Author: Paul Deaton

Categories
Living in Society

Bill Anders Died As He Lived

Earthrise by Bill Anders, Dec. 24, 1968

Early Saturday morning news media reported Bill Anders died at age 90 while a plane he was piloting crashed into the sea off Washington State. He was a pilot at the beginning of his career and that’s how it ended.

Anders was widely known for his unplanned photograph Earthrise. He was a lunar module pilot on the Apollo 8 mission when he took it. Anders later described taking this photograph as his most significant contribution to the space program, according to BBC. “We came all this way to explore the Moon, and the most important thing that we discovered was the Earth,” Anders said.

Earthrise inspired most everyone.

Officials said Anders’ plane crashed Friday at around 11:40 a.m. PDT, according to the BBC. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said he was flying a Beechcraft A A 45 – also known as a T-34. The agency said that the plane crashed about 80 feet from the coast of Jones Island.

Anders’ story has its roots in being a pilot. On Oct. 8, 1997, he told that story as part of the NASA Johnson Space Center Oral History Project. Here is his answer to the first interview question by Paul Rollins. Read the entire interview on the NASA website.

[Early in my Air Force career as a fighter pilot] I was trying very hard to get into the Air Force Flight Test School. … I … talked to Chuck Yeager and the people running [the school] and Yeager … said “We’re really looking for people with advanced degrees.” This was in [1959]. So, I signed up for the Air Force Institute of Technology masters [degree] program [where I] graduated with honors. [I went back] to Edwards thinking I was a shoe-in and [was told by Yeager], “Oh, well [that] the criteria [had been changed and that advanced degrees didn’t count as much as flying time.] … I was disappointed but I still kept trying to get in and [applied] for the Flight Test Program [anyway]. [In the meantime,] … I was driving my Volkswagen bus, [one Friday afternoon] going home from work [in] Albuquerque [New Mexico] at the Air Force Special Weapons Center, where I was an engineer and an instructor pilot [when] I heard this announcement [over the car radio] that NASA was looking for another group of astronauts. Now one had to be a test pilot for the first two groups [of astronauts] and it didn’t occur to me that they would change that. But [for] this group [the radio announcer] went down the list of things [NASA required. He said the applicants] had to be a graduate of Test Pilot School or have an advanced degree. I remember pulling over to the side, tuning it up, and then waiting for the next fifteen minute [news cast where the “… or advanced degree” message was repeated. By the time I got home] … I had decided that … I was going to put in an application. … I wrote up a letter [that weekend], … mailed it to [NASA on Sunday]. [W]hen I got to work at the Air Base the next [Monday the pilot officers were] told that if … we were interested, [we should fill out some] forms [and] submit them through the channels. … I went to my boss and said [that I] already sent [NASA] a letter [of application.] … [H]e said, “Well, that’s okay, just go do it again [through channels].” …[T]o my surprise [I] was asked to come down for the various physicals and tests [several weeks later]. And, to my increasing surprise, [I] kept surviving [the cuts]. [On October 17] of 1963 [(my birthday), I] was called by Deke [Donald K.] Slayton and asked if I wanted to [fly with them, I accepted immediately]. Two days later, I [received] a call from Chuck Yeager who said, … he was really sorry [and that] I was really a great candidate but I didn’t make [the USAF Test Pilot School]. I made the mistake, in retrospect, of saying, “Well, Colonel I appreciate [your call] … but I [have] a better offer anyway.” “What was that?” [he asked surprised]. I told him I [had received] a call from Deke Slayton [to come to NASA. Yeager] said that’s not possible because we … screened all the applicants and since you weren’t a member of the test pilot school you didn’t go forward. I said, “Well, sir, I put in [another application directly to NASA].” … [He was upset about that and] actually put some energy into that trying to get me kicked out of the [NASA] program… [Fortunately he was not successful.] (Interview with William A Anders by Paul Rollins for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Oct. 8, 1997).

Bill Anders died as he lived. May he rest in peace.

Categories
Living in Society

Progressive Summer Reading Program

Iowa history books.

At a time when conservative political activists tell us what we can and can’t read and learn in public spaces, summer reading programs at public libraries continue to thrive. In the City of Solon, population 3,018, 261 kids attended the public library’s May 30 Summer Reading Program kick-off event.

Most have heard of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which mails free books to children from birth to age five. Each month Parton’s organization mails books to one million children around the world with one in seven American children receiving her books. Any parent can sign their child up for the service from Imagination Library.

Young children seem on board with reading. It’s the adults among us that need to do better. According to the website Wordsrated, the average American adult reads five books per year. 51.6 percent of Americans don’t finish a single book in a year. Here are some books where progressives can start improving our book-reading. Call it a progressive summer reading program!

I recommend starting with my March 31 post titled Women to Read and Follow. These authors are essential to understanding the progressive viewpoint in contemporary society. Don’t yap about dark money in politics or Citizen’s United unless you have read Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Following women’s health care rights post-Dobbs? Read Alice Miranda Ollstein’s articles at Politico. Concerned about misinformation and disinformation in the media? You should read Barbara McQuade, Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. All eight women I covered are worth reading.

There are some men writing on progressive topics who are also worth reading. I recently reviewed Ari Berman’s latest book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People–and the Fight to Resist It. Berman’s previous book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America is a must-read. I’ve been following Thom Hartmann’s Hidden History series and any of them is a good starting place. My recent review of The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living is here. Warning! Once you get started with Hartmann you may become addicted. Blog for Iowa weekend editor Dave Bradley wants to read Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick.

How do disabled people become political activists? You owe it to yourself to read Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong who tells her story. What is a main issue? Free and open access to the internet.

Worried about the climate crisis? Hannah Ritchie’s new book Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet offers a fresh and refreshing perspective. Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights is about bird migrations and our interaction with nature, suggesting we should not be using nature as a metaphor at all.

It has been so long since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people tend to forget nuclear weapons should be eliminated and the major powers all agreed to do just that. Annie Jacobsen recently published Nuclear War: A Scenario to remind us. This book deserves distribution beyond folks who work for nuclear abolition.

Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost & Found during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Michelle Fishburne is a unique story of her 12,000-mile journey with her children in an RV during the pandemic. Her story captures something about the pandemic it is difficult to find elsewhere.

Blog for Iowa editor Trish Nelson passed along some summer reading recommendations. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson is one person’s stories of growing up in Iowa, many places and things we all remember come and gone. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purcell and Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Spy by Judith L. Pearson are two different books with the same topic: an infamous female spy from America who was a key player in the French resistance during WWII. Trish also recommends Cassidy Hutchinson’s Enough and Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

A person needs escape through reading from time to time. Novels I recommend are A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar and Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb. It was hard to put each of these books down as the subject was compelling and the story masterfully told.

I turn to poetry when I need a break from prose, reading new and old poetry from my personal library. In the new category, I recommend Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte, a debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging. In the old category, someone on social media convinced me to read the poetry of John Betjeman. His collected poems is on my summer reading list. I am also a fan of Lucia Perillo’s The Oldest Map with the Name America. My recommendation? Go to the nearest public library, find the poetry section, and pick something that interests you.

There you have it: a progressive summer reading list. Happy summer reading!

Categories
Living in Society

Life Near a Small City

Corner of Main at Market

The population of the city near where I live was 3,018 during the 2020 U.S. Census. It is growing yet much remains the same about small city life.

The grocery store will give you cash back, that is, unless it is early in the morning and they have not received any $20 bills in the till.

The clerk at the hardware store was reading the Cedar Rapids Gazette. I entered through the back entrance because the sidewalk in front is closed for repairs from high winds in 2023. They had what I needed.

The fire station is locked up tight as an all-volunteer force is working other jobs during the day.

A large tent was erected on the south edge of town where fireworks will be sold ahead of Independence Day.

The convenience stores are hopping with customers who service their addictions. They are the busiest places in the city most mornings.

What to make of this? It just is. The unseen parts of the city are more interesting.

A majority of residents commute to a job somewhere else.

Most everyone has high speed internet and everything that means.

Shopping with Amazon is so convenient it hits sales from Main Street stores like a bludgeon.

When we do need to buy something, the prices are much higher than in nearby larger cities.

Within city limits, housing stock turns over as quickly as a realtor hangs a sign.

It’s like one desultory stream of features that mean nothing unless one knows the people who live here. Maybe that’s the point. To know the city, know the people.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Getting a Saucier

Made In three-quart, stainless steel saucier. Photo credit – Made In website.

I came into some extra money from my writing and ordered a Made In, five-ply stainless steel clad, three quart saucier. I saw the device on Olivia Tiedemann’s Instagram channel where she recommended it for sauces, grain cooking, one-pot dishes, and more. It is her go-to pan, she said. Tiedemann is a private chef with more than 4 million Instagram followers. She makes short cooking videos, curses a lot, and flips the bird at the camera at least once during each episode. The saucier sold out on the Made In website shortly after I ordered mine.

I am very excited to be receiving this saucier, tracking the shipment a couple times a day. As I type, it is at a warehouse in Iowa City awaiting delivery, presumably today.

Buying a saucier is a poor man’s extravagance. Did I need a special pan to make sauces? I was getting along just fine. Do I want to be like Tiedemann? Maybe, except she is definitely oriented toward using all the meat and dairy products, unlike what goes on in our household. Once one eliminates meat, fish, dairy, butter, eggs and the like from meal preparation, cooking becomes something else. I’m hoping the saucier will help me down a path of developing sauces and dishes for our hybrid vegetarian-vegan cuisine. If I had real money, I’d dine at a favorite restaurant multiple times a week. I don’t, therefore, saucier.

Will the saucier change my life? I hope so. I hope to be a better cook in my kitchen garden. Imagination and a special pan may be the way to distinguish what I do here. The anticipatory excitement is well worth the money spent on the saucier.

Categories
Writing

2024 Primary Results

Sign at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Solon on June 4, 2024.

The Democratic ballot was simple this election. Vote for all the Democrats, except pick three of five candidates in the supervisor race. The primary winners for supervisor were Rod Sullivan, Lisa Green-Douglass, and Mandi Remington. No surprises there.

On the Republican side, there were two races of interest. Incumbent Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks defeated prayer breakfast organizer David Pautsch with 55.9 percent of the vote. In House District 91, Oxford attorney Judd Lawler defeated second-time candidate and Williamsburg Mayor Adam Grier with 78.9 percent of the vote. Lawler trounced Grier in Johnson County where he got 502 of 554 votes cast.

The common theme for these elections is voter turnout was pathetic.

Miller-Meeks’ 16,446 vote win was a comment on the state of the Republican Party in the First District. Division within the party runs deep is how I read it. It was surprisingly low for someone who first ran for this seat in 2008, and won her last election by seven points. Such division will keep her tilting toward the extremist wing of her party. In the general election this represents no change in her match-up with Democratic challenger Christina Bohannan.

In an election night email, winning supervisor candidate Rod Sullivan summarized the situation like this: “I sincerely hope Democrats are ready to work this fall, because Dems did not turn out Tuesday! Hopefully they care more about Congress than local races.” We shall see.

Categories
Living in Society

Migration From Newspapers To Other Media

This chart says a lot about the history of newspapers in the 21st Century. As the number of employees in the business declined by 75 percent, private equity extracted financial resources from these businesses through mergers and acquisitions, leaving a much diminished infrastructure to provide news and information. There are fewer daily newspapers in 2024 compared to 2000.

As newsroom employees are purged, and substacks, blogs, podcasts, and the like proliferate, we are left with fragmented news sourcing around specific reporters’ individual interests. There is a role for that, but obtaining reliable news about things that matter is increasing difficult, both from the news consumer’s perspective and from the newspaper perspective of doing more and more with fewer resources.

I am interested in the issue of blogs as news sources. Like it or not, Bleeding Heartland, Blog for Iowa, and Iowa Starting Line are no news substitute for the vacuum being created by private equity shedding newspaper employees and mining news assets. Iowa Starting Line is part of Courier Newsroom, funded by reader contributions, sponsors, and philanthropic and corporate underwriting, according to their website. Both Blog for Iowa and Bleeding Heartland have been privately funded, although that model is changing at Bleeding Heartland. Funding is addressed on the Bleeding Heartland website: “Readers can support independent journalism and help cover reporting costs, such as public records requests, by contributing here.” This type of funding provides freedom to do what editors think is best. While a lot of solid journalism is accomplished on blogs like these, they are not a replacement for news.

Some journalists found a way to make a living outside the world of newspapers. It is increasingly clear that with the rise of potentially profitable podcasts, substacks, YouTube channels, and the like, there is more money to be made in these new entities than in writing for a newspaper. There are important essays to read in this fragmented news media, yet our formal news environment is the worse for these one-off entrepreneurial enterprises.

While individual reporters venture into single-source, news-like publications, other things are filling the vacuum left by the demise of newspapers.

Political operatives are filling the news void with coordinated, partisan messaging. When Republicans like Kim Reynolds, Joni Ernst, Ashley Hinson, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks all refer to the New York trial of former president Trump as a “sham,” it is not by accident. They have the resources to develop consistent messaging to an increasingly poorly educated populace where they sow the seeds of their right-wingery. Furthering such messaging is important to Republicans maintaining a majority of elected offices in Iowa. The decline of newspapers created this opportunity for them.

At the same time, the rise in misinformation and disinformation in social media is rampant. First, social media is not a public forum as long as a user name and password is required to gain access. Second, a person can say almost anything, subject to after the fact censoring. Most importantly, troll farms can flood the social media space with posts aligned toward a specific perspective. Whether we like it or not, there is a propaganda war going on in social media, and I don’t mean cats are taking over the world. The degree to which Chinese and Russian troll farms work to infiltrate American social media is a substantial political issue.

For all the hobbles attached to news organizations in the current environment, subscribing to a major newspaper provides more value than harm. It is not enough. We must seek out news writers offering distinct, less biased messaging, and follow them where they are. I’m thinking of Heather Cox Richardson, but there are many others. By all means subscribe to a newspaper. Also take the next step to find writers whose work is valuable and follow them where they publish. This means some work we didn’t previously have to perform, yet the rewards will help us cope with a changing news media infrastructure.

Categories
Writing

Weekly Journal 2024-06-02

Turning over the 2024 tomato plot.

Garden work made me tired this week. It took multiple days to prepare and plant the tomato plot, and it is not finished. Other plots are prepared for specialty crops like fennel, okra, peppers, kale and the like, but I can’t get around to putting them in the ground. So it goes with a septuagenarian gardener. Things are slowing.

Election Interference Trial

The biggest news this week, upon which I will spend the least time, is the New York trial of former president Donald J. Trump. I tend to agree with actor Robert DeNiro, who said, “I don’t want to be talking, but I am so upset by it. I have to say something. This is my country. This guy wants to destroy it. Period. He’s crazy.” Read “Keep Hope Alive” for my longer take.

Writing

It seems clear once I finish the current read-through and editing, the next step for my autobiography is preparation to print it for private distribution. That means making about ten or twelve copies as a first run so I can call it done. Font type, page layout, line spacing, long quotation formatting, grammar and punctuation consistency, and more need to be addressed. I should have a professional read it and provide advice, yet I don’t have funds to do that presently. The goal is to have the finished book in front of me later this year.

Part two has more words than part one already, yet most of it is in very rough form. When I’m ready to start, the outline needs completely re-done. This would be followed by a serious write-through. Part of the reason I stalled on part two is the amount of background documentation is tremendous. Journals, notes, files, recordings, and more are stuffed in boxes waiting for me. That’s not to mention more than 5,000 blog posts. I don’t expect to turn every page, yet I must turn a lot of them. The main initiative to do a write-through will be during the hot days of summer and the coming fall and winter.

First things first. I need the first book in hand as soon as is practicable.

Israel-Hamas War

There has been devastating loss of life in Palestine. U.S. policy enables it. Here’s hoping the president addresses this in a meaningful way. He encouraged Hamas to accept the following proposal. Let’s hope all parties can soon agree to a way out of the violence.

“It’s time for this war to end, and the ‘day after’ to begin,” Biden said in remarks at the White House May 31.

Categories
Writing

Hummingbird Dreams

Mottled shadows of grasses against a piece of cloth.

I hung a piece of cloth over the lower level windows across from my writing table. As the sun rises, shadows dance on it: insects, long blades of grass, and lately, a hummingbird suspended in air as they are while searching for food. It feels I’m living in Plato’s allegory of the cave and I’m fine with that. It is a reminder the world in which we live is not a lie. I’m not chained in place. I’m free to go outdoors, see the hummingbird, and not be blinded by the sun.

I bought mini-blinds to put on that window, like the others in the lower level of the house, yet am glad I didn’t install them. There is a constant show on the window covering for dreaming. We humans need dreams.

The garden ground is too wet to work this morning. It seems unlikely to dry by noon. If the lawn dries sufficiently I’ll mow. There is plenty of indoors work to do if it doesn’t.

Our go-to, easy-to-prepare dinner is tacos. I made them last night, based on the recipe I wrote a few years ago. Instead of yellow onions, I used spring onions. Instead of garlic, I used garlic scapes. Instead of frozen kale, I used a mixture of fresh Pac Choi and collards from the garden. Such seasonal variations make tacos one of our favorite meals. They always taste a little different, in this case, fresher than normal. We prepare the dish often.

This week, Major League Baseball added the Negro League statistics to the record book. It changed some of the rankings. Josh Gibson beat Ty Cobb in highest career batting record. Gibson beat Babe Ruth, Ted Williams and Hugh Duffy in other categories as well. When I was a kid I didn’t have a baseball card of Josh Gibson and was not aware the Negro League existed. For me, Babe Ruth was it. Until this year, we found he wasn’t. Here’s a link to the Washington Post story.

Categories
Living in Society

Keep Hope Alive

Trail walking.

After a long shift working in the garden I took a nap. When I woke around 4 p.m., the jury in the New York trial of Donald J. Trump had returned a guilty verdict on each of the 34 charges for which he was indicted. There was no surprise here as I had been following the court action and believed the prosecution’s case was bulletproof, the defense was weak. Sentencing is set for July 11, just before the Republican National Convention. The defendant is expected to appeal.

I was not in a celebratory mood. I shaved, took a shower, and then sat down with my handheld device to check the news. Of course it was dominated by reactions to the verdict. Among the first things I saw was Governor Kim Reynolds’ statement about the verdict, which I quote in full:

America saw this trial for what it was, a sham. For years, Democrats like Alvin Bragg have been trying to put President Trump in jail with complete disregard for our democracy and the will of the American people. The only verdict that matters is the one at the ballot box in November where the American people will elect President Trump again. 

Statement by Kim Reynolds, Office of the Governor Press Release, 4:15 p.m., May 30, 2024.

Governor Reynolds appears to have forgotten the “will of the people” was that Joe Biden become president after the 2020 election. In Reynolds’ statement lies the seed for the destruction of Iowa Republicans as a dominant force in our politics. I don’t think they understand this or what they are doing. I’ve been around long enough to remember another president who was a crook.

In my autobiography, I wrote a chapter on the meaning of Richard Nixon’s resignation:

Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974. I had no idea who Gerald Ford was, or what kind of leader he would be. The next day he said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

I felt a strong sense of social responsibility and the moral outrage of youth in what I believed were the deception and lies of a man in whom the country had put its trust. Hearing Nixon’s address that night, in our small apartment, was catharsis. I remember this feeling as I typed here in Big Grove Township tonight. I was relieved that Nixon was leaving. More importantly, I felt that the many protests and demonstrations during the Vietnam war had finally borne fruit. Direct action to support a just cause could accomplish things, even force out a sitting president. It was a heady feeling.

Even with many experiences by the time I reached age 22, it was that moment of seeing Nixon resign on television that opened the possibilities of the world. I became aware that direct action, in concert with others I did not know, could engender change in society. I also learned that the people, places, and things we read about can be grounded in a reality that is not that distant from where we live. We are connected to each other in unlikely ways.

Unpublished autobiography by Paul Deaton

In the post Trump era, I no longer feel as optimistic about the future as my 22-year-old self did. I simply realize how much work remains to be done for justice to prevail for all Americans by ensuring Republicans continue in decline. I realize how little time is left to accomplish this. No matter how Republicans try to spin the guilty verdicts, their enabling of Trump has a down side that led us directly to this moment of hope.

If I celebrate the verdict at all, it is because the American rule of law continues to work. No person is above the law, despite ongoing attempts by conservatives to undermine it for political advantage. Trump’s guilty verdict was a victory for the rule of law and that is worth celebrating. If the rule of law does not prevail, there will be no democracy in America.

As the Reverend Jesse Jackson said, “At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward with fear and division.” He also said, “Keep hope alive.” Words to live by as Trump has his day in court.

Categories
Sustainability

Constructed Reality

Local turtle on our driveway.

We live in the only home we planned and built. When I arrived from Indiana in 1993, ahead of the rest of the family, our lot was a vacant remainder of Don Kasparek’s subdivision of his farm. There were two volunteer trees and tall grass.

A deal on another lot had fallen through, and there was an urgency to find a place to settle. This lot, with its proximity to Lake Macbride and a reasonable school system was to be it.

I remember sitting on the high wall after the contractor dug the lower level from the hillside, before the footings were in. A cool breeze blew in from the lake — the kind that still comes up from time to time.

We built a life here in Big Grove Township over more than 30 years.

Today is still a time of transition. The trajectory of life seems clearer and much work remains unfinished. Slow and steady wins the race, they say. Like this turtle, I hope to make it to the finish line of a better life.