Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

Categories
Living in Society

Korean Grocery

Bulletin board at H Mart in Niles, Ill. On April 2, 2025.

Someone shared a photo of the interior of a Korean grocery store in Niles, Illinois in a social media post. I had to visit the next time I was in the area, so this week, I did. The experience was a bit surreal.

For the first time in a long time, I entered a grocery store and left without buying anything. It was the H Mart in Niles, an Asian Grocer larger than the American grocer I frequent near home. They had aisles and aisles of foodstuffs with Korean lettering on the packages. Two of us walked from end to end to see what was on offer. It was a lot. It would be easy to drop $500 in one visit and not scratch the surface of what was available.

There was a food court near the entryway. It was well past the lunch hour when we arrived, and two hours until supper time. I would have thought someone would be eating, yet few were. Every person behind the counters was not doing anything, just standing or sitting, I suppose waiting for a customer. The store was almost empty of customers on a Wednesday afternoon.

At the other end of the store near the exit was a row of other kinds of merchants, such as the nail salon that stood out. In between were well-stocked, well-faced shelves. There were a couple of stockers, who each had a single box of a product to refill a shelf. This is unlike our grocer in that here, the stock person fills a large flatbed cart with dozens of items which are wheeled to the floor and parked while the entire aisle is re-stocked. Maybe it’s a cultural difference, although I’m struggling to figure out why.

There was a lot of seafood, reminding me that marine life everywhere on Earth is under pressure from over fishing. There were many kinds of pickled products, including kimchi and daikon radishes. I wouldn’t know how to choose one type of pickled product for a meal among so many options. There were small shelves of U.S. company products. Notable was a wide set of shelves of Spam products, actually multiple sets in different locations in the store.

South Koreans eat lots of Spam, according to National Public Radio. It is the second-largest consumer of Spam in the world, eating roughly half as much as the United States, which has six times as many residents. U.S. soldiers introduced Spam to Korea during the Korean War. Dishes such as Kimchi Spam Musubi, Bibimbap bowl with Spam, and others are considered to be delicacies. When my uncle was stationed in Persia during World War II he ate so much Spam in his rations he never ate it again after military service. To each their own, I suppose.

The reality of H Mart did not measure up to the internet posting. In person, it seemed a vast, well-stocked warehouse for people with a specific culinary interest. How does one decide which pancake mix to choose when there are so many? Maybe there are too many varieties. Inside H Mart it is a world of its own.

They even had boxes of Aunt Jemima pancake mix, with the iconic figure on the box, from before Pepsico took a step into the future of racial equality and removed her. Quaker Oats, a subsidiary of Pepsico, may have felt it was doing the right thing by removing the aunt’s image. In the bright neon lights of the store there was consumer comfort in seeing her image persist. Maybe they got the message about DEI and put Aunt Jemima back in her place.

I found the visit fun, the most fun I’ve had in a while. I don’t get out much. Since I didn’t buy anything, it was cheap fun. I don’t know if the internet ruined me for experiences like this. I would never have seen the inside of H Mart without that social media post. It is one more bit of reality incorporated into my online world view. I just need to develop a taste for kimchi and I’ll be set.

Categories
Reviews

Book Review: The Ministry of Time

Trail walking on March 31, 2025.

Large crop fields have been worked along many of the roads I traveled to Chicago this week. Ready or not, the season turned to spring. Next on my indoor planting schedule is tomatoes, followed by cucumbers and squash. I’m waiting for conditions outdoors to improve to tear down some of last year’s garden and prep the soil. It’s how I’ve learned to be a gardener.

I finished reading The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. I wrote a book review on the Goodreads social media platform:

The public library had this book and I heard about it from Barack Obama’s reading list. It was a fast-moving, engaging read. The 20k+ reviews already written on Goodreads are a trip and highly recommended. Here is a link to the page. Couple things to add:

  1. The main value of this book is the author’s use of language. It is right on the surface and had me looking up things she wrote for usage. Most fiction I read does not engage like this. The writing worked sometimes, and sometimes not. I found this invaluable to my own writing.
  2. Did not care for romanticizing tobacco use. Too many friends who died of lung cancer.
  3. Lord Franklin’s search for the NW passage is being rediscovered. Not sure this fictionalized version helps or hurts. Probably not positive to actual history.
  4. Hard to put down once started.
  5. The imperfect character of the female lead was compelling.
  6. Author’s summary of how she created the male lead from the historical record is a must read.

Rated 5 stars because among dozens of fiction books read in the past several years, this one stands out with enduring quality. It is likeable because it is different.
Give it a go!

I’ve been away from my writing computer for two days. It’s time to get back to work on my memoir. Thanks for reading.

Categories
Living in Society

Better Vibes Ahead

Lake Macbride Watershed drainage ditch on March 22, 2025.

I plan to be out of office and away from writing computers for a couple of days. Here is a photo from a recent trail walk to keep you company.

Categories
Living in Society

Institute of Museum and Library Services Update

On Monday, March 31, National Public Radio reported the Institute of Museum and Library Services placed its entire staff on administrative leave. While the employee count is low at about 70, the impact of the institute across the country is high. I recently posted about all they do to help public libraries in my community.

According to a statement from AFGE Local 3403, which represents IMLS workers, the agency’s staff was notified by email about being placed on paid administrative leave for 90 days after a “brief meeting between DOGE staff and IMLS leadership.” Employees had to turn in government property, and email accounts were disabled. (National Public Radio, March 31, 2025).

The future of previously awarded, yet unpaid grants is uncertain. Work on new proposals stopped. One assumes the institute won’t be returning from leave except to wind down the Congressionally approved institute. Whether the grant-writing process would be transferred to another agency hasn’t been discussed in public. The uncertainty is not good for people who work in public libraries, especially in smaller communities where libraries are widely used as a resource and a foundation of community life.

I wrote my federal representative and senators. Senators Grassley and Ernst replied, and based on that communication, we are in a wait and see period while the intentions of the Department of Government Efficiency become public and the process evolves. Placing staff on paid administrative leave throws cold water on initial belief the institute could be saved.

Why is this so important? Public libraries are the lifeblood of our democracy. In addition to public facilities made available for little or no fees, reading is a valued way of learning. The anti-intellectualism behind the assault on museums and libraries is on prominent display with this action. The endgame is the deliberate destruction of knowledge. We are already seeing evidence of this in other parts of the state and federal government.

If locals need to fund our public library, I believe money could be raised if federal grants disappear. Uncertainty is in the air. Just tell us what you are doing, federal government, and with clarity library lovers everywhere will do what is needed to support our public libraries. While this action in unwelcome, it is not the end of the discussion of public libraries and museums.

Categories
Living in Society

Letter on Library Funding

Solon Public Library

Below is the message I sent to my federal representatives in Washington, D.C. The president signed an executive order on March 14, which said in part, the Institute of Museum and Library Services is an unnecessary bureaucracy.

…the non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law… (Continuing the reduction of the federal bureaucracy, The White House, March 14, 2025).

Here is the message I sent:

What can you do to save the Institute of Museum and Library Services?

I’m writing to express my disappointment that the president intends to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) “to the maximum extent of the law,” via executive order. As you know, the Congress created IMLS and, by law, only the Congress can dissolve this federal agency. As a resident of your district, I don’t understand how the executive branch can intervene in a congressionally created agency, cancel grants, and in effect put it out of business. Please explain.

Our local public library in Solon, Iowa depends on IMLS funds for things like inter-library loans, platform fees, shared online resources with other Iowa libraries, website hosting, the People’s Law Library of Iowa, and more. Depending upon the timeline for ending grants, if that is the final decision, these library services upon which we depend could be disrupted.

If the federal government pulls the plug on IMLS, the community will respond and replace it as we can. We’ll see what the courts say about the president’s executive order. What can the Congress do?

Our community is self-reliant. When we didn’t like that the library was located under the band stand in the city park, we solved the problem by contributing more than $1 million to build the current facility. When we quit claimed the building to the city, they made a commitment for staffing. Ever since, the library has been a valuable community asset.

Thanks for considering my email. Good luck navigating these turbulent times.

Regards, Paul Deaton

Senators Grassley and Ernst replied, and Congresswoman Mariannette Miller-Meeks has not. Grassley and Ernst did not really address my concerns, yet they say they support libraries and don’t have an opinion on the effective closing of this agency. Like me, they are concerned and describe the current situation as actively unfolding with a lot to learn. I posted part of Grassley’s response here.

What seems clear from the executive order, and the other actions the president has taken, is the impacts on plain folks like me will be many and will hit me where I live.

The next step is figuring out what I can to about the many changes proposed by the federal government.

Categories
Living in Society

No Tax Cuts in Reconciliation

Woman Writing Letter

According to the U.S. Treasury website the national debt as I write this letter is $36.22 trillion and growing. The politics should be simple. Don’t provide any new tax breaks to corporations and individuals until the debt is substantially paid down.

The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expires this year. It increased the national debt and should be allowed to expire without action. It was a bad idea for America. Will the people who enjoy its tax cuts miss them after the law expires? Likely yes, but we all should make sacrifices for the betterment of our country.

Republicans in the Congress passed H.Con.Res.14 which provides a framework for establishing a federal budget through reconciliation. According to the bill, it “requires the maximum deficit increase permitted by the reconciliation instruction… ($4.5 trillion in the resolution).” Whatever bill is written seeks a total of at least $2 trillion in deficit reduction.

The Congress is having trouble finding $2 trillion in deficit reductions, and settled on $1.5 trillion which they can’t find either.

I took arithmetic in grade school. The Congress is proposing adding some amount, maybe $2.5 trillion or more to the deficit. We are going the wrong way, especially if we are funding tax cuts with these loans.

It is common sense to stop increasing the national debt to provide tax cuts and pass a budget that reduces the deficit instead. Politicians are not known for their common sense, so we plain folk need to keep reminding them.

~ Submitted as a letter to the editor, not published

Categories
Living in Society

Classified Stuff

The Situation Room during the death of Osama Bin Laden, May 1, 2011. Photo credit –
Official White House photo by Pete Souza

While stationed in Europe, I drew an assignment to serve as a visiting officer to a French battalion of Infantry Marines in the coastal city of Vannes in Brittany. Not many American officers knew the French language, and even though my French was marginal, the command felt it would improve and be needed in case the balloon went up. That is, there was war on the central plains of Europe. After returning to garrison, I was asked to write a classified account of my observations while assigned to a French platoon. Our battalion S-2 officer knew what the word classified meant and complied with Army procedure in handling my report. Today, I don’t recall what I wrote, except to say the French were liberal in the use of corporal punishment by officers on enlisted personnel. I filed the report and hadn’t thought about it much since then.

The news this week is of the operational security breach when National Security Advisor Michael Waltz added national security reporter and editor in chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg to a chat about an ongoing attack in Yemen on the messaging application Signal. I had not heard of this app, which is an American open-source, encrypted messaging service for instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. Signal has known vulnerabilities to infiltration by Russian and Chinese intelligence. Worse case scenario, bad actors were listening in on the chat in real time, in addition to an experienced national reporter present by apparent mistake. There are issues.

First, the president was not part of the chat and likely should have been. When people on the chat asked whether the attack should commence, whether the president authorized it, no one knew. The decision to make the strikes then appears to have been made by deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, according to Heather Cox Richardson. What was the president doing then, instead of being in this meeting? Watching television or doom scrolling his phone? The president said he didn’t know anything about it.

Content of the chat aside, why weren’t the participants using secure channels for this discussion? Even if the Situation Room at the White House is not a viable option, the government has secure channels for use in its place. Either the administration hopes to avoid scrutiny by using a commercial messaging app, or they are incompetent… maybe both.

I would much rather write about other things on this blog. The truth is I need to process what I’m hearing and writing about it helps. What we heard this week is important and we can’t look away. Plenty of other sources have better detail and analysis about the security breach. I’ll let the story run its course, which is expected to be a long one.

Categories
Living in Society

Finding My Way

Trail walking.

The weather has been kind of pissy to this gardener. Ambient temperatures have been all over the place during the last ten days. The soil for the garlic patch has been spaded yet is too wet for tilling and planting due to intermittent rains. It is raining as I write… and wait for spring to truly arrive.

I received notice my Medicare Supplemental Insurance premium is increasing by 11.7 percent beginning May 1. Making a big assumption — that Social Security will continue to pay out as previously — there should be enough money to cover the additional $28.73 for me and a similar amount for my spouse. May have to cut back elsewhere, but insurance is a top tier priority.

My Social Security payment arrived on time this month. Two for two for the new administration. The Washington Post has been following the turmoil since DOGE turned its sights on the agency upon which more than 70 million Americans rely.

“What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I have people approaching me all the time in their 70s and 80s, and they’re beside themselves. They don’t know what’s coming.”

Most of us fear what is coming. As the senator said, we don’t really know what’s coming, except that in fits and starts, the administration appears to be making random cuts and illogical accusations about the program with an endgame of privatizing or killing it. My fear is the billionaire class plans to rob the Social Security Trust Fund in its entirety. It’s almost $3 Trillion value won’t even begin to cover the tax cuts the president has proposed, and the Congress seems intent on legislating into law. That means more debt if it moves forward, in addition to poverty among many seniors, if it doesn’t kill them first. Republicans don’t seem concerned about bankrupting seniors, the government, or anyone but themselves.

Today’s news hits like a brick. I can deal with pissy weather and am reminded of this verse from Cristy Lane’s hit song One Day at a Time, which provides some resilience:

Do you remember, when you walked among men?
Well Jesus you know if you're looking below
It's worse now, than then.
Cheating and stealing, violence and crime
So for my sake, teach me to take
One day at a time.
Categories
Reviews

Book Review: Food for Thought

My reaction to Food for Thought: Essays & Ruminations by Alton Brown is it fills gaps in my personal culinary history. Brown occupied space after the formative experience I had in South Georgia in 1997 and 1998. While working on a logistics project at a clay mine and processor, after a 14-hour shift at the plant I retired to a motel room in nearby Thomasville. There I was exposed to Food TV Network, Emeril Lagasse, Mario Batali, Susan Feniger, Mary Sue Milliken, Julia Child, and others. It was a formative experience yet Brown came along after that period, airing his first episode of Good Eats on July 7, 1999.

During that work assignment I escaped into the T.V. During thirty minute segments I could forget extreme poverty and plain family restaurants that served a meat and three sides in rural Georgia, and engage in celebrity chefs who enjoyed what they were doing as locals did not. I had no kitchen at the motel so the interest was intellectual. My later involvement in the local food movement has its origins in the contrast between that poor, uninviting place in South Georgia and my nightly food escape. I learned a lot from Brown’s television programs when he later came on the cable channel and I watched them back in Iowa.

I didn’t know if I would enjoy his book. As I read, I liked it more with each turn of a page. For the kind of local food enthusiast I have become it is essential reading because of Brown’s unique role in televised, public cooking. Hearing his personal history, especially beginning with the premature and unexpected death of his father, informed the personality I remember from Good Eats.

After Good Eats ran its course, I fell off the Alton Brown bandwagon. I did not care for the stadium-style Iron Chef cooking competitions where he was a commentator. I also missed his coronavirus pandemic home cooking show on YouTube. By the pandemic, I had developed my own concept of a kitchen garden and no longer needed a recipe writer as Brown describes himself in Food for Thought.

The book is a miscellany of stories in the form of a memoir. As such one can both enjoy and not enjoy the writing, chapter by chapter. It was somewhat disappointing to read of Brown’s tobacco use and over-indulgence in alcohol. At the same time, the “Meals that Made Me” series is engaging and insightful. In all, the positives outweigh the negatives which is what I seek in a memoir.

If a person works in a modern, American kitchen, Food for Thought is well worth the time it takes to read.

Categories
Living in Society

Week Nine

Snow and ice melt draining off the Lake Macbride watershed.

It’s no secret a new president has a limited amount of time before re-entering an election cycle. I assume our current president is not stupid and realizes, given recent polling, Republicans could well lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterms. Those campaigns crank up in about a year and that’s how much time he has to make his mark. This is politics 101, and nothing about the current administration modified that.

It’s been nine weeks since the inauguration and the resistance is getting more active, court cases more numerous. What became clearer this week is the plan, whether it be Project 2025 or whatever, is to move as quickly as possible to dismantle parts of the federal government to stay ahead of the courts. The courts are now catching up with the administration. They will not bend a knee to the president, even some justices appointed in the president’s first term. Public resistance to dismantling our government is also growing.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared he was done with USAID on Monday, March 10. He cancelled 83 percent of their contracts and rolled the remainder of them into the State Department. A done deal, one could reasonably say. On March 19, a federal judge ruled that Elon Musk and his DOGE team likely violated the Constitution when they effectively shut down USAID, National Public Radio reported. Out here in the middle of the country, that looks like too little, too late to save the organization. The jig is up, though. By executing their plan, they also disclose it, empowering the resistance.

When on Friday, March 14, the executive order to dismantle the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) came down, it didn’t take long for friends of libraries to respond. Over the weekend, libraries across the state launched an advocacy program to contact our elected officials to explain what the agency did and why it should not be dismantled. Various libraries explained it differently. Here is one example:

The State Library of Iowa relies on Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funding from the IMLS to deliver statewide library development initiatives and services to Iowa libraries and citizens. This critical funding is tied to matching dollars from the Iowa Legislature.

These funds directly support services our patrons depend on:

  • Interlibrary loan system and twice-weekly delivery service
  • Annual Summer Reading Program theme & resources, and the All Iowa Reads program
  • Bridges (Libby app) platform fee and magazine collection for the statewide digital library consortium
  • Brainfuse HelpNow online resource
  • Website hosting
  • Online calendar, registration, meeting room scheduling software
  • Train and support skilled public librarians and effective library boards and the State Library Endorsement program
  • Standards and Accreditation program for high quality libraries
  • People’s Law Library of Iowa.

I haven’t time to follow all agencies affected by the administration’s executive orders, yet am guessing the same response is happening widely. The resistance is building. I sent my own email to elected officials, saying, “As a resident of your district, I don’t understand how the executive branch can intervene in a congressionally created agency, cancel grants, and in effect put it out of business. Please explain.” Senator Grassley’s office was first to respond. Here is an excerpt from his March 21 response:

I appreciate hearing of your support for IMLS employees and the programs they administer. I agree that Iowa’s libraries play an invaluable role in the lives of Iowans by promoting literacy and information access, and our museums are valuable cultural assets that enrich the lives of Iowans and promote tourism in Iowa communities.

At the onset, I understand and recognize many Iowans are concerned about the Executive Order I will be discussing in this message. I would like to take this time to share as much information as I know about this situation, and please know myself and my staff are continuing to monitor this situation.

Grassley’s response was something, yet it left me feeling dissatisfied because he doesn’t seem to know much more than I do. It seems clear moving quickly to address the administration’s action with members of the Congress should be a main tool in our resistance toolbox.

There is a lot to talk about. Let me close with this: The game in the reconciliation bill (that hasn’t been written yet) is to cut government costs by $1.5 Trillion to give a $4.5 Trillion tax cut to the wealthiest Americans. If they pass it, they are going to get the money somewhere, namely by incurring more debt. I know in my household budget, thinking like that doesn’t stand the scrutiny of family members. Even someone with a basic understanding of arithmetic sees the numbers don’t add up.

Bottom line: if we can’t afford a tax cut (and we can’t) without incurring additional debt, we shouldn’t legislate one. House Republicans don’t know how to write a federal budget, as evidenced by the need for a continuing resolution through the end of the fiscal year. There is plenty of time to resist a large tax cut for the wealthy. The resistance should keep our collective eyes on this ball.