Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Living in Society

Politics and Public Health

Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com

I recently met a friend for lunch. They read the chapter of my autobiography about time we shared on the county board of health, ending in 2010. Rather than continue a discussion on email, we decided to meet in person. Ambient temperatures were above freezing and that made for a sloppy day. The restaurant parking lot was full of puddles.

One of our joint projects was working to reduce toxins in the environment across the state of Iowa by advocating with other boards of health. As chair, I wrote a letter to every board of health in the state about reducing reliance on coal as a source of energy. Likewise the two of us made our case to several boards of health in person. It is difficult to know the impact we had, yet projects to build new coal-fired power plants in Waterloo and Marshalltown were killed by the public utilities after we began our campaign.

One board of health said they wanted to keep politics out of it. Is public health political? If you have any familiarity with a health department, you know it is. My friend emailed me the following after our meeting:

When we were talking about the folks in the other Health Departments I was about to say something then forgot. It was about “politics” er. the fact that public health is political — it is a social science and reflects competing interests of those who would choose to pollute with impunity in the name of their god-given right to pursue profit in their business, and the interests of the public that require clean air, water, and a livable climate.  

If we don’t these days believe public health is political we never will.  But, at the time, I thought it important to remind people of that simple fact because so often (not unlike now) people want to say things like, I understand you want to control or study or advise about…. but don’t make it political.  Yikes.  And that’s the whole story.

I think the word “political” was a precursor to “woke.”

There is nothing political about mobilizing a public health work force to deal with an infectious disease outbreak. Likewise, there is nothing political about providing clean water by using drinking water standards to regulate what is and isn’t in public water supplies. These procedures and regulations don’t come out of the blue. A political process is behind them.

Part of the board’s work was to lobby the Iowa legislature on multiple issues. I spent most of my lobbying time working to make Iowa a tobacco-free state with clean air. We also wrote letters to the editor on timely topics. When the Smoke-Free Iowa Act was signed into law, banning tobacco smoke in most public places, through effective political lobbying, the gambling industry got an exemption for casinos. We had to compromise to get the bill passed. Oh, yeah! It’s political.

Our local boards of health have been charged with leading the effort to prevent disease and improve physical, mental, and environmental health in the community. Few members of the public attended our public meetings or offered comments. Citizens should be first in line to attend these meetings and offer solutions on how Iowa can improve its public health system. Until they do, volunteer members of boards of health do the best they can to promote health and prevent harm. We even had that printed on coffee mugs.

I don’t know if it’s political but there is one area that could improve: More licensed medical practitioner volunteers are needed to supplement the work of the public health system. In an era when government spending on public health can be expected to decrease, volunteers enable us to get more work done within the existing public health infrastructure. For the number of per capita medical practitioners in Johnson and Linn counties, our performance in this area has been disappointing.

So yes, of course, public health is political. It’s the nature of the beast, even if it is rooted in a time when there was a broad consensus about what government can do to further the public good. You know, back when we were Iowa nice. Sadly the sun set on that a long time ago.

Categories
Creative Life

A Life in Photos Part X

Sky coloration before dawn on Dec. 15, 2025.

Are photographs reality or not? My answer is yes, they are, despite all the self-aggrandizing selfies on the internet. Are artificial intelligence images reality? Yes, and are distinct from photographs. Is time spent off the internet reality? Yes, and not distinct from time spent on the internet. If it is possible to evaluate photography in light of the internet and artificial intelligence, we should. However, I believe we will have the same outcome, that all of it is a form of reality.

My belief runs against the pundits who say we should limit the amount of time we spend on the internet. If it is all a form of reality, then what does it matter that a person spends an equal amount of time sleeping, on the internet, and off the internet? There is a case to be made we shouldn’t worry about addiction to the internet. There is also a case to be made that we should. What I know is I need my daily trail walks to breathe fresh air and clear my thoughts while getting needed exercise. I mostly disconnect from the internet when I walk. If I see something that might make a good photograph, I take out my handheld computer, take some shots, and post the best image on social media.

Same image rendered by artificial intelligence as a watercolor painting.

From time to time, I enjoy getting out old photographs printed on paper. They convey a reality I experienced, although a focused aspect of it that hides much of what life was then. I used the photo below on the cover of my autobiography. It’s me standing on the back porch of the duplex where Mother brought me home from being born at a nearby hospital. I don’t recall her taking this photograph, yet I do recall a lot about living here. In particular, I remember the point at which memory began when confronted about something in the recent past I could not remember. This photograph serves as a mnemonic device.

On the Back Porch

Another type of photograph is the “artistic” one. That is, I took it as a form of creative endeavor with a specific intended outcome. For example, when I first got my Minolta SRT-101 camera, I drove my Volkswagen microbus out to the Coralville Reservoir and took photographs of the vehicle. Someone was with me as there were posed photos of me next to the bus. Those images stand distinct from the “artistic” photographs which were my main intention on the trip. Artistic photographs are a separate genre, one in which I have very little activity in 2025.

I have taken a lot of photographs to capture something about an event.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer on Sept. 14, 2008 at the Harkin Steak Fry in Indianola, Iowa.

Like my early printed photographs, this one is a mnemonic device to recall that day in Indianola. The big Harkin Steak Fry had been in 2007 when six presidential candidates stood together on the stage just prior to the First in the Nation Iowa Precinct Caucuses that selected Barack Obama as the party’s nominee. Over the years, I captured a lot of politicians in photographs. These types of posed photographs are ubiquitous in social media. I’ve forgotten more than I remember about politics and these images help me re-live those experiences.

Are photographs posted on social media a throwaway? Often we take a photograph solely to post it on social media. It becomes a way of defining who we are. It also controls our self-image. For example, I rarely post a selfie, yet they are important in defining an “online presence.” I have been very bad at defining a self-image, which is why I don’t take or post many selfies. I could work on it, the way I worked on my restless nights to get better sleep, but why would I want to spend that time when everything, sleeping, waking, on the internet and off the internet are part of the same reality?

I may have more to say about how the internet changed photography. I need to study up, and that will take time. In the meanwhile, I plan to continue to take the kinds of photos I do and hope I won’t ruin them with too much study. Photography has become an important part of my reality.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Cooking Miscellany

Last fresh kale of the 2025 garden.

When gleaning the garden I picked a number of green cayenne peppers. Not wanting to mix them with the red ones, I ground them into a fine powder and have been using it in lieu of hot sauce on Mexican-style dishes. It is an unexpected treat.

While making tacos on our Taco Tuesday, I used the last of the fresh kale from the refrigerator. We almost made it to 2026. Now we turn to the freezer for leafy green vegetables. There is plenty for household use.

We make tofu stir fry on rice as a main course. I have been experimenting with pureed garlic. It is made with extra virgin olive oil and garden garlic. In stir fry, it mixes with the water used as a cooking medium and forms a tasty sauce. I will be pureeing more garlic as we use up the initial batches.

It’s almost time for another pot of barley-lentil vegetable soup. I will raid the freezer for ingredients, including grated zucchini and summer squash, diced celery, prepared pumpkin, and collards. A warm bowl of soup is appreciated this time of year.

I cleaned off my writing table because I spilled a giant cup of coffee on it. The damage was minimal but the drop cloth that protects it got wet and is draped over the car to dry. I found a bottle of furniture cleaner and treated the surface. Nothing says you are ready for what’s next like a clean writing surface.

Categories
Living in Society

A Bitter Weekend

Driveway cleared of snow on Dec. 7, 2025.

By late Sunday night, I was ready for the deathly weekend to end. An acquaintance my age, with whom I worked at a transportation and logistics firm, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. His obituary was in the Sunday newspaper. There were the shootings in the news: Brown University in Rhode Island, and Bondi Beach in Australia. Then came the apparent murders of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer in California. It was public death overload.

It didn’t help the bitter cold kept me inside most of the weekend. I cleared snow from the driveway, but that’s about all the time I was outdoors. The saving grace was the visit of our child beginning Friday. They couldn’t make it home on Saturday because of the blizzard. They left Saturday morning, then turned the vehicle around, and headed back when the Interstate proved to be impassible. The extra night was a blessing for parents.

Despite the deaths, things weren’t all bad this weekend.

  • The bean soup and cornbread tasted good and was well-received Friday night.
  • I finished reading The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon. It’s the kind of novel I enjoy reading, set in a time before electronic devices dominate society.
  • I read Adrienne Rich’s 1991 book of poetry, An Atlas of the Difficult World: Poems 1988-1991. I found it hard to access yet there was at least one relatable poem.
  • Preparing enchilada sauce began a process of re-thinking how I make it. I tried substituting a slurry of all purpose flour, vegetable oil, and spices for arrowroot as a thickener. This approach has potential. More to come.
  • Used an aging can of pumpkin puree to make pumpkin bread. The results were so-so. Next time, I’ll use pumpkin I preserved myself.
  • I drafted another chapter in my autobiography.
  • Boxed up a donation of books for the public library used book sale.

Ambient temperatures warmed to the upper-20s on Monday, which meant a break from bitter cold. I’ll work to make this week better than the bitter weekend just past. Hard to keep a positive outlook sometimes, yet we must.

Categories
Living in Society

The Health Care Abomination that is America

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Pexels.com

Dec. 15 is the deadline to sign up on the ACA marketplace for health insurance effective Jan 1, 2025.

When I left the company and career of 25 years, securing health insurance was an issue. That was July 2009. There were no easy options, so I stayed on COBRA coverage.

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) gives workers and their families who lose their health benefits the right to choose to continue group health benefits provided by their group health plan for limited periods of time under certain circumstances such as voluntary or involuntary job loss, reduction in the hours worked, transition between jobs, death, divorce, and other life events. Qualified individuals may be required to pay the entire premium for coverage up to 102% of the cost to the plan. (U.S. Department of Labor website).

COBRA was expensive, so I looked around. I found the Iowa Farm Bureau offered a health insurance plan which was less expensive with reasonable coverage. More than farmers bought their plan, and so did my spouse and I. It wasn’t the best policy, yet it was good enough and met our needs.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law on March 23, 2010. When the ACA marketplaces were organized, I completed an online form and found that with subsidies, I was eligible at a lower cost than we were paying the Farm Bureau. I signed up for a plan and stayed with the ACA until I was eligible for Medicare.

Today, with Medicare supplemental insurance costs, our health insurance bill for two people is about $935 per month, not including dental or vision coverage. I looked at buying a plan for dental, yet the cost of paying regular care out of pocket was less expensive. The same with vision. Eye treatment related to a health condition was covered under the health plan. The cost for this is slightly less than what I was paying for COBRA in 2009.

The poverty guideline for a household of two is $21,150, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Our income is more than that, yet many struggle to bring that much home. Health insurance on such income? Without government help people can’t afford it.

All of this serves as a long build up to the significance of today.

I previously wrote the following about deadlines to sign up for health insurance on the ACA marketplace:

To be covered Jan. 1 you have to be enrolled by Dec. 15 and have paid your first premium. At this late date, I doubt Congress is going to act on the subsidies. In fact, last week, the U.S. Senate rejected extension of ACA subsidies proposed by both Democrats and President Trump. Here is from the website:

December 15: Last day to enroll in or change plans for coverage to start January 1. January 1: Coverage starts for those who enroll in or change plans by December 15 and pay their first premium. Open enrollment continues until Jan. 15 but there would be a lapse in coverage if you wait until then.

For people who don’t have health insurance now, the Dec. 15 deadline is meaningless. Even the Jan. 15 deadline can be difficult without the means to pay for a policy. There is a lot more to say on this topic, yet Tick! Tock! Life is going by at the speed of an eighteen wheeler with the hammer down.

I agree with U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders it is time to guarantee healthcare for all in the United States.

According to the most recent data, the United States spends $14,570 per person on healthcare compared with just $5,640 in Japan, $6,023 in the United Kingdom, $6,931 in Australia, $7,013 in Canada and $7,136 in France. And yet, despite our huge expenditures, we remain the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human right. (It’s time for the US to guarantee healthcare for all, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, The Guardian, April 29, 2025).

President Obama was handicapped by the influence of insurance companies while he negotiated the ACA. It is remarkable any healthcare bill at all was enacted into law. Step-by-step, Republicans are stripping away the meat of the ACA, and will continue until all that is left is its bones, which they will grind up for fertilizer. Eliminating the ACA subsidies is just one part of a long plan to remove all the good things the ACA accomplishes.

If you look at my personal journey on retirement health insurance, it was only with Medicare that my worries about how I would pay a medical claim were addressed. Before that, my privileged status as a white male who was able to find a job with health insurance enabled me to find care. The care was never what I wanted, but I didn’t go broke because we had bills after our child was born in a hospital, or a major surgery.

It is easy to say there should be, as Senator Sanders says, Medicare for all. Getting that done in the United States is nearly impossible with the influence of special interests and their money in Washington, D.C. This is what makes healthcare an abomination in America. I know we can be better than this.

Categories
Creative Life

Sunday Before Winter

Some favorite images from the last week. As much as it looks like it is here already, winter begins next Sunday.

Sunrise on the state park trail, Dec. 11, 2025.
Footsteps in the freshly fallen snow.
Footsteps in the freshly fallen snow.
Sunrise on Dec. 5, 2025.
Sunrise on Dec. 5, 2025.
No one home until spring.
No one home until spring.
Returning home.
Returning home.
Animal tracks on the frozen lake, Dec. 9, 2025.
Animal tracks on the frozen lake, Dec. 9, 2025.
Sunrise on the state park trail on Dec. 9, 2025.
Sunrise on the state park trail on Dec. 9, 2025.
Stack of garden seeds.
Seeds arrived for the 2026 garden.
Categories
Kitchen Garden

Kitchen in Late Autumn

Coffee mug made by Alea when we worked together at the orchard.

I will spend my two Friday afternoon work blocks getting ready for the arrival of our child. Mainly, that means cooking. Great Northern beans soaked overnight and are heading for a traditional bean soup made with carrots, onion, celery, and bay leaves cooked in homemade vegetable broth. There will also be homemade cornbread. I am debating whether to make applesauce cake or pumpkin bread for dessert. We’ll see what happens. It goes without saying, supper will be completely vegan.

Ever since the fire ran them out of their apartment building, first to temporary quarters and then to a new rental in a western suburb, our home became a storage depot for stuff not needed now, but was worth keeping. More storage items are enroute as I type these words. I created a storage platform with the loft bed I made for their college dormitory. It serves.

This is a tribal time. We don’t spend time together at the end of year holidays, so this is what we do. Have a bean soup supper two weeks before Christmas Day. Life is good.

Categories
Creative Life

How Many Sunrises?

Sunrise on the state park trail on Dec. 11, 2025.

While dropping off four fire extinguishers for recycling in the county seat, nature called. The nearest public restroom was in the county administration building. The parking lot was almost empty, so I pulled in and did my business. On the way back to the car, I ran into the sheriff in his dress uniform. We exchanged pleasantries.

I’ve known him since he was elected to the city council in 2008. When he and his family moved outside city limits, I advised him as he started a garden. I worked on his campaign for sheriff. During the 2024 precinct caucuses, he, his spouse, and I were the only people attending on that cold, snowy evening. He is one of the good guys. If it matched his uniform, he would wear a white hat.

The encounter served me to ask, “What’s going on with my life?” That’s a rhetorical question because I know quite well what’s going on. I retired early so I could have some kind of creative life before I get infirm. As I exited the parking lot and turned west toward the warehouse club, I wondered how many more sunrises will I get?

A fierce urgency consumes me, or as Dr. King put it, “the fierce urgency of now.” There is much to accomplish, and given my good health and time left, more than a few things can be done. I need immediate, vigorous, and positive action in my life. The brief conversation with the sheriff informed me there is no reason to wait. The time for good works is now.

Each day I walk on the state park trail I observe my world. Because of when I walk, sunrises are a main feature. Not only can the sky be beautiful at that hour, it reminds us of the promise of a new day. Sunrises are more than enough reason to go on living. And so, I shall, as long as there is another.

Categories
Creative Life

Tools in Autumn

On the state park trail on Dec. 10, 2025.

After I finished the work table, I sorted stuff in the workshop. In other words, I filled the table with stuff thrown hodge-podge in every nook and cranny. This will be a long process, yet I am heartened by having another surface to use for this work. It is beginning with tools.

The table project was easy, with the radial arm saw and power drill being the main power tools. There were a few hand tools, but all of them are frequently used, and easy to find. That’s not the case with things tucked away in the workshop today.

I brought home a lot of tools when my father-in-law died. That was almost 30 years ago. I never really incorporated them into my workshop. As a result of this neglect, I don’t have visibility of every tool I own. When I’m starting a project I’m running blind. I hope to remedy that.

This tool visibility project began with my red Craftsman toolbox. It has three drawers and a compartment in the top. I took everything out of the drawers and rearranged it.

All the fixed wrenches went into their own tool box. I don’t use them as often as crescent wrenches and I’ll know where to find them when I need one. Crescent wrenches and pliers filled a drawer. One drawer has gripping tools. Most sizes of screwdrivers are on a pegboard, so the ones in the toolbox are either specialty drivers or extra. Screwdrivers get their own drawer, which isn’t enough space to accommodate them all. The solution to that will wait until I see what else I have. When I replaced some tools with others, the idea was to keep thosek most frequently used in the red toolbox.

There are also what I’ll call specialty toolboxes. One is full of drill bits of many kinds. I keep a separate drill bit holder on the bench so I can quickly find common sizes. There is a toolbox with woodworking tools. There are all kinds of them, although I am hardly a woodworker. One toolbox has a set of metric and imperial sockets. In the cabinet, there is another whole set of Craftsman sockets. This is just the beginning.

The main goal of this project is to gain visibility of what I have. I am tempted to acquire one of those tall movable toolboxes with many drawers. I hope that is a passing infatuation. For now, just knowing what I have should be enough to get started on new projects. The new table led to this, and who knows where the forking paths ahead will lead? Being aware of what tools I have is a good start.

I look forward to discovering where this goes.

Categories
Living in Society

Sunrise at Autumn’s End

Sunrise on the state park trail on Dec. 9, 2025.

Everyday I am out in the weather for at least part of the day. This December has been weird with heavy snowfalls coupled with spells of above freezing ambient temperatures. The talk on the trail is about how the trail surface varies with snowfall and temperature. We are all of retirement age so our concern is testing new muscles and stress on our ankles and joints. Thus far I have been able to navigate rough surfaces without mishap.

The outdoors temperature was 37 degrees Fahrenheit when I woke. By the time I was ready to walk on the trail it had dropped to below freezing. As I entered the state park, the wind picked up and snow began to fall. The trail surface had frozen unevenly around snowmobile, wildlife, and pedestrian tracks. I had to be careful to preserve my joints and ankles. I knew the weather forecast before I left home.

I’m not the only one who takes accurate weather forecasts for granted. My resource is the Weather Channel with its hourly forecasts and radar images. Mostly I seek short-term weather forecasts in order to do something like mow the lawn, take a walk, or work in the garden. Existing technology gives me accurate forecasts that facilitate what I want to do.

Hannah Ritchie is a Scottish data scientist, senior researcher at the University of Oxford, and deputy editor at Our World in Data, according to Wikipedia. Her work focuses on sustainability, in relation to climate change, energy, food and agriculture, biodiversity, air pollution, deforestation, and public health. She recently wrote the following about weather forecasting:

The potential for AI to improve weather forecasting and climate modelling (which also takes a long time and uses a lot of energy) has been known for several years now. AI models have been tested for one- and two-week forecasts with promising results. Scientists will often need to wait weeks for a complex, high-resolution climate model to run; AI might be able to do this hundreds, if not thousands, of times faster. (Email from Hannah Ritchie on Oct. 27, 2025).

Naturally, I asked ChatGPT about this, “When scientists like Hannah Ritchie say weather forecasting can be much improved with artificial intelligence, what do they mean.” As is usual for artificial intelligence, the answer was very long. Here is the crux:

When scientists say weather forecasting can be dramatically improved with artificial intelligence, they usually mean something more specific than “AI makes everything better.” They’re referring to concrete technical bottlenecks in current forecasting and the ways AI can overcome them. Hannah Ritchie, and researchers at ECMWF, NOAA, Google DeepMind, NVIDIA, the UK Met Office, and others, are all pointing to similar developments. (ChatGPT query result, December 2025).

More specifically, in explanation, the machine listed multiple bullet points:

  • Weather prediction is limited by physics-based models.
  • AI models can “learn the atmosphere.”
  • AI lets scientists blend physics and data.
  • AI makes weather forecasting more democratic. By that, it means cheaper and more broadly available than on expensive, physics-based computers.
  • AI enables longer-range and global risk forecasting: seasonal climate forecasts, agricultural and drought planning, energy-grid load forecasting, and catastrophe-risk modeling.
  • But: Scientists emphasize that AI is not a replacement for physics.

The machine summarized: forecast faster, forecast at higher resolution, run at vastly lower cost, improve extreme weather warning lead times, complement physics with learned patterns, and democratize forecasting globally.

According to the machine, consumer-scaled artificial intelligence models might be available by 2032. In the meanwhile, I’m just glad I didn’t turn an ankle on the trail this morning.