Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Home Life Kitchen Garden

Pesto Pasta

Apple Pile
Apple Pile

LAKE MACBRIDE— In 100 degree temperatures the walk to the garden to pick yellow cherry tomatoes and basil for dinner didn’t seem hot. Perhaps I am adapted to the unseasonably hot weather… intensified by climate change. We can’t recall the last rainfall. According to the state climatologist, “Iowa temperatures averaged 72.1° or 0.6° above normal while precipitation totaled 1.57 inches or 2.63 inches less than normal. This ranks as the 7th driest and 65th warmest August among 141 years of records.” It has been exceptionally dry in Big Grove. However, life goes on, and having a house guest provides a special reason to used locally grown food to prepare meals for the table.

That we would have a salad was determined when a co-worker at the farm carried a crate full of freshly picked lettuce from the field to the cooler yesterday morning. Mixed greens, washed and spun dry, topped with zucchini, cucumber, orange bell pepper, red onions, wedges of red tomatoes and sliced carrots were topped with a dressing of choice. Balsamic vinegar and olive oil with salt and pepper is my favorite.

We also served pesto pasta. During early summer I made and froze half a dozen jars of pesto, using various ingredients. Slicing the yellow cherry tomatoes in half and putting them in a small bowl along with a chiffonade of basil leaves, I cooked six cups of bow tie pasta to al dente. The pasta, tomatoes and basil, half a pint of pesto and a roughly measured cup of Romano and Parmesan cheese were mixed thoroughly in a large bowl and served alongside a one-inch thick tomato slice topped with kosher salt and strips of fresh basil. A simple late summer feast.

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Living in Society Social Commentary

Hope for a Small Town

Onion Work
Onion Work

Whether it was the high school football game between Regina and Solon, or the new restaurant and microbrewery, Main Street was hopping when I returned from the political fundraiser in Coralville. Cars lined the streets and people were standing at the intersection of Main and Iowa Streets. That hasn’t happened for a long time. Perhaps there is hope for the future of small towns.

My state senator’s birthday party/fundraiser has been an annual event for 27 years. 90 minutes dovetailed with some necessary errands, it was a great way to catch up with friends made during past political campaigns. We learned our U.S. representative is now a Costco member, and he and his spouse were planning to go there after the event. No talk of Syria, or really anything political from the congressman. This group is his home constituency, and we get it that there is more to life than politics. There has to be since the 113th U.S. Congress isn’t doing much. Senator Bob Dvorsky announced he was running for another term.

Onions
Onions

My day was spent at the farm cleaning onions. The work was not complicated, removing the top and roots, inspecting and sorting. The day passed quickly, and afterward, at the convenience store in town, the clerk called me, “hun.” Short for honey and a term of familiarity for locals, one of which I have become.

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Living in Society

Letter to Dave Loebsack

Dear Congressman Loebsack,

I took your poll regarding what the United States should do about the violation of international law and crime against humanity that was the chemical weapons attack in Syria. The choice of answers in the poll seemed to lead us to war, and nowhere else.

The choice between an air strike or none, is a false choice. The chemical weapons attack near Aleppo was a crime and the perpetrators should be brought to justice in the International Court of Justice. Period.

As a member of congress, one hopes you have more direct insight to the circumstances of this attack, and by whom it was perpetrated. As a citizen, it is not clear to me who did what to whom, and that makes it difficult to say what the U.S. should do about it.

What is particularly disheartening is the United Nations report released by Russia this afternoon, which indicates the makeup of the chemical weapons used in the attack were not from the Syrian chemical weapons arsenal. The report suggests the possibility that the chemical weapons were used by the rebels supported by the United States. If this U.N. report, and Russia’s analysis of it is accurate, there is even less basis for launching an air attack against Syria.

I trust you will consider these matters when making you decision on how to vote on an air strike on Syria.

Regards, Paul

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Social Commentary

An Iowa View of Syria

War is Not the Answer(UPDATE: Sept. 4, 2013, 3:30 p.m. CDT: A new report from Russia, including a 100-page United Nations report on the chemical attack at Aleppo, Syria, indicates non-standard Syrian chemical weapons used in attack. Russian analysis suggests Syrian rebels may have launched a chemical attack, rather than the Syrian government. Click here to read more).

The horrific use of chemical weapons in Syria is a violation of international law and a crime against humanity. President Obama was right when he said, “in a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.” Where he was wrong was when he said, “the United States should take military action against Syrian regime targets.”

A couple of things don’t matter about the American response to Syria’s use of chemical warfare against its citizens.

The commentary from the right is the usual anti-Obama anything parade of made up crap. Former U.N. ambassador John Bolton said to FOX News, “the White House candy store is open,” meaning the Syria vote agreed by Democratic and Republican leadership in the U.S. house and senate will become yet another round of congressional political swaps of votes for pork. Some on the fringe even say Obama is using Syria to distract from fake scandals in his administration. The whining voice of the right and its fringe don’t matter because the public is tuning in.

President Obama differentiates between an aerial bombardment and boots on the ground. Only the most cynical or naive among us don’t understand these are two aspects of the same thing. He said, “our action would be designed to be limited in duration and scope.” All wars are, and this one would be no different in that regard.

What matters, that isn’t being said much, is as my colleague at Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Robert Dodge, wrote in the Huntington, W.V. News, “the military intervention being debated is not intended to end the violent conflict that has killed more than 100,000 Syrians. It won’t help the nearly two million Syrian refugees return home or get the more than 6.8 million people in need access to humanitarian aid.” These are real people with real needs, and little assurance that an American air strike will benefit them in tangible ways. Our recent and costly invasion of Iraq stands as an example of how U.S. military adventurism does little for people outside a small group of war profiteers.

It must be tempting to think U.S. intelligence knows where Syrian weapons of mass destruction are located, enabling the targeting and destruction of their government’s capabilities. But things go wrong, more often that we would like.

Individuals in the Syrian government committed a crime when they used chemical weapons against a group of Syrian citizens that included children. We have courts to prosecute such criminals, beginning with the International Court of Justice. The International Court of Justice is where this crime should be confronted.

An invasion of Syria, and that is what a target air strike would be, would perpetrate more violence in an already war torn country. Iowans may be able to tune out the world for a while, but we must resist what our government does in our name. For my part, I join with the Quakers who wrote, as one of 25 non-governmental organizations, this open letter to President Obama reiterating the notion that war is not the answer:

August 28, 2013

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned organizations, are writing to express our grave concerns with your reported plans to intervene militarily in Syria. While we unequivocally condemn any use of chemical weapons along with continued indiscriminate killing of civilians and other violations of international humanitarian law, military strikes are not the answer. Rather than bringing an end to the violence that has already cost more than 100,000 lives, they threaten to widen the vicious civil war in Syria and undermine prospects to de-escalate the conflict and eventually reach a negotiated settlement.

In the course of more than 2 years of war, much of Syria has been destroyed and nearly 2 million people- half of them children- have been forced to flee to neighboring countries. We thank you for the generous humanitarian assistance the US has provided to support the nearly 1 in 3 Syrians- 8 million people- in need of aid. But such assistance is not enough.

As the U.S. government itself has recognized, there is no solution to the crisis other than a political one. Instead of pursuing military strikes and arming parties to the conflict, we urge your administration to intensify diplomatic efforts to stop the bloodshed, before Syria is destroyed and the region further destabilized.

Sincerely,

Friends Committee on National Legislation
American Friends Service Committee
Church of the Brethren
Code Pink
CREDO Action
Democrats.com
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Global Ministries of the United Church of Christ and Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Historians Against the War
Institute for Policy Studies
Just Foreign Policy
Oxfam America
Peace Action
Peace Education Fund
Physicians for Social Responsibility
Presbyterian Church, USA
Progressive Democrats of America
RootsAction.org
Shomer Shalom Network for Jewish Nonviolence
United Methodist Church, General Board of Church and Society
USAction
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Veterans for Peace
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Women’s Action for New Directions

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Home Life Kitchen Garden

Entering September

Unused Silos
Unused Silos

LAKE MACBRIDE— Dust is still settling on life made turbulent by the harvest, new work, writing and commitments with friends and family during August. Top that off with talk about retaliation against Syria for using banned chemical weapons, and summer is ending with a bang, perhaps literally. It’s time to regroup and deal with the challenges.

A neighbor and I did a deal on raspberries yesterday. He provided eight pints to process, half into a spread for his morning toast, and half into what I want, probably the same, or maybe pancake syrup. After a shift at the farm this morning, raspberries, tomatoes and apples will all enter the canning mix. It’s now or never for the ones already picked. An eight hour canning session begins at 1 p.m. and I’ll locate my second canning pot to process two batches at a time. Times like this, I wish we had six or eight burners on our stove.

The garden has been on its own for three or four days. Tomatoes are ready, and not sure what else. When I return from the farm, I’ll empty the compost bucket and find out, picking tomatoes for sure, and likely Anaheim peppers.

There is a lot more to organize, and the food work is in the must-do, nature-can’t-wait category. There’s more work, my presentations on climate change Sept. 17 and 29, particularly. That’s not to mention finding replacement revenue for when the seasonal farm work ends soon. It looks to be a very busy autumn as we enter September.

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Home Life

Summer’s End

Germination House in Late Summer
Germination House in Late Summer

LAKE MACBRIDE— There is a sense that the season has turned. Clutching the harvest, preserving it as best we can for winter, its abundance slips through our hands to compost, and with time, back to the earth.

Bones and joints are weary from farm work, that work displacing time normally spent in the garden, yard and kitchen. Fallen apples line the ground and the branches of the late trees touch the grass, laden with the developing fruit. In nature’s abundance we cut a sliver and sustain ourselves on its freshness.

It’s labor day in the U.S., but that matters little in nature’s calendar. The work of a local food system goes on, and paid work calls me again today.

Soon I’ll finish preparing the onions drying in the germination house for storage. After that, I will be ready for autumn and the acceleration of changing seasons into winter.

Categories
Social Commentary

Blog Action Day 2013

On Our Own: Sustainability in a Turbulent World will be joining the global Blog Action Day on human rights on Oct. 16. If you would like to join in, register your blog at http://blogactionday.org

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Home Life

Morning Break

TwitterLAKE MACBRIDE— First shift produced two quarts of tomato juice, four pints of tomato sauce and an experimental jar to see how my pickles take to water bath processing. There are still a lot of tomatoes to process.

I delivered frozen bell peppers to a farm where one of my work for food ventures is located, and stopped by the orchard to drop off a lead for some cheese curds. I bought a jar of sweet, dark cherry preserves on my employee discount.

Summer is waning, and I just took more harvest work to earn some money for the tax collector. Staying busy with the changing seasons is easy. There may be fewer posts for a while as the unofficial end of summer comes this weekend.

Thanks everyone for reading. It won’t be long until my next post. Meanwhile, I’ll be out in farm fields trying to earn a living.

Categories
Living in Society

Tobacco and the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership

Convenience Store
Convenience Store

At hundreds of convenience stores and retail outlets in Iowa, the drug trade has been and continues to be legal and in full force. Lowly paid wage workers ply a trade in tobacco, a deadly product that continues to be widely used. Where the author lives, workers queue up at the counter before their shift begins, selecting their preferred brand of cigarettes, snuff, snus, cigars or chewing tobacco. The clerk asks, “will one pack be enough?” Tobacco is the only legal consumer product that kills when used as intended. Tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death worldwide, accounting for 6 million preventable deaths annually, and is a major contributor to the global pandemic of non-communicable diseases.

This may seem like old news, but the tobacco industry is still at work, caught up in the secretive trade talks going on this week in Brunei. While many of us are finishing up summer work to take vacation, and students are returning to campus, U.S. corporations are attempting to gain unfettered access to markets in 12 countries as part of the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership (TPTP). Tobacco trade is just one of the issues. (Read the Sierra Club memo on environmental issues here).

The tobacco trade issue reduces to a key point, according to Dr. John Rachow of Iowa Physicians for Social Responsibility, “this is a critically threatening attempt to restore unlimited international trafficking of tobacco, the greatest completely preventable cause of human death on the planet.”

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman released a statement in which he wrote, “this proposal will, for the first time in a trade agreement, address specifically the public health issues surrounding tobacco– preserving the ability of the United States and other TPP countries to regulate tobacco and to apply appropriate public health measures, and bringing health and trade officials together if tobacco-related issues arise– while remaining consistent with our trade policy objectives of negotiating a comprehensive agreement that does not create a precedent for excluding agricultural products.” Including reference to tobacco products in a trade agreement is the opposite of what public health officials want.

The Center for Policy Analysis on Trade and Health wrote, “the medical, health care, and public health community has consistently supported removing tobacco, tobacco products, and tobacco control measures from trade agreements as the most effective solution (to enabling participating countries to exercise their sovereignty to reduce tobacco use and prevent the harm it causes to public health).”

The tobacco industry likes adding the language because by giving tobacco products special treatment, it creates loopholes that could easily be exploited to circumvent restrictions on tobacco products in participating countries. By offering language on tobacco in the TPTP, the Obama administration is capitulating on public health to get a deal done that favors the tobacco industry.

For more information on tobacco language in trade agreements, click here. To sign a petition to exclude tobacco from the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership agreement, click here.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa

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Living in Society

Iowa’s Flight to No Preference

Solon VotingChad Brown of Ankeny, “the co-chairman of the Polk County Republican Party, has resigned and changed his party registration to independent, saying the GOP has become too conservative and is condoning “hateful” rhetoric,” reported Kathie Obradovich, political columnist for the Des Moines Register, on Tuesday. The flight of voters to no preference (a.k.a. independent) is not new in Iowa, although Brown may be the first GOP party chair to switch in a while, and it’s news.

The flight to no preference is significant. Here are the Secretary of State’s August active voter registration numbers by congressional district.

First District: Democratic: 162,447; Republican: 136,290; No Preference: 192,715.

Second District: Democratic: 170,096; Republican: 138,517; No Preference: 182,097.

Third District: Democratic: 157,375; Republican: 164,176; No Preference: 157,076.

Fourth District: Democratic: 127,457; Republican: 178,158; No Preference: 174,307.

Iowa Total: Democratic: 617,375; Republican: 617,141; No Preference: 706,195.

During the 2012 general election campaign, the author spoke to thousands of voters in their communities and at their doorsteps, and the moniker of “no preference” is inaccurate. Voters do have a preference, although it is not based in a political party or the kind of politicized talking points that often characterize a campaign. Voters, in the majority of cases, want to do what they think is right, emphasis on thinking. Most who planned to vote gave careful consideration to the candidates in specific races. In the majority of cases, party affiliation was less important than whether the candidate would perform well in elected office.

Our campaign door knocked enough to meet voters and have multiple conversations with them over the course of the eight month campaign. It was an opportunity to see how the decision-making process went and how choices were made. Our campaign was in the second congressional district, and support for Rep. Dave Loebsack solidified first, as he is well liked in the district. Next was a reluctant choice for President Obama, and it was clear many voters did not like their choices for president. In the state house race in which I was working, people said they hadn’t decided, but I think they were just being polite at their door as the Republican candidate won 56.3 percent to 43.5 percent.

Perhaps most telling was conversations with poll workers during the June 5, 2012 primary election. I visited every polling place in our district on election day and to a person the poll workers said voter turnout was low and they expected it to be low. I asked why. The answers varied, but the consistent theme was that people did not want to be seen by friends and neighbors at the polls as a registered Democrat or Republican. This was particularly the case in mostly rural Cedar County, which is part of our house district and arguably a bellwether county.

The role of politics in daily life had been minimized by many voters I met. Politics mattered, but in a busy life, voters didn’t want to spend a lot of energy on it until the election was imminent, or a particular issue percolated to the surface of their lives.

There are exceptions to everything, but the upshot is that candidates will do better if they figure a way to gain favorable consideration among all registered voters, including members of the opposing party and so-called “no preference” voters. This is increasingly important the further down the ticket a race falls.

There are ideologues throughout the political spectrum, but in the wake of the 2006 and 2008 general elections, their time came in 2010, and is now hopefully receding. The resignation of the Polk County GOP co-chair is just one more example.

~ Written for Blog for Iowa