Categories
Writing

A Spring Journey Home

On the state park trail.

Songbirds are arriving: sparrows, cardinals, blue jays, crows, woodpeckers, and more. In winter, geese dominated the lakes. Some remain year-round, but now they are joined by pelicans, gulls, and a variety of waterfowl moving through on the great migration. The number and variety of birds will grow in the weeks ahead. Spring is literally in the air.

This blog is where I write about Iowa, gardening, writing, politics, and whatever crosses my mind while walking on the state park trail.

This post is for new visitors. I have been writing a version of this blog since 2007, although older posts were taken off line in 2013. I post about whatever comes to mind, yet there will be some common themes this spring.

  • Until the June primary election, I’m filling in at Blog for Iowa. Each weekend I will cross-post those pieces here. They cover what I have been doing in the Democratic Party during the previous week, along with a special Iowa politics post on Sunday.
  • The ground is not ready for a shovel yet, but I’m planning a large garden. Some of my posts will be about that. I attempt to keep things different, and I’m beyond the standard photos of emerging plants and harvested produce. Growing food is one of life’s pleasures, and I’ve been doing it since the summer after my spouse and I married.
  • I also write about writing. Some of my most popular posts are when I take some current writing challenge and work my way through it.
  • Thousands of paper and digital photographs remain in shoeboxes and on the cloud. I started an archival process and write about it in a series called “A Life of Photos.”
  • I review things — books and events I attend, mostly. I also have an informal series called “We’re Going Home” in which I reflect on generational change caused by the death of people I know or who have had a profound effect on me.
  • I walk on the state park trail almost daily, usually at sunrise. Those walks give me time to think about issues, and some of those make it back to this blog.

I’ll be 75 years in December and I’m determined to make 2026 a productive year. Watch for it here.

If you’d like to know more, check the About page, located here.

Thanks for visiting. I hope you will find something and return often.

Categories
Living in Society

Nanny State — School Board Edition

West Branch School Board Member Mike Owen at a public meeting with Governor Terry Branstad.

The Ankeny Community School District defined SSA (State Supplemental Aid) as the cost of living adjustment for school budgets. “To keep pace with rising costs, SSA needs to at least match inflation. If it does not, we would need to thoughtfully consider our budgeting strategy and staffing plans,” according to their website. Each cycle public debate is whether the amount approved by Republicans meets Democratic expectations to support public schools. Mostly it does not and Iowa Republicans have been in the majority longer than kindergarten students have been alive. They have the votes to pass what they will.

Tuesday’s front page headline that Iowa City Schools were years behind in audits is not making the case for more money in SSA. While next year’s level of two percent was approved in February, the financial issues cast a cloud over the school board’s independence. Republicans with a mind to consolidate government operations at the state level might be salivating at the prospects manifest in this local failure.

When I was covering the Iowa City School Board for the North Liberty Leader newspaper, I had a personal relationship with their Chief Financial Officer, which I needed to write my stories. While the superintendent tried to maneuver him away from me, I usually got answers I needed. I spent decades in management at a large company and the district’s CFO was as good as any financial officer I have known. What happened, besides changing CFOs?

“The district’s most recent audit — completed two years after the end of that fiscal year — details corrective action needed, including previous district leadership not appearing to properly reconcile the district’s balance sheet,” according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. “What reconciliations were available contained unknown variances.”

During a board meeting this week (March 5), board member Jayne Finch asked interim Chief Financial Officer Kim Michael-Lee to describe the status of the district’s books “in a few words.” Michael-Lee responded: “Unbalanced, unreconciled,” according to KGAN, the local CBS affiliate.

It’s not a good look found in a financial records audit by an outside firm just before a vote on budget cuts.

At a March 10, meeting, the school board voted to table a proposed $7.5 million budget cut until district finances could be presented in reasonable order. Because of inaccurately applying property tax revenue to appropriate budget line items, board members were unclear as to whether they could meet financial demands, including bond obligations, by June 1.

This is all a long lead in to: WTF Iowa City? Applying revenue to accounts is boilerplate accounting. If you can’t balance the checkbook, you keep working until you figure it out. Basic incompetence calls attention to the problems and when they see a problem like this, elected officials may use the only plan in their playbook: consolidate authority for school board finances at the state level.

Here’s hoping the Iowa City Community School District straightens things out in a timely manner. Let’s not give Des Moines any reasons to make Iowa more of a nanny state.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

Boostered Before a Blizzard

Light on the state park trail before dawn.

On Wednesday I received a COVID-19 booster, and it knocked me down. I felt fine the rest of the day, but on Thursday I could barely stay awake. Even three days later, on Saturday, I was still feeling the aftereffects. Except for when I actually tested positive for the coronavirus, vaccinations had never felt this way. I was out in the yard Saturday and feeling better in the afternoon. Now a blizzard is on its way to eastern Iowa late Sunday.

I don’t think much about aging, yet signs are present. Some joints are stiffer, I need a new pair of glasses, I can’t run as well as I could. Let’s not get into my organs, yet they are changing, too. My sleep pattern is to bed early, sleep for 4-5 hours, then wake to read for an hour, and catch an additional 2 hours of light slumber. The vaccination had me sleeping through the night on Thursday, but I’m already back to the usual. A person can live with all of this. Acceptance is better than fighting it.

While at the pharmacy checking in for my shot, we discussed how the bill would be paid. By reviewing my medical records, I knew the billed cost is around $200. With billing computerization through Medicare and my supplemental insurance, the attendant could look it up on the spot. Insurance paid for all of it. Without insurance, I would likely have skipped it. If this were a reasonable country with healthcare for all, such concerns wouldn’t exist.

I checked with the household on provisions, and we can last through the blizzard. Goodness knows there is plenty of indoors work to be done, even if I would rather be outside. I wonder if less tolerance for cold temperatures is also related to aging. I wonder if I’m losing my hearing or just getting cranky. A week before spring, it’s likely some of each.

Categories
Living in Society

Conventions and Candidates

Hillary Clinton Delegates and Alternates at the Johnson County Democratic Convention March 12, 2016

My week in Iowa politics was about planning the county convention and finding a Democratic candidate to run for House District 91 and Senate District 46. One success and two failures.

At our precinct caucuses I volunteered to be on the committee on committees and attended the county-wide Zoom meeting. As in previous cycles, I volunteered for the Arrangements Committee where my background in transportation and logistics prepared me for anything that might happen. The co-chairs of the committee are great and the team put together what has the potential to be a valued convention. My first contribution was writing a paragraph about spreading contagious diseases for the convention booklet as follows:

Respiratory illnesses such as COVID-19 and influenza continue to circulate in our communities. To help reduce the risk of transmission, the Arrangements Committee will make face masks available at check-in for any attendee who wishes to use one.

I also volunteered to be an usher, directing people to designated sections of the seating area, to help set up and tear down, and be a general floater. We are almost ready with one week to go.

The search for candidates to run for the state house has been challenging. Because of a lack of interest in running for a seat currently occupied by a Republican, we have been seeking a person to prevent the Democratic ballot from being blank. In my experience, that’s not the best situation for voters or for candidates. While we are part of the so-called “liberal Johnson County,” our area has been trending Republican after twice voting for Obama as president and for Trump three times. I have been represented by a Republican House member beginning in 2013, and a Republican Senator after redistricting in 2023. Last cycle, no Democrat on the ballot was the top vote-getter.

In the 2022 Iowa Senate election, Republican Dawn Driscoll and Democrat Kevin Kinney duked it out in an expensive election to determine the future of the new district. The senate district leans Republican and Driscoll became our current senator, also defeating Democrat Ed Chabal in 2024. A few Democrats were kicking the tires on a run this year, yet no one is apparently collecting nominating petitions due yesterday.

Finding a Democrat to run in House District 91 has also been challenging. Elle Wyant ran in 2022, and Jay Gorsh in 2024. Both were great people who had commitments at work that held them from proper campaigning. As of the filing deadline, no one has stepped forward.

The secretary of state continues to review petition signatures and will release names once the paperwork has gone through the process. Click here to access the mot recent 2026 Primary Candidate list.

Even though the right candidate could beat Republicans in this district, after ten years of Bobby Kaufmann, and a new district favoring Republicans in 2022, I am resigned to work with Republicans to get anything done. My email contacts with my state senator and representative have been cordial and their responses quickly delivered. There is not much else to do if no Democrat will run.

Another local political issue took time this week: the event we are holding for Democratic candidates for county supervisor on March 28. Thanks to the Republican nanny state, we are electing supervisors in new districts instead of at large. The result is a slew of Democratic contenders to run against incumbents across the county. More on this next Saturday.

Keep working it, people. You know that’s the only way to win back our state!

Categories
Creative Life

A Life of Photos Part XIV

Digital camera with extra batteries, circa 2014.

Most of my cameras have been inexpensive. A half-dozen shoe boxes full of photographs sit in storage around the house. Until I began a photo-archiving project, they were seldom opened.

There is a Minolta SRT-101 single lens reflex camera tucked away in the suitcase I inherited from Grandmother along with other old photographic technology. When I used it at university, I developed a few prints myself, yet relied on commercial film processors, typically a drug store, because it was easy and inexpensive. I went digital in 2005 with my first mobile telephone — a flip phone — with a built-in camera. Now, most snapshots are taken with my smartphone, for which I bought a camera upgrade. Cheap snapshots would make do when professional photographers were for newspapers, politicians, artists and special occasions.

I’ve seen photographic technology come and go. What I thought were very cool cameras in the 1960s are now relics that belong in a museum or more likely the recycling bin. For the most part, we no longer use film. Instead, my smartphone takes digital photos and uploads them to the cloud without me doing anything after making initial settings. The days of new shoe boxes are over as I easily import images to my computer, and store, use, and backup files constantly.

When taking my first photographs in the 1960s, everything was printed. The rise of home computing during the mid-1990s changed how we take and store photos. The question soon arose about the long-term survival of digital photographs. Would the software used to create and store them remain available? Would formats such as bitmaps or *.pict files become obsolete? And what would happen to the images stored in them? Will family memories become inaccessible, unlike the way some daguerreotypes persist from the 19th Century? It’s one more thing to think about in 21st Century life.

I don’t print many photographs today, and when I do, I use a local outlet of national retailers like Walgreens. Now that I understand their process, I will be using them more to print some images that are important to telling my story. Most digital images will live online.

Old habits related to photo processing die hard, and in this case, resolve an open question about emerging technology over time. A printed photograph is something we can touch and feel—a small certainty in a world where so much of life exists only on screens.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

AI Peanut Butter Cookies

Peanut butter cookies made with a recipe created by artificial intelligence.

Suddenly there were three open jars of peanut butter in the house. I had to do something with them, and had been fancying a peanut butter cookie the way Mother used to make them. It started simply enough. I typed “Recipe for vegan peanut butter cookies” in the artificial intelligence chat box. It returned this recipe in a couple of seconds:

Vegan Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup creamy peanut butter
3/4 cup brown sugar (or coconut sugar)
1/4 cup plant milk (almond, soy, oat, etc.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a bowl, mix peanut butter and brown sugar until smooth.
Stir in plant milk and vanilla.
Add flour, baking soda, and salt and mix until a dough forms.
Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place on the baking sheet.
Press each with a fork in a crisscross pattern.
Bake 10–12 minutes until edges are lightly golden.

Let cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them.

Resisting a temptation to change the recipe, I made them and mentioned in my chat bot: “I tried. Cookies seemed heavy.”

In its “that can happen” way of hiding failure while attempting to placate me, it responded, “Vegan peanut butter cookies can easily turn out heavy or dense. A few small things usually cause it. Here are the most common fixes and a lighter recipe that tends to work better.” With all the large language modeling, couldn’t you have done something to deal with this before posting the recipe? No. AI can’t help itself.

Back and forth we went, refining the recipe I eventually wrote in the workbook with culinary experiments. I will bake them again before putting it in the permanent cookbook. Finally, I said what was on my mind:

To address texture issues, would I be better off to consult cookbooks that place this recipe in the context of a specific culinary culture, such as Regan Daley’s In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Baker’s Companion?

The chat bot immediately searched the internet, presumably to read Daley’s book before answering. There was no indication the machine was stunned by the threat of my leaving its environment to consult actual food authors on the same problem.

In what can only be described as a smarty-pants response, AI came up with this:

Yes — consulting a cookbook like In the Sweet Kitchen: The Definitive Guide to the Baker’s Pantry & Craft by Regan Daley is a very good idea, and your instinct about culinary context is sound. But there are actually two different kinds of cookbooks that solve texture problems, and they help in different ways.

I can’t say how much more I detest the word “but.” It went on to say my whole premise of “vegan peanut butter cookie” was a problem. It responded, “Your specific case (vegan peanut butter cookies) adds another layer.” Didn’t you know that from jump street, I thought.

Artificial intelligence displays little idea how we humans cook. If it were paired with a robot chef, the results could be generic and unsatisfying to the simplest palate.

Next time I’ll know to contact my sister and ask her if there is a copy of Mother’s recipe.

Categories
Reviews

Book Review: This House of Sky

This House of Sky: Landscapes of a Western Mind by Ivan Doig is exactly what the title suggests. Descriptions of the author’s rural Montana life are vivid in their presentation of the hard-scrabble ranching life in which Doig came up. Out of that challenging youth — farming, sheep herding, haying, rural community — he became a writer giving voice to western life.

“In my Montana upbringing, I had worked in a lambing shed, picked rock from grainfields, driven a power buckrake in haying time and a D-8 Cat pulling a harrow during summer fallowing and a grain truck at harvest, herded sheep, trailed sheep, cussed sheep — even dug a well by hand and whitewashed a barn –and now I didn’t seem to be finding other people who had done any of that,” Doig wrote in the introduction.

I worked eight years on a farm that raised lambs, although not on the scale of Doig’s Montana. It was an entry point into a life I hadn’t known existed. My experience provided me a way into This House of Sky that many readers might not have. Life experiences can be a form a literacy regardless of how many books we read.

My grandmother grew up in farming communities in Minnesota and Illinois, and could likely relate to the grandmother in the book. Working from a home, while isolated on a farm, took a lot of knowledge, skills, and energy. Such women literally made a home from almost nothing. While Grandmother did not read a lot of books, I might have persuaded her to read this one.

When This House of Sky was published in 1978, many Americans still had farm connections. Today, far fewer do as that knowledge of hand work was eclipsed by mechanization. Today people don’t harvest hay the same way Doig describes before he left home.

Is there a modern readership for the book?

While I brought farm experience to the book, other readers might bring something else. This book can meet readers where they live. Doig’s detailed description of Montana has many common hooks, including the arc of his’ father’s emphysema, the culture of nine bars and saloons in White Sulphur Springs, and the role of women and men in western society.

Whatever a reader brings to This House of Sky, there is a thoughtful world to explore and briefly inhabit.

Highly recommend.

Categories
Living in Society

Miles Toward Spring

At the Belvidere Oasis on March 6, 2026.

I listened to WBBM Newsradio on the drive into Chicago, just as I’ve done since the 1980s. The steady patter of headlines, weather, and traffic “on the eights” prepares you for the city — by the time the skyline is near, you’re already in tune with heavy traffic. That morning they were running a contest for tickets to Madama Butterfly at the Lyric Opera House, a bit of high culture drifting through the stream of brake lights, engine noise, and honking horns.

It had been a foggy morning, with Southwest Airlines canceling 113 flights, according to the radio. To bypass toll roads, my map application routed me through rural central Illinois, where farmers were already in the fields. Old-style telephone poles ran parallel to the highway, their double wires fading in and out of the fog. Beyond them lay tan and brown fields waiting for spring.

After reaching my destination in the western suburbs, my host put me directly to work assembling a piece of IKEA furniture. Once you learn to read the pictograms, the parts go together with ease.

It was spring-cleaning time, and I was there to help. After the IKEA project, I adjusted the rolling screen door leading to the patio, unpacked and sorted boxes of personal belongings, and helped assemble a shelving unit. It was a physically busy two days with our child near Chicago. By the time I got home, I was sore in places I didn’t know existed.

The best part of the trip was being with our child, sometimes talking and sometimes not. Working together on projects made the trip worthwhile.

After a day of driving and work, my hosts served a vegetarian curry for dinner. I enjoyed the table conversation — particularly the part about Chicago politics — and we covered how the work environment had changed and is changing. It creates a constant uncertainty, whether it is getting a resume format correct, social behavior at work, or diminished expectations for career advancement. As a member of the boomer generation, I took a bit of good-natured flak about how easy I had it. I didn’t argue. The work paradigm shifted.

I was up early the next day. The instant espresso in my travel bag helps in an unfamiliar place: I can make my own coffee while the household slumbers. The plan that day was a trip to buy groceries when Aldi opened.

Grocery shopping is different when a person doesn’t have a lot of money. When an item attracts interest, there is an immediate query into low-cost grocers like Walmart to compare prices. When the budget is tight, spending a few minutes cost-comparing is time well spent.

We wore face masks into the grocer. When money is tight, it is not worth the risk of exposure to influenza, COVID-19, or other human-transmitted diseases. Being sick means less time to earn income, and that matters.

After groceries were put away, we said our goodbyes and I got into the car — packed with boxes traveling with me into storage — and headed to the Jane Addams Memorial Tollway, westward bound. It is good to be with family, even if only a short while.

I stopped at the Belvidere Oasis which was busy and noisy with commercial drivers talking on Bluetooth devices. There was little social distance between us. I ate a large Caesar salad for lunch, then headed west.

It was raining when I started, yet the sky cleared toward the Mississippi River. WVIK Public Radio in Rock Island came into range, a marker of getting closer to home. Familiar miles passed quickly.

Entering Iowa, I turned off the radio and focused on the road ahead, taking in a landscape on the cusp of spring.

Categories
Living in Society

Local Roads, Local Decisions

Chip and seal road in Johnson County, Iowa.

The township where I live was established before Iowa Statehood. There were oak, walnut, hickory, ash, elm, and cottonwood thriving here among numerous pure springs. The first sawmill and grist mill was built in 1839 by Anthony Sells on Mill Creek. Put the big groves of trees together with the sawmill and you have us. The forests were long gone when we bought our lot here. What dominates the landscape is culture we and others brought with us to an area where all trees indigenous to this part of Iowa once existed in abundance yet no longer do. Part of that culture was roads.

HF2667 and SF2394 have been introduced in the Iowa Legislature. They essentially let industry interests, meaning real estate developers, the Master Builders, the Home Builders, and the Concrete and Asphalt Associations, mandate what cities and counties are allowed to do with regard to design standards for roads in new developments. On March 4, HF2667 passed in the House 61-36, so this week’s action is in the Iowa Senate.

The industry wants freedom to set very low road design standards. They want those standards to be uniform for all new development in the state. They want standards to ignore differing local conditions such as soil types and terrain.  If local governments wanted better local standards, taxpayers would have to foot the bill, not developers.  These bills are wrong for Iowa.

Iowa road design standards are currently developed by experts at the ISU Institute for Transportation. A proposed law would shift control of the program to the Iowa Department of Transportation. The bill would require statewide compliance and impose financial penalties for non-compliance, even when local governments make changes based on site-specific conditions. The fiscal note estimates the change would remove $450,000 in revenue from Iowa State University and require the DOT to hire two employees costing $231,000. Another concern is which private-industry representatives might serve on the new board overseeing the program.

If the new bills became law, that could enable developers to build subpar roads in new developments and prevent local governments from having control. It is part of the Republican agenda of making Iowa a nanny state.

Developers must address roads while planning a subdivision, at the same time accountants put a pencil to it and determine potential profit. Saving money on roads is part of extracting every last dime out of a project.  When low-quality roads break down, the cost is paid by  taxpayers and homeowners, not developers.

When our developer turned his farm into a housing subdivision, he didn’t know what he was doing. There was a lawsuit regarding wastewater treatment. He spent the least possible amount on our two miles of roads, using chip and seal pavement. Evidence of his lack of financial expertise can be found in his declaration of bankruptcy.

The building trades behind the new bills do know what they are doing: extracting every possible penny from a project for investors. If the bill passes, it would play right into their hands.

It’s time for a talk with your state senator to urge them to reject the bill. Here is a link to SF 2394. Here is how to contact your legislators

Iowa does not need a new road-design-standards system that is worse than what we have now.

Categories
Sustainability

War With Iran Without Congress

Talk to Iran.

On Monday I sent emails to U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst as well as to U.S. Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks on the subject of the U.S. aggression against Iran.

My message was simple: “I urge you to support the Kaine-Paul Senate resolution, S.J. Res. 104, the bipartisan war powers resolution that would prohibit strikes against Iran. Thank you for reading my message.” The email to Miller-Meeks referenced the House companion, the Massie-Khanna House resolution, H. Con. Res. 38.

The referenced resolutions are also simple: “Directing the President pursuant to section 5(c) of the War Powers Resolution to remove United States Armed Forces from unauthorized hostilities in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The vote was scheduled for Wednesday in the Senate and the votes for a simple majority were not there. The House also voted no. Now what?

Senator Grassley responded on March 6, 2026. Read his response here.

I reject the Iowa Republican position exemplified by gubernatorial candidate Brad Sherman, who wrote in part, “I support President Trump’s action against Iran. These actions are not an initiation of war, they are a response to a war already declared by Iran. This is the inevitable response to an evil regime that has openly and continually stated its goal is to destroy America and has actively sought the means to do so.” Was Iran attacking the United States? No. Is Iran an imminent threat to the United States? No. This position abandons the caution about foreign wars that once defined Iowa Republicans.

The president failed to address with the American people the reasons for attacking a sovereign country. On Monday, he said 49 top Iranian leaders had been killed, according to CBS News. The joint operation with Israel did kill key Iranian leaders. Anyone familiar with Iran’s political system knows new leadership can be approved quickly. No one I know gave the aging Ayatollahs high marks. They were easy targets for Israeli ordnance. The younger Iranian replacements will be formidable and could be worse. There has been insufficient public discussion of this.

Is the motivation to address the risk of a nuclear armed Iran with delivery systems? Give me a break. While Republican opponents of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, commonly called the Iran Deal, felt it was insufficient, the agreement placed verifiable limits on Iran’s nuclear program. When the president tore up that deal, he lost standing to claim this action was about nuclear weapons.

Is the president part of God’s plan, being anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth? The Military Religious Freedom Foundation reports receiving complaints from non-commissioned officers who say their commanders told them the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Donald J. Trump was ‘anointed by Jesus’ to trigger Armageddon.” Read more about this here. They logged similar complaints across more than 40 different units located in at least 30 military installations. One NCO said their commander’s remarks “destroy morale and unit cohesion and are in violation of the oaths we swore to support the Constitution.” The Pentagon has not responded publicly to these allegations. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should consider John Prine’s message, “Now Jesus don’t like killin’, no matter what the reason’s for. And your flag decal won’t get you into heaven any more.”

Is the Iran aggression solely to take attention away from the Epstein files? More than a few people are saying so, yet I don’t know that this war will accomplish that for the president. Maybe people in the administration can’t walk and chew gum at the same time but the American people can.

When the president admonished the people of Iran, “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be, probably, your only chance for generations,” he washed his hands of the consequences of this conflict. That is typical for Donald J. Trump.