Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Home Life

Morning Break

TwitterLAKE MACBRIDE— First shift produced two quarts of tomato juice, four pints of tomato sauce and an experimental jar to see how my pickles take to water bath processing. There are still a lot of tomatoes to process.

I delivered frozen bell peppers to a farm where one of my work for food ventures is located, and stopped by the orchard to drop off a lead for some cheese curds. I bought a jar of sweet, dark cherry preserves on my employee discount.

Summer is waning, and I just took more harvest work to earn some money for the tax collector. Staying busy with the changing seasons is easy. There may be fewer posts for a while as the unofficial end of summer comes this weekend.

Thanks everyone for reading. It won’t be long until my next post. Meanwhile, I’ll be out in farm fields trying to earn a living.

Categories
Writing

Blog for Iowa Recharged

L to R: Trish Nelson, Caroline Vernon, Dr. Alta Price, Paul Deaton, Dave Bradley. Photo by Dan DeShane
L to R: Trish Nelson, Caroline Vernon, Dr. Alta Price, Paul Deaton, Dave Bradley. Photo by Dan DeShane

DAVENPORT– Editors and contributors to Blog for Iowa met with our publisher on Thursday, Aug. 22, at a local restaurant to discuss the future of our blog. We plan to be around through our tenth anniversary on April 2, 2014 and beyond. That we could sustain this work for so long is the result of the efforts of editors and contributors over the years, but none of it would have been possible without our publisher, Dr. Alta Price of Bettendorf. Dr. Price renewed her commitment to Blog for Iowa, which “is paid for privately to the tune of $15 a month” according to to the footnote on the front page.

Horticulturalist Dan DeShane brought fresh tomatoes to the restaurant, which he sliced on the spot and offered. Bags of organic sweet corn and tomatoes were exchanged. But the “meat” of the dinner was conversation about issues we write about on the blog: media, ALEC, the Iowa legislature, health care, climate change, and others, including Howard Dean who got us started.

After the meal, we went to Cobblestone Place where Progressive Action for the Common Good (PACG) held its monthly community networking night. The group was hosting Evan Burger and Adam Mason from Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (ICCI) for a discussion about the group’s campaigns, including Iowa water quality. Dr. Price serves on the board of PACG.

We don’t get together often, but when we do, there is new energy. Blog for Iowa plans to be around as the online information source for Iowa’s progressive community for years to come.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Living in Society

Tobacco and the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership

Convenience Store
Convenience Store

At hundreds of convenience stores and retail outlets in Iowa, the drug trade has been and continues to be legal and in full force. Lowly paid wage workers ply a trade in tobacco, a deadly product that continues to be widely used. Where the author lives, workers queue up at the counter before their shift begins, selecting their preferred brand of cigarettes, snuff, snus, cigars or chewing tobacco. The clerk asks, “will one pack be enough?” Tobacco is the only legal consumer product that kills when used as intended. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide, accounting for 6 million preventable deaths annually, and is a major contributor to the global pandemic of non-communicable diseases.

This may seem like old news, but the tobacco industry is still at work, caught up in the secretive trade talks going on this week in Brunei. While many of us are finishing up summer work to take vacation, and students are returning to campus, U.S. corporations are attempting to gain unfettered access to markets in 12 countries as part of the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership (TPTP). Tobacco trade is just one of the issues. (Read the Sierra Club memo on environmental issues here).

The tobacco trade issue reduces to a key point, according to Dr. John Rachow of Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, “this is a critically threatening attempt to restore unlimited international trafficking of tobacco, the greatest completely preventable cause of human death on the planet.”

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman released a statement in which he wrote, “this proposal will, for the first time in a trade agreement, address specifically the public health issues surrounding tobacco– preserving the ability of the United States and other TPP countries to regulate tobacco and to apply appropriate public health measures, and bringing health and trade officials together if tobacco-related issues arise– while remaining consistent with our trade policy objectives of negotiating a comprehensive agreement that does not create a precedent for excluding agricultural products.” Including reference to tobacco products in a trade agreement is the opposite of what public health officials want.

The Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health wrote, “the medical, health care, and public health community has consistently supported removing tobacco, tobacco products, and tobacco control measures from trade agreements as the most effective solution (to enabling participating countries to exercise their sovereignty to reduce tobacco use and prevent the harm it causes to public health).”

The tobacco industry likes adding the language because by giving tobacco products special treatment, it creates loopholes that could easily be exploited to circumvent restrictions on tobacco products in participating countries. By offering language on tobacco in the TPTP, the Obama administration is capitulating on public health to get a deal done that favors the tobacco industry.

For more information on tobacco language in trade agreements, click here. To sign a petition to exclude tobacco from the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership agreement, click here.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Writing

Food Processing Monday

Hay Bales
Hay Bales

LAKE MACBRIDE— By 10 a.m. this morning I had cooked and cut sweet corn from the cob and made a large batch of hot sauce using five different types of peppers, onion, garlic and tomatoes from our garden. Waiting for the water to boil, I have one of five crates of tomatoes cored and ready to skin— the ones with bad spots are cut up and in another pot, to be processed into tomato sauce. That’s not to mention the buckets and buckets of apples ready to be made into something: apple butter first, then apple sauce, then more juice to can, and along the way some apple desserts. It has been and will be a busy day.

It is always a race against time and decay when preserving fruit and vegetables. Everything seems to come in from the garden at the same time and can intimidate. The secret is not to get wigged out, but do what one can to process the ones needing it first. That’s why I’m working tomatoes now. They were seconds when I started, and there are so many apples, they can wait and go to the farm.

In addition to the kitchen work, I delivered apples not good enough for recipes but great for livestock, and traded them for chicken eggs. Then off to the CSA to load the truck for tonight’s deliveries.

By the time I got home with the CSA share, it was time to clean up the kitchen so our house guest could prepare for a work potluck tomorrow. We made a simple dinner of corn on the cob, sliced tomatoes, steamed broccoli and freshly made apple juice. If your bones are weary at the end of a day, it isn’t all bad that they are weary from securing delicious local food for the dinner plate, made with your own hands and labor.

Categories
Writing

Summer Abundance

Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes
Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes

LAKE MACBRIDE— There’s a lot of work to do in a summer kitchen. One almost forgets that in addition to preserving the harvest, it is important to cook and eat in harmony with the season’s abundance. Yesterday at the the grocery store there were bags of two large loaves of French bread for sale at $0.99. I bought one, brought it home, sliced and toasted it, and topped each piece of bread with salad dressing, a slice of tomato, salt and pepper. As is said of good and tasty food, Yum!

On Wednesday, we were discussing abundance at the farm. Extra sweet corn, cantaloupe and cabbage were offered, along with small onions, seconds of potatoes and peppers. I took some of each and made a stew for dinner using potatoes, sweet corn, onion, peppers, potatoes, zucchini, yellow squash, carrot, celery and home made turnip stock: a fitting side dish for a meal of corn on the cob and sliced tomatoes. The cabbage was made into sauerkraut, and the cantaloupe were some of the best we’ve eaten.

This is not to mention the apples which are falling from the tree at a rate of a peck every hour or so. I got out the juicer and added apple juice to the vinegar jar, and bottled a gallon to drink fresh and add as the cooking liquid for apple butter— all using fallen fruit. There are lots more apples in buckets and bowls, and on the trees, and this is only the first variety.

Roma Tomatoes
Roma Tomatoes

In a household-based local food system, we are not consumers. We may purchase items in the grocery store and farmers markets, but the act of buying is not what we are about. It is more the act of processing that is central to a home cook’s food system, and it has ramifications that stretch throughout the food supply chain.

Some gardeners and growers are a bit stressed figuring out what to do with the abundance. Because everyone has lots of tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc., selling them would be at depressed prices. It is important for a home cook with a local food system to recognize this happens each year and be ready for it. Unlike city dwellers who escape the summer heat, people with home-based local food systems don’t take an August vacation.

ProfileWhen I use the phrase, “local food system,” it is with a micro perspective. Rather than being a socially engineered process, on a grand scale, that competes with the industrial food supply chain, it means how individual kitchens leverage food availability to stock the pantry with ingredients to use all year. It includes some shopping, but more importantly, gardening, cultivating trees, working for food, bartering and foraging. Food preservation includes refrigeration, freezing, canning, dehydrating and if one exists, root cellaring.

This is not a throwback to the invention of the Mason jar, first patented in 1858. It goes much further back to the cultivation of land and domestication of livestock. It is also a statement of how we live in a post-consumer society. The idea is to live well. If we are lucky, and diligent, we can.

Categories
Sustainability

I am Chelsea Manning

Daniel Ellsberg's Filing Cabinet at the Smithsonian
Daniel Ellsberg’s Filing Cabinet at the Smithsonian

The corporate media became fixated on an aspect of Chelsea Manning’s defense by attorney David Coombs, that he suffered from gender identity disorder, after the verdict was rendered Wednesday. It’s news that Manning read a statement titled, “The Next Stage of My Life,”on the NBC Today Show yesterday. What is getting lost in the media frenzy is what Manning did, and whether his time served is adequate punishment.

If Manning had done nothing more than release the video clips of the July 12, 2007 Baghdad Airstrikes to Wikileaks, history would have been well served. (Note: the videos linked at these websites are graphic depictions of modern warfare, and not suitable for all audiences).

Manning also released 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables, and 500,000 army reports that came to be known as the Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. He was a whistle blower on what he felt was, and clearly were, war crimes. In the Uniform Code of Military Justice, whistle blowing on war crimes is permissible, and encouraged, at least it was when the author was trained in the post-My Lai massacre military.

By the sheer volume of documents released to Wikileaks, all of which Manning could not have read, she showed recklessness that equates to the criminality for which she was tried and convicted. That she got caught by writing about what she did in an Internet chat room demonstrated the naivety of youth. Unlike the actions of our military, that’s no crime.

According to the Guardian, here’s where things stand:

“A court-martial sentenced Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking government secrets. Manning is to be dishonorably discharged. He loses all pay. He is convicted of six Espionage Act violations. The sentence is expected to be appealed.

Manning, 25, is eligible for parole. He must first serve at least a third of his sentence. He has more than three years’ time served and has been credited 112 days for his “inhuman” treatment in a Quantico brig in 2010-2011. In a best-case scenario for Manning, he might be released before he turned 35.

The sentence was “more severe than many observers expected, and is much longer than any punishment previously given to a U.S. government leaker,” the Guardian’s Paul Lewis writes.

Judge Denise Lind announced the sentence in a hearing that lasted about two minutes. Manning had no visible reaction to the verdict. There were gasps from the crowd. As Manning was led out, supporters shouted “we’ll keep fighting for you, Bradley,” and “you’re our hero.”

The ACLU, Amnesty International and other rights advocates and Manning supporters decried the verdict. It is unjust for Manning to spend decades in prison when the perpetrators of the wartime atrocities he exposed go free, Manning supporters argue.”

Chelsea Manning is expected to request a pardon from President Obama, who is expected to deny it.

A 35-year sentence is harsh, as were the conditions of 1,293 days of pretrial imprisonment. Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network provided pretrial support to Manning, and are expected to continue supporting her. The sentence won’t deter whistle blowers.

The question posed by Chelsea Manning’s actions is one we all must answer for ourselves. When there is wrong in the world do we attempt to right it? Although Manning, like every human, is imperfect, if we don’t try to right wrongs in our lives, who will? That’s why I too am Chelsea Manning.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Environment

Al Gore’s Optimism

Al Gore in Chicago
Al Gore in Chicago

Wednesday, the Washington Post published an Ezra Klein interview with former vice president Al Gore, titled, “Al Gore explains why he’s optimistic about stopping global warming.”

Gore finds there is reason to be optimistic that public sentiment is changing regarding the rapidly increasing amount of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere and the fingerprints of man-made pollution found in severe weather occurring around the world. While climate deniers get upset, even outraged when people mention this fact, Gore believes it is possible to win the conversation on climate change. What does he mean by that? He explained,

I think the most important part of it is winning the conversation. I remember as a boy when the conversation on civil rights was won in the South. I remember a time when one of my friends made a racist joke and another said, hey man, we don’t go for that anymore. The same thing happened on apartheid. The same thing happened on the nuclear arms race with the freeze movement. The same thing happened in an earlier era with abolition. A few months ago, I saw an article about two gay men standing in line for pizza and some homophobe made an ugly comment about them holding hands and everyone else in line told them to shut up. We’re winning that conversation.

Winning the conversation on climate change means making it socially unacceptable to deny the science of man-made global warming pollution. According to Gore, “the conversation on global warming has been stalled because a shrinking group of denialists fly into a rage when it’s mentioned.” Focus on the word shrinking.

“… in spite of the continued released of 90 million tons of global warming pollution every day into the atmosphere, as if it’s an open sewer, we are now seeing the approach of a global political tipping point.”

According to Gore, it has already begun among politicians, including conservatives, who have grown weary of politicization of the science of global warming by climate deniers.

Another reason for optimism is the sharp and unexpectedly steep decrease in prices for electricity produced from wind and solar, providing a financially viable alternative to fossil fuels.

Some people really dislike Gore and what he represents. The film “An Inconvenient Truth” prompted some of this reaction,

The single most common criticism from skeptics when the film came out focused on the animation showing ocean water flowing into the World Trade Center memorial site. Skeptics called that demagogic and absurd and irresponsible. It happened last October 29th, years ahead of schedule, and the impact of that and many, many other similar events here and around the world has really begun to create a profound shift.

The truth about the man-made contribution to climate change is out. As it is understood, Al Gore’s optimism is expected to be vindicated.

Read the entire Ezra Klein interview with Al Gore on the Washington Post site here.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Living in Society

Iowa’s Flight to No Preference

Solon VotingChad Brown of Ankeny, “the co-chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, has resigned and changed his party registration to independent, saying the GOP has become too conservative and is condoning “hateful” rhetoric,” reported Kathie Obradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register, on Tuesday. The flight of voters to no preference (a.k.a. independent) is not new in Iowa, although Brown may be the first GOP party chair to switch in a while, and it’s news.

The flight to no preference is significant. Here are the Secretary of State’s August active voter registration numbers by congressional district.

First District: Democratic: 162,447; Republican: 136,290; No Preference: 192,715.

Second District: Democratic: 170,096; Republican: 138,517; No Preference: 182,097.

Third District: Democratic: 157,375; Republican: 164,176; No Preference: 157,076.

Fourth District: Democratic: 127,457; Republican: 178,158; No Preference: 174,307.

Iowa Total: Democratic: 617,375; Republican: 617,141; No Preference: 706,195.

During the 2012 general election campaign, the author spoke to thousands of voters in their communities and at their doorsteps, and the moniker of “no preference” is inaccurate. Voters do have a preference, although it is not based in a political party or the kind of politicized talking points that often characterize a campaign. Voters, in the majority of cases, want to do what they think is right, emphasis on thinking. Most who planned to vote gave careful consideration to the candidates in specific races. In the majority of cases, party affiliation was less important than whether the candidate would perform well in elected office.

Our campaign door knocked enough to meet voters and have multiple conversations with them over the course of the eight month campaign. It was an opportunity to see how the decision-making process went and how choices were made. Our campaign was in the second congressional district, and support for Rep. Dave Loebsack solidified first, as he is well liked in the district. Next was a reluctant choice for President Obama, and it was clear many voters did not like their choices for president. In the state house race in which I was working, people said they hadn’t decided, but I think they were just being polite at their door as the Republican candidate won 56.3 percent to 43.5 percent.

Perhaps most telling was conversations with poll workers during the June 5, 2012 primary election. I visited every polling place in our district on election day and to a person the poll workers said voter turnout was low and they expected it to be low. I asked why. The answers varied, but the consistent theme was that people did not want to be seen by friends and neighbors at the polls as a registered Democrat or Republican. This was particularly the case in mostly rural Cedar County, which is part of our house district and arguably a bellwether county.

The role of politics in daily life had been minimized by many voters I met. Politics mattered, but in a busy life, voters didn’t want to spend a lot of energy on it until the election was imminent, or a particular issue percolated to the surface of their lives.

There are exceptions to everything, but the upshot is that candidates will do better if they figure a way to gain favorable consideration among all registered voters, including members of the opposing party and so-called “no preference” voters. This is increasingly important the further down the ticket a race falls.

There are ideologues throughout the political spectrum, but in the wake of the 2006 and 2008 general elections, their time came in 2010, and is now hopefully receding. The resignation of the Polk County GOP co-chair is just one more example.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

Categories
Writing

We’re All Bloggers

Richard Engel
Richard Engel

Richard Engel of NBC news testified to the United Nations Security Council on July 17, “’We’re all bloggers and punks and rebels with cameras. There is absolutely no respect for career journalists anymore,’ said Engel, who was kidnapped by pro-regime gunmen in northern Syria and held for five days in December 2012.”

Engel was one of four journalists addressing the U.N., calling for world leaders to do more to protect reporters risking their lives in conflict situations. This in light of the 600 journalists killed during the last ten years and 41 killed in Syria alone during the last year. If one has seen Engel’s reports, he gets into the thick of conflict to collect and deliver stories for the corporate media. He’s also on the micro blog twitter.

The Associated Press wrote a story on Engel’s testimony and it can be read here.

It is a marvel there are people like Engel, who put themselves in harm’s way for what they believe is a greater good. In our house we don’t watch television most days, and my Engel fix comes from his 140 character tweets @RichardEngel. It has a democratizing effect, giving meaning to his quote at the U.N., “we’re all bloggers.” He often comes up next to the orchard where I work, @anamariecox and @realDonaldTrump.

Engel was trying to maintain the special status of his profession, something hard to do when there are tens of millions of bloggers, and ubiquitous social media outlets, all chattering away 24-7. With the erosion of the importance of newspapers, magazines and television in many people’s lives, and politicized everything, there are a few who stand out as superior working employees of the fourth estate. What is the fourth estate anyway? I can almost remember it, and it has new meaning with Richard Engel in it.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa.

Categories
Home Life

Midweek Work

Early Girl Tomatoes
Early Girl Tomatoes

LAKE MACBRIDE— As my portfolio of local food system work builds, there is not enough time to do everything that is needed for optimum results. Apples fall faster than they can be processed, and tomatoes sit on the vine, ripe and ready. The work commitments fill in time at five locations, and that leaves less flexibility in a schedule that used to be pretty open.

I just finished canning 36 quarts and 14 pints of tomatoes as juice, sauce and whole. The sauce is very expensive in that it takes a lot of tomato flesh to make a pint of the thick sauce. Hopefully it will enable me to make pasta and pizza sauce without reducing or adding tomato paste as a thickener. From last year’s first experiment it was a winner and worth it.

I was counting on a lot of slicers from the CSA, but there was blight and the production hasn’t been as good as in previous years. Luckily, I have plenty in our garden, at least for the moment.

When I come up for air, there will be other stuff to do. For now, swimming in all this work is invigorating and fulfilling.