From the UI:

The University of Iowa will host one event for all supporters coming to the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament. Fans are invited to join the I-Club, Office of Alumni Engagement, and the Iowa Swarm Collective on Friday, April 5 from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., ET at The IVY, 1212 W. 6th St.

The Hawkeye Huddle is free and open to all fans and will feature our Hawkeye DJ, door prizes, snacks, and cash refreshments.

The No. 1 seed Iowa Hawkeyes will face No. 3 seed UConn at 9:30 p.m. ET at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland.

Hawkeye fans not able to attend the semifinal games, join the Office of Alumni Engagement and the Cleveland/Akron Iowa Club for a game watch at Harry Buffalo, 2120 E 4th St., starting at 7 p.m. (ET).

Women's Hoops

Women’s college hoops have fully arrived on the big stage and some are surprised it’s not a soft focus, Dove soap ad.

Cries of sexism and then a chronic need to racialize the sport have created an ugly sideshow of identity politics.

This week, an LA Times piece caused an uproar when the writer used the phrase “dirty debutantes” to describe the LSU women’s team ahead of playing UCLA.


The writer, Ben Bolch, wrote, “Do you prefer America’s sweethearts or its dirty debutantes. Milk and cookies or Louisiana hot sauce.”

If you phrase it like that, LSU all the way. UCLA sounds like a snooze.

Bolch issued an apology saying he “tried to be clever” using alliteration and that he had no idea of any bad connotation, which apparently is of the porn variety. I had no idea either, but I also saw people take issue with the whole “good versus evil” narrative.

LSU coach Kim Mulkey, who was recently the subject of a Washington Post profile, was probably happy to have another piece of media as a distraction. She said it was sexist. LSU guard Hailey Van Lith called it racist.

I read Bolch’s intent as treating this matchup like a cinematic blockbuster. Not some 99 cent DVD lingering in a Walgreen’s bin, the way women’s hoops had been treated before.



Sure, Bolch might have whiffed on the alliteration.

But underneath the outcry is a certain segment of the world of women’s sports that believes female athletes should only be presented as Cleopatras on a golden chaise: yas queen journalism.

Any sharp takes go into the “ism” bucket, conflated with bigotry.


Good versus evil, villains, heroes, and heels are familiar tropes in men’s sports.

There was a “Catholics versus convicts” Notre Dame-Miami matchup back in 1988. Or look at Duke, constantly portrayed as the dark force in college hoops. They made a whole “30 for 30” called “I Hate Christian Laetner.”

Maybe —just maybe — those sharp takes are just treating women like their male counterparts, who know that there’s a dark underbelly to this visibility. Tom Brady, LeBron James, the list goes on — they’re no stranger to ad hominem attacks as much as valid criticism.


The spotlight women’s sports are in now is thrilling but it inherently brings more heat, more drama, more hate. And yes, more love and after NIL, more cashola. But nothing is free.

More visibility and a bigger stage means no more kid gloves because that’s equality too.

Female athletes, like their male peers, shouldn’t be abused or targeted. But they also don’t need to be coddled.


Mulkey’s profile in the Washington Post (which she attacked before it was even published) was blasted by USA Today’s Nancy Armour, who argued that a male coach would never have faced such a level of personal scrutiny.

An enduring presence in the game, Mulkey parades around the sideline dressing and acting like a “Righteous Gemstone” villain.


She’s a lightning rod who brings eyeballs, excitement, and controversy to the sport. Bobby Knight in sequins. There was nothing out of bounds about creating a fuller portrait of a complicated figure.

But while crying racism and sexism on one side, there’s a chronic habit of racializing the sport to an obsessive degree.

Three weeks ago, USA Today’s Lindsay Schnell, who happens to be white, penned a column saying the faces of the game must be black.

She wrote this regressive demand: “In a game built by Black women, it matters that the faces of the future look like the faces of the past.”


By that metric, women cannot cover sports because the faces in the press box of the past were male, so please hand your press pass to Bob, over there. Thanks.

Then Jemele Hill complained that Caitlin Clark, a generational talent, is getting so much coverage because she’s white.

In a recent Atlantic piece, Hill argued that Clark fans are missing something: “A wider conversation about how many Black women athletes have been marginalized in this sport, despite their invaluable contributions.”


Caitlin Clark is transcendent. She’s packing houses, drawing an eye-popping amount of TV viewers and she dropped 41 points last night.

We don’t need to strip these women of their personalities, grit, and edge only to reduce them solely to their immutable characteristics.

Women’s hoops is at an exciting point and a crossroads. But we have to decide how the sport and the athletes will be treated: as gladiators on the court giving us an unforgettable show or meek females in need of bubble wrap.

Well something seems to have changed and I don’t know what. I don’t know if I’ve secretly changed the way I wipe, if my poops have changed consistency, if my butthole hairs have grown longer acquiring more dingleberries or what. But it seems like I have to wipe more than before. No more two wipe and get out of there. Maybe I need to change to a stand up wiper. I don’t know but it’s a shitty situation I’ve got going on.

Any help would be appreciated.

You put them on a pedestal when you want to have sex with them. That's when they're "magical."

Otherwise treat them the same as everybody else.

The weird thing is that we seem to put them up on pedestals a lot (say in media) in situations where sex isn't involved. Which makes no sense. Only magical when sex could be involved.

Where would you put this great band in your greatest bands list?

Former president Donald Trump’s push to get the Nebraska legislature to change the way it awards electoral votes faced a major setback Wednesday night, when lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to prevent the change from being attached to an unrelated bill.

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Nebraska is one of only two states that divide electoral votes among statewide and congressional district winners, which allowed Joe Biden to pick off an electoral vote in the red state in 2020 by carrying a swing district in the Omaha area. But Gov. Jim Pillen (R) and Trump on Tuesday endorsed a proposal to return the state to a winner-take-all system, possibly upending the final days of the state’s legislative session, which ends April 18.

The effort was put to an early test Wednesday night when Republican state Sen. Julie Slama tried to add the winner-take-all proposal to an unrelated bill as an amendment. The chair of the legislature ruled that the amendment was not germane to the underlying bill, prompting an effort to overrule the chair.


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“If you want winner-take-all in the state of Nebraska, this is your last chance, this is the last train out of the station,” Slama said before the vote. “If we can’t overrule the chair here, I can’t imagine this passing on any other bill this session.”

Follow Election 2024
The vote to override needed 23 yes votes to pass, given the attendance in the chamber at the time of the vote. Only eight voted yes.
In a text message after the vote, State Sen. John Cavanaugh (D), who represents Omaha, said Republicans had few other options for trying to pass winner-take-all this session. “They could attempt again, but we have put blocking motions and amendments on anything we think they could attempt to attach it to,” he wrote in a text message.

The sponsor of the winner-take-all proposal has said he does not have the votes to overcome a filibuster, but Trump’s intervention has raised speculation that Republicans could regroup.


“Ultimately, the Nebraska legislature does not legislate in response to tweets from anyone,” Cavanaugh said earlier in the day. Democrats, he added, are “firmly in support of maintaining the division of the electoral vote. It is part of what makes Nebraska special.”
A group focused on civic engagement in the state, Civic Nebraska, vowed to organize a November ballot initiative if the legislature “succumbs to this last-minute pressure from outside interests.”
Republicans acknowledged they had very little time to get the stand-alone proposal to the governor’s desk. The bill’s sponsor, state Sen. Loren Lippincott (R), noted in a statement that there are two days left for bills to be scheduled for floor consideration.

“My staff and I are doing everything we can to seek options for getting this to the finish line,” Lippincott said. “However, the harsh reality of a two-day time frame is limiting.”


The speaker of the legislature, John Arch (R), said in a statement that the bill was “not prioritized and remains in committee.”
“I’m not able to schedule a bill that is still in committee,” he said.
Another Republican, Sen. Mike Jacobson, said Wednesday night that he supported winner-take-all but would vote against adding it to underlying legislation he supports if the amendment has the effect of preventing that legislation from passing.
The one electoral vote in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District has become increasingly important for Democrats as they can no longer rely on the “blue wall” trifecta of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, after recent redistricting reduced those states’ weight in the electoral college. Maine is the only other state that does not award all of its electoral votes to the winner of the statewide vote.



Trump’s endorsement of the proposal came hours after a prominent ally, Charlie Kirk, rallied his large social media following to pressure Pillen and Nebraska state lawmakers to advance the legislation. Pillen issued a statement of support within hours.
The Trump campaign had looked into the possibility of a late legislative push weeks ago and concluded that there were significant obstacles, according to a person familiar with the discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal campaign efforts. But Trump decided Tuesday night after an event in Wisconsin to push hard for a shift, after he saw the statement from the governor.
Nebraska has a unicameral legislature, with 49 lawmakers, referred to as senators, serving in one chamber that is officially nonpartisan. While registered Republicans hold a majority, it was not filibuster-proof as of Tuesday.



At the start of the day Wednesday, there were 16 Democrats and a progressive independent member from Omaha, Megan Hunt, who was previously a Democrat. Thirty-three votes are needed to break a filibuster, so if all 16 Democrats and Hunt stuck together, they could form a firewall against legislation they opposed.
Hunt spoke out fiercely against winner-take-all on the floor Wednesday night, warning Republicans that they were inviting doxing efforts by conservative activists if they even held a vote on the bill. “By having a recorded vote on this, you are going to be a target for them,” she told Republicans in the chamber.
She suggested that Trump supporters campaign harder in Nebraska if they are concerned about him losing an electoral vote. “They think he can’t do it without the one vote from Omaha,” Hunt said. “I say he should come here and earn it.”




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By the end of the day, one of the Democrats, Mike McDonnell, announced he was switching to the GOP. But McDonnell told Politico and reporters at the state Capitol he would continue opposing any proposed changes to the electoral vote system and would not vote to end a filibuster on the issue.
McDonnell’s switch nonetheless buoyed GOP hopes for the Trump-backed proposal. U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) said in a statement that the timing of the party switch is “an awesome opportunity to mobilize our Republican majority to a winner-take-all system.”
The Trump campaign also was encouraged by McDonnell’s decision. A Trump campaign official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss strategy said Wednesday that Nebraska Republicans “should expect to see continued efforts and pressure, because Republicans have a filibuster-proof majority” now.



Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said Wednesday morning that Democrats believed passing the vote was “unrealistic” at this point but were closely monitoring the situation.
“Charlie Kirk is obviously not an idiot and sent out that tweet for a reason,” Kleeb said. “We’re on guard. We’re shoring up our 17 votes.”
Even then, it is not clear that all Republicans want to prioritize the bill, which had languished in committee and was assumed dead until Tuesday.
“Until yesterday, this wasn’t a discussion at all, and then suddenly it blew up, and several of our legislators that are process-oriented will take a skeptical line,” said Gavin Geis, executive director of Common Cause Nebraska.

A Democratic state senator, Wendy DeBoer, was more blunt.
“It would literally take a complete distortion of all our rules,” she said. “It would be incredibly unprecedented to try to make all of this happen now.”

Ya, this seems legit!

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I’m heading to Cleveland tomorrow. Does anyone know if there will be a Hawk Huddle or Swarm event?

After committing to visit the first-ever Hawkeye women’s wrestling room — maybe not to get on the mat herself, as Head Coach Clarissa Chun suggested, but to learn more about the sport and “some of the moves” — Gov. Kim Reynolds made a proclamation Wednesday honoring the team.



“Whereas the Iowa women’s wrestling team began competition during its 2023-24 inaugural season … and whereas the Iowa women’s wrestling team won the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Tournament on March 9, 2024, bringing home the national championship title, six individual national championships, and 12 All-Americans for a historic end to its first-ever season …


“I, Kim Reynolds, governor of the state of Iowa do hereby proclaim April 3, 2024 as University of Iowa Women’s Wrestling Day.”




The proclamation came at the start of the UI’s annual Hawkeye Caucus Day at the Capitol in Des Moines — where students, staff and faculty convened in the rotunda to show off to elected officials and visitors the research, outreach, impact, honors and awards they’ve achieved.


UI President Barbara Wilson and some of her administrative team were on site for the event, highlighting the partnership aspect of the university as a public institution facing government oversight and taking legislative appropriations.


Just under a giant blowup Herky mascot pumping its fist was a table for the Big Ten championship trophy won by the Hawkeye women’s basketball team — still chasing the bigger NCAA title — and the women’s wrestling team trophy from that program’s ascent at the national championships.


Reynolds — in chatting with Coach Chun, assistant coaches Tonya Verbeek and Gary Mayabb, and wrestlers including Iowa natives Ella Schmit and Felicity Taylor — noted the attention on female athletics now and the boundaries they’re breaking down.


“You leaned in big time and really made an impact,” Reynolds said. “It’s so inspiring.”


As the first women’s wrestling squad at an NCAA Division I Power Five conference school, the Hawkeye women went undefeated in dual competitions in their first season and captured the NWCA National Duals title Jan. 6. But it wasn’t all a slam dunk — as Reynolds noted in praising them for their perseverance.


“The Cardinals led by 17 points going into the finals,” Reynolds said of the Division III Illinois-based North Central College — which was ranked No. 1 at the recent national championships, ahead of the Hawkeyes, after winning the national title last season. “And you ended up winning, 204 to 198. That’s determination.”






Chun and the athletes said they focused on bringing their best to each match.


“Well you did,” Reynolds said, asking about the upcoming Olympic trials before Chun could sneak in her question about getting the governor on a mat.


“I can’t imagine everything that that would entail,” the governor said, conceding, “That would be fun.”


As an Iowa State University graduate, Reynolds told The Gazette after making her proclamation about the Hawkeye women’s wrestling program that she expects more universities to follow.


“It takes somebody to step in and — especially with the great success that they've had this year — I would be surprised if we don't see more of that happening in colleges and universities,” she said. “That's what's great about somebody stepping in and leading.”

Iowa's Felicity Taylor competes against King University's Montana Delawder during the NWCA/USMC Multi-Division National Dual Meet Championships on Jan. 6 at the UNI-Dome in Cedar Falls. (Chris Zoeller/Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier)

'Face time’ with lawmakers​

Outside the governor’s office, Kate Giannini — a program manager for the UI-based IIHR, a hydroscience-based research, education and service center that for years has been tackling water-related issues regionally and beyond — waited for elected officials or anyone else interested in its work to stop by her table.


“It’s really about meeting with our decision-makers and letting them know how we're serving Iowans and using their funding — and being able to tell them about the cool research that we're doing and projects that we're doing measuring floods and droughts, as we've been stuck in a drought a while,” Giannini said.


Her table typically gets 15 to 20 visitors.


ISU held its annual “Day at the Capitol” first, on Feb. 20, featuring an “Innovation with Impact” theme. Through a delegation of 40-plus faculty, staff and students, the Ames campus featured 18 programs — from its Veterinary Diagnostic Lab to its Mental Health First Aid program.


The University of Northern Iowa about a month ago, on March 5, held its “Day at the Capitol,” calling it an opportunity to engage students in statewide advocacy.


“UNI Day at the Capitol is also another opportunity for our UNI student government leaders to advocate for the needs of their fellow students,” UNI President Mark Nook said. “It was my pleasure to once again join UNI students, faculty and staff in advocating for UNI at the Capitol."


Among the UI programs featured were those from its colleges of law, education and engineering. Its Graduate College was on hand, along with its fundraising arm — the UI Center for Advancement — and UI Athletics Development. That is the UI Athletics fundraising branch, raising money for — among other things — projects like a new wrestling facility and gymnastics and spirit squad training center.


“It’s been really great so far,” UI graduate student and athletics intern Kaylyn King said of the opportunity Wednesday to promote ways in which Hawkeye Athletics have benefited the state — especially recently through its women’s programs.


“We have our women's wrestling trophy here and our women's basketball trophy,” she said. “We've had lots of people take pictures with the trophy, of course.”

Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi threatened this week to send 20,000 elephants to Germany after the Environment Ministry floated the idea of banning the import of trophies from endangered species.

It’s not the first time Botswana has offered up the country’s elephants either. When Britain talked about its own ban on importing trophies in March, the environment minister, Dumezweni Mthimkhulu, suggested filling London’s Hyde Park with 10,000 of the majestic animals — though he later called the offer “rhetorical.”

The root of the president’s rather sharp-tongued generosity is the long running tension between those morally opposed to the lucrative business of big game hunting and the impoverished countries which benefit from it — in this case Botswana, home to 130,000 elephants, nearly a third of the world’s population



Trophies from big game hunting are regulated by the international conservation organization CITES through a permit system, but animal rights activists have long called for a complete ban on hunting of endangered species.
‘I hate elephants’: Behind the backlash against Botswana’s giants
Germany, one of the largest importers of hunting trophies in the European Union, imported 26 African elephant trophies last year, according to preliminary numbers from the country’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation.
Animal rights advocates in Europe reject the concept of killing animals for sport and say hunting by tourists will result in the extinction of even more animal species. The opposing side of the debate, which includes not just the trophy hunters but pragmatic conservationists too, say that trophy hunting is controlled, unlike poaching, and has more financial benefits for local communities and conservation than photographic tourism.
Botswana’s offer to Berlin follows a comment from an official in Germany’s Environment Ministry to parliament in February that “imports of hunting trophies of protected species should be banned.” With the coalition unable to agree, however, the ministry will instead “reduce overall imports of hunting trophies of protected species on the basis of species protection measures and, in individual cases, ban them entirely.”


In March, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also adopted new restrictions on U.S. imports of African elephant hunting trophies and live elephants. The amendment requires, among other things, that “authorized imports of trophies and live elephants will contribute to enhancing conservation and not contribute to the decline of the species.”



Amy Dickman, conservation biologist at the University of Oxford, said Botswana and many other countries are “really fed up” with Western countries dictating how they handle their natural resources.
“Telling them what to do with their wildlife is seen as very hypocritical, particularly around this issue of trophy hunting,” Dickman said, pointing to the deep-seated tradition of domestic hunting in Britain, the United States and Germany. “It seems deeply hypocritical to these countries to say, ‘do as we say, not as we do.’”
Speaking to German tabloid Bild, Masisi argued that Germany’s planned restrictions on trophy hunting promoted poverty and poaching in Botswana and damaged the country.

“It is very easy to sit in Berlin and have an opinion about our affairs in Botswana. We are paying the price for preserving these animals for the world,” he said. The Germans should “live with the animals the way you try to tell us to.”


“This is no joke,” he added.

Masisi blamed decades of conservation efforts for the “overpopulation” of elephants and said herds are causing damage to property, eating crops and trampling residents. He has said in the past that the elephant population, which nearly doubled between 1996 and 2014 thanks to strict anti-poaching measures, was too much for the fragile, drought-stricken environment, home to just 2.5 million people.


Botswana banned trophy hunting in 2014 but lifted the restrictions in 2019 following pressure from local communities. A 2017 report found that the local communities were particularly affected by the loss of income, jobs and provision of social services as a result of the ban. The country now issues annual hunting quotas.

Dickman, who doesn’t advocate hunting herself, said governments should be cautious about being driven solely by the concerns of animal protection groups.

The former MLB player is installing a baseball field in his backyard in Chandler, AZ. Some neighbors are not in favor of his plans.
Seems bold for a really average SS
https://www.wlbt.com/2024/04/03/nei...-mlb-player-building-baseball-field-backyard/

I grew up in a conservative Reformed church in NW Iowa. Growing up I was big in the church.

But one problem I always had was if God is a loving God why do good people who are not Christian burn in Hell for eternity?

Today at 48 I am an agnostic that doesn't go to church (for a few reasons including politics). I still question that.

If there is a loving God, how can good people of different religions or no religion not make it to Heaven?

Rubik's Cubes and Caitlin Clark may seem like an odd pairing.

To University of Iowa dental student Brian Dang, they represent a perfect blend of his passions.

The fourth-year, first-generation student will graduate next month as a self-described nerd.

And he's proud of it.

Dang and his brother, an engineer 20 years older, would often fiddle with Legos growing up.

SIOUX CITY — A federal jury has found Kim Taylor guilty on 52 counts of voter fraud.
The jury returned its verdict Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Sioux City.

Taylor was charged with 52 counts of voting-related fraud accusing her of conducting a scheme in which she fraudulently filled out voting forms and ballots on behalf of numerous Vietnamese voters, many of whom have limited English comprehension. Taylor was accused of filling out forms and having voters sign on behalf of children and grandchildren without fully explaining or interpreting the forms or telling them they needed permission before signing papers on another person's behalf.




Pat Gill, Woodbury County Auditor, speaks at a press conference held Friday, Jan. 13, 2023, at the Woodbury County Courthouse in Sioux City, Iowa. Gill was addressing his office's role in uncovering alleged election fraud in recent elections. Kim Phuong Taylor, 49, was arrested Thursday and pleaded not guilty to 26 counts of providing false information in registering and voting, three counts of fraudulent registration and 23 counts of fraudulent voting. She is the wife of Woodbury County Supervisor Jeremy Taylor.
TIM HYNDS

Throughout six days of trial, prosecutors said Taylor, who was born in Vietnam, did so in order to amass votes for her husband, Jeremy Taylor, a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for his party's nomination for a U.S. House seat in the 2020 primary and was elected to the Woodbury County Board of Supervisors that fall. Jeremy Taylor has not been charged, but has been named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

​

This is a breaking news story. Check siouxcityjournal.com for updates.

In a recent note to clients, Rapidan Energy Advisors explained how surging gas prices could complicate the outlook for the Biden administration: