Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Living in Society

Democratic Primary

Rural Polling Place

The Iowa primary for the 2026 general election is on June 2, 2026. At the end of summer the year before the primary there is plenty of action among both Democrats and Republicans. This post is a recap of where I find myself landing in three races a long distance from the finish line.

The governor announced she is not running again, which leaves an open race. Multiple Republicans put themselves forward for governor. I notice superficial aspects of their action yet am more interested in what Democrats are doing. Brianne Pfannenstiel of the Des Moines Register is covering the governor’s race. I was able to get through the Gannett paywall to read her latest here. Rob Sand and Julie Stauch are running as Democrats and there is a no-party candidate, Sondra Wilson. I was an active participant in the 2006 election that made Democrat Chet Culver our governor. I don’t see that type of enthusiasm this summer. In particular, Sand seems a bit droll. The filing deadline for state and federal offices is March 13, 2026. A lot can happen between now and then.

The race for U.S. Senator from Iowa is where most of my interest lies. At the end of June I donated $10 each to the three then announced candidates, Nathan Sage, Zach Wahls, and J.D. Scholten. There are at least three more kicking tires on a run. That’s too many $10 dollar donations to make another.

While a lot can happen before the filing deadline, I believe Sage, Wahls and Scholten comprise the field. Of them I like J.D. Scholten best because of his experience of running against Steve King in Iowa’s fourth congressional district. In addition, he has been prominent in national news media, appearing on nationwide broadcast outlets and newspapers. Just last week he spoke at Netroots Nation. Likewise, he has the attention of Iowa-based political reporters. His ability to attract media interest in things like his recent farm policy statement is important in the primary because Iowa Democrats do watch national news reporting and read the newspaper. His strength in person-to-person campaigning honed during his race with Steve King, combined with media attention makes him a strong contender to beat the Republican nominee whether or not it is Joni Ernst.

I don’t know Nathan Sage, and haven’t heard him speak in person or viewed a media recording. I will do that eventually. He has been making rounds of state Democratic gatherings and keeps an aggressive schedule. I don’t rule him out at this point.

I’m not dismissing Zach Wahls either. His public campaign seems focused on messaging in a way to redefine who we are as Iowans, defining values we hold in common. Iowa needs more of that. Whether that is a path to winning the general election is unclear in August 2025.

So I lean Scholten in the U.S. Senate race.

I have no opinion about congressional races except for in the first district where I live. I attended the county Democratic Central Committee meeting last Thursday where we heard from three campaigns for congress. This race boils down to whether we accept Christina Bohannan’s argument that she lost by 799 votes in 2024, and she knows how to close the gap and win the third time around. She noted in her remarks early polling has her at a 4-point advantage over Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

I don’t know if I buy that argument. At the same time, she is the only candidate with several seasoned staff members from three general election campaigns. When I think of the district, I know many of those Democrats well. They lean more conservative than Johnson County where I live. Given what is known about Bohannan, they seem unlikely to take a chance on a newcomer when they have heard or met Bohannan during the last three campaigns. I didn’t hear anything from the other campaigns to break the attention I pay to Bohannan.

There are a lot of other important races this cycle. For me, though, the focus is on these three.

UPDATE: Since posting this, Jackie Norris and Josh Turek announced for U.S. Senate. I will do an update of that race in a new post once the other person kicking tires on a run makes a decision.

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Living in Society

Working Today

Stump cut to make a resting place for the gardener.

With four weeks left until Labor Day, summer is about finished. A lot of work remains. The only compensation I receive for any of it is the satisfaction of a job well done.

Is my work the same as working for an employer? I think so, yet there is an attitude shift when we work for ourselves. I find more personal risk and am particularly careful I don’t get injured or make a bad financial decision. There is no malarkey in my work life. It is based on empirical tasks, cash flows, and bank loans, all of which are necessary to piece together a life. Most things break down into short projects upon which I can work until completion. There is no overtime pay, or any of the benefits allowed many workers. My spouse and I pool our pensions and hope they cover the bills.

I came up in a work environment where I earned more money than needed for minimal survival. It enabled buying a house, saving for our child’s education, and then later, when our savings proved to be not enough, it allowed us to pay the student loan to take that out of the child’s bucket. I also earned enough money to be able to quit my job multiple times without immediate prospects. The biggest adjustment to living on pensions is there is no longer any “extra” money.

From the time I left the job where my spouse and I met, until we moved back to Iowa and our child left to attend college, she worked at home. The work she did was valued and important to raising our child. There was the avoidance of child care expenses, and a clear division of labor, yet it was more than that. It was a way of life that had little to do with money except treating it as the fungible commodity it was. Ours wasn’t a perfect life, yet we got by.

I resist framing what I do every day as a job. The old farm word for it is “chores.” It’s more than that. With our more sedentary lifestyle, we need exercise, a healthy diet, and some amount of socialization. I suppose that makes us more than a cog in the machine of life. I hope we are more than that.

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Living in Society

Peak Iowa Summer

Lilies growing in the state park lake.

I woke early and have been listening to boomers roll across the area. There is a severe thunderstorm watch according to the National Weather Service. Rain is expected to continue until around 10 a.m. It will be another good morning to spend in the kitchen.

There has been so much rain I haven’t unrolled the hose to water the garden for two weeks. That is a good thing on several levels. All the greenery has taken off, including plants I put in the ground and weeds. Indeterminate tomato vines are reaching more than eight feet long. When the rain slows down, I need to get under them and see if any tomatoes are ready. I planted the main rows four feet apart, yet the vines in all the rows reach up and touch each other. We like rain.

Thunderstorms are a characteristic of Iowa summer.

While picking green beans on Monday it was so hot and humid I pushed my physical limits. I was drenched in sweat and felt dizzy a couple of times, yet worked to finish picking mature beans. Sorting and cleaning them was a chore yet I got that done in the kitchen before dinner. We did not eat green beans for dinner, having broccoli from the garden instead.

Green bean harvest on July 28, 2025.

Lately I’ve been thinking about my decision to retire during the coronavirus pandemic. The combination of the lock down, becoming eligible for full retirement on Social Security, and the health risks of working in a retail environment brought the decision together. I’m having second thoughts about being retired. It was evident before, although is clearer today, that if the Congress does not address the shortfall in Social Security in 2032-2034, we will need more income than we have. Changing course to engineer a life that produces more income than our pensions produce is in the near future. That will give me something to think about while I work in the kitchen this morning. In the meanwhile, it is peak Iowa summer and we should enjoy it.

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Living in Society

Mail Order Life

Photo by Brett Sayles on Pexels.com

When we live in rural Iowa, mail order remains important to our way of life. Shopping by mail has changed since I was a child. In addition to the United State Postal Service, there are Amazon, FedEx, UPS and other company trucks delivering in the neighborhood almost daily. The fact is, much of what I need to operate our household is not available in the city of 3,000 souls near our residence. Mail order is the most efficient way to find what I need, compare price, and receive goods in a timely manner.

Amazon is rightly the whipping post for all that is bad about modern mail order. The company is very large, and has a monopoly on what they do. They are hard on workers. The online retailer has made its owner one of the wealthiest men on the planet, and the upward flow of weallth to already rich people is an essential problem for society. After a family conversation I decided to do something about Amazon in my life.

I looked at my Amazon purchases because I agree, at least in part, about their labor abuses. The book I just read, Nomadland, described the lifestyle of people who travel the country in mobile living vehicles and do temp work, including at Amazon warehouses during the push right before Christmas. The author does not paint a positive picture of working conditions, even if many people rely on that temp work to live. Amazon warehouses are already staffed with robots for certain tasks and the expectation is more humans will be replaced in the near future. For now, the temp jobs fill an economic need for these nomadic workers.

I spent $1,309.27 at Amazon this year, in 43 orders, or $194 per month. Here’s what I’m willing to do: a. cut back on the number of orders to no more than two per month (down from 6.4 per month). b. I plan to cut my overall spending in half.

While some purchases are unavoidable because the item (like the corded electric lawn mower) are simply not available here, I can reduce the amount of foodstuffs I get at Amazon and buy locally when I’m already at the market. Likewise, I have less need to own books. In writing my second book, there are plenty of research materials in our home library and we have a good public library for non-writing related reading.

So that’s the plan. Not too fancy, yet with specific goals. Hoping this will cut back on Amazon enough to improve my life. Mail orders will continue, yet hopefully better managed. Fingers crossed!

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Reviews

Book Review: Nomadland

Jessica Bruder’s book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century was recommended on social media. It contains the kind of crisp, clear writing, and solid narrative I seek to create. When combined with the topic of how septuagenarians and others fit in to a modern American economy where it is difficult to earn enough to afford a home, it was a quick read. I didn’t know it when British writer/photographer Marie Gardiner recommended it on BlueSky, yet it is smack in the middle of my reading sweet spot.

Bruder spent three years, driving 15,000 miles gathering information for the book. She interviewed countless people living in many different vehicles driving throughout the country. Each was making a life from dire financial circumstances combined with temporary jobs and a reasonably open road. The stories are compelling.

She worked as an associate at an Amazon warehouse in Haslet, Texas and participated in a sugar beet harvest in North Dakota. Neither job lasted long, yet they gave her a basis of experience to validate what the people she interviewed said. She immersed herself in the culture of the people about whom she was writing.

With a bit of a stretch, there is enough information to use the book as a how-to for living the nomadic life depicted. Bruder explains how people put together a life with complex facets. She presents examples of how people choose a vehicle in which to live. Finding adequate income through a combination of Social Security and temporary, seasonal jobs is important. Social programs like thrift stores, food pantries and SNAP also play a role. The book stresses how individualistic each solution to living can be. There is enough here to spark an interest in doing something similar.

Of Iowa interest is Adventureland in Altoona seeks labor among itinerant nomads called “Workampers.” They have a Workamper program that offers a free hook up campsite that includes electric, water, and sewer. There is no contract or time commitment to work at Adventureland. There are bonuses for working through the end of the season. Among the jobs on offer are ride operations, loss prevention, security, cook, ride maintenance technician, character performer, and others.

Bruder emphasizes the people she interviewed are not desolate. They are affirming members of a society hidden from most of us most of the time. There are few other, similar books. Recommend.

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Living in Society

Budget Bills Pass

U.S. Capitol. Photo by Ramaz Bluashvili on Pexels.com

While I was sleeping early Friday morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the rescission bill which claws back funds approved by Congress in a bipartisan process. Republicans rescinded parts of previous spending agreements they didn’t like, which were needed at the time to pass the bill. They have a thin majority, so can do many things they want. Notably, funds for USAID and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting have been cut in the rescission bill. It now heads to the president’s desk for signature.

The rescission bill followed the widely unpopular reconciliation bill which also cuts federal programs while increasing the national debt. The president signed the reconciliation bill on July 4.

I need to stop and take a deep breath.

Like many, I contacted my federal representatives multiple times during the weeks the bills were being considered. They all (Chuck Grassley, Joni Ernst, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks) voted for both the reconciliation and the rescission. This week I received replies from Miller-Meeks and Ernst, explaining their vote on the reconciliation. Grassley posted a press release on his website. There are some nuances, but all of them gave the main reason for voting for it as extending the 2017 tax cuts.

Let’s start with Miller-Meeks. This was the crux of her email to me: “I was proud to support H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which permanently extended the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Without this bill, the average Iowan would have seen an increase of $2,063 in the annual tax bill. I was proud to work with my colleagues to prevent this from happening.” I don’t know this “average Iowan,” of whom she speaks. I didn’t see our household taxes change because of the 2017 tax cut. I paid zero taxes for 2024, so there are no taxes to cut going forward. Wealthy Iowans will do better. In each of my emails to the congresswoman I pointed out that we cannot afford to borrow more money for tax cuts. According to the Congressional Budget Office, that’s one of the main features of the bill, the U.S. will incur trillions of dollars in additional debt.

Someone in Senator Ernst’s office apparently read my emails opposing the bill. The response addressed Medicaid, as did I. The core message was similar to Miller-Meeks: “On July 1, 2025, I joined the entire Iowa delegation in voting to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB), which the President signed into law on July 4, 2025. In addition to preventing the largest tax increase in history for our families, farmers, and small businesses, the bill strengthens the integrity of Medicaid and prioritizes those who truly need help by eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse.” Ernst did not address the borrowing needed to cover the loss of tax revenue for the U.S. Treasury.

Senator Grassley was singing the same tune in his July 1 press release, “Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today voted to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to protect Iowans from being hit with the largest tax increase in history and provide historic investments in border security and law enforcement.”

If we think logic and reason apply to these votes, they don’t. They are simply Republicans doing Republican things with their audacity increasing with each day the Congress is in session. The direction hasn’t changed much since the Reagan administration, except for Republicans doing all this with more transparency. This one was really in our face. They rely on the American electorate being asleep at the wheel and paying their law-making only a minimum of attention. “Tax cut? Good,” the unwitting might say.

I haven’t come to understand the meaning of these bills, other than they go against the grain of good governance and Republicans don’ t care. What I do understand is Miller-Meeks and Ernst are up for re-election and if we care about our country, we should be contributing in some way to replacing them with Democrats.

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Living in Society

Pandemic Life Lingers

Pre-dawn light along the state park trail on July 7, 2025.

On June 27, 2020, I predicted, “Eventually I will snap out of this coronavirus funk.” Five years later, I’m no longer sure of that.

We wanted the pandemic to be over. Governor Kim Reynolds said as much when she proclaimed,

“We cannot continue to suspend duly enacted laws and treat COVID-19 as a public health emergency indefinitely. After two years, it’s no longer feasible or necessary. The flu and other infectious illnesses are part of our everyday lives, and coronavirus can be managed similarly,” stated Gov. Reynolds. “State agencies will now manage COVID-19 as part of normal daily business, and reallocate resources that have been solely dedicated to the response effort to serve other important needs for Iowans.” (Governor Kim Reynolds Press Release, Feb. 2, 2022).

Looking back on these five years, the pandemic broke us as a society. The pieces won’t fit back together and dark forces have taken us new, unpredictable directions which were unknowable before the outbreak. We must go on living, yet with a palpable sense of loss. I don’t like it, yet am at a turning point, where I must adapt to this life by living with loss. Not unlike the way people were affected by the Great Depression. I am not ready to stop living.

If we concede Governor Reynolds’ point, that the coronavirus pandemic is over, what was lost during that time?

People who were close to me died of COVID-19. Both close geographically, and with a long personal history together. They are permanently gone. Many more contracted the virus and were quite sick with it. Some still wear protective masks in public. I contracted the virus in August 2024 and thought I would die of it. Obviously, the pandemic was not over in 2024. It’s not over yet.

As we sheltered in place for months, then years, the outside world diminished in importance. What mattered more was what we did within the confines of our home, family, and property. What I didn’t understand in the early days of the pandemic was those outside activities would not come back with resilience. Trips off property became controlled and specific. There was no time for extras which were rubbed out by the virus.

For me, the pandemic coincided with leaving paid outside work and retiring. I had claimed Social Security as soon as I reached full retirement age in 2018. Loss of extra income from multiple jobs did not put us in the poor house, yet there were financial constraints on what I could do. I had never been on such a tight budget before. Being close on funds changes a person.

So now there is today. What shall I do with it? That question was there before the pandemic, even if I ignored seriously answering it. With the extras stripped away from life, there seems little else to do but work toward an answer. And so, for as long as I take breath, I shall.

It begins with harvesting cucumbers, squash, fennel, kale, and collards, and donating the excess to the food pantries on Monday and Tuesday. Where life goes from there is a blank page in an open book, waiting for us to write the future.

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Home Life

Summer Rainstorms

Donation to community food pantry on July 7, 2025.

The gutter clogged during a Saturday afternoon rainstorm. I looked at the forecast and rain was expected, on and off, for the next six hours. I decided to get the extension ladder and climb on the roof to clear the blockage so water wouldn’t overflow into the lower level of the house. I waited until the driveway showed signs of drying and went outside. Even though a misty-feeling drizzle hit my face, I persisted. From the time I got the ladder down until I returned it to its rack was less than 15 minutes. At 73 years, I should limit my time on the roof, yet the problem was immediate, the consequences of doing nothing were unacceptable. The situation wants a permanent solution.

I had a fitful night’s sleep the evening of July 4. Community fireworks were scheduled for July 5, so that didn’t keep me awake. News of the administration’s budget reconciliation was likely at the heart of my restlessness. That, with the courts enabling parts of their agenda. It’s as if every good public work I have done since graduating high school is being undone. It’s intentional, so my restlessness is not without reason.

Today there will be a decent harvest for the food pantry. Yellow squash, cucumbers, and leafy green vegetables, for sure. When the sun rises, I’ll take my daily walk on the state park trail and get into the garden. With the rain, the garden is really producing, to the benefit of our household and some who are food insecure.

Rain has consequences, both challenging and positive. A summer rainstorm provides opportunities to improve our lives, if we are open to seeing them.

Yellow squash.
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Living in Society

Independence Day 2025

Pre-dawn light on the state park trail on July 2, 2025.

Ours is a small family. The size influences how we celebrate holidays, which is less often as we age. When I was younger, it was very Polish of me to want each holiday to be a special occasion. In the rural Minnesota community where my forebear Maciej Nadolski settled, holiday celebrations were well-organized, especially Easter and Christmas. In some cases, a procession developed on the outlying Polish farms and grew as it visited each of scores of farmsteads enroute to town. It meandered through the countryside, collecting people from their homes, and ended at the church they built when the land was deeded from the railroad. All that pageantry has gotten sanded off in the wood shed of time. Also, there are automobiles now.

Independence Day falls into the category of “day off work.” When I was in the paid workforce, I most often had to work on the holiday. We sometimes watched organized fireworks displays. When I was more active in politics and had the day off, I traveled several miles north to Ely and walked with the Democrats in their city’s Independence Day parade. I haven’t done either of those things in a long time.

The big Independence Day, in 1976, I was on leave from the military and spent the day at Mother’s house. Because I hadn’t known in advance I would return home for the holiday, I had no plans. It didn’t bother me, either. I was doing my duty to serve the country. If folks wanted to celebrate signing the document, that was fine with me.

Next year is the 250th anniversary of signing the Declaration of Independence. The president came to Iowa yesterday to kick off his celebration. I’m not aware of the plans the way I was for the bicentennial. However, it seems like the kind of broad, inclusive planning that took place in 1976 is missing for 2026. Apparently our president will be telling us what to do. No thank you.

This year on the holiday I will put the garage door up and hang my American flag above it. Beyond that, I’m not sure what I will do, except go on living. Maybe for old times sake, I’ll get a copy of the Declaration of Independence and read it.

Our child asked for an authentic copy of the Declaration of Independence for their bug-out bag so I gave them mine. It is not really American to need a bug-out bag, yet here we are, after almost 250 years. Hopefully we can mind our own business and no one will come after us. If they do, we must be ready.

Be safe out there this holiday weekend.

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Living in Society

Food Pantry Donation

Fennel, Pac Choi, and kale donated to the local food pantry on June 30, 2025.

I like to have more than one thing to do when I drive the two miles to town. The more I multi-task my trips to the City of Solon, the more value I find in it. It began with gambling.

Almost always, I buy a Powerball ticket. The social aspect of walking into a convenience store and saying to the clerk, “I’d like the usual,” resonates from when I lived in Europe. It is a closely knit relationship even if we don’t know each other except for this recurring transaction. It is something positive in what can be a difficult world.

On Mondays I harvest the garden and split the best-looking produce into separate crates for the food pantry. I delay picking greens until Monday so there is usually a good amount for our kitchen and to share. Yesterday it was Pac Choi, a bulb of fennel with the fronds attached, and two kinds of kale. I enjoy putting together a pleasing display and then pack the car and speak with the receiver until the produce is transferred to the food pantry shelves. Today’s weight was five pounds, which doesn’t seem like much. The value of the transaction is the good it does. My sense is food pantry patrons could use more fresh produce.

I had reserved a book at the library early in the morning. I decided since I was in town, why make a trip later to get it. I walked into the library, found our librarian, and told her I decided to just stop by and pick it up myself rather than go through the reserve process. She was kind enough to find the book on the shelf and process me without delay. Now I won’t run out of reading material over the Independence Day holiday… not that that is a possibility in our house. Having relationships with a local library and the people who work there is the stuff of which society is made.

When I was working for an employer these social interactions pretty well stopped. I don’t know why, but there are better possibilities for a well lived life simply by living one. It can be hard, yet we must learn to deal with the concerns in society and go on living. Part of that means going to town on a Monday morning and spend time with my usuals.