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Dordt coach likes building football team from ground up

June 6, 2006 By

The building of the Dordt College football program is officially underway. John Heavner officially began his duties as head coach last week and the college will begin varsity competition in 2008. For Heavner it is an opportunity few coaches get and that’s to start with a blank slate.

Heavner says he doesn’t have to change the attitude of his players, he can teach them the way he wants things done. He says he can have a hand in everything from the type of socks they wear to the offense they run.

It also offers unique challenges and one of those is to find enough players for a junior varsity schedule in 2007. Heavner says he has to be sure they have a squad of 40 to 50 guys by the time they’re ready to play. He says he knows the work it takes to find 10 or 12 guys and the immediate challenge is finding the players to build the squad.

Building a competitive program takes time and Heavner says that is especially the case in the Great Plains Conference. Heavner says the conference is successful on the national level, so you have to be pretty good to win in the conference.

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Today’s date 6-6-06 devilish to some

June 6, 2006 By

This is June 6th, 2006 — six-six-six. Cedar Rapids pastor Rodney Bluml says the Bible says the number six-six-six represents evil and the mark of the beast. “Throughout time, the symbolism of 666 has been used to identify oppression or the source of oppression for the Christian community,” he says. But most church leaders say they’re not worried about the date.

Numerologist Valerie Stilwell feels the same way. “It’s my opinion that several of the symbols in our culture have been wrongly interpreted and we need to stop fearing where there is no fear,” Stilwell says.

Astrologer Maggie Anderson isn’t fearful of this date, either. “Astrology tends to address events in a slower manner,” she says. “We seldom say that there’s something critical happening on one day.”

But, Anderson says the date comes during a rocky period in world history. “These are troubling times. There’s no doubt about it and the public is concerned,” she says. “That probably is another reason why there is so much concern about this particular date.” Expectant mothers all over the country have been trying to avoid having their child on June 6th.

Hollywood plans to cash in on the controversial date by releasing “The Omen” in theaters.

Filed Under: Religion

Grassley disputes columnist’s claims on immigration bill amendment

June 6, 2006 By

A syndicated newspaper columnist accuses Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley of violating the U.S. Constitution through an amendment to the immigration bill that would generate revenue through a “stealth tax hike.” Grassley says the Chicago Sun-Times’ Robert Novak makes an interesting case, but says there was nothing “underhanded” in what transpired.

Grassley says: “There is a tax provision on the immigration bill and technically, even though it’s three or four sentences out of a 150-page bill, it involves taxes and under the Constitution, any tax provision must originate in the House of Representatives.” Grassley, a Republican who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, says everything contained in the amendment was done in full public view. He predicts it will not be defeated based on what Grassley calls a technicality.

Grassley says: “This is a Senate bill going to the House and the House can reject it if they want to because of that Constitutional provision, but in that particular instance, I think it’s such a small part of the bill that they would not do it, assuming that they want an excuse not to deal with the Senate bill at all.” The amendment was designed to force illegal immigrants to pay “outstanding tax liabilities.”

Novak also blasts another provision that would tax all Americans living abroad. Grassley defends that action. Grassley says: “On the other provision, it’s not a violation of the Constitution. That was put in as an offset. You could argue about the tax policy but you can’t argue about anything being unconstitutional about what we’re doing. So otherwise, I can’t account for Novak not paying attention to what we were doing.”

Americans living out of the country would pay over two-billion dollars more in taxes over the next decade under Grassley’s proposal. Novak’s column ran nationwide on Monday. To read it, surf to “www.suntimes.com”.

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Websites of Iowa candidates lack opportunity for feedback

June 6, 2006 By

The leading Iowa candidates running for statewide office have campaign websites, but an Iowa State University political science professor says all could do a better job in making their websites more “interactive.”

Howard Dean’s 2004 campaign pulled in many of its contributions via its website and the site helped vault the relative unknown Vermont governor into temporary front-runner status. Sarah Leonard, Dean’s Iowa communications director back in 2004, says the campaign used the website to engage in a conversation with voters.

“Governor Dean’s presence on-line really took off nationally and we tried to redouble our efforts during the Iowa Caucuses by developing an Iowa-specific website and an Iowa-specific blog,” Leonard says. The Dean campaign tested its commercials on-line and gauged interest in various issues based upon the conversation on the website.

But the campaign websites created for the campaigns of the three leading Democrats running for governor as well as the presumptive Republican nominee don’t give voters an opportunity to “talk” back to the campaign.

Dianne Bystrom, director of Iowa State University’s Center for Women and Politics, says research papers now detail how Dean and John McCain used the Internet in an essential phase of the campaign to raise money and sign up supporters. “Certainly, for those of us who study political communication, this is the new thing to study and not only with the fundraising and the community building, but also getting out the vote,” Bystrom says. “I think (the web) has a huge potential that really isn’t being used to its full advantage by candidates, but I think it will eventually.”

Steve Mays, vice president of Web Solutions for Learfield — the owner of Radio Iowa, describes the 2006 Iowa candidate websites as safe and boring. “You know, they’re doing pretty much what we’ve been doing with websites since somebody put up the first corporate website. It has all of the right stuff but it’s what I sort of thing of as, for lack of a better term, Web 1.0,” Mays says. “They’re preaching to the choir.”

According to Mays, the campaigns could have engaged the on-line public in more “imaginative and creative” ways. A few of the campaign websites list the candidate’s campaign schedule. Some post news stories, but most of the websites haven’t been updated every day. Jim Nussle’s website unveiled a new “blog” last week written by Nussle’s runningmate, Bob Vander Plaats.

But Mays, Learfield’s online project manager, says what he’s seen on the Iowa campaign websites aren’t really “blogs.” “It’s not very close to anything that anybody who reads very many blogs –or certainly anybody who writes a blog– would consider a legitimate blog,” Mays says. “The whole feel, the tone of this, the voice is very much like if you went to their campaign office and picked up a brochure.”

But that’s sort of what the campaigns want from their websites, according Leonard, who worked on Dean’s 2004 campaign. “It really cuts out the media and the gatekeepers and the candidates are really able to have a conversation directly with voters,” Leonard says. But some of the folks in the Iowa “blogosphere” say there’s not much “conversation” going on at those campaign websites.

One blogger, known as Iowa Ennui, says her “one thought about all of the on-line content is the volume and whether the new stuff is saying anything new and interesting…I just wonder if the campaigns know their on-line audiences all that well.” John Deeth, another Iowa blogger, notes the “buzz” among bloggers about the campaign websites which don’t get updated regularly.

Bystrom, the I-S-U professor, says the data shows that while more people are getting political information on-line, voters tell researchers their number one source for campaign info is the broadcast commercials.

Filed Under: Politics & Government Tagged With: , ,

U-S-D-A Rural Development provides home buying help

June 6, 2006 By

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has provided more than one-hundred-million dollars in housing assistance to Iowans buying homes in rural areas this past year. Mark Reisinger, director of U-S-D-A Rural Development in Iowa, says he’d be thrilled if more people took advantage of the programs they offer. “When we talk about economic development or rural development sometimes it’s lost upon people the importance of housing,” Reisinger says.

“I can guarantee that no community is going to thrive nor be able to bring business into that community or expand their economic base without sufficient housing.” Reisinger says his agency’s programs are generally available in communities with 20-thousand or fewer residents.

People can borrow directly from Rural Development or the U-S-D-A will guarantee loans made by other lenders such as banks or credit unions. They also have loans and grants available to help low income families and the elderly make needed repairs so they can remain in their own home.

U-S-D-A Rural Development also offers “self-help housing” in which participants organize in groups of six or ten families, using their own labor to reduce the total cost of constructing their homes.

Right now, Rural Development is working with a dozen such groups in Iowa. June is Home Ownership Month and U-S-D-A’s Rural Development in Iowa is celebrating with 15 events across the state, including home ownership workshops, housing fairs and lender meetings

Filed Under: Agriculture, Politics & Government

Group says Iowans don’t understand estate tax repeal

June 6, 2006 By

As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on doing away with the estate tax, an Iowa group says many people don’t know what that would actually do. Peter Fisher, Research Director with the Iowa Policy Project, says it’s not much of a factor to worry about at the local level.

He says Iowa doesn’t have an estate tax any more, and the state’s inheritance tax exempts all “lineal descendants,” like kids and grandchildren, and also won’t affect parents or grandparents who may inherit, so it doesn’t hit very many folks.

Fisher says there’s not much chance you’ll pay the federal estate tax, either. In 2004, fewer than one-percent of the estates in Iowa paid federal estate tax, so 99-percent were exempt. In all, Fisher says about 263 Iowa estates that year paid any federal estate tax, as he says there’s little chance of incurring “unless your parents are really wealthy.”

A new report by the nonpartisan “Citizens for Tax Justice” finds repealing the federal estate tax wouldn’t help the average American and would add a lot to their average tax load. Some people are afraid that though they don’t have much in the bank, farmer with many acres could find themselves “land-rich” and at risk of paying estate tax when their wealth passes to a new generation.

The exemption is two-million dollars for an individual person, four-million for a couple, and that’ll rise so by the year 2009, you can leave an estate worth seven-million dollars and it won’t owe any federal estate tax. At the current level Fisher says only 123 farm estates in the entire country paid the estate tax, so he says “it’s not hitting farms, and it’s not hitting small businesses.”

Fisher says most of the estate-tax revenue is coming from a handful of very wealthy people’s very large estates. And he says if they get the break they’re lobbying Congress for, it’ll cost everyone who’s not super-rich. A month ago, he says, Congress was working to cut Medicaid health coverage in the name of solving the deficit problem. Now they’re looking at repealing the estate tax, which he says would cost the federal budget a Trillion-dollars in the first ten years and add “massively” to the federal deficit, in the name of giving tax relief to “a handful of very wealthy individuals.”

While opponents who want it phased out call it the “death tax,” opponents of repeal call it the “Paris Hilton tax break,” after the wealthy heiress and socialite. Fisher says that makes it a clear choice for him. “Paris Hilton gets a bunch of money tax-free,” he says, and most of the rest of us get a national debt our children will pay off the rest of their lives. The Iowa Fiscal Partnership is a joint tax and budget analysis initiative of the Iowa Policy Project in Mount Vernon and the Child and Family Policy Center in Des Moines.

Related web sites:
Estate-tax repeal report

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Mayors meet in Las Vegas

June 6, 2006 By

Some of the nation’s mayors are meeting in Las Vegas, including Roy Buol of Dubuque. Buol says a hot national topic has been the talk among mayors. He says preparing the communities for a possible pandemic flu outbreak is something they’ve talked about. Buol says the high cost of fuel is another issue that’s generated discussion.

Buol says they’ve talked about different problems with transportation and trying to get some energy savings. He says one energy saver the mayors discussed is putting “roundabouts” at intersections instead of stoplights. He says the traffic wouldn’t have to stop and idle — it could merge into the roundabout and keep going. Buol says it’s not only an energy conservation issue, but it’s also a safety issue.

Buol says there’s also been discussion of how to best use federal transportation money. Buol says they’ve talked about the cost of maintaining roadways and whether that’s the best use of federal dollars as opposed to spending the money on mass transit. Buol says he’ll return home from the National Conference of Mayors today (Tuesday).

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