2015 » Page 9 of 10 » Lynda Waddington

16Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

21-only ordinances should remain local issue

Gazette Column

Ask people in Iowa City whether or not the 21-only ordinance is working, and the answers will be a mixed bag. Nearly five years and two ballot referendums later, the issue of whether adults under the age of 21 should be allowed in most drinking establishments after 10 p.m. remains hotly contested. Those who support the ordinance point to statistics comparing the three years before and after the ordinance went into effect. There were drops in the number of citations for underage people caught in possession of alcohol and arrests for driving under the influence. But there also has been a significant increase in disorderly house citations, which skeptics hold as evidence that the root problem (underage drinking) still is thriving behind closed doors. Medical calls related to heavy alcohol consumption have…

15Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Love on display at basketball game

Gazette Column

Valentine’s Day is upon us again. It is what I consider a fairly useless holiday, filled as it often is with the vestiges of naive love. Enduring love has little to do with heart-shaped candies and red-inked greeting cards. The type of love that lasts, that matters, doesn’t lend itself well to poetry or song lyrics. Love, at least by my way of thinking, is understanding faults and working to better them. Love is seeing and knowing it all — moments of selfishness, flashes of insecurity, flights of boastfulness — and believing life would be less without the shortcomings. Such thoughts have been on my mind throughout the week as I considered what might fill this column. But on Tuesday, a particularly frustrating day, I set them aside. My daughter…

09Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

There’s still time to be brave

Gazette Column

Those living with mental illness asked to speak up, break stigma Sit down and have a conversation with Iowa City blogger Brook Easton and you won’t walk away with the impression that she is a person coping with health challenges. And, frankly, that’s the point. Easton, a wife and mom of two boys, is like so many others — a quarter of all Americans, according to national studies — who live with a mental illness. It’s a challenge she knows well, one that she shares with her father and a son. “So many times, to a person seeing only the outside, it is invisible,” she said. “People see someone holding down a job or going to school. What they can’t see is what is happening inside that person’s head.” And,…

02Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Our mental health system still has cracks

Gazette Column

We are not beyond stigmatizing health problems My sister-in-law, Susan, one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, couldn’t fight off a blood infection. She juggled not only my brother — a lifelong minister too often focused on lofty pursuits to be bogged down in the daily chores of living — but five children as well. We buried Susan a few weekends ago and it was, as you might expect, an emotional ceremony. At the same time Susan was in the hospital, another mother decided her life was no longer worth living. Beckie, who battled mental illness, first turned a rifle on her two adult sons before contacting a relative to say goodbye. By the time law enforcement was alerted and arrived at the rural home, all three were dead. The two…

01Feb 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Waze makes a lousy cop stalking tool

Gazette Column

When you think about violence against law enforcement, you probably don’t turn a suspicious eye to your smartphone. But some police advocates are doing just that. Waze, a navigation app, has drawn the ire of some police officers who believe its “cop-tracking” capabilities pose a threat. I’ve been a happy Waze user for several years, long before it was purchased by Google in 2013 for $966 million. The app works like most other navigation programs, showing drivers the way from Point A to Point B, but it also crowdsources real-time driving data based on traffic flow and road hazards. If you hate driving through a larger city at rush hour, need to arrive at your destination by the quickest route possible or want to avoid traffic cameras, Waze will be your best…

26Jan 2015 by Lynda Waddington

What might be lost in Iowa City cottage dispute

Gazette Column

This past week has been filled with listening and searching, both producing little satisfaction. On Tuesday night about 80 people gathered at the Iowa City City Hall to discuss the future of two small buildings on South Dubuque Street. The buildings, known locally as the worker cottages, have sparked disagreement. The property owner, Ted Pacha, wants to demolish the structures, literally paving the way for new development in the railroad district. Preservationists hope to save them, saying they represent a segment of the population and a moment in time unique to Eastern Iowa and of which too little already remains. While much discussion at the public hearing centered on whether or not the structures were of historical significance — perhaps due to the narrow question before council members — the…

25Jan 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Let’s drop the SOTU responses

Gazette Column

Let’s be honest: the state of the union response is not strong, nor is it necessary. This is not a slam against newly minted U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst. In fact, I’m just following her lead. “It wasn’t about responding to the State of the Union or President [Barack] Obama as it was responding to the concerns of Iowans and other Americans,” Ernst told reporters on a conference call the morning after she delivered the official 2015 Republican speech. I say “official” response because Ernst was chosen by Republican Congressional leadership. But there were at least four additional GOP responses to President Barack Obama’s address. Carlos Cubelo, a newly elected Republican congressman from Miami, Fla., was supposed to offer Ernst’s speech in Spanish, inserting his personal details in place of hers.…

19Jan 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Let Mason departure herald new age of messy

Gazette Column

The People’s Republic of Johnson County is a messy place, often overrun with public meetings and task force investigations. Everyone, it seems, wants a voice. Because of this, Johnson County and many of its subdivisions — the Iowa City Community School District, city governments and subcommittees — receive a lot of public and media attention, not all of it positive. There is no shortage of people, including me, who are willing to dig through the messy remnants and eek out an opinion on what should have been — the vast majority of such wisdom resting on the perch of hindsight. And while there is and should be a place for those who look behind, hopefully wrapping and presenting past experiences for the benefit of others, we should always be grateful…

18Jan 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Confessions of an Iowa gun snob

Gazette Column

Have you ever written or said something from a centrist position only to have those on either side of the issue overreact, confirming your centrist stance? Well, I have. This week, in fact. Last Saturday this column detailed my reaction to seeing a man in a local store with a not-so-concealed gun. The narrative, in which I detailed my own shortcomings, was written for two reasons. First, it was the first thing I thought about after reading a guest column we’d published the week before. I simply had to write it; had to get it out of my system before I moved on to other things. (If you aren’t a writer, that may not make much sense. I apologize if that is the case.) Second and more important, for some time now I…

11Jan 2015 by Lynda Waddington

Why your gun makes me nervous

Gazette Column

There’s a mantra quickly repeating in my head: “Please have a badge. Please have a badge. Please have a badge.” It’s a steady heartbeat as I begin a conversation with a shop clerk and reposition myself so I can peer over her shoulder. I’ve already seen the bulge in his jacket, and it’s clear from the size and shape that he has a holstered gun. Now my eyes are quickly scanning, hoping to find a law enforcement badge clipped to his belt. I’m in a local bookstore and there’s a sticker near the door asking patrons not to carry weapons on the premises. My two children scurried off the moment we entered, each in search of their own treasures. The man with the weapon is as interested with the bookstore…