Wednesday was a difficult day for The American Independent News Network, which is the larger entity that operates The Iowa Independent. Our chief executive and founder announced two of our sister sites would close and their content would be moved to The American Independent.
A recently introduced bill could have far-reaching impact on the U.S. sugar industry, including American Crystal Sugar, a farmer-owned cooperative that locked out 1,300 Midwest workers on Aug. 1.
The chairman for Herman Cain’s Iowa effort says the campaign “relied more on the word of farmers than Washington regulators” in deciding to run an ad containing claims the Environmental Protection Agency says are false.
The Iowa Senate will remain under the control of a slim 26-25 Democratic majority when it reconvenes in January 2012.
COUNCIL BLUFFS — Republican presidential candidates who dismiss evolution should visit Iowa's casinos.
For evidence. On their side of the debate.
Ever notice how everyone at an Iowa casino is either 100 pounds overweight or 100 pounds underweight?
That’s just part of life at the Lakeside Casino & Resort in Osceola or the new Horseshoe in Vegas on The Plains, Council Bluffs.
I’m not a big casino guy, but a few times each year friends persuade me to go along. Sure, I gamble for a while, but I’d rather watch the people in these places than stare at a slot machine hoping for triple 7s to pop up.
To put it gently, when scientists get really serious about genetic engineering they won’t be trolling any Iowa casinos looking for people to clone.
In the last several years, I’ve been to the casinos in Council Bluffs as well as the ones in the Quad Cities, Altoona, Tama and Osceola.
There are several things that hold true with “regulars” at all of these gambling establishments — trends you’ll notice no matter when you go there.
First of all, about 95 percent of the people in casinos smoke. The other 5 percent are senior citizens walking around with oxygen tanks because they have emphysema. Some of that 5 percent probably sneak a smoke a couple dozen times a day.
Second, there appear to be three very popular professions with regular Iowa casino-goers: unemployed, unemployed and unemployed
Then there’s the weight issue.
Fifty percent of casino-goers are obese individuals whose idea of exercise is waiting in line to get the $8.95 buffet. The other half of regular casino-goers are gaunt, wafer-thin gamblers who look like they alternate drags of Kent cigarettes with gulps of Diet Coke and hits of methamphetamine, never daring to let a morsel of food touch their mouths for fear it would break that delicate balance of nicotine/caffeine/meth/alcohol.
Then there are all the old people.
What is it with senior citizens and those slot machines? Perhaps I’m guilty of ageism here, but it still bothers me to see a blue-haired old lady at a slot machine.
For the love of God, ladies, go home and bake some cookies for the grandkids or make a quilt or complain about your hip to your nephew and tell your local paper that it printed the wrong menu for the senior congregate meal site.
That’s what normal old people who aren’t addicted to gambling do.
Of course, I’m sure none of these senior citizens is spending their fixed incomes at the slot machines. The casinos would never let that happen.
Forty years from now, when I’m in the November of my years at 77, if you see me in a casino pulling the slots, you have here my written permission to shoot me, in the head and twice.
There’s more.
Every time you go to one of these casinos there will be somebody doing something very odd, something terribly out of place for a casino.
On a recent visit I saw this cat daddy sitting on a chair outside of the “boat” in Osceola reading a book titled "Why the South Lost the Civil War.” He’s furiously taking notes as if he can find some new information that will retroactively reverse the outcome in the South’s favor and make Jefferson Davis IV, not George W., president of the United States.
You can’t beat the fashion statements at casinos, either.
Most of the men in casinos appear to be using Jerry Reed's and Burt Reynolds’ characters in the 1977 movie “Smokey and the Bandit” as the basis for their sartorial selections — with the hats, the cheap vests, those string ties you see in Texas, the wallets chained to their pants and the huge pockets in the front of their shirts that allow them to carry four packs of cigarettes.
I almost walked up to one so-attired guy and said, “Hey, Burt Reynolds called from 1977 and said he wants his clothes back.”
And the women at casinos. You know when they’re coming your way because of the unique blend of smells — smoke, hairspray and a perfume so powerful that you start looking for trenches and gas masks.
The most frightening species in the casino, however, is “Man With a Plan.”
Man With a Plan is that guy who thinks that gambling is not really, well, gambling. Man With a Plan believes he has the system all figured out, that it’s only a matter of time before the dice start falling his way and he wins a lot of money so he can quit his job of sitting around a trailer park and drinking all day.
Man With a Plan is not happy with other gamblers when they roll “bad dice.” He thinks they are screwing him out of his money. He thinks they are intentionally rolling a four when he needs an eight to pay the rent.
Man With a Plan is the most dangerous animal in the casino jungle. He has nothing to lose because he’s lost it all on the tables already.
I’ve only started on the casino culture here. Check the rest out for yourself. It’s a trip.
In the end, casinos are great for people watchers. If you want to watch birds, you go to some rain forest, right? Want to watch people? Just find your way to Osceola or Tama or Council Bluffs.
Whenever I’m in a casino, watching hundreds of people who are mesmerized by slot machines, I can’t help but think of the late journalist H.L. Mencken’s line: “Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is all wrong. Man’s still an ape.”
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter