"Terse and funny and dry as a dead Iowa corn snake baking in the sun. Palecek delivers a quick, deadpan slap to reactionary, mindless post-9/11 America. The sting is delightful."

— Mark Morford, columnist, San Francisco Chronicle

Mike Palecek was a peace prisoner in the 1980's, serving time in county jails and federal prisons for civil disobedience at Offutt Air Force Base.

During the 1990s he was a reporter for small-town newspapers in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota. The small newspaper Ruth and Mike owned in southeast Minnesota was named the Newspaper of the Year for 1994 by the Minnesota Newspaper Association.