Author: Paul Deaton

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Living in Society

Laundering Face Masks-Again

Washington Post Screenshot, July 21, 2021.

Laundering home sewn face masks is back on the to-do list. It looks like we’ll need them.

On Monday I wrote we are not really taming the coronavirus in Iowa or in the United States as a whole. Too many unvaccinated residents are in social situations without protection. The unvaccinated make up the vast majority of hospitalizations for COVID-19. If you missed it, click here to read the post.

To my point about children returning to school this fall, also on Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended universal masking in schools for everyone older than age two.

While that recommendation was churning in the vessel, both political commentator Sean Hannity of FOX News and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made strong public statements that people need to get the COVID-19 vaccine in their arms. McConnell was particularly direct, with a “get vaccinated or else” statement. Here is the clip:

What gives? Are we at a turning point in addressing vaccine hesitancy? We know Hannity and McConnell are not sincerely concerned about those who died or are afflicted with COVID-19. Was it Monday morning’s 750-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average? Did they have a come to Jesus meeting… with Jesus? I’m sure I don’t know, other than it is self serving. Maybe they are worried too many of their anti-vaxx constituents will die of COVID-19, yielding the political fight to Democrats.

My cynicism about conservatives’ motivation aside, the increase in number of COVID-19 cases is alarming. While the majority of COVID-19 hospitalizations are among the unvaccinated, there have been prominent people who, while fully vaccinated, have contracted a new variant of COVID-19. On the one hand we have to go on living. On the other, there are unknown risks to be addressed.

The upshot is get vaccinated if you aren’t.

If you are vaccinated, the CDC recommends you comply with federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations regarding protection from the coronavirus, including local business and workplace guidance. If a merchant requires you to wear a mask on their property, just do so or walk away. Seek to get along in society knowing the pandemic brought out the worst among some people. Seek safer activities if you are in doubt, the CDC made a handy list.

And launder those reusable masks. Don’t be afraid to wear them in public. A mask won’t kill you but the coronavirus might.

Editor’s note: Sean Hannity spent time on his Thursday radio program back tracking on his encouragement to the unvaccinated to get vaccinated.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Living in Society

Iowa’s 2022 Campaigns Haven’t Truly Started

Small yet mighty turnout of Democrats at the July 17, 2021 Solon Beef Days parade in Johnson County.

The deputy chief of staff to Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks was recently bragging on Twitter, “When you got $1.17 million in the bank and no democrat opponent.” With it he posted an image of an apparently happy, but not smiling congresswoman.

Not so fast buckaroo! There will be opponents… and money.

If you’ve been following along, there are currently only two declared Democratic candidates for statewide office in Iowa: David Muhlbauer for U.S. Senate and Ras Smith for Governor. Others are kicking the tires on runs for congress, senate and governor, but until the districts are defined–hopefully in September–a lot is up in the air. For the time being Muhlbauer and Smith have the Democratic playing field to themselves. One hopes they are taking advantage of their early entry into the 2022 campaign.

If I were a Republican, I’d say the current districts, with a few tweaks to even out population growth, could serve. We became a Republican state with these districts. There is no evidence they want that or are planning anything but accepting the first map from the Legislative Services Agency. Republicans are also good at keeping secrets, so who knows? What they do shall be revealed.

To fill the absence of campaigns, I walk in parades where it makes sense, write letters to the editor and blog posts, and try to support the county party from a distance in my Republican pocket of Iowa’s most Democratic county. I donate a small, monthly amount to the Iowa Democratic Party and get no further than the state borders with my donations.

I could speculate about potential campaigns but what would be the point? After the drubbing we took in 2020, it seems best for Democrats to keep our powder dry until we know something. As we get through redistricting, and the rest of this post-pandemic summer, we’ll find out where we are heading. I’m okay with periodic gaps in the action.

This morning I opened my father’s King James Bible and found the well read passage from Romans 13:12, “The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light.” We’ll be casting off the tweets of Miller-Meeks’ staff. Democrats have to work smarter because, as Alexander Pope put it in the 18th Century, “Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Democrats can’t afford to be fools in 2022.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Living in Society

Shrinking the Tax Gap

On July 14, I participated in an online briefing with former IRS Commissioners Fred Goldberg Jr. and Charles Rossotti on modernizing the IRS and shrinking the tax gap.

Goldberg was appointed as IRS Commissioner by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 and served three years. Rossotti was named IRS Commissioner in 1997 by President Bill Clinton. He served five years. Both former IRS commissioners are members of the group Shrink the Tax Gap, which states each year there is a tax gap of $574 billion in taxes that are owed to the IRS but not paid. Their position is simple and clear. Most people pay their taxes. Some people don’t, and that’s not fair.

In an article by James Q. Lynch, Congresswoman Ashley Hinson (IA-01), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said of bills the committee was marking up, “I think that these bills disrespect taxpayers.”

What if we collected taxes due the IRS to help pay for them? Would that respect taxpayers?

Hinson supports expanding the child tax credit in the American Rescue Plan, but has concerns about the price tag of the bill that includes sending payments averaging $423 a month to about 35 million families with children. Hinson, like every Republican member of Congress, voted against the American Rescue Plan. When we are talking about price tags, the elephant in the room is the hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes created by the tax gap.

President Joe Biden proposed spending more money on the IRS so it could pursue tax deadbeats. We’re talking about people who have unpaid tax bills, not creating new taxes. Republican U.S. Senators want no part of this.

“What Republican senators object to here is training IRS investigators on people and corporations who are deliberately trying to cheat the system (not to mention the American people) and have the resources to do so,” wrote Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos. “Instead, (they) would clearly rather just keep the IRS focused on smaller fish, who may have messed up some calculation on TurboTax, for instance. Why? Because the small fries aren’t delivering enough to GOP campaign coffers, that’s why.”

Paying taxes is so basic to being an American I believe most voters would support collecting taxes due. Yet that’s not how our government is evolving. The Republican minority seeks to retain control over the tax system to benefit the minority of wealthy Americans.

In Sunday news, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) announced Biden’s plan to fund the IRS is officially off the table in the bipartisan infrastructure bill because he got “pushback” from fellow Republican lawmakers who dislike the idea of giving the IRS the tools it needs to collect taxes owed. Portman is a key negotiator for Republicans on this bill. It will be up to Democrats to pass this provision through reconciliation in the separate $3.5 Trillion infrastructure bill to which their caucus has agreed.

Do your job Congress. Shrink the tax gap.

For more information about Shrink the Tax Gap, click here.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Environment

July Prairie Walk

Wildflower patch in Lake Macbride State Park, July 21, 2021.

Each July I walk through the prairie restoration areas of Lake Macbride State Park where a number of acres have been restored. It is always inspiring. Here’s a gallery of some of my shots.

Prairie Walk through Lake Macbride State Park on July 21, 2021.
Categories
Living in Society

Summer Community Parades are Back Despite the Pandemic

State Senator Kevin Kinney and County Supervisor Lisa Green-Douglass at the Solon Beef Days parade in Solon, Iowa on July 17, 2021.

Most people along the parade route reacted positively to the Johnson County Democrats entry in the Solon Beef Days Parade on July 17. All over the state, parades have re-emerged as a social activity after missing last summer because of the coronavirus pandemic. While the parade was a positive event reflecting community values and attitudes, it’s clear the pandemic is not over as vaccinations lag behind what is needed.

Nationally, 161 million people are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, representing 48.5 percent of the population. We are about the same percentage in Iowa with a million and a half people, or 49.0 percent of the population, fully vaccinated. The daily rate of vaccination has slowed considerably during parade season.

On Friday, Nick Coltrain of the Des Moines Register reported the majority of hospitalizations for COVID-19 are among people who are not vaccinated:

Almost all of the people hospitalized with COVID-19 since the spring have been unvaccinated against the disease, spokespeople for three of Iowa’s largest health care systems said.

At the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, upward of 90% of patients admitted due to COVID-related illness since April have been unvaccinated, spokesperson Laura Shoemaker told the Des Moines Register. About 95% of patients hospitalized at UnityPoint facilities since March 2021 were not fully vaccinated, spokesperson Macinzie McFarland said. And at MercyOne’s Des Moines hospitals, 97% of patients hospitalized for COVID-19 were not vaccinated, spokesperson Clara Johnson said in an email.

The COVID-19 vaccine has been widely available to anyone 16 and older since April 5.

Iowa City Press Citizen, July 16, 2021

It was fun giving small American flags to children lining the parade route on Saturday. We live for such moments of small joys and happiness. However, the potential for disaster looms in the fall when children are required to return to in-person instruction at schools around the state.

We know the way to avert disaster is to get a higher percentage of the population vaccinated. Yet there is not an approved vaccine for children under age 12, and poor vaccination rates among school-aged children who are eligible. With the combination of low vaccine rates, a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, and a population that clings irrationally to the idea that the COVID-19 vaccine is in some way dangerous or not needed, trouble is fermenting in Iowa.

While enjoying parade season, I hope our actual experience in the fall proves me wrong about new, school-based COVID-19 outbreaks. We have the information to do what is right. Yet as raconteur, philosopher and satirist Ron White said, “You can’t fix stupid.” That’s where we are with half Iowa’s population.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Living in Society

What’s In A Week?

Onions drying in the greenhouse.

Once life is separated from the work week everything changes. It’s not that we become unhinged. Days just resemble each other without differentiation.

As denizens of the United States, if we seek continued participation, we need something to tell days apart. The worklife week served as we had one. For me, it fell apart during the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting retirement from paid work.

I developed a morning routine which begins around 3 a.m. and continues until it is done. It is my time to learn about the world and my role in it. I like the routine because, for the most part, I own this time of day, every day. After that things can get muddled.

I want to have a weekend… a Monday and Friday. I need a hump day. I want them to mean something. What I find is without a job, the days blend into each other. Increasingly, I accept it.

I don’t know what to do about it. I feel a need to do something. Today’s Monday. Maybe I’ll start there.

Categories
Environment Sustainability

The False Hope of Biomass

Regeneration of a Montana forest after a fire.

“Earlier this year, the European Union was celebrated in headlines across the world when renewable energy surpassed the use of fossil fuels on the continent for the first time in history,” wrote Majlie de Puy Kamp for CNN.

The European Union pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and approved burning biomass as an alternative to coal, categorizing it as a renewable fuel. They found wood pellets were a suitable, renewable fuel to produce electricity and searched the globe for enough of them.

“The American South emerged as Europe’s primary source of biomass imports,” de Puy Kamp wrote.

Enter companies like Enviva, the world’s largest producer of wood pellets, with four wood pellet manufacturing plants in North Carolina.

The world’s leading authority on climate science, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, explicitly recognizes bioenergy as a renewable energy source that is critical to our low-carbon future. The IPCC also concludes that sustainable forest management is critical to prevent forest conversion to non-forest uses.

We need bioenergy both to replace fossil fuels and to keep forests as forests.

Enviva website.

Not so fast!

The IPCC states in its guidelines “do not automatically consider or assume biomass used for energy as ‘carbon neutral,’ even in cases where the biomass is thought to be produced sustainably.”

As I wrote in 2015, while the carbon cycle of renewable fuels can eliminate putting fossilized carbon into the atmosphere, and reduces emissions of particulate matter, the amount of CO2 released when burning biomass is about the same as with burning coal. What makes burning wood pellets and other biomass “sustainable” is we would leave more fossilized carbon in the ground.

Burning stuff to release energy that is made into electricity remains problematic in terms of emissions. While windmills, solar panels and hydroelectric generators are not without issues, these forms of electricity generation better serve our future energy needs as we work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As we contemplate the EU’s path to reducing reliance on fossil fuels, there is another issue that gets lost. The quest for wood pellets has greater impact on marginalized communities near forests that are being harvested for fuel. Read de Puy Kamp’s article for more information about these climate justice issues.

“I can’t think of anything that harms nature more than cutting down trees and burning them,” said William Moomaw, professor emeritus of international environmental policy at Tufts University.

While the EU may meet an arbitrary goal of reducing its carbon footprint, by using wood pellets to generate electricity the achievement is more paperwork drill than actual reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Do better Europeans!

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Environment

Replacing Coal with Biomass

Oat Hulls. Photo Credit: Iowa City Press Citizen.

In 2014 and 2015 I worked as a freelance reporter for three area newspapers. I refer to this article published on Oct. 7, 2015 in the Iowa City Press Citizen frequently in my work on the climate crisis and post it here for easy reference.

UI study finds benefits in burning oat hulls for thermal energy

Biofuel use is a well-known contributor to meeting sustainability goals at the University of Iowa. Since 2003, UI has used oat hulls sourced from Quaker Oats in Cedar Rapids to generate electricity, heating and cooling on campus.

Several chemistry department faculty and students recently completed a study of gas and particle emissions from co-firing coal and two types of biomass versus straight coal at UI’s main power plant.

Researchers also found that using oat hulls with coal reduced carbon-dioxide emissions by 40 percent and significantly reduced the release of particulate matter, hazardous substances and heavy metals.

“The UI is working toward meeting a goal of using 40 percent renewable energy by 2020,” said Betsy Stone, an assistant professor in UI’s chemistry department. “Part of their plan to achieving that goal is the use of biofuel, which is a renewable source of energy, instead of fossil fuel, in this case coal.”

The group was interested in understanding how using biomass instead of coal changed emissions released into the atmosphere, Stone said.

“When burning 50 percent oat hulls and 50 percent coal, we saw a big reduction in criteria pollutants compared to burning 100 percent coal,” she said. “When I say ‘criteria pollutants,’ I’m talking about things like fossil carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.”

Use of the 50/50 mixture reduced the mass of particulate matter by 90 percent, Stone said.

While overall CO2 emissions were constant among the three fuels used in the study — straight coal, 50/50 oat hulls/coal, and 3.8 percent wood chips/96.2 percent coal — the use of plant material makes the process more sustainable, Stone said. Biomass takes CO2 out of the atmosphere and incorporates it into the plant. When it’s burned, CO2 is released.

“It’s considered to be a renewable fuel because we have that carbon cycle going on,” Stone said. “With fossil fuels, we’re releasing fossilized carbon. It goes into the atmosphere and takes millions of years to get back to fossilized form again.”

The major take-home message is there is a significant reduction in fossilized CO2, sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, which is beneficial to people living near the power plant, Stone said.

“I thought the study was definitely encouraging and in line with our thoughts that biomass is good for the environment,” said Ben Anderson, UI power plant manager. “Overall, the results are encouraging and provided assurance we are going the right way with the biomass project.”

The biomass project brings the renewable component to the plant, but is also a component of fuel diversity, he said.

“That’s really important for reliable operations,” Anderson said. “Natural gas markets have been known to spike from a cost perspective. If there is a problem with pipeline transport, we can use the biomass and still keep this plant online.”

Maureen McCue, coordinator for Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, noted important considerations of this study, including locally sourced fuel options and the avoided cost of buying and shipping coal. McCue called UI’s biofuel efforts “a good use of a resource that might otherwise go to waste.”

“The mixture avoids some of the known adverse health effects associated with burning more coal,” McCue said in an email. “There is no health benefit to anyone unless you assume burning coal is obligatory/unavoidable and thus count as benefited the person(s) who would have been impacted by more coal.

“It’s like saying not hitting your head with a hammer is a health benefit,” she added. “No one wants to risk their health breathing coal emissions or headaches by hammer if there are alternatives.”

Categories
Living in Society

Is Jessica Reznicek a Terrorist?

Jessica Reznicek Photo Credit: Twitter @FreeJessRez

Jessica Reznicek, a 39-year-old environmental activist and Catholic Worker from Des Moines, Iowa, was sentenced in federal court June 30 to eight years in prison for her efforts to sabotage construction of the Dakota Access pipeline.

In November 2016, Reznicek and Ruby Montoya, a former preschool teacher, set fire to heavy construction equipment at a pipeline worksite in Buena Vista County, Iowa.

Over the next several months, the women used oxyacetylene torches, tires and gasoline-soaked rags to burn equipment and damage pipeline valves along the line from Iowa to South Dakota. Their actions reportedly caused several million dollars’ worth of damage and delayed construction for weeks.

Catholic activist sentenced for Dakota Access Pipeline vandalism by Claire Schaeffer-Duffy at NCROnline.com. To read the rest of the article, click here.

Reznicek’s criminal penalties were substantial. In addition to jail time, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger included $3,198,512.70 in restitution and three years’ post-prison supervised release after she plead guilty to a single count of damaging an energy facility, according to Common Dreams. It’s hard to argue her protest was intended to be non-violent. She used an oxyacetylene torch to damage the pipeline without knowing if fuel was in transit.

Reznicek is being prosecuted as a terrorist. Is that what she is? It seems unlikely the board of directors or billionaire Kelcey Warren of Energy Transfer Partners felt terrorized. They had reason to know there would be protests during construction, and likely built defense from them into their operating, overhead, and risk management budgets. For ETP, pipeline protests represented business as usual. In 2018 there was a “protect the protests” direct action in Dallas, Texas where demonstrators accused ETP at its corporate headquarters of attempting to silence them with lawsuits.

Like many in the Des Moines Catholic Worker community Reznicek has been willing to break the law in peaceful protest and has been arrested. In 2014, she was detained for nearly 48 hours and then deported after flying into Israel to support Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the Des Moines Register. It seems obvious the Iowa Legislature had people like Reznicek in mind when they recently increased penalties for protesters.

I received the first of a series of emails from Reznicek during the Occupy Movement in 2011. She was an organizer for Occupy Iowa, Occupy Des Moines, Occupy the Caucus, Occupy Monsanto, Occupy the World Food Prize, and other direct action protests. She was arrested at some of these protests. It seemed like boilerplate organizing. Whatever cache the Occupy movement may have had, the work she did was straight forward with transparency. It was not a terrorist plot the way in 1995 Timothy McVeigh plotted to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. It would be better for the peace and justice movement if Reznicek did not have to spend her time serving time and defending herself in this prominent case. It goes with the territory, though.

The answer is no. Jessica Reznicek is not a terrorist. Society needs more people like her to call attention to injustice. If there is a cost to her protests, she has been willing to accept responsibility. If asked, my neighbors would say justice was served with Reznicek’s prosecution and sentencing. As it plays out in the judicial system, some of us wonder who will step in to fill her shoes in the peace and justice movement. It may be someone, but it won’t be her for a while.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Kitchen Garden

With a Bitten Tongue

Cherry tomatoes from the garden.

Like most everyone I’ve bitten my tongue. I also scalded it with hot food and beverages. It healed, at least I think it has. As I prepare food from our kitchen garden, some days I don’t notice the taste, partly due to damaged taste buds.

The first cherry tomatoes are such a burst of flavor one must notice. Some days I swoon with how good a dish prepared in our kitchen tastes, even one I make often. Days when taste is dormant are sad ones–distracted with life, eating becomes a simple necessity, a chore.

“Today, food has taken on value, which goes beyond the simple act of eating,” Massimo Bottura, who operates a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Modena, Italy said on a BBC program called The Future of Food. “I was born with the will to be contemporary. When you are truly contemporary, your mind is constantly projected toward the future. There is always more future in my future.”

What does that mean in an Iowa kitchen garden?

I mastered enough techniques to convert raw food into meals. Few ingredients have me consulting with cook books about how to prepare or serve them. For example, a few days ago I harvested a dozen bell peppers and knew to parboil them to make stuffed peppers. I knew how to prepare the dish with rice, onion, celery, tomato, garlic and other ingredients on hand. Hard to say where I learned the technique yet it is part of culinary me. There are many techniques resting behind the door of consciousness. It gives me confidence in the kitchen, enough confidence to put meals on the table each day without consulting recipes. Does it go beyond a single meal into the future? That is more tricky.

I make soup often and attribute it to my Polish heritage. I can consistently produce a certain flavor profile. In the past I made big batches of soup and water-bath canned the extra. No more. I focus on flavor in smaller amounts done over and over through the gardening season. My typical soup starts with mirepoix: celery, onion and carrot. From there, I add what is available, including pearled barley, lentils, turnips and potatoes if I have them. Yesterday I added radicchio leaves, cabbage, kale, grated zucchini, and part of a jar of canned whole tomatoes. Salt and bay leaves seasoned the soup. Because the crop is coming in, I added diced broccoli stems. It simmered all day and by supper time was a meal. While this is not specifically a Polish soup, my heritage influenced the preparation. It suited my palate.

It is a struggle to get beyond the meal currently being prepared. After a trip to the garden, and a tour of the refrigerator and pantry, I get ideas about what to prepare each day. As the gardening season proceeds there are more choices. I’ve found the more our cuisine is driven by ingredient availability and freshness, the better the meal. That’s not surprising, although not particularly noteworthy. I enjoy cooking, and eating home-prepared meals more than restaurant fare. I’m nowhere near the level of Bottura. We get by in our kitchen.

I don’t know if my palate is truly damaged, and live with what I have. When a dish comes out really well I enjoy eating it. Much of the time I’m distracted from living and eating by outside concerns. My best plan for the future of food is to grow great ingredients and pay attention to the preparation. With practice I’ll get better and occasionally I will touch the sublime. That’s what a home cook can hope.