Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

Political Funnel Cake

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 19, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— The storm let up, the driveway was dug out, and the second session of the 85th Iowa General Assembly began to shape up during its annual funnel week. The funnel means most non-spending bills must be passed out of committee or they are dead for the year. It’s not a firm rule, but it has implications.

The session starts to take shape the way a funnel cake does at the Iowa State Fair. Political funnel cake is nowhere near as tasty, and be ready to apply lots of powdered sugar to sweeten the underlying bitterness of this airy confection.

Some impossible bills have come forward, like the ban on telemedicine abortions, and a bill introduced by a gunsmith allowing silencers. Such extreme measures are unlikely to make it through the bicameral legislature. Senator Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City withdrew his medical marijuana bill the same day he filed it when no bipartisan support could be found. He seems smarter than others.

Legislators are busy with committee work, attempting to advance their priorities. Any analysis of this session seems premature until we at least get past the funnel.

There is an election this year, and political fundraising has been a recent topic at the coffee shop. We receive countless requests for donations in the mail and via the Internet. Funds are limited this year, and people who ask personally or by telephone are more likely to receive financial help.

Thus far, the following five people have asked me personally for a campaign contribution: State Senator Bob Dvorsky, who has represented me for almost 20 years; county supervisor candidates Janelle Rettig and Mike Carberry; Congressman Dave Loebsack; and candidate for the first congressional district seat, Anesa Kajtazovic. These are all busy people, so if they can call, any candidate not in a state-wide race should be dialing for dollars.

Political coverage takes a lot of work if it’s done right, and my coverage is more on the spotty side. Writing about politics forces me to think about it, something any normal human avoids like the plague. Honestly, I’d rather be at the fair.

Tags Iowa Legislature, politics

Home Life

On the Mend

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 17, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— It has been a day of staying busy indoors. The driveway is loaded with snow, and without any need to leave the property, we didn’t. Tomorrow is the big dig to get ready for work and a trip to the grocery store, but not today.

There was some kitchen work. I brought the last of the fall apples upstairs, setting aside some for baking, and made apple sauce of the rest. The Winecrisp and Gold Rush apples were past their prime, but stored well. I also made a pot of winter soup which is simmering as I type. The malady about which I wrote Saturday is on the mend. What I know is health care is about staying healthy, and I’m working on that.

The good news is I feel well enough to start reading again and picked out a book. By tomorrow I hope to be ready to wield a shovel and dig the way out to the road that leads to town.

Tags health care, winter

Home Life

These Times

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 17, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— Newspaper writing and club demonstrations have taken a toll on everything else as I developed a process to incorporate new work and income into this life. Winter is a good time for it.

Seven adult deer were browsing in our yard. With a full girth, they appeared healthy, but were seeking food where there was none. One rose on its rear legs to nibble a pine tree. Others browsed the stubble that is the winter garden. One was favoring its right rear leg, limping along. A herd of scavengers.

The refrigerator light came on as I opened the door. It illuminated heads of cabbage, a drawer full of root vegetables, organic carrots and celery from California, and leftover soup and apple cider. The end of fresh food is near.

There are pickles. Beets, cucumbers, radishes, tomatoes, chard stems, sauerkraut… the makings of zakuski. All one needs is a bottle of vodka and friends stopping over. The former is more available than the latter, as in 21st century Iowa, unexpected guests are mostly youths seeking empty cans and bottles for their deposits, and strangers who want something. Such guests are seldom invited inside. Vodka acquired decades ago evaporates in unopened bottles.

It’s my weekend, with no paid work until Wednesday. It’s time to finish up winter work— taxes, garden planning, vehicle maintenance, house cleaning— and get ready for spring.

Tags local food

Home Life

A New Encampment

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 15, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— Exposure to society can bring sickness and disease. After living without significant illness, not even a cold since leaving my life in transportation, I’ve been waylaid by what I’ll call a “bug.” The last two nights found me sleeping under a dense array of blankets and afghans after work until morning, snoring profusely while letting the malady run its course.

In addition to the afghan treatment, I’ve been taking acetaminophen and Saint John’s Wort, the latter presented in a solution of vodka. One hopes the illness will have a short arc of persistence.

Two paychecks into my job as a part time supervisor for a company that does in-store product demonstrations at a warehouse club, it has been a struggle to arrange a process for living that will keep life moving forward. The new job is likely the source of the bug, as I have been exposed to countless people, some 1,500-2,000 per day, learning to supervise a diverse crew of folks demonstrating and selling retail products. I like the work, if not the bug. I wrap up my training this weekend, and will then have a more normal schedule— a new beginning.

As things sort out, 2014 has promise. Hope for financial viability, a hope to write more, with some of it paid. Moving into a new encampment— a staging area for the corps of discovery that is sustaining a life in a turbulent world.

Tags homelife

Living in Society

The Band is Tuning Up

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 11, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— Grab your partner, the band is tuning up.

In Des Moines, the Iowa House passed two bills today. One favors the tobacco industry in it’s language for controlling e-cigarettes (HF 2109), and another prohibits termination of pregnancy using telecommunications technology (HF 2175). The former got more votes than the latter, although both were equally ill considered. We’ll learn who voted which way in the journal tomorrow, but the final votes were 72-22 for HF 2109 and 55-42 for HF 2175.

This curious explanatory language is part of HF 2175, “the inclusion of this explanation does not constitute agreement with the explanation’s substance by the members of the general assembly.” What the hell? If that’s the case, why not put in language like, “doctors will be smitten by god if they break this law?” Then they would really have something to write to constituents about in the weekly newsletter.

We are back to the good old days when the Republicans pass bills in the House because they can, messaging them exuberantly into the abyss also known as the Senate inbox. All that’s missing is anti-abortion activist Kim Pearson. I haven’t been following the Senate as closely but their six percent allowable growth proposal appears equally dead on arrival in the House. The only caveat here is the e-cigarette bill may have a chance in the Senate because of Democratic support in the House.

Let’s not forget the executive branch. Yesterday the state auditor reported the governor’s budget overspends state revenues by $144 million. Sounds like the governor is planning to pay for things using one-time money in the surplus, something he repeatedly criticized Chet Culver for doing as part of his 2010 campaign.

As a friend wrote this morning, “there is no budget surplus. We are underfunding nearly every category in the budget.” The legislature will have to work through this before leaving Des Moines for the midterm elections— or not. Well, who knows what they might do? There are good people in the Iowa legislature, but one wouldn’t know it by the work they produced this week. And, it’s only Tuesday.

Tags politics

Home Life

A Regular Winter

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 10, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— Iowa is having a regular winter. By that I mean the cold temperatures and snow resonate with winter memories from grade school. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was nothing to bundle up and walk to school in 20 below zero weather. It was accepted as another part of life in Iowa. Not so much any more.

With the advent of radio, television, the Internet and mobile phone mass messaging, information and opinions about the weather are easy to disseminate. Opinions, like a two hour school delay, or cancellation because of inclement weather, blast forth to citizens with a clear and present danger. Keep the kids safe, it’s too cold outside.

It’s hard to argue with taking precautions so children don’t get frostbitten toes and fingers. At the same time, I don’t believe my parents were any less concerned than today’s parents when they tied a scarf around my face so tightly that my neck got stiff, and sent me through the subzero weather for a several blocks walk to school. Something else has changed.

Tempted to insert comments about the nanny state that regulates behavior so as to mitigate liability should some child be hurt in the cold, that’s not where I’m going. School administrators have a job to do, and one hopes they are doing the best they can.

This cold weather is clear evidence of the effects of global warming, just as the weird winters of recent memory, early springs and droughts have been. Not going there either, although there’s a lot I could say.

On this 14 below zero morning, I’m remembering my college anthropology teacher June Helm, and her lectures about working with indigenous people in the Northwest Territories. How people lived in a climate we recognized, but seemed so different.

They made lives grounded in their environment, and what was available. It was something hard to emulate then, when we were used to availability of a wide variety of goods at the end of nascent global supply chains. Our lives seemed so abundant and protected compared to what we now call the First Nations Helm discussed. Their lives were spare, different, diverse, and resilient. That seems relevant.

The anthropology department at the University of Iowa was just getting started when I was in college. I was an undisciplined student who received a low grade. Nonetheless, I learned we needn’t distance ourselves from the shivering cold, but can embrace it. We can make a life in it. Importantly, if within a circle of family and friends, we are unaware of what others take for granted, and separate from mass culture, it’s okay to build on that.

This knowledge doesn’t make the cold less bitter. It does help one cope, and that is something brilliant on another cold night before sunrise in Iowa.

Tags homelife, winter

Home Life

Wintry Trip to Town

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 5, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— The sound of scraping entered the house and overpowered the muffling noise of the furnace fan. It will require work to get to town for a meeting. At least the snow plow did its part.

The driveway is snow-packed from the car tires, so whatever fell last night won’t be easy to remove. Work was planned for indoors this morning: to write a story for the newspaper. Snowfall is a happy coincidence that will break the quiet and be part of today’s process of fresh air, physical labor and writing. It’s as good as it gets.

Whatever funk descended upon me in December is gone. The new jobs, the promise of spring, and hope that a sound financial platform will enable better writing portend great things. Here’s hoping I’m equal to February’s promise.

Tags homelife, winter, worklife, Writing

Home Life

Another Winter Storm

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 4, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— People have been talking about the coming storm like they never experienced an Iowa winter. Yes, we should be safe… but what else? On wintery days, I drive Jacque in to work so she doesn’t have to broom the snow from her automobile after her shift. While back at home waiting, I’ll make a dinner to be heated up when she returns, and begin garden planning. There are about 50 kinds of seeds including 36 purchased this year to be plotted out on a chart, but first, dinner.

We make chili in big batches. To use some of the leftovers, we make a dish called Pecos Pasta. It is simple. Take a cup of dried elbow macaroni and prepare according to the instructions. Drain the noodles and pour back into the pot. Add one quart of leftover chili, one cup frozen cut corn, and heat until the mixed begins to boil. Turn the heat down to low simmer, and top the dish with shredded sharp cheddar cheese. Cover with a lid and heat thoroughly until the cheese melts.

I’ll drink a beer with Pecos Pasta when we have them, but last year’s case is long gone, so water will suffice (Note to self: put a quart of cider in the refrigerator). A quick and tasty meal that satisfies as the wind howls outside.

Only two dates are sacrosanct in our garden: March 2 and July 25. The former is when “Belgian lettuce” is planted, or as soon as the ground can be worked thereafter. The idea is to broadcast last year’s leftover lettuce seeds and see what germinates. I don’t know why it is called Belgian, except that’s what my maternal grandmother called it. The latter date is when to plant the fall crop of turnips. In our garden, turnip greens are a primary crop used to make soup stock by the gallon. Besides those dates and crops, everything else need looking up and planned. There is plenty of work to keep me busy until the end of her shift.

This morning I began working on our income taxes, and it looks like we sent in enough early payments last year to receive a small refund. I report all of our income and pay taxes on it— some don’t, but I do. As a self employed writer and farm worker, my business tax rate is 15.3 percent of 92.35 percent of income. For example, if I earn $1,000 dollars, the tax rate applies to $923.50 and amounts to $141.30, or 14.13 percent of the total.

The Internal Revenue Service began doing this to capture people who work like employees, but are considered to be independent contractors by the company from whom they are compensated. Seems to me they could be chasing some of those corporations who make the big bucks and pay no taxes instead of folks like us trying to get by. In the end, our overall federal tax rate, including the business tax, was 4.7 percent of total income, so not much to complain about here. It is well worth it to participate in our society.

Tags Kitchen Garden, recipes

Work Life

On Minimum Wage

Post author By Paul Deaton
Post date February 1, 2014

LAKE MACBRIDE— The talk of raising the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, as President Obama suggested in his state of the union address, is from another country. He means well, but at $10.10 per hour, a life is hardly sustainable, even with overtime. What would better serve low wage workers is lifting the entire economy, combined with reducing regulations that hinder the efforts of small scale entrepreneurs. Where I live, the future is not about wage rates as much as it is about putting together a life that may include a job or jobs, but is not dependent upon them. Sustainability will be about creating local answers to the question, how shall we live?

The current discussion about wages is not really about sustainability. It is about boosting income for lowly paid workers. There are arguments that posit a relationship between increasing the minimum wage and reducing poverty. If increasing the minimum wage is an anti-poverty program, then I’m all for it. Especially if we agree that the action would not address the overall struggle people have to exit working poor status. Unless our elected officials index any potential increase in minimum wages to a formula that tracks buying power, all that will have been accomplished by raising the minimum wage is to throw the working poor a bone for today’s soup pot.

When I was a child I asked my father if we were poor. He said being poor was an attitude, and he did not consider our family to be poor. As I wrote elsewhere, “I had a normal city childhood among people who never had much money, but had a well defined culture centered on family, work and church.” It’s the presumptions about how today’s culture is defined with regard to the minimum wage that drive me mad.

Robert Reich has written that wages should track the economy. He said, if people have money to buy things, the economy does better. Government plays a role in stimulating the economy by making monetary payments to individuals through social programs, giving them more money to spend. Yet, most people I know don’t look at living with the same macroeconomic view Reich espouses, and are not fans of consumerism. Everyone wants to be a global strategist, but few want to apply equal skill and energy to improving life on a more granular level.

The analysis local people use, one that starts spending the new money that an increase in minimum wages would generate on education, training and the like, is ridiculous. People who are working poor, or living from paycheck to paycheck, already know how they will spend any extra money that comes into a household budget. The annual five or six thousand dollars we are talking about, in many cases, has already been spent on loans, medical bills, using credit cards, and incurring other forms of debt that are part of how people make cash flow without adequate income. To say that a $2.85 per hour increase in minimum wages would enable the working poor to exit poverty and join the middle class reflects a basic lack of understanding of the situation.

Advocating for an increase in the minimum wage is okay for those who are financially established, but it is a middle class progressive perquisite. Where I have trouble with it is in differentiating myself from the rest of the people on the planet as someone who is better than anyone else. I don’t do everything I would in the community; I wish I could do more. I also believe someone has to be working on a granular level to find a sustainable, replicable answer to the question, how shall we live? There is not much pay in doing that.