Douglas Burns

Nov 17, 2024 | theiowamercury.substack.com | Douglas Burns

I am Dave. If you are online at all, you are Dave. We all are. Human editors, real ones, survive at near-extinction levels. Seeing one at work these days is like watching a bald eagle glide a river canyon, one diving majestically for fish, the other for truth. For the algorithm is God, we jack-jumped over the singularity, the melding of man and machine, into unwitting roles as the helpless astronaut, Dr. David Bowman, in the movie "2001; A Space Odyssey.""I'm sorry, Dave.

Nov 4, 2024 | theiowamercury.substack.com | Douglas Burns

At Ford’s Theatre Center for Education and Leadership in Washington, D.C., visitors encounter a overwhelming visual — a 34-foot tower of books written about Abraham Lincoln, 6,800 titles representing well under just half of the 15,000 volumes published on the Great Emancipator. So it seems something of a fool’s errand to pluck just one of these books — as if in a game of Jenga.

Oct 23, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Bill Bumgarner |Laura Belin |Bill Brauch |Douglas Burns

Bill Bumgarner is a retired former health care executive from northwest Iowa who worked in hospital management for 41 years, predominantly in the state of Iowa. I live in a region of Iowa where about 68 percent of voters cast their ballot for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. Naturally, that overwhelming majority included many of my friends, neighbors, and those with whom I’ve joined to help enhance our community.

Oct 19, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Bill Brauch |Douglas Burns |Laura Belin |Jeff Ewoldt

Bill Brauch is a retired Iowa lawyer. He served as an Assistant Iowa Attorney General from 1987 to 2015, and was Director of the Consumer Protection Division of the Attorney General’s office from 1995 until 2015. He is a 1987 graduate, with distinction, of the University of Iowa College of Law. He is presently chair of the Polk County Democrats.

Oct 18, 2024 | bleedingheartland.com | Douglas Burns |Laura Belin |Jeff Ewoldt |Randy Evans

Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa journalist. He is the co-founder of the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation and a member of the Iowa Writers’ Collaborative, where this article first appeared on The Iowa Mercury newsletter. His family operated the Carroll Times Herald for 93 years in Carroll, Iowa where Burns resides. There’s not supposed to be any crying in politics. Only sometimes there is. My own tears, even.