Here's your earworm: "Everybody's Fool" by Evanescence --
The buzz in Iowa for the past few weeks has been speculation on who would be named to lead the beleaguered Republican Party of Iowa. Thanks to a few pizza parties and videos on his blog, the honor has gone to Matt Strawn.
Strawn is one of the owners of the Iowa Barnstormers, a Des Moines Arena Football team, and he seems to be poised to ram the Republican Platform down the throats of Iowans and into the end zone -- whether they like it or not. Strawn plans to take the RPI into a new technological future, vowing to use social media networking to the party's advantage.
Dave Price reports that Strawn's primary competition, former legislator Danny Carroll, didn't stick around for the news conference following the election by the Republican State Central Committee. While that may or may not be significant, the fact that outgoing chairman Stew Iverson also skipped the press bonanza definitely says something.
Meanwhile, it seems most of the Iowa conservative bloggers either had a moment of incredible serendipity, or were reading from the same notebook. Albert Bregar, writing for both Red County and the Iowa Defense Alliance, called the election for Strawn "a new era" for RPI. David Chung, the only blogging member of the Republican SCC that I'm aware of, said the election signaled "a new day" at RPI. The anonymous blogger at Krusty Conservative said, without actually saying, that the elections were a slap in the face to Iowa's social conservatives, and signified evidence that the party would no longer be kept in a stronghold. (For the record, Strawn is/was the on the board of Iowa Right to Life, and worked with both Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and Mike Rogers of Michigan.)
Since Essential Estrogen focuses on women in politics, it's important to note here, as we have previously, that there is only one woman representative from Iowa's five congressional districts that was elected to serve on the Republican State Central Committee -- and, yes, she was previously elected to serve as the SCC secretary. Because the national organization mandates both a male and female be elected to serve on the Republican National Committee, a woman was elected to that post during the state convention last July. No woman is a part of the newly elected Republican executive board. (Krusty alludes to 'shenanigans' as to why the lone female was stripped of the secretary role after more than a decade of service.)
At a time when the Democratic majority has added to their female presence in the state legislature and in county offices, the Republican minority has lost ground in terms of women representatives. Given what we know about the Republican SCC, this should be no surprise.
Although I'm working on a post listing the various elected officials who are taking advantage of social media, there is a new blog that will be of interest to some Linn County residents. Brent Oleson, a newly elected member of the Linn County Board of Supervisors, will be posting his thoughts and insights on The Marion Contrarian.
All-in-all, Linn County really seems to be leading the way in use of social media by elected officials.
Although I wrote a short post about the court case involving the woman who was asked not to work at Hooters after she was a victim of a severe domestic violence attack, my post was peanuts compared to what was written by my friend Douglas Burns.
No matter how thin you string the onion rings there's no getting around it: Hooters is a bordello lobby with barbeque, a strip club with wings, and increasingly, one wonders how the sex-as-universal-side for all orders flies in modernity.
Have a look at Burns' column. It's incredible -- and incredibly accurate.
Cindy Hadish has a report about an upcoming program for Iowa women who are landowners.
...women own about half of the farmland in Iowa, and about 60 percent of the rentable farmland. Research has shown that women have very strong conservation and natural resource values, but don't always feel comfortable accessing the technical and financial resources that would help them and their tenants get the conservation they want on their land.
Women who own or manage farmland in three Eastern Iowa counties - Johnson, Jones and Linn - are invited to participate in a free conservation education program beginning in January.
Click over to Cindy's blog "Homegrown" for more information about the program.
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