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...The Office Lounge will open on October 28. Learn more!

Oct 23, 2022
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On Friday, October 28, paid subscribers to ANY of our Iowa Writers’ Collaborative columnists are invited to meet the columnists who make up this illustrious group. We are holding a Zoom gathering featuring our writers and a few of our close, personal friends. That means YOU if you are a paid subscriber to at least one of our columns (including this roundup of links).

Our own Iowa Boy and Iowa Collaborative member Chuck Offenburger writes about why we call this monthly gathering of the clan the Office Lounge in his column today. Here’s something to wet your whistle. You’ll want to read his hilarious, well-reported column about ‘our’ Office Lounge, next to The Des Moines Register building:

Big ideas at the Office Lounge, Chuck Offenburger

DES MOINES, Iowa, Oct. 23, 2022 – The Office Lounge, a downtown Des Moines bar that was a legendary hangout for Iowa journalists from the 1960s until it closed in the 1990s, is “re-opening” this week, and you’re all invited.

Oh, the original owners-operators Rocky Gabriel, his ex-wife Dorothy Gabriel and their daughter Roxie Gabriel Beck won’t be there.  They’re deceased. 

But we’ll honor their spirits and the spirit of the little bar where a whole lot of big ideas were launched back when…

read the column here: https://open.substack.com/pub/chuckoffenburger/p/big-ideas-at-the-new-office-lounge?r=fkojq&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

The route to the Office Lounge from the old R&T alley


Your weekly roundup of columns:

LAURA BELIN

Iowa politics with Laura Belin
October 17 edition of "Capitol Week" is online
The timing could have been better! Dennis Hart and I are live on KHOI Radio every Monday night at 7:00 pm. Tonight, that put us opposite the only scheduled debate between Governor Kim Reynolds and her Democratic challenger Deidre DeJear. (Iowa PBS did not invite Libertarian candidate Rick Stewart to participate…
Read more
8 months ago · 1 like · 3 comments · Laura Belin
Iowa politics with Laura Belin
How Iowa Supreme Court's McDermott, Oxley have decided big cases
This exclusive analysis first appeared at Bleeding Heartland and is shared here as part of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. For regular emails linking to Bleeding Heartland coverage, subscribe to the free Evening Heartland newsletter. Disclosure: Laura Belin is a…
Read more
8 months ago · 2 likes · 4 comments · Laura Belin

DOUGLAS BURNS, CARROLL

The Iowa Mercury

Iowa's Politics, People, Economy and Culture
By Douglas Burns

DAVE BUSIEK

Dave Busiek on Media
"Judging" Senator Grassley
This is a media column, not a political one, but ‘tis the season and I have a few thoughts after covering Senator Charles Grassley for the past 42 years, as he runs for his EIGHTH six-year term in the U.S. Senate. I was assigned to cover Grassley’s first run for the Senate in 1980, when he beat the incumbe…
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8 months ago · 8 likes · 22 comments · Dave Busiek

ART CULLEN

Art Cullen’s Notebook
No place you would want to be is safer than Iowa
Iowa is a great place to live. It’s cheap, it’s easy. It’s safe. Storm Lake is all that in spades. I can drive across town in seven minutes at 25 mph. You can still buy a house for $100,000 around here. The neighbors on Irving Street are great, and they have an eye on each other. Dean and Josie Ellington invite everyone to their garage for the National …
Read more
8 months ago · 6 likes · Art Cullen

SUZANNA DE BACA

Dispatches from the Heartland
Dead skunk in the middle of the road
We saw the carcass on the gravel road in the dim light of dusk even before we smelled it. But in seconds, a familiar stench permeated our pickup as my husband and I drove over the inert lump. “Skunk,” we both said at the same time. I hummed a few bars of “Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road,” Loudon Wainwright III’s 1972 hit song. …
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8 months ago · Suzanna de Baca
Dispatches from the Heartland
The offerings
An offering. A pinecone A buckeye An acorn. Fall descends Like sleep. At first, a gradual shift into shadows Then, a swift plunge Into chilly darkness. Nature gives up her vibrancy And turns inward. A curious melancholy envelopes me. I search my heart For what I am to learn In the winter days ahead. There is an enduring ach…
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8 months ago · 3 comments · Suzanna de Baca

DEB ENGLE

A Whole New World
The Dalai Lama's Foreword
In a recent column, I mentioned that I’d tell a story that’s special to me. It still gives me goose bumps when I think about it, even though it happened almost ten years ago. It’s the day I received a foreword to one of my books from the Dalai Lama…
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7 months ago · 1 like · Debra Engle

JULIE GAMMACK

Julie Gammack's Iowa Potluck
Road trippin'
DeWitt, IA DeWitt is a paradox. Like life. Like Iowa. After my 24-hour visit, I left with dread and optimism. It's a charming, relatively affluent town situated between Dubuque and Davenport. Dewitt is growing in population and has a pleasant downtown. Kids were on bikes, and it felt like one of tho…
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8 months ago · 7 likes · 14 comments · Julie Gammack
Julie Gammack's Iowa Potluck
Wouldn't you love to have a crystal ball
Our Monday Zoom Lunch guest is about as close as we’ll get to have the magic ability to grasp the world economy. Here’s a bit about our speaker, Bob Baur, who offered this succinct bio: I grew up on a large family farm in NE Madison County, IA. Great-grandfather Stanislaus Baur settled there from Germany in July 1853. Succeeding generations all farmed there and expanded the farm. After graduating in mathematics at Iowa State, I returned to run the farm with several hired workers. The farm is operated by a cousin now, the fifth generation…
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7 months ago · Julie Gammack

JODY GIFFORD

Benign Inspiration
It's a Gay Day
Today is National Coming Out Day. Celebrated every year on Oct. 11, National Coming Out Day is in recognition of the first National March on Washington for lesbian and gay rights held in 1988. The idea behind National Coming Out Day is simply this—if you identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, intersex or two-spirit, coming out …
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8 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Jody Gifford

BETH HOFFMAN

In the Dirt
When is "local" really local?
I was in the grocery store in Oskaloosa, Iowa this past week and saw “local” apples on sale from Sparta, Michigan. “Local” was from 480 miles away, a 7 hour and 30-minute drive from said store, on land east and north of Chicago. This, my friends, is not local. Especially because there are local apples grown right here…
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8 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Beth Hoffman

DANA JAMES

New Black Iowa
I delayed my colonoscopy during the coronavirus pandemic: Don't make the same mistake
Cough syrup. Dishwashing liquid. Salt. That’s what the Suprep bowel prep kit I drank tasted like – not that I really know what dishwashing liquid tastes like – as I prepared for my Oct. 6 colonoscopy. When my doctor first suggested some years ago that I have a colonoscopy to screen for colorectal cancer, I told her about a New York Times story I’d read …
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8 months ago · 2 likes · New Black Iowa

BOB LEONARD

Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture
Beth Howard: Ambassador of Pie
I love this book. I couldn’t put it down. No actually, I have the attention span of a gnat, so I put it down a bunch of times, but I always picked it up again, and I do love it. I’m not going to mess around with a long rambling preamble like most book reviewers do. I’ve read a great many wonderful travel books over the years (I’m looking at you…
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8 months ago · 5 likes · 3 comments · Robert Leonard
Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture
Government isn’t the Enemy
Photo by Ken Allsup with the Oskaloosa News Florida Governor Ron DeSantis wants Federal Aid for storm-damaged Florida, and he is getting it from the Biden administration. Yet, as a freshman congressman in 2013, DeSantis voted against a similar response for New York and New Jersey after Hurricane Sandy crushed their coastlines. President Biden has…
Read more
8 months ago · 2 likes · 5 comments · Robert Leonard

CHUCK OFFENBURGER

Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger
Big ideas at the new “Office Lounge”...
DES MOINES, Iowa, Oct. 23, 2022 – The Office Lounge, a downtown Des Moines bar that was a legendary hangout for Iowa journalists from the 1960s until it closed in the 1990s, is “re-opening” this week, and you’re all invited. Oh, the original owners-operators Rocky Gabriel, his ex-wife Dorothy Gabriel and their daughter Roxie Gabriel Beck won’t be there. …
Read more
7 months ago · 2 likes · 1 comment · Chuck Offenburger

BARRY PIATT

Barry Piatt on Politics: - Behind the Curtains
What About Chuck?
In early 1975, I was a still wet behind the ears, freshly minted congressional staffer, working for a new Congressman from southwest Iowa, Tom Harkin. One morning - my thick, 1970’s style brown hair “dancing” over my ears in the breeze as I ran up the steps to the Cannon House Office Building - I encountered Chuck Grassley…
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8 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Barry Piatt

MARY SWANDER

Mary Swander’s Buggy Land
Herd Them, Chase Them, Cuss Them
So begins Russ Mullen’s latest memoir excerpt in The Blazing Star Journal, a new online magazine launched by AgArts. Mullen, an emeritus professor of agronomy at Iowa State University, grew up on a diversified family farm in southern Cass County. His mother was a devout Catholic, his father an atheist. Against the wishes of t…
Read more
8 months ago · 3 likes · 3 comments · Mary Swander

ED TIBBETTS

Along the Mississippi
The cost of democracy
Back in March, we were all Ukrainians. We flew Ukraine’s flag. We prayed for the country and its people – and we offered military and humanitarian support as we watched in horror as Russia indiscriminately bombed civilians. We were inspired by Ukrainian resistance…
Read more
8 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Ed Tibbetts

Give a gift subscription

The Iowa Writers’ Collaborative can’t stem the tide of market forces decimating local journalism. However, we are linking readers directly to Iowa writers. If you are interested in this content, please consider subscribing to as many local columnists as possible. And, please, support your local newspaper.

Here’s our current list:

Laura Belin: Iowa Politics with Laura Belin, Des Moines
Doug Burns: The Iowa Mercury, Carroll
Dave Busiek: Dave Busiek on Media, Des Moines
Art Cullen: Art Cullen’s Notebook, Storm Lake
Suzanna de Baca Dispatches from the Heartland, Huxley
Debra Engle: A Whole New World, Madison County
Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
Jody Gifford: Benign Inspiration, Waukee
Beth Hoffman: In the Dirt, Lovilla
Dana James: New Black Iowa, Des Moines
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Cheryl Tervis, Boone County, Coming Soon
Thank you to Iowa Capital Dispatch for sharing our commentary with your readers.
And, for a weekly roundup of our columnists, subscribe here:
IOWA WRITERS’ COLLABORATIVE
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Julie Gammack
Oct 23, 2022Author

THANKS, CHUCK!

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