State park trail entry point.

Journey Home

Tales from the pilgrimage.

Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

  • School Board Election

    Figuring out for whom to vote in today’s school board election has been a puzzle. I’ve voted against two of the individuals running—Dan Coons and Amber Marty—in previous elections. At 4:39 a.m. it looks like I’ll vote for Coons and Adam Haluska. After reading the limited information available about this race, I changed my mind… Read more

  • Two Things About Labor

    As a child Dad would take us to the Eagles hall for a Labor Day event sponsored by his union. There were speeches and socializing, food and beverages, and one year I won a canned ham in a raffle which I proudly brought home to Mother. A lot of people attended and I got to… Read more

  • Wages and Private Sector Unions

    As we approach Labor Day, the lockout of United Steel Workers at six Allegheny Technologies plants is a sad commentary on the state of affairs of public sector unions. “Management has locked out more than 2,000 workers in an effort to extract concessions on health and retirement benefits from union members,” according to Michael Hiltzik of… Read more

  • Letter to the Des Moines Register

    To the Editor of the Des Moines Register In her Sept. 1 Des Moines Register opinion piece, “Congress must protect net neutrality,” Clayola Brown gets it exactly wrong. She wrote, “the FCC’s approach to net neutrality is a serious mistake,”  adding, treating the Internet as a common carrier utility could “dramatically cut back the new… Read more

  • Hillary At Summer’s End

    Hillary Clinton continues to lead the Democratic field in recent Iowa polling. Simply put, the remaining contenders seem unlikely to close the gap between summer’s end and the Feb. 1 caucus. It’s possible, but unlikely, even if something new about Hillary comes up. She has a proven ability to shed Republican faux scandals. The form… Read more

  • Opening Pandora’s Boxes

    The greatest evil for a sixty something is theft of time. There is only so much of it — all here and now. There is also a sense we must create value with this limited resource. How shall time be spent downsizing? There are boxes to open — lots of them — each containing artifacts of… Read more

  • Creating a Life

    We live in the only home we planned and built. When I arrived in 1993, ahead of the rest of the family in Indiana, the lot was a vacant remainder of the Kasparek farm with two volunteer trees and tall grass. A deal on another lot had fallen through, and there was an urgency to… Read more

  • Slavery and the Costco Halo

    On Thursday the Los Angeles Times reported a Costco member sued the retailer on allegations that it knowingly sold frozen prawns that were the product of slave labor. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, alleges that Costco was aware that the prawns it purchased from its Southeast… Read more

  • Julian Bond and Social Justice

    On Nov. 12, 1970 I heard Julian Bond speak at the University of Iowa Field House. My memory of the event is wondering why I should care about a Georgia legislator who found his way to Iowa, other than the classroom assignment to report on five university events that semester. Hearing Bond’s speech changed me… Read more

  • 5 Take-Aways From The Wing Ding

    Clear Lake, where the Iowa Democratic Wing Ding was held Friday, was an impossible venue for most Iowa working people. Over 160 miles away in my case, driving there after work was not an option. To make up for the distance, I viewed the Des Moines Register webcast on my desktop. It wasn’t the same… Read more