Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Living in Society

Progressive Summer Reading Program

Iowa history books.

At a time when conservative political activists tell us what we can and can’t read and learn in public spaces, summer reading programs at public libraries continue to thrive. In the City of Solon, population 3,018, 261 kids attended the public library’s May 30 Summer Reading Program kick-off event.

Most have heard of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library which mails free books to children from birth to age five. Each month Parton’s organization mails books to one million children around the world with one in seven American children receiving her books. Any parent can sign their child up for the service from Imagination Library.

Young children seem on board with reading. It’s the adults among us that need to do better. According to the website Wordsrated, the average American adult reads five books per year. 51.6 percent of Americans don’t finish a single book in a year. Here are some books where progressives can start improving our book-reading. Call it a progressive summer reading program!

I recommend starting with my March 31 post titled Women to Read and Follow. These authors are essential to understanding the progressive viewpoint in contemporary society. Don’t yap about dark money in politics or Citizen’s United unless you have read Jane Mayer’s Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right. Following women’s health care rights post-Dobbs? Read Alice Miranda Ollstein’s articles at Politico. Concerned about misinformation and disinformation in the media? You should read Barbara McQuade, Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. All eight women I covered are worth reading.

There are some men writing on progressive topics who are also worth reading. I recently reviewed Ari Berman’s latest book Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People–and the Fight to Resist It. Berman’s previous book, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America is a must-read. I’ve been following Thom Hartmann’s Hidden History series and any of them is a good starting place. My recent review of The Hidden History of American Democracy: Rediscovering Humanity’s Ancient Way of Living is here. Warning! Once you get started with Hartmann you may become addicted. Blog for Iowa weekend editor Dave Bradley wants to read Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America’s Food Industry by Austin Frerick.

How do disabled people become political activists? You owe it to yourself to read Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong who tells her story. What is a main issue? Free and open access to the internet.

Worried about the climate crisis? Hannah Ritchie’s new book Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet offers a fresh and refreshing perspective. Helen Macdonald’s Vesper Flights is about bird migrations and our interaction with nature, suggesting we should not be using nature as a metaphor at all.

It has been so long since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, people tend to forget nuclear weapons should be eliminated and the major powers all agreed to do just that. Annie Jacobsen recently published Nuclear War: A Scenario to remind us. This book deserves distribution beyond folks who work for nuclear abolition.

Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost & Found during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Michelle Fishburne is a unique story of her 12,000-mile journey with her children in an RV during the pandemic. Her story captures something about the pandemic it is difficult to find elsewhere.

Blog for Iowa editor Trish Nelson passed along some summer reading recommendations. The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson is one person’s stories of growing up in Iowa, many places and things we all remember come and gone. A Woman of No Importance by Sonia Purcell and Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America’s Greatest Spy by Judith L. Pearson are two different books with the same topic: an infamous female spy from America who was a key player in the French resistance during WWII. Trish also recommends Cassidy Hutchinson’s Enough and Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead.

A person needs escape through reading from time to time. Novels I recommend are A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus, The Map of Salt and Stars by Jennifer Zeynab Joukhadar and Whose Names are Unknown by Sanora Babb. It was hard to put each of these books down as the subject was compelling and the story masterfully told.

I turn to poetry when I need a break from prose, reading new and old poetry from my personal library. In the new category, I recommend Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte, a debut poetry collection about identity, culture, home, and belonging. In the old category, someone on social media convinced me to read the poetry of John Betjeman. His collected poems is on my summer reading list. I am also a fan of Lucia Perillo’s The Oldest Map with the Name America. My recommendation? Go to the nearest public library, find the poetry section, and pick something that interests you.

There you have it: a progressive summer reading list. Happy summer reading!

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Living in Society

Life Near a Small City

Corner of Main at Market

The population of the city near where I live was 3,018 during the 2020 U.S. Census. It is growing yet much remains the same about small city life.

The grocery store will give you cash back, that is, unless it is early in the morning and they have not received any $20 bills in the till.

The clerk at the hardware store was reading the Cedar Rapids Gazette. I entered through the back entrance because the sidewalk in front is closed for repairs from high winds in 2023. They had what I needed.

The fire station is locked up tight as an all-volunteer force is working other jobs during the day.

A large tent was erected on the south edge of town where fireworks will be sold ahead of Independence Day.

The convenience stores are hopping with customers who service their addictions. They are the busiest places in the city most mornings.

What to make of this? It just is. The unseen parts of the city are more interesting.

A majority of residents commute to a job somewhere else.

Most everyone has high speed internet and everything that means.

Shopping with Amazon is so convenient it hits sales from Main Street stores like a bludgeon.

When we do need to buy something, the prices are much higher than in nearby larger cities.

Within city limits, housing stock turns over as quickly as a realtor hangs a sign.

It’s like one desultory stream of features that mean nothing unless one knows the people who live here. Maybe that’s the point. To know the city, know the people.

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Living in Society

Migration From Newspapers To Other Media

This chart says a lot about the history of newspapers in the 21st Century. As the number of employees in the business declined by 75 percent, private equity extracted financial resources from these businesses through mergers and acquisitions, leaving a much diminished infrastructure to provide news and information. There are fewer daily newspapers in 2024 compared to 2000.

As newsroom employees are purged, and substacks, blogs, podcasts, and the like proliferate, we are left with fragmented news sourcing around specific reporters’ individual interests. There is a role for that, but obtaining reliable news about things that matter is increasing difficult, both from the news consumer’s perspective and from the newspaper perspective of doing more and more with fewer resources.

I am interested in the issue of blogs as news sources. Like it or not, Bleeding Heartland, Blog for Iowa, and Iowa Starting Line are no news substitute for the vacuum being created by private equity shedding newspaper employees and mining news assets. Iowa Starting Line is part of Courier Newsroom, funded by reader contributions, sponsors, and philanthropic and corporate underwriting, according to their website. Both Blog for Iowa and Bleeding Heartland have been privately funded, although that model is changing at Bleeding Heartland. Funding is addressed on the Bleeding Heartland website: “Readers can support independent journalism and help cover reporting costs, such as public records requests, by contributing here.” This type of funding provides freedom to do what editors think is best. While a lot of solid journalism is accomplished on blogs like these, they are not a replacement for news.

Some journalists found a way to make a living outside the world of newspapers. It is increasingly clear that with the rise of potentially profitable podcasts, substacks, YouTube channels, and the like, there is more money to be made in these new entities than in writing for a newspaper. There are important essays to read in this fragmented news media, yet our formal news environment is the worse for these one-off entrepreneurial enterprises.

While individual reporters venture into single-source, news-like publications, other things are filling the vacuum left by the demise of newspapers.

Political operatives are filling the news void with coordinated, partisan messaging. When Republicans like Kim Reynolds, Joni Ernst, Ashley Hinson, and Mariannette Miller-Meeks all refer to the New York trial of former president Trump as a “sham,” it is not by accident. They have the resources to develop consistent messaging to an increasingly poorly educated populace where they sow the seeds of their right-wingery. Furthering such messaging is important to Republicans maintaining a majority of elected offices in Iowa. The decline of newspapers created this opportunity for them.

At the same time, the rise in misinformation and disinformation in social media is rampant. First, social media is not a public forum as long as a user name and password is required to gain access. Second, a person can say almost anything, subject to after the fact censoring. Most importantly, troll farms can flood the social media space with posts aligned toward a specific perspective. Whether we like it or not, there is a propaganda war going on in social media, and I don’t mean cats are taking over the world. The degree to which Chinese and Russian troll farms work to infiltrate American social media is a substantial political issue.

For all the hobbles attached to news organizations in the current environment, subscribing to a major newspaper provides more value than harm. It is not enough. We must seek out news writers offering distinct, less biased messaging, and follow them where they are. I’m thinking of Heather Cox Richardson, but there are many others. By all means subscribe to a newspaper. Also take the next step to find writers whose work is valuable and follow them where they publish. This means some work we didn’t previously have to perform, yet the rewards will help us cope with a changing news media infrastructure.

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Living in Society

Keep Hope Alive

Trail walking.

After a long shift working in the garden I took a nap. When I woke around 4 p.m., the jury in the New York trial of Donald J. Trump had returned a guilty verdict on each of the 34 charges for which he was indicted. There was no surprise here as I had been following the court action and believed the prosecution’s case was bulletproof, the defense was weak. Sentencing is set for July 11, just before the Republican National Convention. The defendant is expected to appeal.

I was not in a celebratory mood. I shaved, took a shower, and then sat down with my handheld device to check the news. Of course it was dominated by reactions to the verdict. Among the first things I saw was Governor Kim Reynolds’ statement about the verdict, which I quote in full:

America saw this trial for what it was, a sham. For years, Democrats like Alvin Bragg have been trying to put President Trump in jail with complete disregard for our democracy and the will of the American people. The only verdict that matters is the one at the ballot box in November where the American people will elect President Trump again. 

Statement by Kim Reynolds, Office of the Governor Press Release, 4:15 p.m., May 30, 2024.

Governor Reynolds appears to have forgotten the “will of the people” was that Joe Biden become president after the 2020 election. In Reynolds’ statement lies the seed for the destruction of Iowa Republicans as a dominant force in our politics. I don’t think they understand this or what they are doing. I’ve been around long enough to remember another president who was a crook.

In my autobiography, I wrote a chapter on the meaning of Richard Nixon’s resignation:

Richard Nixon announced his resignation from the presidency on Aug. 8, 1974. I had no idea who Gerald Ford was, or what kind of leader he would be. The next day he said, “My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over.”

I felt a strong sense of social responsibility and the moral outrage of youth in what I believed were the deception and lies of a man in whom the country had put its trust. Hearing Nixon’s address that night, in our small apartment, was catharsis. I remember this feeling as I typed here in Big Grove Township tonight. I was relieved that Nixon was leaving. More importantly, I felt that the many protests and demonstrations during the Vietnam war had finally borne fruit. Direct action to support a just cause could accomplish things, even force out a sitting president. It was a heady feeling.

Even with many experiences by the time I reached age 22, it was that moment of seeing Nixon resign on television that opened the possibilities of the world. I became aware that direct action, in concert with others I did not know, could engender change in society. I also learned that the people, places, and things we read about can be grounded in a reality that is not that distant from where we live. We are connected to each other in unlikely ways.

Unpublished autobiography by Paul Deaton

In the post Trump era, I no longer feel as optimistic about the future as my 22-year-old self did. I simply realize how much work remains to be done for justice to prevail for all Americans by ensuring Republicans continue in decline. I realize how little time is left to accomplish this. No matter how Republicans try to spin the guilty verdicts, their enabling of Trump has a down side that led us directly to this moment of hope.

If I celebrate the verdict at all, it is because the American rule of law continues to work. No person is above the law, despite ongoing attempts by conservatives to undermine it for political advantage. Trump’s guilty verdict was a victory for the rule of law and that is worth celebrating. If the rule of law does not prevail, there will be no democracy in America.

As the Reverend Jesse Jackson said, “At the end of the day, we must go forward with hope and not backward with fear and division.” He also said, “Keep hope alive.” Words to live by as Trump has his day in court.

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Living in Society

Question of a Frontier

Garlic scapes have begun to emerge.

When Antoine LeClaire, George Davenport, and others brought the first steamboat full of land speculators from Saint Louis to sell them plots in what would become the city of Davenport, Iowa, they did not appear to have clear title to the land. Sales were lackluster. Right or wrong, I attribute this to the dominant unanswered question: Who truly owned the land?

When the Sac and Fox tribes crossed the Mississippi River into Illinois in 1831 and 1832, their dispute was with settlers who moved onto the land. Indigenous tribes did not recognize the previously signed 1804 treaty in which Sauk and Meskwawki individuals surrendered tribal lands. This dispute initiated the so-called Black Hawk War. The tribes were routed and a new treaty was signed in 1832. By 1837 all surrounding tribes had fled to the West, leaving the former Northwest Territory to white settlement, and expanding settlement into Iowa and the western parts of Minnesota.

In my autobiography I wrote about Lincoln County in southwestern Minnesota, “the presence and perceived threat of indigenous people had diminished.” In the white-written history of that place, there is scant mention of indigenous people. I included this sentence because the complete omission of indigenous people would be an error. If the tribes had truly fled to the west by 1883 when my great, great grandfather bought his land, they may have been a minor threat. Was southwestern Minnesota part of the frontier? One doesn’t see much to indicate it was. At the same time, how else would we describe it?

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner published The Significance of the Frontier in American History. I first read Turner in graduate school, and while his writing is familiar it was easier to disagree than agree with his thesis that once the frontier closed, so too did the defining aspect of American character. Yes, his work led to an expansionist foreign policy and forays by the United States into new territory during the Spanish-American War. At the same time, it is hard to stomach that the strength and the vitality of the America identity lay in its land and a once vast frontier.

I submit that land is land whether it be acres of tribal land ceded under a treaty, land granted or purchased for speculation by the founders of Davenport, or land bought in Minnesota from the railroad, the interaction of individuals and communities with the land and natural environment was more defining of American character. The better question is “What shall we make of this land where we find ourselves?” The perspective for an answer can be very narrow.

We Americans, like my Polish ancestors, often seem completely self-absorbed in ourselves and in our communities in locum. Our vision doesn’t go far beyond our noses. When we talk about character and culture, the native impulse is to tell a single, brief narrative of our lives. It is a combination of essential, defining moments, and multiple, broader narratives set in societal context. Depiction of a frontier may be part of it, yet once basic security and land rights are attained, the frontier fades into the background.

At the root of such stories, we must answer the question J. Hector de Crèvecoeur asked in Letters from an American Farmer, “What then, is the American, this new man?” The proper answer in 2024 is we are male and female, and not one singular thing. We have become Lyndon Baines Johnson’s vision of America, like it or not.

Once the question, “Who owns the land?” is settled, another important dynamic takes the foreground: the interaction of settlers with the natural environment. There is no question about a frontier, except to ask what took us so long to put it in its place?

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Living in Society

Morning Miscellany

Puddle on the trail on May 26, 2011.

Lately I forgot to take photos while out trail walking. I carry my mobile device with me. Maybe I’m distracted. Maybe the sight of Canadian Geese sunning themselves on a jetty is too commonplace. I did, however, have pleasant walks on the trail before rain started again on Friday. I used an old photo on this post and it serves.

Senate Republicans rejected the strongest, most comprehensive bipartisan border bill we’ve seen in decades. They do not want to solve problems at the Southern border. Period.

The New York Times has been reporting Trump edging Biden in polls for about eight months. Here’s the rub. They have a squishy way of saying who they polled. First it is registered voters, and then it is voters who cast a ballot in the 2020 general election — two very different parts of the electorate. As Nate Cohen reported for the Times, “President Biden has actually led the last three New York Times/Siena national polls among those who voted in the 2020 election, even as he has trailed among registered voters overall. And looking back over the last few years, almost all of Trump’s gains came from these less engaged voters.” An unbiased news outlet would put all this information out in front. The Times buries it and therefore, their reporting is not trustworthy.

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court published a decision in Alexander vs. South Carolina Conference of the NAACP, about political gerrymandering. The headline in the Cedar Rapids Gazette read, “Justices find no racial gerrymandering in S.C.” It is political gerrymandering, the high court said, and that is apparently okay because drawing districts is a political process. If you believe that, stand on your head. The majority opinion was written by George W. Bush appointee Samuel Alito who has been in the news this week for his flag-displaying propensities.

We woke early this morning to the sounds of local sirens warning about a tornado watch. We followed our standard procedure of gathering electronic communications devices downstairs and monitoring the process of the storms. At one point we had a desktop, two laptops and two phones in action. It’s how we Iowans do when it comes to severe weather.

In Iowa when the local severe weather sirens go off, we gather on the lower level with all the electronic communications devices. Friday, May 24, 2024.

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Living in Society

Toward Personality

Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com

I possess a personality yet expend little effort in knowing or cultivating it. I avoid considering a self-concept when I can. When I feel I have one, I try not to impose it on others. Most times I don’t pay much attention to who I am to focus on others. People appreciate someone who takes a sincere interest in them, according to Dale Carnegie.

What combination of qualities defines personality? It’s not an answer I sought or even thought about much. Search the internet for personality traits and five are returned in the top results: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. I have a vague idea what these mean. I am a confident public speaker who tries to be conscientious about what I say, and agreeable when I can be. I am open to consideration of new ideas yet immovable in my beliefs. I don’t tolerate bullshit well. Not sure where that lands me on the personality spectrum.

Neurotic people experience anxiety, worry, fear, anger, frustration, envy, jealousy, pessimism, guilt, depressed mood, and loneliness, according to Wikipedia. If asked, I would deny experiencing these feelings. For example, I am often alone yet don’t feel loneliness. My denials are not believed. I accept at face value what is, and don’t trouble myself with feelings about it. I may be an odd duck, yet that analysis may be a form of quackery. If pressed to put a name on my personality, I’d have to get professional help.

What brought all this up? I would like to be a person where people say they know who I am.

I have given the topic of personal influences more than a little thought, especially before my retirement from transportation and logistics in 2009. Here is a short list of personal attributes that might be considered qualities of a personality.

  1. I accept the Cartesian version of reality.
  2. I am not a hugger, except with close family.
  3. I know how to evaluate risks and am willing to take chances.
  4. I depend upon systems, like a kitchen garden.
  5. I depend upon organizations, like hospitals and retailers.
  6. I am not always listening and need to work at being a better listener.
  7. I continuously learn, or believe I do.
  8. I am frugal in most areas of daily life.
  9. I have no idea how to style my clothing.
  10. I am a creature of habit, and despise habitual behavior.

Someone might be able to put a name on this personality. For every attribute listed, one was left out. No system of reckoning is perfect.

The two things I’m most often recognized for are my public writing and gardening. Maybe I should better embrace those identities.

We were doing introductions at an event and someone said, “I read him,” referring to me. I took the compliment. A person could do a lot worse than describe themselves as a writer. Because I was prominent in the local food movement for some years, I’m recognized as a gardener. Gardening is something in which many people take interest. Talking about gardening doesn’t get me as far as talking about being a writer, yet it is a very common interest. We may have to have a multi-dimensional personality. At least two aspects, anyway

Part of my issue is I don’t share a lot of the most common interests. I have trouble carrying on a conversation about movies, TV shows, radio, and music. I don’t care much for sports, travel, and fine dining. I am interested in health and fitness, yet feel that is too personal for discussion with those outside family. Fashion and beauty? See #9 above.

Some recent topics I discussed are use of plants in a landscape where I find myself. I believe people wearied of hearing me rave about the wisteria growing on a pergola at an event. A recurring topic is how the sociology and language used to describe the coronavirus pandemic has changed. COVID-19 affected and is affecting almost everyone. The new trend in these conversations is “Get ready for bird flu.” These are something.

Part of me holds that if I haven’t figured out who I am by my 70s, then what is the point? At the same time, I don’t seek to be calcified in my self-image, to the extent I admit I have one, or in that people don’t know who I am.

I consider my role models — my maternal grandmother, my second battalion commander, certain high school friends — and, if they were living, they would know my personality. Maybe that’s part of the problem. Important people who know me are dying, leaving me a survivor. As I wrote the other day, I don’t mind the isolation of aging. Perhaps a side effect of that is developing a personality on which people can get a handle. One where I can feel some comfort in their grip. I’ll work on that.

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Living in Society

Weekly Journal 2024-05-19

Iowa House candidate Jay Gorsh speaking beneath a pergola with wisteria.

Saturday afternoon I attended the campaign kick off meeting for Jay Gorsh in Williamsburg. The event was lovely. Shade in the backyard, combined with a gentle breeze, helped us forget the ambient temperature was 87 degrees. It was a good gathering of new and old friends.

Shorter Shifts, Slower Progress

In between rain and sunshine I spent three solid shifts in the garden. The challenge is always weather, yet this year my stamina has been wanting. Five hours at a time has been my limit, especially when ambient temperatures are above 80 degrees. As I enter the final push before Memorial Day it seems unlikely everything will be planted by then.

Des Moines Neighborhood Sounds

While visiting my sister-in-law we discussed neighborhood sounds. I’ve hear the rooster that lives close by. There are typical yard work and mowing sounds. People tend to fix up their own homes there and the sounds of hammers, saws, and drills can be heard from time to time. She reported a nearby garage band playing. Acclimatizing oneself to neighborhood sounds is a part of fitting in, especially to one that was established more than a century ago in the capital city.

June 4 Primary Election

The consequential county races in the June 4 Democratic primary are among the five supervisor candidates. After thought and consideration, I decided on my three and put out their yard signs.

June 4, 2024 primary yard signs.

County primaries are quirky in Johnson County. There are a lot of factions and groups. For example, people in the labor movement favor Royceann Porter. A group of young progressives favor Mandi Remington who lost her bid for Iowa City City Council last November. Long time state legislators Mary Mascher and Kevin Kinney endorsed newcomer Bob Conrad. Rod Sullivan and Lisa Green-Douglass have served and are known entities. Sullivan seems like a shoe-in and it’s jump ball for the other two seats by the other four candidates. As they say, we’ll see what happens.

Black Hawk War

I began a reading project about the Black Hawk War. The first book is John Wakefield’s History of the Black Hawk War. Halfway into the main narrative, I’m not sure what to make of this racist tome. Likewise the inventories of forgotten men who served in military leadership has little relevance in 2024. One note is that a few years after settling in Illinois, a group of white pioneers was surprised that Black Hawk disputed their claim to the land and invaded from west of the Mississippi River to take it back. There are five books in the collection I created.

I need to get cabbages planted as they are growing too big in the greenhouse. Most vegetables in the greenhouse need to go into the ground soon. That will be the work of the coming week.

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Living in Society

Aging in Isolation

Row cover for lettuce, bok choy, herbs, spinach, and the like.

I’m okay with increased isolation as I age. I spent so much of my working years with people, I’m ready for a break. Let’s call it a permanent break. For the time being, I still drive, use the internet, and get along in social media. I can do my own shopping and make an occasional long automobile trip. Our personal to-do list is long. Working on such projects while I am healthy and reasonably strong is alright by me. I’m not as strong as I used to be. Sometimes I need help.

I rise from bed early most days. By 2 a.m., sleep is finished. I take my blood pressure and weigh myself, get dressed, and head to the kitchen to make coffee. Most days my spouse is still asleep, so I spend several quiet hours reading, writing, doing chores, and planning the day. I have a full shift in by 7 a.m., by which time I often haven’t spoken to anyone.

When I am with people, I often don’t know what to say. Engrossed in my own thoughts, such meetings force me to realize I’m not alone in the world. I seek to get along without conflict and mostly can navigate that scene. What in the heck is wrong with me that I view such meetings this way?

Yesterday I spent time with some old friends. I was careful in selecting topics for conversation. When young, it seemed we had endless hours to be with each other and do things. Now we see each other less often. When we do meet in person, time seems limited. The event I attended had new friends as well. I consider what brought us together. In most cases, it was politics or a joint project. These are good times, yet they are fleeting. I notice this more as a septuagenarian.

Being able to live in isolation is a privilege of being white, affluent, and located in a free country. In many ways, getting to this point is what I worked for most of my life. I plan to enjoy it. While I readily admit we live inside the context of a vast web of people upon whom we rely–fire fighters, physicians and nurses, grocers, utility companies, and the like–as I age, I don’t want to think about that.

After a long life of hard work, I just want some peace and quiet, isolated from the rest of the world.

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Living in Society

Thoughts About Gaza While Enroute to the Capitol City

Sprouted Iowa Field Corn

If a person wanted to know how the Iowa landscape changed, a trip along Interstate 80 from Iowa City to Des Moines will provide the information. Thursday, while picking up my spouse, the green of emerging corn and beans was visible under large cumulus clouds set against a vast expanse of blue sky. Nothing remotely like the prairie that was here in 1830 remains. While indigenous people called Iowa “beautiful land,” there is nothing beautiful about the extractive economy of row crops, eggs, hogs, and cattle. It is ironic half the corn crop is used to make ethanol which is blended with gasoline that fueled my vehicle on this trip.

The round trip was uneventful, if the interstate was crowded with Class 8 truck traffic. I was so intent on traffic, I forgot to turn on the BBC News Hour on public radio. No worries. I have plenty of other sources for news.

A news alert hit my inbox in the wee hours of Friday reporting the U.S. military began Gaza aid deliveries from a floating pier President Biden directed be installed in the Mediterranean Sea. That such a facility is needed speaks to the problems in the Hamas-Israel War. There is no logical reason Israel couldn’t let aid vehicles through to Gaza via land routes. In fact, I would argue they are required to do so. However, they won’t.

South Africa asked the International Court of Justice in The Hague to order Israel to cease all military operations in Rafah. Israel’s closure of land routes into Palestinian territory aim to destroy “the essential foundations of Palestinian life,” South Africa asserted. Israel’s belligerence toward the Palestinians has been on display in Gaza for many years. As Al Jazeera said in October 2023, “What is happening in Palestine can no longer be described as genocide, or even ethnic cleansing. It is beyond mass extermination – it is total erasure.” Israel is set to respond to the court.

Most Iowans I know believe the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel was uncalled for. The coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, had its reasons according to the combatants. If a person knows anything about Israel, they would be expected to respond. However, that Israel would knowingly uses artificial intelligence to target Hamas operatives in a way that included children and women in their blast zones violates our common humanity.

There are rules in warfare. Article 77 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 states:

Children shall be the object of special respect and shall be protected against any form of indecent assault. The Parties to the conflict shall provide them with the care and aid they require, whether because of their age or for any other reason.

Knowingly targeting Hamas operatives and indiscriminately killing children along with them seems a clear violation of the Geneva Convention. It is also just plain wrong.

Iowans can’t hide from the conflict in Gaza in traditional farm country. It affects us all. What is happening to the Palestinian population may be a war crime. What is the complicity of the U.S. government with Israel in perpetrating this atrocity? People have their opinions. Mine is the U.S. Government should do everything possible to collar Israel’s undo belligerence, including pressing for a change in their government. We can’t let what Israel is doing to the Palestinian people stand.