INDEPENDENCE— Friday was a mini-retreat from paid jobs as I drove support for a small team of riders on the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). The first ride was Aug. 26 through 31, 1973, when people got whatever bike was in the garage tuned up and headed to the Missouri River for what was to become an annual event with thousands of riders on more expensive bicycles.
The day began at 4 a.m., and I arrived to pick up my team in Waterloo around 6:30 a.m. We waited and watched weather radar maps for a couple of hours until the storms passed. Rain held back Friday’s morning start, but in the end, it was a great day for being outside, and in Iowa.
The support driver drops the riders off at the day’s starting point, which was in Waverly. We met in Sumner for lunch, and then I drove to Independence to pick them up. I was also on standby should something happen to one of our riders.
I spent a few hours at the public libraries in Sumner and Independence, and then sat on the front steps of the U.S. Post Office watching riders pass, and waiting for my team to finish for the day. It was time to do something different and get away.
We ended at a church spaghetti supper put on for the riders. It is a big deal for non-profits when RAGBRAI comes to town, and riders seek to carb up for the next day’s ride. After dropping the team at the motel, I headed home, making it back after 9 p.m. It was a long, thoughtful day.
Here are some photos from the rest stop in Sumner, where we had lunch.
Meetup at the Post OfficeStreet Scene at SumnerLetsche’s Bike Shop Airs TiresFilling Water Bottles from a HydrantOn Main StreetStreet Pizza MakersPolitical Pizza ServerVeggie Slice at SumnerLeaving Sumner
If one didn’t think the U.S. discussion of climate change was political, think again. U.S. Rep. David McKinley (R-West Virginia), added an amendment to a House appropriations bill to fund the Department of Energy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would prohibit the two agencies from using funds that would “design, implement, administer or carry out specified assessments regarding climate change.”
Another way to put it, from McKinley’s perspective, is if you don’t like science, ban it.
House Republicans took exception to the Department of Defense addressing the recommendations of the National Climate Assessment, and have added two agencies whose work is directly related to mitigating the effects of extreme weather to their list.
The floor debate captured the essence of the politics of climate change:
“Spending precious resources to pursue a dubious climate change agenda compromises our clean-energy research and America’s infrastructure,” McKinley said on the House floor. “Congress should not be spending money pursuing ideologically driven experiments.”
Speaking against the amendment, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) said it disregards the research of the overwhelming majority of climate scientists.
“The Republicans, in general, don’t seem to trust the scientists,” Kaptur said. “This amendment requires the Department of Energy to assume that carbon pollution isn’t harmful and that climate change won’t cost a thing. That’s nothing but a fantasy.”
What next? Click here to read the rest of David Gutman’s coverage of this story in the Charleston, West Virginia Gazette.
And consider that June 2014 was the hottest month on record since records have been collected. Politicians like McKinley would deny the reality of human contributions toward global warming at the same time climate data released from the National Climatic Data Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, found that the worldwide average temperature over land and sea in June 2014 was 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees. That is reality.
People seeking scientific proof of anthropogenic global climate change are barking up the wrong tree. The goal of science, if unlike McKinley, we accept science, is not to prove, but to explain aspects of the natural world.
Around 1850, physicist John Tyndall discovered that carbon dioxide traps heat in our atmosphere, producing the greenhouse effect, which enables all of creation as we know it to live on Earth.
Carbon dioxide increased as a percentage of our atmosphere since Tyndall’s time at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. As a result, Earth’s average temperature increased by 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The disturbance of the global carbon cycle and related increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere is identifiably anthropogenic because of the isotope signature of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
We can also observe the effects of global warming in worldwide glacier retreat, declining Arctic ice sheets, sea level rise, warming oceans, ocean acidification, and increased intensity of weather events.
It is no wonder almost all of climate scientists and all of the national academies of science in the world agree climate change is real, it is happening now, it’s caused by humans, and is cause for immediate action before it is too late.
Politicians like McKinley don’t get it, and advocate against reality. That’s nothing new for some members of the Republican Party.
A small group of local, long-time political activists met last week with one of the 80 or so paid organizers for the Coordinated Campaign of the Iowa Democratic Party. Electing Bruce Braley as Iowa’s next U.S. Senator was at the top of our to-do list.
We don’t see each other often, but share the experience of working on election campaigns over many cycles. We know what it would mean if power in the U.S. Senate switched from Democratic to Republican leadership. If it’s up to us, that won’t happen, and each person at the meeting was willing to invest resources of time, money and thoughtful participation toward electing Braley to the U.S. Senate.
What does that mean in 2014?
It means participating in canvasses organized by paid staff, attending candidate and party-sponsored events when our schedule permits, and writing checks to campaigns when we have resources. That’s only part of the picture. Increasingly, it’s a small part.
More than anything, modern political campaigns require each of us be engaged in a community, without regard for political affiliation, and do things that make sense to advance our views. In rural communities especially, the human landscape of society doesn’t change enough from one election cycle to the next to pretend neighbors and friends don’t remember what was said in a letter to the editor, or at an event the last cycle. This persistence of memory can be a blessing and a curse in political campaigns.
Campaigns send a lot of requests for political donations, almost none of which get acted upon. The rationale is a variation on a theme that the numbers justify them. That is, if a request is sent to 10,000 people, there will be a financial return. This cycle, I am hearing more about Charles and David Koch, The Heritage Foundation and political action committees than ever. Campaigns keep sending the messages reinforcing a negativity that is hard to ignore.
At the grassroots, people understand the difference between a political action committee and a candidate, and at the end of the day, when there is an extra $25 in the checking account, a donation will go to a candidate, not a third party. Plenty of folks feel that way.
The summer’s string of parades, picnics, car races, music concerts, annual gatherings and county fairs is only just beginning, and political candidates are attending. We don’t put a lot of stock in what a particular candidate may say at an event, but there is an unspoken expectation they will show up in person from time to time, and that through these and other presences in person and in media, we will get to know them.
The weather has been exceptionally good for outdoors gatherings, and 2014 will be a summer to remember if for no other reason than that. Politics affects our lives, but we go on living.
Summer is the time to get involved with a political campaign, so start by checking out the Iowa Democratic Party. In case you missed it, Bruce Braley could use your help as well.
SOLON— The hay bale rises above the crowd to clear the bar. Main Street is packed for the hay bay toss— a farm-related activity in a festival put on where traditional farming, matters.
Bingo has begun, a band with a local lead singer is covering The Band Perry, and the beef and pork sandwiches are sold as quickly as the crew can make them.
The restaurants on Main Street offer specials during Beef Days, local beef, food, drinks and music, but the Cattleman’s Association is in the spotlight as the sun sets and we forget about our troubles for a while.
LAKE MACBRIDE— When I returned to my computer after breakfast yesterday it crashed, disrupting the balance of the day.
It was a good, not great breakfast, and a familiar, but unwanted technical glitch in a life on the prairie.
Breakfast was in four layers: a mixture of cooked summer squash, onions, garlic scapes, salt and pepper on the bottom. Next, kale cooked after deglazing the pan with the juice of a lime, followed by scrambled eggs, and topped with grated cheddar cheese and chopped Italian parsley. It wasn’t my best work, but it served. I write about breakfast to avoid thinking about the work ahead today.
Luckily, I backed up in the early morning of July 8, my email resides in the cloud, and my photos and sound recordings are on my devices. There is about one week’s work on documents and spreadsheets that will have to be reconstructed. It could be worse.
After a shift at the warehouse, I stopped at our local technology store and sent the laptop off to be serviced. The prognosis is not good, with talk about the motherboard. I turned from the counter, walked over a few rows, and bought a new desktop CPU for $370.
Laptops seem to last about two years, and each of the last three of them was convenient to have, but crashed at an inconvenient time. Since 2012, when we got smartphones, having a laptop no longer seems necessary as I can check email and news stories on the go without one.
Like it or not, today will be struggling to get paying work done on the computer, and re-engineering this technology dependent life on the Iowa prairie. Having been through this twice previously, I know, but hate the drill.
The weekly planning session from waking until 6 a.m. is critical for generating enough income to pay bills. At the same time, it enables dispersion of mental troubles— the same way night vapors become dew, and are burned off by sunlight. It would be an insane world without a plan.
That said, even the best planning fails to accommodate everything we need and want to do. Wants give way to needs, and only those needs critical to social and economic survival get a time slot on the Google calendar. While a popular belief is that we have leisure time and hobbies, in the work-a-day world of low wage labor, such things are best left to what Thorstein Veblen called the “leisure class.”
After breakfast of a three-egg omelet of local farm eggs and sharp cheddar cheese imported from England, a glass of Florida orange juice, and black coffee, it’s time to get after the week’s work.
LAKE MACBRIDE— From a crack in the pavement, a thistle bloomed next to milkweed. The natural world lives in the increasingly human-made environment in which we attempt to adapt— plants, animals and people alike.
The weather report for the weekend is the return of the polar vortex, bringing rain and cool temperatures. Sun and warmth are the best help for gardens and farms, so the weekend will be a likely setback.
At the intersection of the industrial food supply chain and local cuisine I found a package of uncooked tortillas. Claiming to be “all natural,” the ingredients are recognizable— flour, water, oil, salt and sugar. The machine rolls them out thinner than I have been able to, and they cook quickly in a dry frying pan. A pack of 50 sold for $6.89, or about 14 cents each. They will be a welcome addition to the pantry for burritos, tacos, tortilla chips, quesadillas and casseroles as what I had been buying has ingredients not found in nature.
Thistle Flower
I’m busy all of the time these days, mostly with work. On a typical day, I work at three or four jobs, leaving little time for extra-curricular activities.
From time to time, it was possible to stand at the intersection of change for a while and smell the flowers. For that, I am grateful.
I am also grateful that after calculating my income for the year, it appears my federal taxes will fall in line, and that I sent enough, but not too much money into the Internal Revenue Service.
LAKE MACBRIDE– It was so nice yesterday. I went for a walk in the state park and saw a Monarch butterfly on Milkweed.
Actually, the last couple of days have been a walking tour of my busy life, settling down from the caesura that is mid-year. A rest was not in the plans, but that’s what I got after the holiday weekend. Now I am invigorated. There is a lot to do.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The Fourth of July was as perfect a day of weather as we get. Mostly clear skies, moderate temperatures, and low humidity. I opened the garage, turned on a fan to evaporate standing water left by the rain, and spent an inordinate amount of time mowing, then re-mowing to collect grass clippings for the garden. I trimmed the edges until the batteries wore down.
At the end of the day, the garage was straightened out and my car parked inside for the first time in a couple of months. Our lawn of mixed grass and prairie plants looked as good as it gets when it was done. Summer has turned.
With the closely cropped grass, hiding places for rabbits are gone and they were lurking around near the celery seedlings. I moved the seedlings inside for the night, and hopefully the rabbits will find something other than my garden to eat now that the clover is mowed and decomposing on a garden plot.
Some of the tomato plants are four feet high and there is an abundance of flowers. The prospects for a crop are good. Canning jars are at the ready.
I hung my old American flag from the garage door frame. It is getting faded after more than 35 years of service. A new one that flew over the U.S. Capitol is available, but I don’t want to re-drill the holes in the frame to accommodate it’s larger dimensions. Like me, the old flag will serve.
What’s next?
It’s time to break out a copy of The Great Gatsby and read it again now that summer has turned. Then what?
Fresh basil is in from the farm, putting a tomato-based pasta sauce in the kitchen queue. To be made with basil, garlic scapes, farm onions and whole canned tomatoes from last year. A little salt, and maybe some fresh oregano from our garden. Add a side salad, and there is dinner— for one night, and maybe leftovers for tomorrow.
But this is not really a plan. It is living in the present, which for now will have to do.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Five years ago today I drove out of the parking lot of CRST International in Cedar Rapids from a long career of transportation work into the unknown. There is no going back, nor would I. There is only forward.
Today, we have friends and family, food to eat, a home in which to live, and other accoutrements of modern life. We are doing okay. Compared to many, we are doing great. If the U.S. is not the greatest country on Earth, it is one of the greatest, at least according to a poll released today. That’s okay too.
Tomorrow the clevis and cotter pins bought at the hardware store will be installed on the grass collection attachment to the tractor. I will cut the full lawn to length for the first time this year. The garden is way behind, so I will abandon what isn’t planted and prepare the ground for the second growth of green beans, even though the first planting didn’t occur because things were so far behind.
Tomorrow will also be a culling of activities according to the Sumitomo model. Some of the barter work is nearing its end, some of it needs to go to make room for paid work. Contacts will be made about that.
Mostly, tomorrow will be a brief chance to examine who I am through tired eyes, and wonder at how we have survived in a turbulent world.
Then next steps, which will involve a chain saw and work in a pasture in sunlight.
Journey Home 
You must be logged in to post a comment.