Iowa does suck, except for the Bettendorf area. I guess Dubuque too. The rest of it is sort of armpit BFE with maybe a casino nearby. Mostly, Iowa is a place I like to drive past on my way to other places.
That is where I type from currently. It would be nice for a weekend visit and they have a commie hockey team (USHL teams are owned by the hosting city) but if it wasn’t for ebooks from the home library system in Seattle and rerun tv channels I would have been done a month ago.
Ahhh, OK. I can recommend a short hop over to Galena on the weekend. Lovely town to bum around when it’s sunny. Lots of historic stuff, neat shops, B&B’s, etc. I personally like the shop with a huge variety of hot sauces, organized by scoville ratings. (I forget the name of the shop, but they go up into the millions of units)
Galena/Dubuque also has skiing when it gets colder if that’s your thing. And of course, if you are fishing inclined, you can get into many fine fish in the Mississippi river.
And yes, drinking and gambling. Since you’re also at the WI border, I can recommend hopping across to track down some Spotted Cow (from New Glarus brewing). It’s a WI specialty that’s hard to track down, and fantastic.
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They rushed me out here so I am sans car. I am like half a mile from the office though. I realized a month ago if I had a car I would be in Chicago every goddamn weekend. The only nice spot I found was a wine bar at the old brewery building. $4 drinks, no tvs and music you don’t have talk loud over and they make a nice if a bit sweet cider.
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This all explains the brain drain and blue flight away to the “real” cities of anyone who has anything going on between their ears. This is the divide of our country.
Tragic. Well, sans-car I can still recommend Galena. It should be uber-able distance at about ~16 miles or so.
But yeah, other than that… You are really stuck. lol
My condolences.
You say that now, but you haven’t tried parking here yet. 
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Oh I have been there done that. Seattle is doing it’s best to catch up in that department.
Open letter to the London Anarchist Bookfair 2017
We write today as a broad collective of anarchist and activist groups, networks and individuals in London and across the UK. We are writing in response to events at the 2017 London Anarchist Bookfair (LABF).
We condemn transphobia of any form in the strongest terms, and we refuse to support any event that condones transphobic behaviour or language, or allows the distribution of transphobic materials and literature. We see this as complicity, and furthermore, we are disappointed in the actions (or lack thereof) on the part of LABF organisers following the events of Saturday. It is disappointing that, once again, LABF has let down and created an unsafe space for many comrades.
During the 2017 event various transphobic leaflets were shared and a number of people attending the LABF made transphobic, transmisogynistic and dehumanising comments in a very public manner.
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Ugh. I’m sorry. TERFS suck. Why do so many feminists seem to have such a hard time with intersectionality?
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I enjoyed the years I taught in Iowa City, though perhaps it has gone way downhill since then(?)
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That sounds like Willits CA.
New Glarus has some awesome beers. Both fortunately and unfortunately, they decided to confine their sales to Wisconsin. Fortunately, since they decided to concentrate on quality instead of quantity. Unfortunately, since I live in Illinois, 100+ miles south of the state line.
While I haven’t toured the brewery (smacks forehead), I have been to New Glarus a few times, and loved it. The Sportsman Bar and Grill has some excellent pub grub; one of my favorites there is the Schubling, a Swiss-style sausage that (to me at least) seems like a cross between bratwurst and kielbasa.
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Skin grafts sound great until you really learn just how it feels to have no skin in your legs.
The burns hurt a bit less, but I feel like today is going to be really unpleasant
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And now every single inch of me itches. My chest, arms, and belly where the grafts are growing down; my legs where they peeled off skin for said grafts; and my whole back half from lying on it for two weeks.
Also, I seem to have developed a mild phobia of hot beverages, which threatens to severely impact my favorite daily routines.
WAH.
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Oy. Yes it sure is.
They say that if you can make it in the city, you can make it anywhere.
Which leads to the question, why would anyone want to live in a toxic hellhole if they could make it out in the real, living world?
Hmmmm… It occurs to me that we are both living up to our usernyms again…
Damn, I hope you heal up soon. Honey is a very good treatment for severe burns.
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Because we can go a week without getting in the car? Because McMaster-Carr delivers my work materials same day? Because we live 5 minutes walk to one of the best high schools in the state? Because there’s probably 50 restaurants within a 15 minute walk? Because one of the worlds greatests concentrations of arts is a 20 minute subway ride away?
Different strokes etc. My son would agree with you, he’s a mountain man. But trying to plan for a career in an outdoors focused place is not easy. Only so many climbing guides and ski patrollers are needed.
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And my son would agree with you!
True, careers are an unfortunate burden of the serving classes. I can’t afford my little green valley without traveling a few miles into the northeast megalopolis every weekday. 
But at least I have snakes, raccoons, possums and deer in the yard, and some fishes and eels in the stream… I only work in the human hive, I don’t live there.
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If we’re keeping score, we have snakes, possums & raccoons too, plus red tails and falcons, and I live 1 mile from a spectacular fishery, NY Harbor. It’s currently teeming with striped bass up to 40 lbs or so. I’m hoping to get out after them and blackfish in my kayak tomorrow.
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My spouse’s water research lab has done a lot of work in New York. I would not eat a lot of fish from that fishery, personally. Too much mercury and hydraulic fluid in there for me.
(But as you say, if we’re keeping score, my stream’s worse, because there aren’t any good sport fish in it at all ).
