A Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper
As a native Iowan, I'm an appreciative reader of the Storm Lake Times Pilot. I especially enjoy Art Cullen's editorials and columns. I do have one little bone to pick in one of Art's recent editorials (Jan. 12, “A Chilly Wind Blows”).
In it, Art indicates that Trump can get things done, no matter of how terrible these things might be. “When he said he was going to do something, he did it.” I think there were several prominent things he said he was going to do when elected in 2016 that didn’t get done during his four years in office.
Trump said he was going to repeal and replace Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act. He didn't and he didn't. He said he would build a big, beautiful wall all along our Southern border and have Mexico pay for it. He didn't and they didn't. He said he would initiate such exceptional economic growth that there would not be additional national debt. The national debt increased by 33% during his term. He said he would create 25 million new jobs. He left office being the first President since Herbert Hoover to have fewer employed in the country after four years than he did at the beginning of his term (only part of that was due to the pandemic).
Two of the biggest things Trump did get done was a huge tax cut that primarily benefited the very wealthy (see national debt above) and stack the Supreme Court with justices bent on overturning Roe v. Wade. I would argue that Mitch McConnell was more responsible for getting those things done than Trump was.
Many Trump supporters touted that he was a “businessman,” and that's what the country needed. During his career Trump has bankrupted six of his own companies. He has gained a reputation of stiffing contractors, tradespeople, lawyers, and others for money he owes them for their work. And now, as another example of his shady business practices, he is on trial in New York for falsifying values of his properties to gain more favorable loan rates. Depending on the outcome, he may lose the ability to ever do business in his home state again.
This is not the kind of businessman or person to be president of the United States.
Rick Osen, Bellingham, Wash.
It’s my right, even if you think I’m wrong, for me to express the truth about what I see in America.
Americans couldn’t care less about others who exist anywhere past the ends of our noses.
Americans couldn’t care less about the lives of Muslim citizens in Gaza. Not our problem, let the President handle it.
Folks trying to get past our southern border to start a life free of the savage conditions in their homelands? We’re full, go back home.
Folks in neighboring states? State borders might as well be closed to them too unless they bring money in here to spend.
Next door neighbors? Don’t know ‘em. Don’t want to meet ‘em. Only way we’d tolerate their faces is if they agreed to come to church with us.
Employees? No loyalty to employers, vice versa too.
People we hook up with socially? Don’t stumble for a second, or we’ll cancel your sorry butts.
Spouses? Marriage is only good if it works for me. If it works best for spouse or children, too bad, we’ll exit the situation anyway.
Celebrities? Get as close as humanly possible and worship forevermore.
Kimball Shinkoskey, Woods Cross, Utah
Really, an “institute” for commonsense? A “think tank” to promote commonsense? Apparently some think we poor benighted Iowa citizens and taxpayers need proper help in evaluating the performance of state government (“Common Sense Institute think tank launches Iowa chapter” 1/19). A quick scan of the board of this group reveals it’s larded up with friends and sycophants of our current governor — it’s role, apparently, to reassure us of the great job she’s doing.
William F. Buckley, Jr. was famously quoted as saying he’d “rather entrust the government of the United States to the first 400 people listed in the Boston telephone directory than to the faculty of Harvard University.” Wouldn't the people of Iowa be better served by the commonsense of the first 400 names in the Cedar Rapids telephone directory, than a propaganda arm set up to serve Gov. Reynolds? Orwell had Big Brother telling people how to think. Do we need a Big Sister?
Jim Walters, Iowa City
We have a chance to replace a misguided practice with programs that uphold rather than damage Iowa’s raptors and Iowa’s image.
The recent Iowa women’s basketball game against Wisconsin was thrilling, like so many contests of this winning season. Though my husband and I watched from home, our enthusiasm matched that of the fans spellbound in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Well into the competition, when our spirits had been boosted by the ever-expanding lead of the Hawkeyes over the Badgers, the camera cut away from the court to a closeup of someone attending the game undoubtedly against his/her own will. A live raptor. My heart sank. What is the thinking behind subjecting a bird at home in the wild to an environment that could not be any less like its natural habitat? The roar of the crowd, the refs’ whistles, the periodic buzzers, the multicolored flashing lights, the rousing music, the announcer celebrating Caitlin Clark’s latest 3-pointer or her brilliant pass to Addison O’Grady early in the game — all these elements made for a joyous experience for the fans packed into a sold-out arena and for the thousands watching from home or from their favorite sports bar or diner in Council Bluffs, Storm Lake, Keokuk, Muscatine, Belle Plaine, Dubuque, Davenport. In fact, by now, the women’s team has a following across the country, people who have never set foot in Iowa but who have come to associate it with a string of jaw-dropping performances produced by Lisa Bluder and her band of stellar athletes. The audience for Iowa excellence, in other words, has exploded. Who doesn’t want a piece of the jubilation that abounds on the court, in the stands, on the faces of fans like 9-year-old Franny from Dubuque who walked away — dazzled — from the Wisconsin game with Clark’s Nike Sabrina 1s, freshly autographed by #22? (That exchange, understandably, has blazed across the internet, speaking volumes about generosity, Clark’s, and, by association, Iowa’s.) In short, on a night like Jan. 16, Hawkeye euphoria abounds.
But for the lone raptor? A different story.
No amount of training or time in captivity can prepare a sentient creature from the wild for such a sensory overload. What elevates us — the tidal wave of cheers, chants, and dynamic music — can be excruciating for these birds. I’m all for a multifaceted celebration of our athletes, our teams, our institution, our state. Bring in the Iowa Pep Band, the Spirit Squad, the glorious voice of announcer David Gallagher amplified to 15,500 fans, to set our spirits ablaze on a bitter cold night. But leave the bird out of the equation. What is on view is not a respect for these majestic beings but a disregard, however innocent or well-meaning, for their nature, inflicting pain to entertain. Besides, these events already burst at the seams with entertainment. Clark sinking yet another shot from midcourt, Kate “The Glue” Martin breaking an 11-11 tie with a 3-pointer of her own, and Sydney Affolter making 5 out 6 shots from the charity stripe, with the bench coming in at the end to wrap it all up with bow for a 96-to-50 triumph. Basketball doesn’t get any better than this. What, pray tell, can a terrified, or, at the very least, disoriented bird add to these exquisite moments?
Yes, this is about one bird. Step back, though, and it is a statement made to countless viewers locally, statewide, and beyond, about the treatment of wild animals. The age-old impulse to unify a group behind an inspiring symbol is as profound as it is effective. The good news is we do and can continue to hold dear the hawk that makes for Hawkeye greatness. Let’s move forward, though, in a way that doesn’t cause the prolonged suffering of the very creature inextricably associated with our sports programs, our university, and our state.
As Beth Goetz embraces her new role as permanent Athletic Director at the University of Iowa, I hope she will bring this practice to a close at Carver-Hawkeye, at Kinnick, anywhere our athletes engage in competitions, exhibitions, or promotional events. I implore her to instead join other leaders on campus to advocate for reviving the Raptor Project at the University of Iowa Macbride Nature Recreation Area, for many years a place of genuine education about and treatment of owls, eagles, kestrels and, of course, hawks. For the Athletic Department to set an example of respecting our native wildlife uplifts the University of Iowa as a whole, both to our fans in state and to those elsewhere who increasingly gravitate as spectators to the splendor of our sports programs, highlighted recently by a game that lit up the night in the way that only our Hawkeye women’s basketball team can.
Ms. Corbin Sexton, Iowa City
I really like your paper, particularly your editorials. Any politician, no matter what party, could gain a lot of knowledge from them.
The first time I voted was for J.F. Kennedy in 1959. My in-laws were Martin and Evelyn Hinkeldey from Hanover, Missouri Synod Lutherns, and were very skeptical about him! Would the pope be our president de facto? My wife was Ardis Hinkeldey, the oldest child. Bob was the second, both deceased. Now, the youngest was Karen. She and her husband, Les Buchholz, live in Spencer. My family descends from Mandeville and Edsons. My grandma Mandeville was an Edson sister to Willis and Ethel Edson, so mom was cousins of Jean (Edson) Hamilton. The Willis Edson family lived in that lovely house on the south end of Lake Avenue west side. I wonder if it’s still there.
About 1954, I was drag racing down Lake Avenue and crashed my ‘49 Ford into a tree at the end of Lake Avenue, going too fast to make the left turn! If I would have went straight I’d have ended up in Storm Lake.
My grandma Margaret Mandeville (Edson) married Martin Mandeville in 1906. He was an Irish Catholic raised in Nebraska in Perkins County in a sod house. Originally, they were in Illinois after his father immigrated from Ireland. Grandpa and Grandma M. farmed at Charles Edson’s farm a little northeast of Schaller.
Two priests came out to see them and told them that, “in the eyes of the Catholic version,” they weren’t married. Grandpa got angry about that and quit the Catholic church.
We Ford kids were raised Presbyterian. My dad was a son of Hugh Harris Ford and Martha (Crowly) Ford. She was daughter of Michael Crowley. Also Catholic, but the children were not raised Catholic. Grandpa Ford died in 1904 at 40 years old. My dad was only seven years old. In the Ford family, there was the oldest Les then Clarence, then Margaret, and Marlow, and then dad Charles.
Grandpa was a plunger, bought a stud horse from Scotland for $10,000, shipped over on the boat and came by rail to Storm Lake. The progeny from him won many state fair championships: Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, etc.
The only son that didn’t farm was Les. He went to college and became an electrical engineer. We lived on a rented farm northwest of Storm Lake. Went to school at Alta. My wife from Hanover went to school there until high school. When those kids graduated from religious school, they came to Alta for high school.
My wife and I were born in 1937. I met her in high school. Before I really knew her, I had a girlfriend in Storm Lake, Mary Alice Overmohle, who went to St. Mary’s. This was in 1954. She was a car hop at Don’s drive-in. We Alta guys mostly went to Storm Lake to meet gals and went to the Cobblestone. My grandad, Mandeville’s farm, was south of the Storm Lake golf course. The farm was purchased from Willis and Ethel Edson. The south half and the north half were owned by John Edson. The town of Lakeside was developed by Grandpa M. It was a pasture for his cattle until the Depression came, and he needed money. Sold lots for cottages along the lakeshore for $300 and named the town Lakeside.
My uncle Verny Peterson built houses there, including his and aunt Dolls (Elizabeth), Mom’s oldest sister born 1908 at Schaller. The rest of kids mom (Marina) and Richard (Dick), and Alice were born in around South Dakota. Moved back to Iowa in 1920. They farmed there as Willis and John and Charles Edson had bought three farms there.
I have a lot of old photos of the Edson and Ford people. Grandpa Ford built a new house. Just finished when he died, only one of a few homes that had indoor plumbing and electricity run by batteries.
Got my middle name from him.
We didn’t have indoor plumbing when I graduated from high school. The folks moved to farm west of Alta when I was in the Army in 1959. I worked at Alta Elevator right after I got out. We lived there. I started working for Bud Bauer in 1962 at Consumers Supply. When he interviewed me, he asked if I was Charles Ford’s son. I said yes, and he said we played baseball together for the Storm Lake White Caps. Both dad and brother Don did. Bauer later took me over to the elevator where his brother-in-law Ernie Hartwell and I went to work there selling Kent Feed. Then Bud sold the elevator to Cargill, and Ernie started his own feed and fertilizer business in the new industrial southeast part of Storm Lake.
Dennis Hugh Ford, Hot Springs, S.D.
Given the environmental, public health and animal welfare concerns associated with factory farms, our legislators should include more federal funding for cultivated-meat research in the upcoming farm bill. For those who don’t know, cultivated-meat is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter.
The new protein is currently too expensive to mass produce. Further development of of the nascent field of cellular agriculture will help bypass this hurdle and others. Any politician interested in reducing our greenhouse-gas emissions, pandemic risk and the suffering we inflict on animals should support the effort.
Jon Hochschartner, Granby, Conn.
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