They sent 50 Log Cabin Republicans in MAGA hats to heckle a Black female musician.
Journalist who has covered pretty much everything, which is why one day my memoir will be called “Cheese and Basketball: Stories From a Reporter Who Has Covered Everything.” Writing about girls' and women's sports in Iowa at https://janeburns.substack.com
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They sent 50 Log Cabin Republicans in MAGA hats to heckle a Black female musician.
I thought of you when I was there. I was there for an assignment and met somebody at a coffee shop across the street from there. I noticed that when I parked my car and was sad.
I was once contacted by one of the tabloids who wanted to interview me when Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore were a couple. I had profiled him when he was an Iowa kid just making it big. I was salty enough to respond “Why would I want to do that?” He was nice to me. His mom was nice to me. Easy no.
Isn’t it beautiful? All thanks to Charlotte Berdan of Fairfax, Minnesota
Ames, Iowa: I have many ideas that I regret not getting to. One is working with my photog pals and create a book of newspaper building images, new and historical. The industry wasn’t in trouble when I had the idea, but many papers were beginning to leave antiquated facilities for modern ones.
“I was so mad I almost said something” - a favorite thing my friend’s mom always used to say. Good for you.
Seems bad for our society when you can’t make racist terrorists the villains
With Sandy Brondello out, Cheryl Reeve has officially been on the job longer than every other WNBA coach combined. Cheryl Reeve's tenure: 5768 days Every other WNBA coach combined: 4529 days
I know antifa isn't a real organization because I don't get 40 texts a week from them asking for donations.
If you think Tylenol is bad for children, wait until you find out about guns.
Republicans control the House, Senate, the Supreme Court, and the Presidency.
Today I discovered my commute to work is Frozen Love long if I hit the lights right. That is much better than a years-ago commute that was MacArthur Park original version long. I only knew that because when I left work an old Casey Kasem countdown was on and for some reason he played that song.
As CNN offers daylong saturation coverage of the podcaster’s funeral, I went back and checked to see how CNN covered Melissa Hortman’s memorial on 6/28, where Walz spoke and Biden/Harris attended. It got about four minutes during the hours it was happening—less than Jeff Bezos’s wedding that day.
Cheryl Reeve's tenure with the Lynx: 5766 days The tenure of every other WNBA coach combined: 5862 days
Hardly a feel-good day for Wisconsin sports, but the Milwaukee Brewers are National League Central champions for a third straight year.
Boy the world misses Sinead
Pope Leo in homily at St. Anne Church in Vatican City: “Whoever seeks justice, turns wealth into a common good, but whoever seeks domination turns the common good into the prey of their own greed." www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...
Today is the 52nd anniv of the Battle of the Sexes. And while that event was seismic, I think the entirety of Billie Jean King’s 1973 year was a model of athlete activism that culminated on Sept 20. Here’s my piece for @texasmonthly.bsky.social from 2 years ago: www.texasmonthly.com/arts-enterta...
It’s coming Pulitzer winner @artcullen.bsky.social new book. Check out this review by Lyle Mueller in the The Gazette www.thegazette.com/books/book-r...
I was 12 years old and that same day I got my ugly, clunky scoliosis back brace that probably should have made it an awful day but Billie Jean won and that made it the best day ever.
I dedicate today’s Spelling Bee to Kenny Rogers. And Lionel Richie. And the Little River Band. And Styx. And …
Our culture almost has a fetish about leadership. There are leadership degrees, leadership academies, commercials on TV where little kids say’, ‘I am a leader because blah blah blah. ‘ There are a million books about leadership, there are seminars about leadership and yet we have no … leadership.
Oh yeah, Lone Justice, too. I was really excited about seeing them. There were some teenage girls in front of me going crazy for the new band that played their one hit, “Runaway” very early in the day. It was Bon Jovi. I said they could borrow my binoculars and they looked at me like I was God.
There are artists I don’t remember seeing because by prime time I was up on a bleacher seat in the stadium sleeping. Many of my favorites, like X and the Blasters, played very early in the day. As did Loretta, Emmylou and Lou Reed, who still can’t believe was there.
I was there, not for work, but with my friends and we were all young enough to get done with our copy desk jobs at 2 am and drive the 6 hours to Champaign, stop for breakfast and go to the show.
When the first Farm Aid happened, I was just starting out at the Des Moines Register. The farm crisis was a huge story for the paper and so was Farm Aid. We sent at least 5 reporters, the Register editor, 2 photogs and sponsored a train to Champaign to take 500 people to the event
Happy Oh My God This Is Finally Being Re-released Day to all who celebrate www.npr.org/2025/07/29/n...
So I’m sitting at a bar waiting for some food to go and everyone is watching the Fever-Dream game, men and women, knowledgeable fans. Then there’s one guy spouting all the dude troll talking points (no one cares without Caitlin, etc) and the whole bar is shutting him down. It’s so beautiful.
At Harpers fucking FERRY?? wchstv.com/news/local/h...
This is very good www.freedomforum.org/canceled-com...
We’re like five minutes away from Jeopardy! being canceled because it had a category of the Civil War that featured correct answers
I mean I totally would have gotten tickets if the tour came here, it’s not like I’m bitter about that (and they had hedged enough in their “last tour” news), I just wasn’t going to travel for it
As short as it is, I love Shetland’s.
X is my favorite band of all, and I knocked myself out to see them on the last tour, planned a whole vacation around it, and when this one was announced, I made no effort. I’m not saying that is why, I’m just offering my experience.
Kimmel didn’t even really say anything negative about Kirk. He noted the cynical and almost giddy exploitation of the killing by right-wing propagandists, absolutely accurately, and in gentler terms than I would have used.
Notice it’s the comedians they are coming for. The ones whose work can really cut. Mockery is one of the most effective tools against authoritarianism.
This is absolutely batshit insane. Corporations are aiding and abetting an authoritarian president and demolishing free speech while that same president and his party hypocritically claim to be free-speech champions. ABC is supine in the face of absurd bullying.
“Because he was a civilian with no connection to the team or football” should be good enough! What a fucking weird, awful, confusing, frustrating time we live in.
New meme just dropped
This👇
Also I dearly miss LA Weekly, Mpls’ City Pages, the print City Paper in DC and of course the Village Voice. Long live the Chicago Reader.
For many years I’ve been a contributor to @isthmusmadison.bsky.social in Madison, proudly so. The pandemic nearly killed them but persevered and were reborn as a nonprofit monthly. But I still say I write for the ‘alt weekly’ because that phrase means something, even when it’s monthly.
Forget ‘OK Computer,’ the world needs to make “maybe computers” a thing. For everyone except Jeff Hiller, of course
Today in 1963, 4 young girls are killed by white racists as a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL: Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson & Carol Denise McNair. Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words lead to hateful actions.
There’s a high school across the street from where I get my morning pastry and tea (the back of the school) and every day there’s kids out there practicing something-marching band, flag team, etc. Today it’s runners doing laps with the theme from Rocky on the PA
Maybe I’ll sign my Christmas cards that way.
Joel!!!
What happens when you get one Petersen twin playing against the other (and Mom as coach) when UNI - Northern Iowa - plays Louisville? This is what you get.
Like, you can buy a newspaper or magazine without having to commit to a subscription that you’ll have to rassle a rep on another continent to cancel. I want a digital equivalent of a news stand
There needs to be some way. I think some people are willing to pay … something but don’t want to go through the whole business of handing over credit card info for an entire subscription that is hell to cancel, jus to read one story. Some kind of digital news stand.
I hope nobody finds my tweets about how the Bears suck and sends them to my employer demanding my termination for speaking ill of the dead
And there were garlic bulbs over the interior doors of our cottages.
This is where we stayed. It was all-inclusive like Jamaica but was Transylvania. Day tours, meals, everything was included for what then was an immensely reasonable if not inexpensive (relatively speaking) price. transylvaniancastle.com
Best vacation I ever took in my life was to Transylvania, we stayed at cottages owned and operated by the count quoted in this story. It was when then-Prince Charles would visit back then (we went in 2008, I think) wapo.st/4mc2aJV
Scrummy!
So many people I know got their start in journalism on those Friday night. My current boss/publisher either replaced or was replaced by Tommy Birch in that job. I know when I was FT on the copy desk I got at least 3 younger J-school students I know that gig. That launched them too
Politics have no place in Football so it was unacceptable for Colin Kaepernick to peacefully take a knee to protest systemic racism, but the NFL proudly held a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk because we must honor a man who denied systemic racism even exists. This is America.
Forget whatever show Peacock is doing right now, the true comedy would be to set a show in a newspaper sports department on a Friday night in like the 1980s or 1990s
We also had a sports part-timer who used to always type in Anguish Valley instead of English Valley and I let it through for about a year and would just change it myself, because it was more fun to read that every Friday night than it was to correct him.
Some sporty knowledgeable mischief makers, I forget who but I once knew, called a game in to the Register between St. Michael of Henderson and SEC of Taylor. I totally forget who told me that, but I will never forget it for the rest of my life.
I was just listening to Fisherman’s Blues today. I wish I’d planned better, I’d have headed for the Twin Cities
On the opening night of this tournament, Creighton is playing Louisville right now on FS1. Northern Iowa and Louisville face off tomorrow. Excellent volleyball here in the heartland beyond those Cornhuskers.
Truckers!
This weekend when Northern Iowa volleyball coach Bobbi Petersen takes her team to Omaha for a tournament, she’ll be coaching one daughter and coaching against the other. Oh, and they’re twins. My latest Substack. open.substack.com/pub/janeburn...
The not he
People made fun of he Chris Gaines thing but I always thought it was a ballsy thing to do. Not a lot of risk-takers in his lane, I can respect that
Unrivaled is expanding in its second season, adding two new teams. It is also adding a pool of development players. As it grows in size, it will also be on a 4th night of TV. More details ⬇️ www.nytimes.com/athletic/661...
Imagine that!
I love eating an apple that tastes like I just picked it off a stranger's tree as I cut through their yard on the way home from school.
President Lincoln on Friday night arrived for a viewing of a play at Ford's theater, a rare journey outside the White House. The night was marred by a mishap in which a famed actor broke his leg on stage.
I kind of want to ponder who I’d be marrying if I married whoever was my boss when I was 24 but my brain won’t let me
It’s just so nuts
www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/s...
South Korea followed US immigration law. The US based Hyundai employers followed US immigration law. The immigrant workers at SC Hyundai plant followed immigration law. And ICE fascists raided them anyway. It was never about “coming here legally.” It was always about advancing white nationalism.
I crocheted Patti Smith’s Horses cover
Good news: After years of limbo due to music rights issues, “China Beach” is streaming for the first time. Bad news: It’s on a new streaming service no one has ever heard of before called Howdy, which costs $2.99 a month. collider.com/china-beach-...
Several years ago I decided that would be a super cool job. Now I really really do
Yes! An important lesson in news media literacy, too. What's the difference between the WSJ news pages and, say, Newsmax or Gateway Pundit? Because the WSJ's entire reputation (and value to its owners) is that it doesn't print something unless it knows, beyond doubt, that it is true.
“There’s no current dialogue taking place right now,” Unrivaled's Alex Bazzell said about discussions with Caitlin Clark. But he added, “Everyone knows that we want the best players. Everyone knows that if they’re interested, we always have spots.” More⬇️
Lots of places sell women's sports shirts these days, but you know who was there at the beginning? @raygunsite.com in Des Moines. It was fun to talk with owner/founder Mike Draper about the niche his fun shirt/merch shop jumped on as soon as NIL became a thing. janeburns.substack.com/p/raygun-is-...
I was trying to described this show to a co-worker the other day
The El Paso wing of the Burns Family will appreciate that
👇
Maya Moore just made me cry with her Hall of Fame speech. Seek it out when it goes online. And I pity the inductee who has to follow that.
And it’s not even on CBS anymore
That Tiffany engraving dude wishes he had a nice short name like Chris Evert to bang out in a hurry. #usopen
There’s not a single Republican lawmaker with the basic civic decency to say this is fundamentally wrong. History will condemn each and every one of them.
The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents. In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.
They were already talking to Caitlin Clark and her family in her sophomore year and close to making a deal. My favorite bit: "All of a sudden they called and said, 'Nike is going to print the jerseys for us.' All we could say was, 'That's pretty awesome, you should stick with that.'"
Lots of places sell women's sports shirts these days, but you know who was there at the beginning? @raygunsite.com in Des Moines. It was fun to talk with owner/founder Mike Draper about the niche his fun shirt/merch shop jumped on as soon as NIL became a thing. janeburns.substack.com/p/raygun-is-...
Wow, it's a beautiful dam day
I am sitting in a coffee shop laughing out loud
A day later I can reveal the puzzles without giving anything away. Crazy.
"Some believe there is a plan to privatize VOA. Others think the explanation is simpler. Some MAGA acolytes…simply don't believe that the U.S. should have any kind of soft power. Others like and admire Russian President Vladimir Putin's regime."
Not a great sign when the NRA is doing more to speak up against trans people having constitutional rights stripped away than a lot of our actual supposed allies are.
If you are ever talking about beer into your phone, know that Leinenkugel will be ‘line on Google.’
