December 3, 2007 - In the News
There have been a couple of recent stories in the news about our neck of the woods. NPR produced a story about immigration and visited with people in Marshalltown, including a woman that went on the trip to Mexico with Linda and Claire’s high school principal. In addition to the audio story, there is a video story link below the story photo from a local coffee shop talking about the caucuses that features some folks we know. The old ladies steal the show in my book!
The New York Times travel writer gushed about the renewed downtown Des Moines. He said in part:
It was not long ago, as most Iowans will tell you, when East Coast stereotypes about this Midwest city were fairly accurate. Bleak and foreboding, a city with a desultory and desolate downtown, few places to eat and little to do once the candidates returned to often dreary hotel rooms. For the hordes of campaign staff members, reporters, television crews who have encamped here for the caucuses over the past 30 years — great story, yes, but suffice it to say that Des Moines wasn’t the draw. But the other night in Des Moines, I had dinner with a colleague and the Iowa state director of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign at a vibrant restaurant, Lucca, in the heart of a gentrified neighborhood called the East Village. The restaurant had more panache and better food than many places I’ve eaten in Washington, D.C. The East Village streets, spread out under the State Capitol, were aglow with lights — lavender, icy blue and, of course, red and green — strung out for Christmas. They were bustling with boutiques, bookstores, coffee shops, culinary stores and Smash, an edgy T-shirt shop where the proprietors were listening to Band of Horses while making slightly off-color T-shirts celebrating the Iowa caucuses.
Although Iowans still can’t quite put them up to talking smack about the improvements in their state, at least there are outsiders who can come in and do it instead.
