I’m new here. But my posts will get shorter and more entertaining with time. Promise.

When I moved from Philly to Iowa City a few months ago, I knew things would be different. More corn and affordable rental properties; less grit and minorities. As somebody who likes minorities (and does not like corn), I knew this would take some adjusting. One thing I was looking forward to, in a weird way, was the local Iowa tv news. As I remember Philly news, more often than one would like there was a murder in some neighborhood that I had never heard of and had no plans to set foot in. I was expecting Iowa news to be a welcome change–all about little league and pie auctions. (As an aside, when I was visiting potential colleges for undergrad, the crime report in the Smith campus newspaper was made up entirely of students getting locked out of their rooms and of a dead squirrel that somebody called the police(?) to remove.) Instead, I moved here when the city was on the verge of record breaking flooding. By the time I got here the local tv channels were on 24-hour flood coverage. So I rolled up my sleeves, did some sandbagging, and watched the waters rise on tv.

Long and sad story short, the floods were very bad, but the town and university are in the process of recovering and after a good month of flood devstation and recovery news, I was in the mood for some feel good, grandma-turned-100 local news stories.

But then, earlier this month, some weird news. A tenured and apparently well-respected political science professor was put on paid leave after being accused of offering A’s in exchange for sexual favors. Four girls came forward, one of them supposedly had email evidence against him. To keep with the literary interests of this blog, he emailed her that “A lasting memory of a lovely Monet cannot be formed in 20 seconds.” Which sounds romantic compared to another quote: “girls in New Orleans do it all the time just for beads and that her grade was on the line.” Ick.

Anyway, gross, and the university president responds with a bunch of new programs to make extra-super-sure that everybody news sexual harassment is wrong, etc. Until a few days later, when he is all over the news again. He went missing. Left a note that may or may not be a suicide note. He had bought a rifle. And was last seen in the parking lot of a local park early in the morning. So schools were put into lockdown mode for a few hours while the police combed the park. They didn’t find him.

So did he take off? Yes! His passport was recently removed from his safety deposit box. No! They found the passport in his house. The police give up looking in the park, the call off the cadaver dogs, send the helicopters away, and open the park to the public. And 2 days later a hiker (admittedly, one that set out looking) found the dead professor in the park.

Which makes me feel kind of weird. The charges have been dropped–it will never be investigated if he actually did what he was accused of. No doubt I am completely against “boobs-for-grades” (as The Onion put it)–but what if these girls made it up? It’s happened before, I’ve seen the movies. In any case, it’s not like he deserved to die. Even if the only things I know about him are pretty sleezy. And I am pretty disturbed that the police would open a park to the public when they are pretty sure there is a dead body in it.

So what I’m getting at, is that I miss the boring local news. I know there is a Labor Day tradition here called the “Doggie Paddle”–after the public pools are closed for the season they open them up for dogs to swim in them for the day. All I want is full, multimedia coverage of that. With lots of close-ups of the fluffy little white ones.