And then I wrote...

... that it is time for another rant in my continuing love-hate relationship with The Des Moines Register, the newspaper which has been delivered to this address since 1945.
The Register has announced it is going to grow by several pages from its anemic status today, which should be good news. But when I read of the plans, the word which inserted itself into my brain was “boilerplate.” In the late 1880s and into the early 1900s, small community newspapers had difficulty gathering enough local news to fill more than a few pages, and so subscribed to a national source which sent a four-page boilerplate broadsheet, two pages pre-printed with national and international news. The local paper added two pages of its own news to make up the four-page section.
The Register apparently is going to get eight pages each day of national and international news produced by USA Today, and two pages of sports, at least.
But the Register says it is also challenged to produce more and deeper local news that is “unbiased.”
For the Register to claim fair and balanced is about as believable as coming from FOX News or MSNBC.
Case in point, but at least with the common decency of putting it in the Opinion section this time, was a comparison of Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin economies. No surprise: Liberalism is good; conservatives are bad. Democrats are good. Republicans are bad. Increased government spending is good. Smaller government is bad.
Based on what? Minnesota has greater job growth, greater population growth, higher average income, and higher quality of life than Iowa and Wisconsin. Why? Apparently because Minnesota has a Democrat as governor and Democrats in the legislature. Wisconsin comes in last because it voted all Republicans to office. Iowa is in between with a GOP governor but only one legislative majority.
I was waiting for the editors to note that Minnesota also has more than twice as many people, with 1.4 million in Hennepin County (Minneapolis) and half a million in “Twin” city St. Paul’s Ramsey County alone. Comparison? Maybe 400,000 in Polk County (Des Moines) Iowa.
There are 15 colleges and universities in the Twin Cities area. What? Five in Des Moines?
Minnesota has Lake Superior and its famous 10,000 other lakes, many of them deep water natural lakes, for tourists. Iowa can counter with, what, Lake Rathbun? Lake McBride? Coralville reservoir? Minnesota earns $42.6 billion from mining operations. Iowa has some rock quarries.
Minnesota has a $4 million commercial lake fishing business. How many are left on the Mississippi River in Iowa?
Some places are just more favored location-wise than others. Politics has and had nothing to do with that.
And, I will bet it costs less to buy a house or rent an apartment in Waukon than in suburban Twin Cities.