Category: Off topic

Nate Holdren in The Little Village:

People of conscience must not let ourselves be pulled into line-drawing between acceptable and unacceptable instances of this violence committed by the government. The historical record is very clear that justice movements lose when they let themselves be sidetracked into litigating when forms of state violence are acceptable vs. unacceptable, often in an effort to seem reasonable so as to be palatable to the rich, powerful, and officially respectable.

This letter is about ICE and immigration and deportation but also slavery and war and civil rights and capital punishment and torture and other forms of state violence.

Don’t stop there. It’s also about why people of conscience must work to end policing full stop.

Vanessa Miller in The Gazette:

In a Sept. 23 termination letter, provided to The Gazette in response to an open records request, ISU President Wendy Wintersteeen accused Spencer of violating the Board of Regents’ “freedom of expression” policy.

Issued by Iowa State University’s Ministry of Truth.

Cami Koons in Iowa Capital Dispatch:

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has canceled a report that hunger-fighting organizations say was “essential” data to see the results of federal and local policies aimed at ending hunger. 

USDA, in a news release about the decision said the reports were “redundant, costly, politicized” and did “nothing more than fear monger.”

You can’t fix what you don’t measure.

Pete Matthes, UI senior adviser to the president and vice president for external relations, as quoted by The Gazette‘s Vanessa Miller:

At the University of Iowa, we had record applications and the second-largest class in our history […] In other words, parents and students have voted with their feet.

[…]

As for the list-makers — too often they are substituting an algorithm for what families measure: access, achievement, and careers.

These lists are just made up, but they aren’t meaningless and falling out of this reflects poorly on the University of Iowa, which has seen a variety of declines, and probably compounds these problem.

Today, Nike, the company of the iconic swoosh logo, unveiled a new Caitlyn Clark icon today.

Congratulations are due to Clark, but this looks like the logo for some fictitious CryosCorp, a potential Tony Stark front.

Friday, Aug. 17: An Iowa City resident drives his car into tents housing people who are homeless outside of Shelter House in Iowa City. Five people are injured.

Saturday, Aug. 16, 2:02 a.m.: The driver is booked into the Johnson County jail.

Monday, Aug. 18, 5:05 p.m.: Shelter House issues a public statement about the incident.

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 6:35 p.m: KCRG, the market’s leading TV news, reports the driver is facing 14 charges and an ICE detainer

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7:15 p.m.: KCRG posts a social media version of the story onto Facebook, with the copy “A 29-year-old male resident of the Hilltop Mobile Home Park is in jail facing 14 charges and under an ICE detainer after police say he intentionally drove into a group of five homeless people on Friday.” Typically toxic social media comments follow.

Wednesday, Aug. 20, 7:27 p.m.: A Facebook user under the name Andrew Patterson comments: “Oh man illegal vs homeless… whose side do we take?”

Sometime in the following 24 hours: Cade Burma of the Iowa City Police Department laugh reacts to the Patterson comment.

Shelter House:

Put another way, of the 70 beds at Emergency Shelter, only 25 shelter beds are funded. In all of Johnson County, Iowa—12 cities and the entire rural area—public dollars pay for only 25 beds.

Twenty-five shelter beds in a community where even households who earn at or above the median income struggle to find housing they can afford.

Number of beds in the proposal for a new $100,000,000 to $110,000,000 Johnson County jail, 100 percent publicly funded: 140.

Emma McClatchey for The Little Village:

Months after the University of Iowa’s International Writing Program was forced to make drastic cuts following the loss of its federal funding, two other writing programs on the UI campus are coming to an end. The UI College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) announced Monday the Iowa Summer Writing Festival and the Iowa Youth Writing Project will not continue in 2026.

The two announcements were brief. In both cases, “ongoing funding challenges” were blamed for the “difficult decision” to end the programs.

University of Iowa Executive Vice President and Provost Kevin Kregel announcing a new Office of Writing and Communication, less than three weeks ago:

Writing and communication are at the core of what we do and who we are. This new office reflects our commitment to investing in excellence, fostering collaboration, and advancing innovative programming that prepares our students for success.

Q: I’ve had it up to here with my [boss / partner / neighbor / child / sibling / parent / friend / coworker / in-law] and would do anything to make this better!

A: You didn’t say you’ve actually talked to them — maybe try that?