Essential Estrogen

If you like to play in the dirt, you may want to take part in blogswarm of sorts which began in June 2006 called "Green Thumb Sunday". Genie, the inadvertent gardener in Iowa City, has posted a great photo.

Last year I planted a bleeding heart in the back garden. It didn’t do anything all year long. Quite frankly, I did not expect the plant to make it through the winter, much less be a thriving member of the garden. This just goes to show how much I know about plants and gardening. The bleeding heart was one of the first to take off this spring and it’s now sporting several heavy branches with the delicate, reddish-pink blooms.

I must admit here that I'm crazy jealous about the arisaemas Don over at an iowa garden featured in his blog. It's beautiful, Don... and now I must go figure out if I can grow one or two and where.

Drop by According to D for her impressions of Cinco de Mayo in Iowa City. It's worth the time you'll spend reading (this post and many of her others).

It appears that Tara at Aetiology will be moderating the science caucus at YearlyKos and she'd like your thoughts. Congratulations, Tara!

Blonde Chick Bloggin' brings back from blasts from the past with her post about driving, her daughter and the Zeph. In my life, it was a dark blue Impala with an ashtray which stretched the full length of the dash.

The Reform Network picked up the May 9 article in the Daily Iowan about former Iowa City Catholic priest Lawrence David Soens who faces civil claims brought by 14 former students.

Ray, a conservative Chiagoan, took exception to a quote in the Des Moines Register attributed to Mary Arenas where she took exception to Rep. Tom Tancredo using the term “illegal alien" at the Iowa Preventing Abuse Conference on Friday.

George Archibald says the 2008 presidential campaign is already a “doozy" and lists Clinton and Giuliani at the folks to beat.

GetReligion.org has a piece about "Romney's unexplained stumbling block" where is ink is given to the campaign's hiring of Mark DeMoss to court evangelical voters in South Carolina and Iowa. (If you're keeping score, we we posted about this last week.)

Staying with Romney for a minute, the Elect Romney in 2008 Blog has a post contrasting the viewpoints of Chuck Todd and Howard Fineman about the importance (or lack of importance) early states like Iowa will play in the Presidential nominations.

ongopongo.com is almost as excited as we are about the RAGBRAI bike route. (July 22-28, 2007)

Want an inside perspective on the new U.S. Courthouse planned for Cedar Rapids?

Caroline Vernon of Blog for Iowa reports five area groups came together for a press conference urging Sen. Chuck Grassley to reconsider his vote on repealing a medicare provision.

Century of the Common Iowan has a post about attending an event with Sen. Mike Gronstal and Rep. Kevin McCarthy where the two discuss clean elections.

Don McDowell of Cyclone Conservatives has written a novella on Tommy Thompson’s visit to LeMars on Thursday for the LeMars Daily Sentinel.

Does anyone really care about the spat between Sen. Obama and Sen. Grassley?

Hawkeye GOP thought Krusty was king. It was just one of many local blogs to acknowledge the Krusty Konservative anonymous blog was ceasing publication.

KL Snow at Diary of a Political Madman has accepted a new job (congratulations!) and doesn't know exactly where that will leave the blog.

And, last but not least, I couldn't agree more with Side Notes and Detours about this -- although i could have happily gone my whole life without seeing it.