Author: Paul Deaton

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.

Categories
Living in Society

Iowa’s First District Democratic Primary Race

Iowa Congressional Districts
Iowa Congressional Districts

(AUTHOR’S NOTE: Since I live in the second district, I won’t be writing a lot about this race, but felt it important to acknowledge what’s going on in the first district. My views do not represent those of our beloved publisher or our other writers).

Five Democrats are at various stages of jumping into the race to represent the first congressional district when Rep. Bruce Braley exits the house, hopefully for the U.S. senate, after the 2014 general election. Of the five, I met only one, Swati Dandekar. I encountered Dandekar in my former life in the transportation business where we were introduced by one of the state’s key Republicans. We also had a chat in Des Moines while I was advocating against House File 561, the nuclear power finance bill. I said my piece about her here, and have nothing further to add. Let’s take a look at the other four candidates.

The remaining four U.S. house candidates, in alphabetical order, are: Anesa Kajtazovic, Pat Murphy, Dave O’Brien and Monica Vernon.

Anesa Kajtazovic is the face of the future of the Democratic party. She has served in the Iowa house since January 2011, and the only question about her for Democrats is whether or not now is her time. Yesterday she announced on Facebook and twitter that she is making a special announcement at press conferences in Marshalltown, Waterloo, Cedar Rapids and Dubuque on Aug. 20. Candidates don’t make four-stop tours to announce they aren’t running, so she is expected to make it official. She seems to believe now is the time.

Pat Murphy is the face of the past of the Democratic party. He already has done fundraising the way experienced pols do, and my former legislators Ro Foege and Nate Willems recently held a fundraiser for him. The Democratic activists with whom Blog for Iowa has spoken, who have had contact with Murphy, are not enthused about his candidacy. There is something to be said for experience, but in a field that has three women and several fresh faces, a Pat Murphy primary win would represent more of the same for Iowa Democrats and that could be problematic in the general election.

Dave O’Brien’s brief biography is what I know about him. He is a Cedar Rapids attorney and according to his web site, “his law practice consists primarily of fighting for Iowans who have been injured by the negligent and wrongful acts of others.” Where I come from, that’s called being an ambulance chaser, and has a negative connotation. Perhaps that’s an unfair comment, and as the campaign progresses, Democratic activists who don’t know him will get a chance to do so. At the starting line, he presents nothing unique or exciting in his resume, but that could be fixed. Bruce Braley is a progressive Democrat. O’Brien says he is one too, but that remains to be discovered.

Finally, there is Monica Vernon, a two-term city councilwoman from Cedar Rapids. Vernon posted on her Facebook page, “the last thirty years of my life were devoted to raising a family, growing a business and working hard to make my community a better place. As a Cedar Rapids city councilwoman, I have tackled extremely difficult issues as we recovered and rebuilt our community after the flood. Since the devastating storm of 2008, I have continued to work with other local, regional and national leaders on forward thinking, short and long term strategies to spur economic development, improve neighborhood safety and more.” It’s a well crafted and earnest statement. Perhaps the pizzazz will be forthcoming. Best of luck Monica.

Besides bloggers and political activists, few people I know are engaged in politics at the end of one of the best summers we have had in recent years. As an outsider looking into the first district, the opinions of this author don’t matter much. I look forward to seeing how the race plays out and what first district Democrats decide in the June 3, 2014 primary.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa.

Categories
Work Life

Tea Time in Cedar Rapids

Hay Bales
Hay Bales

CEDAR RAPIDS— A friend is saying her long goodbyes to Iowa before moving to Florida, so I broke from the tomato canning extravaganza to have coffee with her at a shop in Cedar Rapids. We exchanged gifts. I brought summer squash, cabbage, tomatoes and other produce. She brought an arrangement of Hydrangea for my spouse. We had just an hour before I had to leave for the farm, so we were concise, something that can often be difficult among people of a certain age with much in common.

We covered a lot of ground, including her recent attendance at the Democracy Convention in Madison, Wis. However, the substance of our chat was the systemic dismantling of the union movement in our post Reagan world, coupled with the decreasing relevance of today’s union leaders. That’s a mouthful, but the upshot is that corporations have been working hard to reduce labor costs and shed union contracts. The result for our generation has been a large cohort of middle aged managers and specialists whose positions have been systematically eliminated through outsourcing, reorganization, or the work of human resources consultants like Towers Perrin and Hay Group. What’s a person to do?

For a long time, I chased the available labor from downsizing and off-shoring, hoping to find over the road truck drivers. The idea was that as long term factory workers, they would possess behavior that was stable and well suited to the boredom and long hours a truck driver’s job entailed. What I found was people who would do almost anything to preserve their way of life, get their children through high school and continue living in the community they worked so hard to create. During those years from 1987 until 1993, I had some of the toughest conversations of my life, with people who were desperate to go on living and had the rug pulled out from under them so workers in Mexico, and later China and South Korea, could manufacture the appliances, auto parts and other goods they made for so many years.

A return of unions in private companies seems unlikely, mostly because workers who will accept less than a living wage dominate the unskilled labor pool. There is no shortage of people who will work for an hourly wage around $9 per hour. In some communities, like Minneapolis-Saint Paul, Minn., service industry companies have included minimum wage labor availability assessments in their expansion plans, and it has not been a substantial constraint. There are plenty of people willing to work in the unskilled market, which is what most non-professional jobs are.

When a person takes a job, there are inherent compromises. For a while, I supervised fuel purchasing where our company spent more than $25 million per year. Knowing what we know about the impact of CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, burning fossil fuels in heavy trucks contributes to global warming. I also knew that if I didn’t want the job, someone else would. This created an institutional bent toward doing things we know are wrong despite our self-consciousness about the behavior.

Politicians say they want to help create jobs, but during our conversation, we were not so sure. What people want is to live with economic security and the promise of American life. Few, if any corporations have that in mind when they lay out a business plan. What’s most important is maximizing return on investment, and that includes laying off highly paid, long-term employees, then hiring two low-wage workers for the same money. I’m not complaining. I’m just sayin’ that’s the way it is. And how progress will continue in our turbulent world.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

The Tomato Deal

Seconds
Seconds

LAKE MACBRIDE— There are six crates of organic farm tomato seconds in various states in our kitchen. Today’s goal is to process them all and have quarts of tomato juice and pints of plain sauce canned and ready before bedtime. I spent about an hour washing tomatoes last night after dinner, and have been at it since 6 a.m. this morning. The tomato deal is an important part of this local food system.

TomatoesHere’s the deal. A CSA produces tomatoes for farm shares, and has seconds, which are not suitable for the customers. I get a call when there are some, pick them up, along with canning jars, process and can them into a few categories of food ingredient. No salt, vinegar or preservatives, with the end result being jars of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce or tomato juice. The juice is the strained liquid left in the cooking vessels, and not tomatoes run through a hand or motor powered juicer. The farmer labor is producing the tomatoes, mine is processing them. We split the finished product 50-50.

So far, it is looking to be successful. Check back when the tomatoes really start coming in.

Categories
Writing

Checking out The Dock

The DockSOLON— In a small town any new restaurant gets a try from locals and last night we had dinner at The Dock on Windflower Lane. Billed as “Fine Dining and Spirits,” there were white tablecloths set out amid decorations reflecting proximity to a place where fish live and boats tie up. Despite nearby Coralville Lake and Lake Macbride, where fish live and boats do tie up, the experience was not intended to be local. The main sign on Highway 1 offered Seafood, Steaks and Pasta, and there were a number of additional signs the size of political yard signs stuck in the ground along the way to get the attention of passers by.

Whenever a new restaurant opens, we check out the menu for the ovo-lacto vegetarian in the house. On-line there was no mention of vegetarian fare of any kind, and while that is a sign, vegetarians know that in the Midwest, sometimes they have to choose some combination of salad and side dishes to fill up the plate. When asked, the server did not have an answer about the offerings for vegetarians, leaving an uncomfortable silence, which my dining companion filled by making some suggestions. Many of the 14 other dining places in our small town acknowledge vegetarians do exist and offer entrees for them. Nonetheless, when my omnivore friends come calling, there is no reason to rule out The Dock.

There were three seating choices: “high,” “low” and outdoors. The high seating was in close proximity to the bar where television sets were mounted to the wall, and a person could hang out, appreciate the work of the resident mixologist and catch a popular televised event. The low seating was in a dining room where the tables were a bit close together. I bumped a person at the table next to us when moving my chair. We didn’t try the outdoor seating, but might have had the greeter mentioned it upon arrival as it was a beautiful summer night.

When asked about specials, the server indicated there were none, attributing it to the fact that the chef was serving on reserve duty that weekend. He seemed a nice young man, but apparently had not been trained to market the offerings of the kitchen, chef or no. In fact, our dinner conversation turned to how the food came from farm to plate, trending toward late 20th century consumerism, where diners sought specific items, the act of purchase having hegemony over any celebration of food. Not a place a restauranteur wants customers to be.

The food was good, and reasonably priced, and that is a positive. However, rather than the good food, the restaurant’s operational issues dominated the evening. When one dines out once or twice a month, that matters.

Dining out is about expectations met, and The Dock has some work to do to earn repeat business. First, and foremost, the staff needs training. Everyone we encountered was friendly and sought to be helpful, but management hadn’t done their work. Staff is at the core of a positive restaurant experience, and while they promptly replaced the dirty forks on the table,  there shouldn’t be dirty forks, prompting diners to recall the Monty Python sketch on the subject.

An example of a mismatch between the kitchen offerings and the menu is that a side of coleslaw is listed on the online menu for $2.50. In the restaurant, the price had gone up to $3, and they were no longer offering it, the server said, indicating it should be taken off the menu. We agreed. Set aside that local cabbage is in season and abundant. All of this is an easy fix, the responsibility of management.

So at the end, the food was good and reasonably priced at The Dock, but they have some work to do to stay open in what is becoming a very competitive Solon restaurant scene.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Will Work for Food

Preserving Eggplant
Preserving Eggplant

LAKE MACBRIDE— Two batches of pickles are fermenting in crocks downstairs, the second started three days after the first. The rule is to place cucumbers in the brine and let things get started for three days before checking. There was scum to skim on the first this morning— evidence the pickling process is proceeding as expected. The reason for a second batch is a local grower had excess cucumber seconds which were offered and taken to serve my dill pickle addiction.

Eggplant is abundant. I peeled and cut three into half inch rounds. They were baked for 15 minutes at 425 degrees, cooled and then frozen and bagged for future use, most likely in eggplant Parmesan. By then, the freezer was reaching capacity, and eggplant is not an everyday preference.

Last processed yesterday was two tubs of broccoli. This is part of a work for food barter, and unexpectedly came about while discussing seconds and surplus with a grower. All told, it took me about four hours to process the two tubs with a total yield of 20+ pounds frozen. The first tub, which yielded 8-1/2 pounds, was returned to the grower as compensation for the produce. I kept the second, added two heads I already had in the refrigerator, and that was the balance.

It’s a shame we had to compost the stems, as they are some good eating. If better organized, I would have made a big batch of soup stock using carrot, onion, celery, bay leaves and the broccoli stems and canned it in quarts. Our household uses a lot of stock.

The squash beetles mentioned yesterday avoided the butternut squash seedlings and congregated on the withering acorn squash plants. I need to study natural pesticides before I pull those vines, as the bugs will likely next migrate to the new cucumber plants, and infringe on my plans for more dill pickles. It is remarkable that I had tremendous abundance of zucchini and yellow squash before the squash beetles showed up.

The grower with whom I’m working on the broccoli and tomatoes stopped by to drop off some canning jars. We toured my local food operation which is situated on 0.62 acres. It is revealing to see what other growers notice about a home garden: the apple trees, my compost bin made from four pallets, the healthy Brussels sprout plants, my deer-deterrent fencing, and my pile of cut brush waiting for a fall burn after the garden is finished. She asked if I turned the compost. I won’t until spring when it is spread on the garden plots.

A local food system centered around a single household is both simple and complex. Cooking and preserving food are practices that have been around since hunting and gathering gave way to agriculture and domestication. Fresh food is sourced from a garden and a mix of growers. Specialty items are purchased where they are available at local retail outlets. There is a constant balancing act that regulates types and quantities. The refrigerator contents reflects how things are going, hopefully with the majority of foodstuffs having no commercial label.

While endeavoring to earn money for the tax man, insurance companies and lenders, we have to eat. The question becomes, what takes precedence? We can live without bankers, but sustaining a life requires a sophisticated, ever evolving local food system. The pay is not much, but the rewards are renewable.