What Hath God Wrought?

Mandingo, thus spoken in the third person here, travelled down to Iowa last weekend. While eating at Battle's Bar-BQ on Welch Avenue in Ames he picked up City View, a self-serious weekly arts and culture rag that originates in DesMoines. In it, he found that only two places in Iowa really save the blessed state from becoming a "cultural backwater"...Ames, of course, and Iowa City (Ankeny, has struggled mightily to become the third cultural ferment). Today, God smote IC with a rash of tornadoes and the world is a little bit colder, a little bit quieter. One person died, and one girl spent the ordeal in a telephone booth--inside her sorority house. [cnn]