Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Work Life

Shedding Human Capital Costs

Garden
Garden

LAKE MACBRIDE— By the time I returned from military service and finished my master’s degree in 1981, American businesses were well into shedding the costs of human capital. I have pointed to the Reagan administration as a driver of this phenomenon, and will continue to refer to the post-Reagan era, but it began much earlier than that.

When I was ready to start a career, there were no local and viable opportunities for a job that offered what I expected in a benefits package, a pension or substantial retirement plan. The government job I took did not offer health insurance, or a retirement plan. If I thought about retirement at all as a 30-something, I relied on Social Security and Medicare to keep me out of poverty in old age. I still do.

The private company I picked when I left government had a marginal retirement plan, based on profit sharing. They developed a 401k plan when the 1978 IRS change began to be spread throughout private industry in the mid to late 1980s. 401k plans served to limit a company’s pension liabilities. Businesses then began to reduce the cost of health insurance and other payroll benefits.

Today, businesses continue to seek ways to shed the cost of human resources through outsourcing, off shoring, the use of temporary workers, and subcontractors. They also hire consulting firms that specialize in compensation programs, making sure that employee wages are kept consistent with the marketplace, namely lower than what a company might develop organically. To think pay and benefits offerings would return to the 1960s, when good-paying union jobs were available, would be to deny the reality that is today’s work environment.

A friend posted a link to an article titled, “Forever Temp?” that discusses manufacturing’s movement toward temporary workers. It is worth reading. The benefit of temporary workers is substantial for businesses. The cost of training, worker’s compensation, absenteeism, recruiting, personnel and existing employer-employee contracts can be avoided. This practice is so common that moral outrage over the loss of union jobs with good benefits is worn out. Temp workers are the new normal.

Perhaps the expectation that a person could enter a career and work in it until retirement is misguided. There are some cases where it is possible, but not for the vast majority of Americans. What matters now, is whether a job will persist, whether a paycheck is accurate and paid on time, and that there is a commitment to safety in the workplace. All of these things workers in the recent past used to take for granted, but now rely upon government intervention, rule making and enforcement.

Truth be told, I’d rather deal with the uncertainties of the current economic environment than become wrapped in the cocoon of the work-a-day world for low pay. I’d rather be prepared to make it on my own.

Categories
Living in Society

Politics 2014 in Big Grove

Off-Year Caucus
Off-Year Caucus

LAKE MACBRIDE— Living in Iowa, I feel compelled to write about politics from time to time. It is an irresistible urge, that in many ways runs counter to preferred topics like local food, gardening, sustainability, and the like. In an effort to address this Iowa (and maybe New Hampshire) urge, here’s how things look from Big Grove Precinct, going into 2014.

For ten dollars, a person can get the voter registrations for a precinct from the county auditor. In my precinct, there are 1,305 registered voters. Of these, 499 are Democrats, 413 are No Preference, 391 are Republican, and two are coded “L” which I assume means libertarian. From 20 years of living here, and being very active in partisan politics, I know that during a general election, most people are willing split their ticket and pick who they feel is the best candidate for each position. I’ve found this to be true from the top of the ticket on down. No preference voters have become the key group to watch and work with, although not to the exclusion of others.

We moved to Big Grove in 1993 and during our first presidential election here in 1996, 1,105 people voted, with the breakout for president Clinton 599, Dole 377, Perot 105, Nader 10, Browne 1, and Hagelin 2. By 2012, there was more Republican support with these presidential results: total votes cast 1,123, Obama 555, Romney 551, Johnson 7, Litzel 1, and Stein 1.

Our county has election data available back to 1970, so if one figures out which previous elections are comparable, both turnout and the number of votes needed to win are relatively easy to determine. At the precinct level, party affiliation doesn’t lend itself very well to statistical analysis, since, as I mentioned, people are willing to split their ticket to vote for the person rather than the party.

The 2014 political schedule is as follows.

The first day of the second session of the 85th Iowa General Assembly is Monday, Jan. 13. I have been in touch with my state representative and state senator since New Year’s Day, and let them know my priorities. Now it’s up to them.

On Jan. 21 are the off-year precinct caucuses. Expect very light turnout of party activists on the Democratic side. The Republicans have made these events into a social time, so they may have more caucus-goers, but their attendance is expected to be light, like with the Democrats.

March 14 is the deadline for state and federal candidates to file for the June 3 primary. Already we know there will be Democratic primaries in the governor’s race, the county attorney and supervisor races, and probably some others. Since politics is a low personal priority this year, I won’t engage much until after the filing date. Even then, I’ll engage only enough to pick candidates in the primary.

State legislator per diem runs out on the 100th day of the session, April 22. Presumably the session will end on or about that time because legislators will want to work on the fall campaign.

After June 3, we’ll know who our candidates for the general election are, and soon thereafter we’ll also know how the Iowa Democratic Party will organize around them.

Summer is a slow time in politics, and candidates gain some visibility in parades, town festivals and events as they get out and press the flesh. Otherwise, those that aren’t known to voters work to get known.

Labor Day is the official kickoff of the fall election campaign.

In September and October, people evaluating whether to enter the 2016 presidential race will start coming to Iowa to help candidates raise money and visibility for the general election. I’ll begin talking to registered voters about the election, and start identifying them. In reviewing my list, there are a lot of new names, so it will take a while to get through them. I’ll also help out the county party as best I can.

The general election is on Tuesday, Nov. 4.

So there you have it, Iowa politics in under 700 words. In a turbulent world, taking time to figure out the timeline of political events helps organize for and maintain a level of sanity. I hope readers have found this useful. Now back to our regular programming.

Categories
Living in Society

Holiday Reading — Bill Clinton’s Memoir

End of the Holidays
End of the Holidays

LAKE MACBRIDE— A long standing tradition is the holidays are over on the Feast of the Epiphany. So it is this year. Today the Christmas tree lights will turn off for the last time, and the decorations will be repacked until December. It hasn’t been a noteworthy season, nor a bad one.

I made cherry crisp for dessert last night. The last of a string of holiday desserts coming to an end. During winter, the pantry and freezer replace the freshness of garden and farm, and only so many cherries were kept when they were in season. It was enough to provide the flavor for a while. It won’t last for long.

I tried to finish reading President Bill Clinton’s memoir “My Life” during the holidays. At almost 1,000 pages, it was a bit long for the time allotment, and at times it plodded along with the endless, somewhat desultory recitation of his administration’s accomplishments. He did a lot and I’m up to the point where the Clintons dropped Chelsea off at Stanford.

To hear him tell it, Bill Clinton wasn’t always the sharpest knife in the drawer. Especially when he approved the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994 that enabled a conservative judiciary to appoint Kenneth Starr as an independent counsel to investigate Vince Foster’s suicide and the Clintons’ Whitewater real estate investments. One thing led to another, and that’s the problem. Starr’s office became an open investigation of anything that might cast aspersions on the Clintons, their friends and supporters, whether it was grounded in fact or fantasy. I thought Bill Clinton was pretty smart until I read his story of why he signed the law, something he said he didn’t have to do and his predecessor encouraged him not to do. What was he thinking?

I’m not sure I believe all of Clinton’s memoir, but who can blame him for putting the best face on everything? What I do know is what he experienced from the independent counsel’s office and the conservative money spent to tear him down has become derigueur for the president regardless of political party. My beef with Clinton was the way he raised money, letting high level donors stay overnight in the Lincoln bedroom. Having read his explanation of the Lincoln bedroom story, and knowing now it was a conservative talking point, I’m over it. He made a lot of mistakes during his administration, but he admitted them, and did more good than bad by any measure.

I am not over my former congressman Jim Leach’s participation in the Whitewater investigations. He should have known better than to get involved with that, and I have no regrets of working hard over two cycles to remove him from office. I still cringe a little when I see him around the county. Clinton devoted about three paragraphs to Leach, and that was enough to induce nausea.

With the temperatures hovering between ten and 17 below zero today, it’s a good time to curl up with a book. Which I will do after finishing a few other tasks around the still holiday decorated house.

Categories
Social Commentary

One Less Used Bookstore

Formerly Murphy-Brookfield Books
Formerly Murphy-Brookfield Books

IOWA CITY— The number of used bookstores in the county is reduced by one. Murphy-Brookfield Books closed after 33 years in business, and its owners sold their historic stone building to the Haunted Bookshop. The deal is done and people and cats were in their new digs when I stopped by earlier this afternoon. Murphy-Brookfield Books went on-line.

I don’t like any of it… except maybe the cats.

I’ll start by saying that if I want to find something to read, there will be no problem. Our home library has enough reading material to last the rest of my life, and then some. Most of what I read is found here. Too, the public library provides on-line access to ebooks I can download to my phone for free if someone else doesn’t have them checked out. From time to time I browse the selection, and it is pretty good. If I can’t find what I want there, I go on-line and buy it from Amazon.com, eBay or one of the bookstores on the Internet. It isn’t for reading material that I frequent bookstores. I can get that at home.

Last year I stopped at the large chain bookseller at the mall. It had changed. It was as if they took everything I liked and removed or placed it out of sight. There was plenty of pulp fiction, and novels that looked like they all had been designed in the same advertising studio— similar titles, same sizes and an array of brilliant covers embossed with foil— lined up like so many treats in an old fashioned candy store. The caché of hanging out at a bookstore, reading and drinking coffee has faded. I’m no longer a fan of coffee bars and besides, who has time any more? I haven’t been back.

Browsing used books is like taking a vacation. I plan the trip for weeks, and upon arrival, one never knows what to expect. By chance, something catches the eye and comes off the table, down from the shelf, or out of a bin. If the price is right, the bound volume comes home.

Through Salvation Army stores, Goodwill and thrift stores, used book stores large and small, rummage and library sales, and estate auctions I have browsed since high school looking for something. In a box of discards I found a 19th Century edition of the collected works of James Fenimore Cooper— the pages turned yellow and brittle, too fragile to turn. At a thrift store in Sweetwater, Texas, for a dollar I bought an autographed copy of Iowan W. Edwards Deming’s “Out of the Crisis” while the rattlesnake roundup was going on. At the library used book sale I found Alexander Kern’s copy of Charles and Mary Beard’s “The Rise of American Civilization,” signed by Kern and dated Sept. 1932 inside the cover. That signature itself was a piece of local history. There is always something to connect to bits and pieces of my history or theirs.

So why don’t I like it? The people seem nice at the Haunted Bookshop. And after all, I was able to survive when the Epstein Brothers closed shop and their portable building was removed from Clinton Street. There is Prairie Lights on Dubuque Street. It was good enough for President Obama, so why not good enough for me?

I didn’t know Mark Brookfield at all… except that he was there most times I stopped by over three decades. I recognized him when I entered, and he was helpful without exception. Whether I was looking for something, or had a box of books to trade for store credit, each transaction went well. I was always happy when I left, and looked forward to the next visit. I doubt he knew me. Now he’s out of sight in the ether.

Maybe I just don’t like change— knowing another landmark off Market Street is gone. One less old haunt in a block where so much has happened in my life. Maybe it’s something else. The new place is packed with books, as if a massive shedding of the printed word was underway— more than just the university community ditching books before moving on. It may be something like that.

So one last time to consider the past, get used to the change, and then go on living with one less used bookstore in which to dig for memories. I won’t get over it. But maybe I will.

Categories
Social Commentary

The Ship Has Sailed

ForwardLAKE MACBRIDE— All the people waiting for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to collapse under its own weight had better find something else to do. Almost four years in, there’s no way to hop in the DeLorean, go back in time and undo the good the law has already done.

Don’t get me wrong. I expect to hear more laments and entreaties about how wrong it was for President Obama to do it, and that government is taking over health care, yada, yada, yada. Please people. Get a grip. We went through all of these arguments during the Clinton administration. When the Republican idea of filibustering health care reform to death the way Bob Dole did died, so did the idea of repealing Obamacare. If Republicans gained control of the presidency and both chambers of the legislature, how would the repeal even work three years from now? Could they go back in time and undo the mammograms already provided, the colon screenings performed, or take away the happiness people who didn’t have health insurance experienced when they got it? I suppose one Back to the Future reference is sufficient: they won’t be able to go back in time, and some form of the law is here to stay.

The ship has sailed for Obamacare, and by that I mean we are in a period of waiting to know how it will work out. The website is working. The reforms set in place are working. The number of enrollments is increasing. What seems most important about new enrollments is answering the question, what kind of medical treatment will people require? Even though part of the new fee structure includes a premium for excess insurance to cover a bad claims experience, if everyone who comes into a plan needs expensive treatment, it will skew the costs. How will that work out? We won’t know until insurance companies review the data and actuarial experience and set 2015 rates. So we wait. For the close of open enrollment on March 31, and to see the claims experience during 2014.

Josh Mitchell of Talking Points Memo has written that as enrollments increase above ten million people (not a typo, read the article), so does conservative rage. Chill dudes. Greg Sargent of the Washington Post has suggested there are three stages of Obamacare acceptance. Get with the program.

What seems clear to me is that once people get health insurance two things will happen. First, life will return to a semblance of normal, and people will discover that having health insurance is far from a perfect situation. Conservatives will be quick to point this out, although we all know this experience is logical and predictable. Secondly, Obamacare will become the paradigm, generating new struggles to reduce government costs for Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition and other programs, while at the same time attempting to do right by the American people. We’re moving forward in the incredible storm and stress that is living in this country.

If you don’t like it, either move into a yurt, or contribute something positive to the discussion, one our country has been having since Harry Truman was president. A discussion that is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.

Categories
Living in Society

Chickens on the Road

Chicken
Chicken

SOLON— In this small town, people got to talking about the food supply chain when a cooler full of processed chickens fell off a truck destined for the local food bank. The chickens were rejected after the media publicity generated a call from a government agency saying the poultry could not be distributed to the needy. Someone else stepped up with substitute chickens to fill the gap, which can happen in our good hearted community.

That someone raised chickens for the food bank is pretty cool, but is not the whole story. The chickens were discarded because they were not USDA inspected and stamped at a small slaughter abattoir, not because they fell off the truck. As a culture, we are overly reliant on a government food inspection system that may play a role in our legal system, but does not make common sense. It is an example of how we have lost touch with where food comes from and what home cooks have to do to make sure they serve healthy, nutritious meals. The town will be talking about this incident for a while.

On Aug. 30, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison signed the first law requiring inspection of meat products. The law required that USDA, through the Bureau of Animal Industry, inspect salted pork and bacon intended for exportation. Exports of U.S. livestock, and meat products, had fallen under increasingly stringent restrictions by foreign countries. Producers urged the U.S. government to create an inspection program to enable them to compete in foreign markets. Over the years, inspections came to protect the giant agribusinesses and prevent entry, and run out of business, small scale operators like the slaughter abattoir mentioned.

With the rise of consumerism during the 20th Century, notably after Upton Sinclair published his exposé of Chicago slaughterhouses in 1905, meat inspections became de rigueur. President Theodore Roosevelt led passage of the Meat Inspection Act, and the Pure Food and Drug Act, after overcoming his initial dislike for Sinclair. While the slaughterhouses were undeniably gross, as Joel Salatin pointed out in his book, “Folks, This Ain’t Normal,” there is no substantial evidence of mass meat adulteration or related human sickness prior to Sinclair’s reports.  For more information about the history of U.S. meat inspections, click here.

The consumer protection side of this issue gained public attention during a 1993 outbreak of e. coli bacteria in ground meat. Following the Al-Qaeda attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, food security came under the umbrella of homeland security concerns. The fear of pathogens in our food supply has become an obsession among some, and the Solon incident is evidence of how ridiculous things have become. What whit of difference would the USDA stamp have made on this batch of chickens? None whatsoever.

Arthur Schlesinger, in his book, “The Cycles of American History,” had me asking the rhetorical question, “what mood are you in?” It seems clear to me that the public purpose we once held our politicians and public figures to has given way to private interest… to the extent a farmer can’t raise chickens and give them to the needy in our society without some petty bourgeois official saying, “no, it’s against the rules, and my corporate masters have deemed them unsafe.” What a sad state of affairs this is, one that serves large corporations more than people who both have chickens and hunger, but prevents them from getting together.

Categories
Home Life

Soup Suppers and Movies

Animal Tracks
Animal Tracks

LAKE MACBRIDE— A winter byproduct of an active local food life is several dozen jars of soup and soup stock in the pantry and refrigerator. Curried lentil, root vegetable, kale and carrot, leftover chili, and many others. With summer abundance, leafy green vegetables (turnip greens especially) are suited for soup making and several large stock pots get canned as excess vegetables and garden seconds appear in the kitchen. Soup will serve as dinner on many nights during the long end of year holiday season, and through the first spring harvest.

Most nights between Christmas and New Years we watch a movie with our supper. This year I got out bankers boxes of VHS movies we collected, when that was the current technology, and hooked up the player. Last night it was “Sense and Sensibility” directed by Ang Lee. After a number of years, I am beginning to understand that the story is about more than Mrs. Dashwood marrying off her daughters. Others we watched are “It’s a Wonderful Life” directed by Frank Capra, “Christmas in Connecticut” directed by Peter Godfrey, and a version of “The Nutcracker,” with Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gelsey Kirkland, directed by Tony Charmoli. This morning I viewed Edwin S. Porter’s “The Great Train Robbery,” one of the first narrative films, made in 1903. It’s online here and if you haven’t seen the 12-minute film you should.

VHS Movies
VHS Movies

Once our video-cassette player wears out, I’m not sure what we might do. They continue to be sold and we used to keep an extra one in the house, but no more. When we reach the creek, if ever, we’ll cross that bridge.

There is an open question about a diversity of technology over the long term. Will we be able to open *.jpg and *.bmp files in 20 years? What about Microsoft Outlook files where tens of thousands of emails are stored? Will Amazon.com and their Kindle files persist? There is too much life to be lived to worry about that now. Presumably, we’ll go with the flow, and break out the old technology to access them like we do with the VHS tapes. Like in so many ways, we are in this together as a society, and as is currently said on the Internet, these are first world problems.

It is a simple pleasure to find the boxes of tapes in storage, set up the machine and pick one each night to watch with family. It is part of a workingman’s life, subject to change. Technology and popular culture are the least of our worries as we go on living in the post-Reagan society.

Categories
Home Life

Working Class Reflection

All Roads Lead Home
All Roads Lead Home

LAKE MACBRIDE— The days between Christmas and New Year’s Eve have become a quiet time of reflection over the years. Queen Elizabeth agrees that “we all need to get the balance right between action and reflection.” Nonetheless, there is not much action here in Big Grove among the holidays. Taking front stage is reflection about music and other media experienced through the years, including these ten memorable concerts.

August 27, 1966 — Herman’s Hermits at Municipal Stadium, Davenport, Iowa.

April 3, 1970 — Van Morrison at Fillmore East, New York, New York.

March 20, 1971 — Grateful Dead at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

April 24, 1971 — Laura Nyro at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

February 20, 1973 — Ravi Shankar at Sinclair Auditorium Coe College, Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

February 24, 1973 — Grateful Dead at the University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

July 22, 1974 — Johnny Cash at John O’Donnell Stadium, Davenport, Iowa.

July 27, 1974 — Eric Clapton at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds, Davenport, Iowa.

April 25, 1975 — Jefferson Starship at University of Iowa Field House, Iowa City, Iowa.

March 25, 1983 — B.B. King at the Col Ballroom, Davenport, Iowa.

August 28, 1992 — Sharon, Lois and Bram at the Star Plaza Theatre, Merrillville, Indiana.

October 24, 2006 — Sir Elton John at the Cow Palace, Daly City, California.

November 4, 2012 — Bruce Springsteen on Locust Street, Des Moines, Iowa.

Categories
Home Life

Christmas 2013

Christmas 2013
Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas. May there be peace on Earth, especially in South Sudan.

Categories
Home Life

Christmas Eve 2013

Gift under the Tree
Lump of Coal

LAKE MACBRIDE— Sixteen degrees below zero on Christmas Eve morning and the furnace just ignited. The Internet connection is down, but there is phone service to connect us to the world as the coffee steams and the laptop glows along with the colored lights of our decorated Christmas tree. The sound of the dishwasher creates noise that muffles the outside. Now the water softener cycles, adding to the score. And then the furnace turns off, having warmed the thermostat to 60. It seems quiet as memory reminds me it should be this day, despite the symphony of sight, sound and touch.

Ours is a small family, spread around the country. We have never had a Christmas holiday where we needed to do more than set up a card table or two away from the grown-ups. No card tables needed today. Do people even have card tables any longer? No travel plans, so I took a nap. After waking, the Internet connection was up and so was the sun. A brilliant day to be thankful for our many blessings and to make contact with friends and loved ones. There is more contact in the era of telephones, social media and Skype than previously, especially when it is too cold to go outside unless one is required to do so by work or trade.

Yesterday I made a batch of shortbread cookies― a contribution to holiday treats. Regardless of what we cook at home, Christmas gifts add to the edible bounty, with a fruitcake from Mother and some apple butter from a friend. Having enough to eat has never been a problem in our household, and the festive fare won’t last long. One batch of cookies is enough this year, although since writing the first sentences of this paragraph, I took a bag of rhubarb out of the freezer and made rhubarb crisp for dessert.

This year I left the lump of coal in the bin with other unused Christmas ornaments. It was a joke gift and except for 2013, it has been under our tree every year. Not this year. We’ve all been naughtier than we should and nicer than we thought. No need to joke about it. We just need to be better after this day of rest and quiet.