the editor of The Tribune on August 22 but never published (the paper had previously covered the issue, however). Soon after, the Squaw Creek trestle was demolished over a period of about two weeks. During the recent flooding in Ames I walked down my street [...]

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