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Carrie Underwood Gives Up CMA Award Hosting Gig

Posted on by Bob Ballard

Carrie Underwood has hosted her last CMA Awards (for now). The singer announced on social media that after 12 years she is giving up the gig.

“One of the highlights of 2019 and of my entire career so far was being on stage with the legends that are Reba and Dolly Parton,” Carrie shared on Instagram. “I’m so proud that we could celebrate the incredible female artists that are part of the legacy of country music, past, present and future, and I’m thankful for the huge audiences all over the world that tuned in to see it.”

She adds, “It’s hard to believe that it was my 12th year hosting and I will always treasure every show,” noting, “It’s hard to imagine topping what we have accomplished together, so I’ve decided that it’s time to pass the hosting torch (at least for now!) to others that will cherish it and honor it as much as I do.”

Finally, Carrie, who hosted the show for 11 years with Brad Paisley ahead of he 2019 show, shares, “I’ve got so many exciting things coming in the new year and beyond, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for all of us.”

 

2020 Watch: Messy primary finally meets election year

Posted on by Rick Watts

By BILL BARROW

ATLANTA (AP) — The presidential politics calendar turned to 2020 nearly a year ago. This week, the actual date catches up. What we’re watching as the preseason closes and election year opens:

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Days to Iowa caucuses: 35

Days to general election: 309

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THE NARRATIVE

The ups, downs and swerves of 2019 yielded a stable top slate. Former Vice President Joe Biden leads most national polls of Democratic primary voters, with Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts within striking distance. Yet in the first caucus state of Iowa and the first primary state of New Hampshire, there’s a jumble of Biden, Sanders, Warren and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana. At first glance, it’s a clean choice: Biden and Buttigieg hail from the center-left; Warren and Sanders come from the progressive left. Reality is more layered. All four have weaknesses within Democrats’ diverse electorate; each makes a different case for carrying the banner against President Donald Trump, who is now impeached but a near certainty to survive a Senate trial. If that’s not enough indecision, several wildcards — including two billionaires — still hope to scramble the contest.

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THE BIG QUESTIONS

Money: Who can (sort of) compete with Michael Bloomberg’s wallet?

The fourth-quarter fundraising period ends Tuesday. Warren and Sanders set the early curve for grassroots donations, outpacing Buttigieg and Biden, who tap traditional deep-pocketed contributors in addition to online donors. Now those small-donor juggernauts must compete with former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s used a share of his estimated $50 billion personal fortune to blanket television and digital advertising and build an expansive staff in Super Tuesday states. For his rivals, it’s not so much about keeping up; Bloomberg can easily outspend every other campaign, including that of fellow billionaire Tom Steyer. But there’s only so much television time for sale, and if Warren and Sanders want to plow big money into Super Tuesday, especially the expensive television markets of California, they’ll need as much cash as possible ahead of time. Biden, meanwhile, has already secured his best fundraising quarter (a relative comparison for a candidate who’s lagged other top-tier contenders). The question is whether Biden’s “best” mollifies establishment Democrats who waved red flags when he reported having less than $9 million on hand at September’s end.

Money, Part II: How long can Cory Booker keep going?

The year-end deadline is critical for New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker as he reaches for relevance. The last of two African American candidates (along with former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick), Booker made a do-or-die money appeal in September, and it worked. But it’ll take more than scraping by to fund the turnaround he envisions: a surprise finish in overwhelmingly white Iowa to kick-start a dramatic rise in more diverse primary states that follow (Barack Obama’s 2008 path). Campaigns that hit big fundraising numbers tend to leak that news before Federal Election Commission filings are due. Candidates with bad news tend to wait. So, it bears watching how Booker’s team plays it to start January.

Is Amy Klobuchar being overlooked in Iowa?

Those previously mentioned Iowa and New Hampshire jumbles omit Amy Klobuchar. But the Minnesota senator is plugging away in both states. She just hit her 99th Iowa county (that’s all of them), demonstrating her effort to use complex caucus rules that can reward candidates with a wide geographic footprint. Notably, Klobuchar’s strategy tracks Biden. Both aim for a more consistent appeal across 1,679 precincts than Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg muster on Feb. 3. The question becomes how many precincts give both Biden and Klobuchar the minimum 15% support required to count toward delegates. Anyone who doesn’t hit that viability mark drops from subsequent ballots, their backers going up for grabs. Biden’s Iowa hopes depend in part on picking up moderates on realignment votes (read: Klobuchar and Buttigieg supporters). If Klobuchar is as strong as she hopes to be, she could turn that strategy around on Biden, driving him below viability and attracting his supporters on later ballots. Biden returns to Iowa this week for another bus tour, though not as lengthy as his eight-day jaunt after Thanksgiving.

Is Sanders a true contender this time?

Sanders lost the 2016 nomination because of Hillary Clinton’s advantage among non-white Democrats. Since then, Sanders has deepened his ties among Latinos, African Americans and other non-whites. Warren and Buttigieg are still chasing that success. Sanders’ advisers believe the senator is well-positioned to challenge Biden among non-whites if he’s able to build early momentum in New Hampshire and Iowa, where Sanders will spend New Year’s Eve. If they’re right, that would open avenues to delegates Sanders didn’t get in 2016.

Is Trump’s position improving?

The president has never been popular judged in a vacuum. In 2016, he won GOP primaries with pluralities and lost the general election popular vote. As president, he’s never reached majority job approval in Gallup’s polling. But he’s still hovering in the 40s, not far from where his immediate predecessors were 11 months before winning second terms. Impeachment proceedings haven’t affected Trump’s standing. Meanwhile, the same Democratic-run House that impeached him approved his new North America trade pact. Top-line economic numbers shine, even if the on-ground reality is uneven. And Trump could be on the cusp of a peace deal in Afghanistan after the Taliban ruling council on Sunday agreed to a temporary cease-fire. As frenetic as Trump’s messaging is, he proved in 2016 that he relishes framing binary choices for voters, and he’s more than convinced he has a case in 2020.

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THE FINAL THOUGHT

Most voters are just tuning into a presidential race that’s raged for a year. They’ll find a Democratic contest featuring stark options on policy and personality, but lacking an undisputed favorite. Candidates are navigating primary politics: dancing along the progressive-liberal-moderate spectrum and carefully choosing when to go after each other. At the same time, Trump dominates the 2020 narrative, a fact demonstrated most recently as Biden spent two days talking about whether he’d testify in a Senate trial on Trump’s removal from office. It’s untidy enough for Trump’s reelection campaign to boast confidence and some Democrats to fret openly. History suggests, however, that all observers should respect the volatility. Indeed, incumbent presidents are difficult to beat. (Eight out of the last 11 who sought reelection won). But when they do lose, it’s nearly always to a challenger who emerged from the opposition party’s messy, even chaotic primary. Democrats’ chaos is just getting warmed up.

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2020 Watch runs every Monday and provides a look at the week ahead in the 2020 election.

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Follow Barrow at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP

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Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, “Ground Game.”

Another All-American honor for Karlie Taylor

Posted on by Rick Watts

Another honor for University of Northern Iowa volleyball player Karlie Taylor.  The former EBF standout was named fourth team All-American by volleyball mag dot com.  Taylor was the Missouri Valley Conference’s player of the year this past season after totaling 565 kills.  She also has over 1700 kills for her career, which puts her third on UNI’s career list.

On National Bacon Day, reflecting on Iowa’s role in bacon production

Posted on by Rick Watts

BY 

This is National Bacon Day and Iowa plays a key role in providing the 1.1 billion servings of bacon consumed in the U.S. this year.

Iowa is the number one pork-producing state. Nearly one-third of the nation’s hogs are raised here. According to the Iowa Pork Producers, there are about 22 million pigs being raised in Iowa today.

According to the National Pork Board, seven out of 10 U.S. restaurants have bacon on the menu either as a breakfast item or incorporated in some other dish.

Survey looks for mudpuppies on Upper Cedar River

Posted on by Rick Watts

BY 

An Iowa DNR specialist who is studying mudpuppies on the Mississippi River is also involved in a separate study of the slimy creatures in the Upper Cedar River from the Minnesota state line to the dam in Nashua.

Fisheries technician, Kevin Hanson, says this study came about because of the muddpuppy connection as the host for the salamander mussel larva. “We’re working on a joint wildlife grant project with Minnesota — and its because of the rich mussel bed that’s in the Upper Cedar River — and the potential to reintroduce the salamander mussel to that area, because it is really good habitat,” Hanson says.

The mudpuppy is Iowa’s largest and only fully aquatic salamander. “You can’t have the salamander mussel without mudpuppies — so they asked me to go over and try to find mudpuppies in the Upper Cedar to see if there would be hosts for salamander mussels in the future,” according to Hanson.

He says the mudpuppies can be elusive. “We’ve gotten reports from anglers that they’ve seen them — but we haven’t been able to trap them. So, we really don’t know what the population is like there,” he says. Hanson says mussels are an important part of ecosystems and can help clean the water or let them know if the water is too dirty.

“Certain species aren’t as tolerant of polluted or dirty water and so you won’t find those in habitat and water quality that isn’t very good,” Hanson explains. “And to a certain extent, that can be a problem with mudpuppies as well. I think what we see is they need good stable, rocky habitat that doesn’t silt in. If it silts in they don’t survive. So, mudpuppies are also a good indicator of water quality and habitat.”

He asks anglers across the state to help out if they see mudpuppies. “If anybody catches them, we always like to hear about places where people see them, because it gives us new areas where we haven’t maybe seen them before,” Hanson says.

The project began in 2017 and they hope to extend it to 2021.

Eli Young Band Isn’t A Fan Of New Year’s Resolutions

Posted on by Bob Ballard

Eli Young Band’s Mike Eli isn’t one for making New Year’s resolutions, noting he’s “not a big fan” of them.

“I feel as if, like they all happen all at once and all these changes come in and everything needs to be all this new, new, new come January,” he says. “And I feel like, it’s just like setting up for failure and so I have a really hard time with that.”

Not that Mike doesn’t like to make changes each year, either it’s “changing the set lists, or moving around the shows, or coming up with new ideas,” although he says he tries to make sure that happens before the first of the year.

 

 

Eric Church Writes Forward Of Songwriter Friend’s Novel

Posted on by Bob Ballard

Eric Church has written the forward of the novel “The DeVine Devils,” which was written by his good friend, Jeremy Spillman, who’s a songwriter who co-wrote the title track to 2006 debut album “Sinners Like Me.”

“Writing songs with someone is a creatively intimate process. You get to know someone at an inspirationally cellular level — what their fears are, their hopes, shortcomings, failures, triumphs, and dreams. The most important thing you get a glimpse at, though, is a person’s imaginative soul,” Eric writes. “I’ve written amazing songs with Jeremy Spillman — some you’ve heard, some you haven’t — but all were equally unique and special in their own way,” adding, “That’s just the kind of writer Jeremy is.”

Eric admits that he’s what you’d call a “book snob,” but says of the book, “I very simply loved it,” adding, “I’m thankful Jeremy wrote it, and I’m thankful he shared it with me and with the world. We are all better off for it.”

Source: CMT

 

This day in 1977: Dolly Parton gets her first gold album

Posted on by Bob Ballard

Today in 1977, Dolly Parton earned the first gold album of her career with, “Here You Come Again.”

Here You Come Again is the nineteenth solo studio album by Dolly Parton. It was released on October 3, 1977, by RCA Victor. It was Parton’s first album to be certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for shipping a million copies.

The album peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Country LPs chart and No. 20 on the US Billboard 200 chart. In Canada, the album peaked at No. 12 on the RPM Canadian Albums chart.

The album’s first single, “Here You Come Again”, was released in October 1977 and peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles chart, No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on the US Billboard Easy Listening chart. In Canada, the single peaked at No. 1 on the RPM Canadian Country Singles chart, No. 7 on the RPM Canadian Singles chart and No. 1 on the RPM Canadian Easy Listening chart. In Australia, the single peaked at No. 10 on the ARIA Top 100 Singles chart. The single also peaked a No. 75 on the OCC UK Singles Chart.

In February 1978, “Two Doors Down” and “It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right” were issued as a double A-side single, aimed at the pop and country charts respectively. The version of “Two Doors Down” issued on the single was recorded by Parton in January 1978 and features a more pop sound than the album version. It would replace the original album version on all subsequent pressings of the album. “Two Doors Down” peaked at No. 19 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 12 on the US Billboard Easy Listening chart. In Canada, the single peaked at No. 26 on the RPM Canadian Singles chart and No. 7 on the RPM Canadian Easy Listening chart. “It’s All Wrong, But It’s All Right” peaked at No. 1 on both the US Billboard Hot Country Singles chart and the RPM Canadian Country Singles chart.

In April 1980, “Me and Little Andy” was released as a single in the UK and it did not chart.

Source: Wikipedia

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