🗣️ It’s Friday! Time for Only in Iowa, Positively Iowa, this week’s
pet photo, and of course, reader replies!

• 
  Name a snowplow is back in Black Hawk County: Enter your clever names here.

• 
  Yes, it’s normal to mow right now: But Iowans had to tell this Reddit user why.

• 
  Iowa is tied for the worst ranking among states for our quality of hospitals, according to Leapfrog’s latest Hospital Safety report. None of our hospitals got an “A,” only one (in Council Bluffs) got a “B,” and three (in Cedar Rapids, Davenport, and Fort Dodge) got “F” grades.

• Heads up, I-380 drivers: Cedar Rapids just got permission to turn two of its three highway speed cameras back on.

• Documentary now streaming: “Iowa’s Dirty Secret: The True Cost of Burning Coal,” a short film directed by Trevor Tejeda-Gervais, is now available to stream on YouTube.

DMARC volunteers checking expiration dates on donated goods. (DMARC)

🐕 This is Eevee. “She’s full of energy but the best pooch,” wrote Sean D. “We adopted her from Aheinz a few years ago. She had nine puppies before we adopted her.”

Living the life now, looks like!

Send me your pet photos here.

Readers are invited to add to the conversation by emailing responses@iowastartingline.com. Please include your first name and last initial. You may also want to include your city, but that’s up to you. I may edit your content for conciseness or to correct typos.

Jean Seberg:

• “Thank you for your feature on Jean Seberg! After my grandfather passed in 2009, I spent every Wednesday night with my grandmother watching old movies and eating homemade popcorn. Sometime between John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies, my grandma told me about Jean Seberg. They were in the same graduating class at Marshalltown High School, though not in the same social group. She had admired her for following her dreams, but had pity for the way her life turned out. Your story brought back happy memories of the years I spent ‘dating’ my grandma when I was in high school and the bond we shared over old Western movies and Sub City sandwiches.”
  — TW I., Cedar Falls

• “With respect to Jean Seberg, a new movie directed by Richard Linklater, Nouvelle Vague, begins streaming this evening on Netflix. It’s subject is the filming of Breathless.”
  — Ted B.

Rural doctor shortage:

• “I’m a patient at the University of Iowa Specialty clinics, and am seen for what are essentially geriatric disciplines. For the last five years of my experience, I’ve been seen exclusively by foreign-born resident fellows. 

   

  My checkups have been quarterly; they are now extended out to annual appointments. This is due largely because the residents can’t get visas, and the slots are unfilled.

   

  When I’ve talked to American residents … they tell me they don’t want to be ‘matched’ into geriatric specialties because their future income will be limited by Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement policies. So the slots are left unfilled.

   

  For years, rural medicine has been dependent on foreign doctors taking [rural jobs for] the five to seven years it takes to become naturalized. That’s the economics of the situation, with no judgment on immigration.

   

  When I talk to my primary—a general practitioner in family medicine—my topline income running a casino, with a bachelor’s degree and OJT was about the same as hers with a BS, a medical degree and residency. We both hit our stride in income in our mid-30s and I cashed out with options in my early 50s.

   

  Does this make sense? But it encapsulates the Iowa economy and the state’s economic priorities.” — Douglas N.

GOP events included, too?

• “I subscribed to the Iowa Starting Line a couple months ago and truly enjoy your coverage, specifically on the cancer issue across Iowa and economic concerns! 

   

  I do have a question. In today’s issue the list of ‘candidates, rallies and events’ does not include an event being hosted by the Plymouth County Iowa GOP which is a debate of three Republican candidates for governor. I also didn’t see any notice of an event held November 8 in Onawa, which focused on ‘western Iowa revitalization’ which featured five candidates for US House District 4.

   

  I would also share that the Ida County Iowa GOP will be hosting a candidate forum on Monday, Nov. 24, in Holstein.

   

  Please don’t think that I am ONLY promoting Republican candidate events; I have attended functions for Josh Turek, US Senate Candidate and Dave Dawson, US House candidate.

   

  Just a friendly reminder that we in western Iowa have some competitive races that are going to be decided hopefully for the good of ALL Iowans, so an informed public is vital—granted, the public has to take an interest and attend hosted functions so they can be informed! 

   

  Seriously, keep up the great work, asking the tough questions and providing insight into issues that affect Iowans and the US.” — Charlie P., Onawa

  (NOTE: I am not leaving Republican events out on purpose. It’s sometimes tough finding these events, as there doesn’t seem to be one general site for them like Democrats use Mobilize, but I will keep these Facebook pages in mind. And please send any future ones my way too!)

Drunk driving charge for district court judge:

• “Federal District Court?“
  — Lynn J. (NOTE: State.)

Food drive ongoing:

• “The food drive will continue through December 19 with pick-ups being done weekly. This is a joint project between the Story County Democrats and Indivisible Ames. Donations may be taken anytime during business hours of the drop-off partners. The following are the drop-off partners:

   

  – Dog-Eared Books
  – Cooks’ Emporium
  
  – Gilger Designs
  – Café Diem
  – Skunk River Cycles
  – Raygun
  – His & Hers Salon

   

  Donations will be taken to Food At First.” — Maddie Anderson, Story County Dems

   

Noel Lopez De La Cruz deportation:

• “Can you explain what the Fourth Amendment protection is at local level, and how a city would pass an ordinance about this?” — Carolyn W.

  (NOTE: Per Escucha Mi Voz, they’re asking for the following to be passed as a resolution:

   

  – Encouraging local businesses to follow the city’s lead

  – Requiring a warrant for access to non-public spaces

  – Designating safe worker areas

  – Posting due process signage at building entrances

  – Providing “Know Your Rights” training to employees.)

• “I couldn’t find much more info on the De La Cruz deportation, such as whether he has a Social Security number, whether he has a driver’s license, whether he has filed or paid income taxes, and whether his parents are also facing deportation?” — Jim H.

• “All [il]legal [immigrants] should be removed from our country immediately. Wonder how you would feel if you were one of the people who had their loved ones killed by people that are not supposed to be in our country?” — Robert P.

  (NOTE: I’d probably feel the same way I would if my loved one was killed by a citizen—wanting justice in that specific instance, but not assuming they were representative of a specific group. That’s how Mollie Tibbetts’ father felt, anyway: “The person who is accused of taking Mollie’s life is no more a reflection of the Hispanic community as white supremacists are of all white people,” he wrote after she was killed while jogging near Brooklyn, Iowa, in response to those who wanted to make her death political. “To suggest otherwise is a lie.”

  In any case, the majority of those being detained and deported have not been convicted of any crime, much less murder, but are instead being swept up to satisfy the administration’s daily quota. Simply staying in the country without permission is a civil infraction, not a criminal one.)

Soundoff feedback:

• “Another gem from Steve Corbin!!! As a fellow historian I heartily concur.” — Greg C.

Letter of the Week:

Lying isn’t free speech

“Free speech went on the endangered list when a presidential candidate complained of getting caught in a lot more lies than his opponent, claiming therefore that the fact-checkers were treating him unfairly, and a majority of us Americans bought that bunk rather than accepting the obvious: he simply lies a lot more.

It went critically endangered when a vice presidential candidate cried foul at a debate moderator catching him in a lie—the debate rules, negotiated and agreed to by the candidates, said opponents but not the moderator could fact-check. The moderator thanked him for clarifying.

Think about that: Candidates who will enter into debates only if the moderators are not allowed to catch them telling lies [are] planning to deceive us to get elected. That is voter fraud in its worst form. And it works!

We citizens shop for candidates to serve us—why do they get any say in the debate rules at all? Why are they allowed to decline debates? Political campaigns are job interviews. The employer, us, should be calling the shots. …

Candidates who shun debating, and fear fact-checking—all I know about them is: they’re hiding something that makes them unfit candidates, or worse. That’s all they show us. …

Fact-checking is free speech, too, and much more useful to us than deceit. In my opinion, candidates wanting to go on our payroll should be required to debate throughout the entire campaign, with fact-checking full-swing and liars disqualified from the running. Several Q&A town halls too, same conditions. Before free speech goes extinct. We’d have better choices with a lot fewer villainous scoundrels running for office, that’s a fact. …

Reading the First Amendment in the context of the Preamble makes it clear that freedom of speech is intended to enable the citizenry to speak truth to power (and each other), not to have power hiding the truth from the citizenry. It does not okay the diminishing of our domestic tranquility by fomenting division, fear and rage through deliberate deception. Nor does it forbid government informing the citizenry what’s just an opinion.

Imagine a United States with every hate-mongering presentation qualified like, ‘This is personal opinion not verified as factual.’ Wouldn’t abridge anyone’s freedom of speech in any way; anyone could still say whatever they want, and everyone who wants to could be smarter and wiser about it. That’s all, and that’s better.

Rather than corrupted by manipulating us with lies, like now, the spirit of our Constitution would be honored by persuading people with truth. The sad fact is, though, the lying tactic has succeeded, and seeped into our every electionary level. Our precious civil discourse is now so polluted over half of us refuse to even see the difference.”

— Dixon S.

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