Will Our Democracy Survive?
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, March 17, 2021, p. 6A
Will our democracy survive?
Some things we prize can’t protect themselves. Like the environment. Since 1970 it’s had the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Our democracy can’t protect itself either. What percentage of a nation’s people must want a government “of, by, and for the people” to make it a reality?
Between 121 and 140 House members refused to recognize President Biden’s election.
The 2020 election turnout was a 120-year record. Yet one-third of eligible voters didn’t vote; 23% are “not interested in politics.”
Only 18% of Americans think our democracy is “working very well.” Alternatives to democracy thought “good” include government by experts (40%), a strong man with few legislative restraints (22%), and the military (17%).
It’s not that no one is aware of our democracy’s disintegration.
There are already numerous individuals and organizations working to reduce divisiveness and increase collaboration, such as the 56 U.S. House members in the Progressive Caucus, Dr. Chris Peters’ Our Braver Angels Iowa, and LivingRoomConversations.com.
From our nation’s beginning civics preparation was a driving reason for colleges and public K-12 schools. Educators know this, and organizations such as the Education Commission of the States and Educating for American Democracy (with its “roadmap for excellence”) are working to bring it back.
The origin of the word “democracy” (Greek words for “people rule”) has motivated expansion of the eligible voting base from white, male landowners over 21 to include people of color, women, and those over 18.
There are two options for those whose political party loses elections.
The one democracy compels is a revised party platform of proposals more attractive to the electoral majority than the proposals of the other party; the second is to make it possible for a minority of voters to win the majority of elections and legislative seats with gerrymandered district boundaries and a variety of voter suppression techniques.
The Republican Party has chosen the second. It had no new platform of proposals for the 2020 election. It learned, as Senator Lindsey Graham explained, that without “election reform” “there will never be another Republican president.” It is now pushing some 250 “reforms” in 43 state legislatures.
Many organizations and individuals are working on these challenges – including the U.S. House with its broad “For the People Act of 2021” (HR 1).
The point is not that no one is monitoring and trying to strengthen the weak spots in our democracy. Many persons are.
What’s needed are two things.
The first is a central institution, constantly monitoring and commenting on all elements of our democracy – the efforts to make them stronger, and where they’re under attack. It could be a nonpartisan commission, a major foundation’s project or an academic center.
The second is a commitment from the mass media to give the reports of this institution daily coverage – similar to the regular reporting this past year of COVID cases, hospitalizations, deaths and now progress with vaccinations.
For democracy to have a prayer of survival it will require the attention, words and deeds of each of us.
__________
Nicholas Johnson, Iowa City, is the author of Columns of Democracy. Comments: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org
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SOURCES
EPA 1970. Environmental Protection Agency, https://www.epa.gov/history/origins-epa
Of, by and for the people. Gettysburg Address, Nov. 19, 1863, https://rmc.library.cornell.edu/gettysburg/good_cause/transcript.htm
Refusal to accept Biden’s election. Li Zhou, “147 Republican lawmakers still objected to the election results after the Capitol attack; Congress has certified President-elect Joe Biden as the winner of the election — but some Republicans still objected,” Vox, Jan. 7, 2021, https://www.vox.com/2021/1/6/22218058/republicans-objections-election-results
One-third didn’t vote. Domenico Montanaro, “Poll: Despite Record Turnout, 80 Million Americans Didn't Vote. Here's Why,” npr, Dec. 15, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/12/15/945031391/poll-despite-record-turnout-80-million-americans-didnt-vote-heres-why
Americans’ support for democracy. Carroll Doherty, “Key findings on Americans’ views of the U.S. political system and democracy,” Pew Research Center, Apr. 26, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/26/key-findings-on-americans-views-of-the-u-s-political-system-and-democracy/ (“About six-in-ten Americans (58%) say democracy is working well in the U.S., though just 18% say it is working very well.”)
Richard Wike, Katie Simmons, Bruce Stokes and Janell Fetterolf, “Democracy widely supported, little backing for rule by strong leader or military,” Pew Research Center, Oct. 16, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2017/10/16/democracy-widely-supported-little-backing-for-rule-by-strong-leader-or-military/
Divisiveness. Michael Dimock and Richard Wike, “America is exceptional in the nature of its political divide,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 13, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/13/america-is-exceptional-in-the-nature-of-its-political-divide/ (“Americans both see this problem and want to address it. Overwhelming majorities of both Trump (86%) and Biden (89%) supporters surveyed this fall said that their preferred candidate, if elected, should focus on addressing the needs of all Americans, ‘even if it means disappointing some of his supporters.’”)
Carroll Doherty, “Key findings on Americans’ views of the U.S. political system and democracy,” Pew Research Center, Apr. 26, 2018, https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/26/key-findings-on-americans-views-of-the-u-s-political-system-and-democracy/ (“Today, nearly equal shares in both parties (46% of Democrats and 44% of Republicans) say “they like elected officials who make compromises with people they disagree with.”)
Problem solvers caucus, https://problemsolverscaucus-gottheimer.house.gov/; Dr. Chris Peters, Braver Angels Iowa, https://www.facebook.com/braverangelsiowa;
Living Room Conversations, https://livingroomconversations.org/
Civics education. Integral to K-12 and higher ed. Lisa Guilfoile and Brady Delander, Introduction, Guidebook: Six Proven Practices for Effective Civic Learning,” Education Commission of the States and National Center for Learning and Civic Engagement, Jan. 2014, http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/01/10/48/11048.pdf
(“Earlier in our nation’s history, civic education was broadly seen
as integral to the purposes of public schools and universities.”)
Education Commission of the States, https://ecs.org (search: “civics”)
Educating for American Democracy, https://educatingforamericandemocracy.org
Voting. “Democracy (Ancient Greece),” Resource Library, National Geographic, https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/democracy-ancient-greece/ (“The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words that mean people (demos) and rule (kratos).”)
“History of Voting in America,” Secretary of State, State of Washington,
https://www.sos.wa.gov/_assets/elections/history-of-voting-in-america-timeline.pdf (“1776 -- Only white men age 21 and older who own land can vote.”)
No Republican Platform. Reid J. Epstein, “The G.O.P. Delivers Its 2020 Platform. It’s From 2016,” The New York Times, Aug. 25, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/25/us/politics/republicans-platform.html (“Every four years since 1856, the Republican Party has produced a platform articulating its priorities for the next president. But like so much else disrupted by President Trump, the Republican National Committee has dispensed with producing a 2020 platform . . ..”)
Dominick Mastrangelo, “Graham: If Trump concedes election, Republicans will 'never' elect another president,” The Hill, Nov. 8, 2020, https://thehill.com/homenews/525063-lindsey-graham-if-trump-concedes-election-republicans-will-never-elect-another (“’If Republicans don't challenge and change the U.S. election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again,’ Graham said Sunday on Fox News.”)
250 laws 43 states. Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz and Harry Stevens, “How GOP-backed voting measures could create hurdles for tens of millions of voters; At least 250 new laws have been proposed in 43 states to limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting,” The Washington Post, March 11, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/voting-restrictions-republicans-states/
“State Voting Bills Tracker 2021; State lawmakers continue to introduce voting and elections bills at a furious pace,” Brennan Center for Justice, Feb. 24, 2021, . https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/state-voting-bills-tracker-2021
H.R. 1 – For the People Act of 2021,
https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1/text
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Struggling Democrats Must Build More Bridges
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, Feb. 10, 2021, p. A6
Linn County Auditor Joel Miller says, “to run for statewide office may be a bridge too far if the Democratic Party cannot broaden their appeal in rural Iowa.”
He’s an optimist. The reality’s worse.
Color Iowa’s 99 counties red and blue. Six went for Joe Biden (the three with state universities, plus Linn, Polk and Scott); 93 for the former president – 94 percent.
That’s even worse than the national map: 83 percent of the nation’s counties are red; 17 percent are blue. [Photo credit: U.S. Bureau of Land Management]
Yes, I know. We don’t vote by county. Besides, half of the country’s population lives in only 143 of those counties (5 percent) – enough to make Joe Biden president.
But a political party that relies on the east coast for money and the left coast for votes is not a national party. Democrats shouldn’t be surprised to discover they’ve alienated voters in that 83 percent of U.S. counties who feel ignored and have understandably turned anti-establishment.
It doesn’t have to be this way. There was a time when it wasn’t.
An oft-told story bears repeating.
As Ken Burns tells it, “When FDR's funeral procession went by, a man collapsed; he was so overcome. A neighbor picked him up and said, 'Did you know the president?' And he responded, 'No, but he knew me.'"
Few presidents since have made that connection. President Biden has a chance.
President Franklin Roosevelt’s legacy was a Democratic Party tent sheltering those in abject poverty, the working poor, union members, small farmers, and lower middle class. Had the party nurtured that coalition instead of Wall Street, knocked on their doors and listened, it would today control most city councils and state legislatures -- plus the U.S. House, Senate and White House.
Two Texas Democratic Party officials asked me, a college student, to run for the Legislature. Stunned, I explained I was an Iowa boy, with two part time jobs, a heavy course load and knew few Austin voters.
They responded with a story of another recruit. He mumbled while talking to his shoes and asking voters, “You wouldn’t vote for me would you?”
Now understanding their standards, and decidedly less flattered, I asked, “How’d he do?”
“He won,” one replied. “He knocked on every door in Travis County – and won.” I took a pass on that opportunity.
But I remembered the lesson during the 1962 Pat Brown-Richard Nixon gubernatorial race, door knocking in an unorganized county where I knew fewer voters than I’d known in Travis County, Texas. If they were willing to door-knock I’d assign them an area and move on.
Could the Democratic National Committee find at least one experienced campaign organizer to work each of the 2500 counties now painted red? Of course. And it must if it is to be a national party representing more than 5 percent of America’s counties and 50 percent of its people, building bridges well within Joel Miller’s reach.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson of Iowa City held three presidential appointments and is the author of Columns of Democracy. Comments: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org
SOURCES
Joel Miller.
Gage Miskimen, “Linn County Auditor Considers Run for Secretary of State,” The Gazette, Feb. 2, 2021, p. A3; https://www.thegazette.com/subject/news/linn-county-auditor-may-run-for-secretary-of-state-in-2022-20210202
Republican counties. Iowa
Trump 93
Biden 6 (Black Hawk, Johnson, Linn, Polk, Scott, Story,
https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/iowa/
Republican counties U.S.
“The Biden and Trump data in the posts appears to match the information reported by the Brookings Institute on Nov. 7. On Dec. 8, the think tank updated the report to say Biden had won 509 counties and Trump 2,547 counties, according to ‘unofficial results from 99% of counties.’”
[Me: 509+2547=3056]
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-votes-counties-election/fact-check-clarifying-the-comparison-between-popular-vote-and-counties-won-in-the-2020-election-idUSKBN2931UY
143 counties, half population
“U.S. Census Bureau, population is not homogeneously distributed across the country. In 2017, out of a total of 3,142 counties and county equivalents more than half of the population inhabited just 143 counties.
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-votes-counties-election/fact-check-clarifying-the-comparison-between-popular-vote-and-counties-won-in-the-2020-election-idUSKBN2931UY
“But he knew me.”
Google search [“did you know" no "but he knew me"] turns up dozens of sources where quoted/told, but in sample none discovered with a citation to an acceptable academic or journalistic source. Maybe Ken Burns’ is the best for authenticity: Bob Fisher, “Ken Burns Spends 14 Hours with ‘The Roosevelts,” Documentary Magazine, Sept. 12, 2014, https://www.documentary.org/online-feature/ken-burns-spends-14-hours-roosevelts
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Eradicating COVID-19 Should Be Goal
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette, November 10, 2020, p. A6
A post-election return to a pre-COVID “normal” requires our understanding the difference between mitigation and eradication. The most important step in reaching one’s goal is to clearly define what it is.
Hospital beds and health workers, masks and social distancing are examples of essential, ongoing mitigation efforts when numbers of sick and dying coronavirus victims are surging. [Photo credit: President Trump rally; wikimedia; Hayden Schiff, Cincinnati, Oct. 13, 2020]
But the goal is – or should be – global eradication of the virus. Mitigation efforts may slow the surge of COVID, but they won’t eradicate it. It continues to spread.
What about a vaccine, or herd immunity?
Yes, a vaccine ultimately eliminated global smallpox. But consider the history.
Edward Jenner’s first experiments and papers were in the 1790s. The disease was not eliminated in the U.S. and Europe until the 1950s.
In 1959 the World Health Organization began its global eradication effort. The last death occurred in 1978, and WHO declared mission accomplished in 1980.
Although herd immunity (“survival of the fittest”) or “vaccination” might mitigate, neither is the answer. Each is rejected by many, takes too long, and produces many thousands of avoidable additional deaths.
Yes, the “test, trace, quarantine, and isolate” procedure would have been multiples cheaper and easier when experts first urged it. (See my April 4 column, “How to Eliminate COVID-19,” https://tinyurl.com/yxymwpol). But it is still the fastest and most effective path to the goal of eradication.
Impossible? Too expensive? Too slow? A Chinese city of nine million tested everyone in five days. We’ve spent trillions trying to boost a COVID-crippled economy. Even massive testing could be done for low billions.
It works. The World Health Organization reported countries’ COVID cases and deaths per 1 million population during an October week (not our worst). The U.S. was 23,000 cases and 576 deaths per one million. Australia 1068 and 35. New Zealand 314 and 5.
It also works politically.
The New Zealand prime minister’s electoral victory is credited to her management of COVID-19. And President Trump’s lack of response was a major issue in our recent election.
There are many alternative ways to do it today. Here are samples.
Start with a dozen or fewer cities or states. Choose the most successful, with metrics such as infected persons per 100,000 population, or lowest percentage infected of those tested.
Test-trace everyone in the selected areas every two weeks including newcomers to the area. Isolate or quarantine those infected and contacts.
In about two months, when no one tests positive, all businesses can open while testing continues. Gradually expand the number of participating areas. Disinterested cities and states need not participate.
Or the focus could start with the most vulnerable (the 5 percent age 80 and over; those in long term living facilities). Or groups working in proximity (meat packing and factory workers; college students). There are many alternatives.
Mitigation, yes. But until we make eradication our goal, as Dr. Anthony Fauci has put it, “We’re in for a whole lot of hurt.”
__________
Nicholas Johnson of Iowa City is a former co-director of the Iowa Institute for Health, Behavior and Environmental Policy. Contact: mailbox@nicholasjohnson.org
# # #
SOURCES
Smallpox – History of Smallpox, CDC, https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html (“Almost two centuries after Jenner published his hope that vaccination could annihilate smallpox, on May 8, 1980, the 33rd World Health Assembly officially declared the world free of this disease. Eradication of smallpox is considered the biggest achievement in international public health.”)
China – “Covid-19: China’s Qingdao to test nine million in five days,” BBC News, October 12, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-54504785 (“The Chinese city of Qingdao is testing its entire population of nine million people for Covid-19 over a period of five days. The mass testing comes after the discovery of a dozen cases linked to a hospital treating coronavirus patients arriving from abroad. . . . The country has largely brought the virus under control.”)
WHO – "Coronavirus disease (COVID-19)," World Health Organization, Oct. 12, 2020, https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20201012-weekly-epi-update-9.pdf
New Zealand – Damien Cave, “Jacinda Ardern, Hero to Liberals Abroad, Is Validated at Home; New Zealand’s prime minister and her party are coasting to victory in national elections, though it is unclear how far she will push her progressive promises,” New York Times, Oct. 17, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/17/world/asia/jacinda-ardern-election-new-zealand.html (“Riding a wave of support for her ‘go hard, go early’ response to the coronavirus, which has effectively been stamped out in the country, [Prime Minister Jacinda] Ardern has now cemented her position as New Zealand’s most popular prime minister in generations, if not ever.”)
5% over 80 – “Population 65 Years and Over by Age, 1990, 2000, and 2010,” Infoplease (Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 2010 Census Brief), https://www.infoplease.com/us/population/population-65-years-and-over-age-1990-2000-and-2010
Fauci - Josh Dawsey and Yasmeen Abutaleb, “‘A whole lot of hurt’: Fauci warns of covid-19 surge, offers blunt assessment of Trump’s response,” Washington Post, Oct. 31, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fauci-covid-winter-forecast/2020/10/31/e3970eb0-1b8b-11eb-bb35-2dcfdab0a345_story.html
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March 13, 2009, 8:15 a.m.
Today's blog entry is a reprint of an op ed column of mine in this morning's Gazette.
Don't Fear Fairness Doctrine
Nicholas Johnson
The Gazette
March 13, 2009, p. A4
(brought to you by FromDC2Iowa.blogspot.com*)
For reasons difficult to fathom, some Republicans fear a born-again Fairness Doctrine.
For example, Richard Jacobson, willing to assert his opposition to “fairness,” writes in the March 1 Gazette that Fairness Doctrine advocates are “liberals” who “seek to stifle free speech.”
For the last 30 years, Washington’s Republicans — and Democrats — have been working the horses hard as they drove their buggy toward the mirage of the promised land of their dreams: “marketplace deregulation.” Now they’ve taken that buggy over the inevitable cliff, and the resulting global economic collapse is only one of the costly consequences.
Loss of common-sense media regulation is another.
Iowa’s Herbert Hoover, that great lefty radical, was the secretary of commerce who was asked by the radio industry to please regulate it. Out of Hoover’s “radio conferences” of the 1920s came the broadcasters’ recommendations, enacted as the Radio Act of 1927.
Broadcasters recognized they were being licensed to profit from public property, the airwaves, and that the privilege carried with it a public responsibility. From the beginning, an evolving Fairness Doctrine has been considered a central feature of that responsibility. For 30 years, its application was seldom if ever questioned by the public, broadcasters, FCC, courts or Congress.
When challenged in the Supreme Court in 1969, the court shocked broadcasters by unanimously upholding the doctrine’s constitutionality. (Lower courts subsequently ruled the Federal Communications Commission had the authority to repeal it. The FCC’s deregulation revolution swept away the Fairness Doctrine.)
Misunderstandings about the Fairness Doctrine abound.
There are many reasons it couldn’t have been used to censor, let alone cancel, Rush Limbaugh.
For starters, it didn’t apply to talk show hosts — or any other programmers. They’re not licensed by the FCC. It was only a requirement for overthe-air radio and TV stations’ overall programming.
It didn’t apply to cableonly channels, and certainly not newspapers.
It did not require “fairness.”
It did not require equal time — disparities of 10-to1 might be acceptable.
It did not give any individual a right to air time.
The FCC didn’t monitor programming for violations. It depended on citizen complaints. Few, if any, stations have ever lost a license or suffered serious sanction for a mere fairness violation.
All it forbid, in effect, was the private use of this licensed, community resource as an unrelieved mouthpiece of one-sided propaganda.
In fact, it would be virtually impossible for responsible journalists to violate the Fairness Doctrine. It simply required what they would do anyway: report on at least some “controversial issues of public importance” and, when doing so, present a sampling of views.
That would be required by editors of papers, and news directors of stations — and their owners. Why? It boosts audience numbers and advertising revenues.
The Fairness Doctrine: It’s not just a good idea, it ought to be the law — again.
_______________
Nicholas Johnson is a former FCC Commissioner who now teaches at the University of Iowa College of Law.
_______________
* Why do I put this blog ID at the top of the entry, when you know full well what blog you're reading? Because there are a number of Internet sites that, for whatever reason, simply take the blog entries of others and reproduce them as their own without crediting the source. I don't mind the flattering attention, but would appreciate acknowledgment as the source -- even if I have to embed it myself. -- Nicholas Johnson
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September 5, 2007, 6:00 a.m.
"The Most Important News Stories in the World!"
MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has a daily feature he calls "The worst person in the world."
The Iowa City Press-Citizen has a weekly feature each Saturday it calls "Our Quick Take on Last Week's News Stories" -- its version of what Keith Olbermann might call "The Most Important News Stories in the World!"
I have a feature called a "Wendy."
Newspapers and television, constitutionally protected as the citizen's watchdog on government and other major institutions, need a watchdog of their own. In many communities it takes the form of a "journalism review" -- such as the granddaddy of journalism reviews, the Columbia Journalism Review.
So far as I know, we don't have a journalism review in eastern Iowa -- or anywhere else in the state, for that matter. And I'm certainly not inclined to take on that more-than-full-time role myself.
But I do award the Wendy.
What's the Wendy?
Newspapers (and television) are for-profit enterprises funded, for the most part, by advertisers. I understand that.
But there has historically been a wall, as high and strong as the old Berlin wall, between the advertising department and the news department. Reporters were free to do investigative journalism, revealing faults of local corporations that were also major advertisers -- over the objection of the advertising department, and occasionally resulting in the loss of a major account. Promotion of products on television took the form of commercials, not "product placement." Not only was advertising kept out of newspapers' stories -- let alone editorials -- it was kept off the front page.
With the merger of media firms into five or six major owners of most of our major media outlets -- and corporate decisions being driven by stock prices and the Wall Street financial community more than the nostalgia of "the public interest" and a democracy's need for news -- the mice have been gnawing away at that wall, leaving it in less stable condition than many of our nation's bridges. [Although the Society of Professional Journalists' Code of Ethics still contains the admonition, "Distinguish news from advertising and shun hybrids that blur the lines between the two," it was last revised in 1996 and needs to be brought up-to-date with the deletion of that long-forgotten standard.]
The original Wendy was awarded to The Gazette. (So it's only appropriate the Press-Citizen should get one, too.) The Gazette won for a full news story -- with pictures -- promoting the delights of a new imitation milk shake: Wendy's Vanilla Frosty. Nicholas Johnson, "Mr. Editor, tear down this wall!" August 8, 2006. (Not incidentally, the story was hyped by the paper on its front page.)
So how and why has the Press-Citizen achieved this distinction?
Because two of the three "most important news stories in the world" turned out to be Panchero's $1.00 burritos, and Dunkin' Donuts' new donut formula. (That issue of the paper also gave over news space to an ad on page one.)
The paper gets extra points toward its Wendy award for the fact that this information about Panchero's and Dunkin' Donuts was provided to readers, not as advertisements, not even on the news pages, but in an editorial!
Here are the excerpts from that editorial, as they appeared, followed by some suggestions for possible alternative stories that might have been selected instead as "The Most Important News Stories in the World!":
Standing in the heat for burritos
The local chain Panchero's Mexican Grill celebrated its 15th anniversary Tuesday by selling $1 burritos and handing out free T-shirts at its Iowa City downtown location at 32 S. Clinton St. ("Panchero's notes 15 years; Hundreds wait in long line for $1 burritos," Aug. 29). The line stretched almost an entire block as hundreds of students waited in 90-degree heat for their turn. In two hours, workers doled out 1,500 burritos and gave out 1,500 black-and-gold T-shirts.
Panchero's opened at the corner of Clinton and Washington streets in 1992. It quickly became a staple downtown, and in particular, for University of Iowa students. Since its opening, the eatery has expanded to more than 45 locations in 13 states. There are plans this year to open about 25 new locations.
We're glad that Panchero's remains firmly rooted in Iowa City as its branches keep extending outward.
None vs. zero
Dunkin' Donuts announced last week that it has developed an alternative cooking oil and reformulated more than 50 menu items -- doughnuts included -- so that its 5,400 U.S. restaurants will go "zero grams trans fat" by Oct. 15. In no way are company officials suggesting that they are making healthy donuts, but they are making their confections less unhealthy by phasing out the artery-clogging trans fat. Baskin-Robbins, another unit of Dunkin' Brands Inc., plans to be "zero grams trans fat" by Jan. 1.
Anyone concerned with his or her trans fat intake, however, needs to know the difference between "no" and "zero" trans fat. The first indicates that there is no trans fat at all in the food. The second indicates that there is less than a half-gram of trans fat per serving -- and those near half-grams can add up quickly.
Editorial, "Our Quick Take on Last Week's News Stories," Iowa City Press-Citizen, September 1, 2007.
What were some of the alternative choices for "Most Important News Stories in the World"?
International news, in addition to the GAO report on the failure of Iraq's government to meet the benchmarks, and the increased levels of violence in Pakistan, might have included significant political shifts -- of great relevance to Americans -- in Pakistan, Turkey and Iran.
Don't want to look abroad?
National news -- much of which occurred in, or affected, Iowa, and would have had local news pegs -- might have included the boost to Senator Dodd's campaign from the endorsement of Iowa City's fire fighters; the declaration of all the Democratic candidates that they will skip states that try to leapfrog Iowa's caucus date; the expected entrance of Fred Thompson; some shift in public reaction following the Republicans throwing Senator Larry Craig under the bus; Alberto Gonzales' resignation; new revelations regarding insurance companies' performance in New Orleans; the delays and decline in quality of airline service; the significance of the housing and mortgage markets stumble to the future of the American economy; and the record $87.1 billion in national net farm income.
Other Iowa, even Iowa City, stories would have included the unprecedented three UI campus bomb threats; the census report on median income and poverty (and Iowa's rank); the court case declaring Iowa's ban on gay marriage to be unconstitutional; and the bacteria warnings at six state park beaches (some of which were found to be 30 times levels thought safe for swimming).
The Register and Gazette gave at least a little, back-page coverage to the UNI faculty's thoughtful, analytical rejection of an armed campus police. The Press-Citizen mentioned it not at all -- anywhere that I noticed, not just in its Saturday round-up. That omission may well have contributed -- at least in some small way -- to this morning's news that it looks like the UI faculty is going to support an armed campus.
[Not incidentally, if you're truly interested in understanding the armed campus issues -- given that the reports circulating in Iowa are primarily simply advocacy briefs for bringing guns on campus -- one of the most thoroughly researched, and balanced, reports I've seen is the recent SUNY Courtland, "Report of the University Police Arming Task Force."]
For ignoring these stories, for helping tear down the iron curtain between advertising and news (and in this case even editorials), and for exalting the news value of Panchero's burritos and Dunkin' Donuts' sweet and greasy dough -- we proudly award a coveted Wendy to the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
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