Pregnant woman attended by physicians. Image credit – Wikimedia Commons.
When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973, I was a junior at university. I reread the decision after retirement in 2009, along with dissenting opinions and some of the briefs. I know exactly one thing about House File 732 passed in a special session of the Iowa Legislature this summer: It restricted abortion in the state, yet did nothing, zero, to resolve controversy over abortion.
In 2022, a Republican-stacked Supreme Court overturned Roe which had enabled women with the right to seek an abortion. Discarding legal precedent, the justices ignored what’s best for the common good.
Along with this decision, male dominance over women is surging. Presently and throughout American history men have sought to dominate women at home, in the boardroom, and notably in legislation. A new generation of women, subservient to mostly male Republican legislators, are taking their marching orders. As Governor Kim Reynolds signed a near total ban on abortion in Iowa, women are faced with a familiar historic uphill struggle.
Along with the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe, abortion restrictions have led to a significant uptick in intimate partner violence, according to PBS Newshour.
Moreover, contraception is also coming under attack. If Republicans seek to take away abortion rights, effective contraception is the only method to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. If Republicans don’t agree, I suggest a remedial sexual education course. The United Nations Population Forum states that since 1994 modern contraception has more than doubled.
The takeaway? If half of humanity is not unfairly burdened everyone will benefit.
“Receiving an abortion does not harm the health and well-being of women,” according to The Turnaway Study by Diana Greene Foster. “Being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.”
Failure to enable women with bodily autonomy and to make their own health decisions is a human rights violation.
A majority of Iowans can begin to take back rights denied us by House File 732 during the 2024 election.
A fundamental right in the United States is to choose what we each read, see and hear. The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution gives us this right. Where is the boundary between educating our children and providing them free access to all forms of cultural expression regardless of content?
This is not a new question and society has been answering it in different ways for as long as I can remember. The Iowa legislature decided to codify where the boundary is and passed a law last session. Based on the new law, the Urbandale School District pulled almost 400 books from their stacks and curricula. Most districts are expected to be overly cautious in their approach to compliance. The state has been less than helpful in providing guidance on how schools and libraries should handle the new law. Urbandale reversed course on many of these books. There needs to be binding guidance from the state board of education before districts begin pulling books. State Senator Janice Weiner posted on X, “IMO all districts need to write and demand binding guidance.” In the military my drill instructor would describe this situation as it is playing out in real life a “goat screw.”
Control over which books K-12 students could access at school was evident in the 1950s and ’60s. We didn’t call it K-12 back then. When I was young, teachers kept an eye on my reading and made their opinions known. If they didn’t like a particular book, I read it at home where my parents supervised me. I got my first library card in 1959 and have been reading books from the library ever since.
My first conflict was in eighth grade over a book written by Ian Fleming, one of the 007 series. The priest saw I had it and confiscated it because of James Bond’s interaction with women. I discussed it with my parents and eventually bought another copy from the corner drug store with my allowance.
In high school I heard about J.D. Salinger’s book Catcher in the Rye and wanted to read it. It was prohibited and unavailable in the school library, or even in our local bookstores. I went across the river to a Rock Island bookstore where I bought it, and read that one too. I was free to manage the conflicts between teachers and my reading.
Fast forward from the 1960s and here’s where the controversy over boundaries for student reading seem to be heading, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette editorial board:
Our public schools will be shackled by authoritarian, politically motivated edicts intended to dictate what hundreds of thousands of Iowa students can and can’t learn in school. State actions that historically have been aimed at improving public schools will be used instead to narrow their educational missions to please a minority of outraged parents whose complaints are being elevated by Republican politicians eager to attack public schools.
It’s called “parents’ rights,” but the rights are only for parents who agree with Moms for Liberty.
We don’t need state lawmakers to intervene in local disputes over books. There are processes in place locally to challenge books. Just because banning a book is not easy does not mean the local process is flawed. And one school district’s decision should not affect other school districts.
What I can’t abide is the state Legislature regulating which books should be allowed in schools. This decision should be between teachers, librarians, and parents. The claim parents don’t know what books are in schools or somehow don’t have input seems bogus. If the Legislature wants to do something on libraries, fund online access to card catalogs throughout the state. We don’t need lawmakers telling us what to read.
It has taken four days to recover from the move in Des Moines. Surprisingly, it wasn’t temperatures in the high nineties that affected me. The killer was walking up and down stairs endlessly as we loaded basement stuff into the truck. My legs began to hurt at home on Monday and have been sore ever since. By Thursday I felt on the return trip to normal health, yet am not there yet. I hope this is the last move in which I help someone else.
We’ve entered the humid part of summer. As I write there is a fog over the landscape. Thursday the yard was covered in spider webs with condensation on them.
Spider webs with condensation.
On the plus side, tomatoes are beginning to come in. Another summer day in Big Grove. I plan to make the most of it.
Take action to raise awareness of the need to eliminate nuclear weapons by folding a crane for peace between Aug. 4-9, along with others associated with the nuclear disarmament movement and the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Crafting a brighter future starts with all of us. Between the anniversaries of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, people around the world fold and share paper cranes on social media with a message about what a future without nuclear weapons means to them.
Join people across the globe in demanding a more peaceful, hopeful future.
This project is simple. First, fold a paper crane. Instructions are in this short video.
Next, take a photo of the crane or cranes you folded. Craft a message about why we must move closer to, not further from, a world without nuclear weapons. It could be as simple as a single word or phrase. Finally, post your photo to social media with your message and the hashtag #CranesForOurFuture.
Please join us in this fun project with a broader meaning. For more details, click here.
With last night’s indictments of former President Donald J. Trump, handed down by a grand jury comprised of 23 ordinary citizens, a number of unnamed co-conspirators were mentioned yet not included in the indictment. The focus on the biggest fish is appropriate, the small fry having been pursued and jailed in significant numbers. What about Mark Meadows who sat in the middle of everything on Jan. 6, 2021 when he was chief of staff? What about the members of congress who were part of the plot? There remain many unanswered questions.
Former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows may be behind the scenes of the attempted coup against the United States. Thom Hartmann points out we can’t let go of investigations of him and 50 members of congress who joined the plot to overthrow the government. It’s an outrage they haven’t been investigated and appropriately charged already. The United States House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol focused on small fry under Democratic leadership. Apparently there was a deal with Republican committee member Liz Cheney.
For what it’s worth, Heather Cox Richardson reported the following earlier this morning:
Los Angeles Times senior legal affairs columnist Harry Litman concluded that the absence of Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, from the indictment indicates he’s cooperating with the Department of Justice.
Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, Aug. 1, 2023.
Watch this 5:24 minute video for Hartmann’s important take.
RAGBRAI is finished, sweet corn is coming in, tomatoes are ripening, and home gardens and farmers markets are going full bore. Dinner may consist of a thick slice of tomato, steamed green beans, and boiled sweet corn. It’s life in Iowa, as good as it gets.
August is also the commemoration of the end of World War II with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war, most nations agreed to eliminate nuclear weapons. More than 75 years after the atomic bombings, we are not close to giving up nuclear weapons. In the United States, the U.S. House passed the National Defense Authorization Act in a bipartisan vote that will spend more than ever on our nuclear weapons complex. The U.S. Senate passed a different version, equally spendy. The bill is heading to a reconciliation process when the Congress returns from summer break.
President Truman made the decision to drop the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. The myth these two decisions ended Japanese aggression is just that: a myth. Truman’s decision to drop the bomb created a culture in which people were afraid for their very existence in a world with nuclear weapons. That culture persists, even if it has taken different forms. It is not too late for peace.
I wrote the following post three years ago:
75 Years After Hiroshima
President Harry Truman did not need to drop the atomic bomb to end World War II.
The first test explosion of an atomic bomb, called Trinity, was conducted by the U.S. Army July 16, 1945, as part of the Manhattan Project on what is now part of White Sands Missile Range.
The day after Trinity, U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson flew to Potsdam, Germany where President Truman was meeting with Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Joseph Stalin to determine the fate of Germany which had surrendered unconditionally on May 8.
Truman wrote about this meeting with Stimson in his memoir:
“We were not ready to make use of this weapon against the Japanese, although we did not know as yet what effect the new weapon might have, physically or psychologically, when used against the enemy. For that reason the military advised that we go ahead with the existing military plans for the invasion of the Japanese home islands.”
A committee had been established to evaluate use of the atomic bomb once testing was successful. On June 1, 1945 the committee of government officials and scientists made their recommendation, which Truman recounts:
“It was their recommendation that the bomb be used against the enemy as soon as it could be done. They recommended further that it should be used without specific warning and against a target that would clearly show its devastating strength.“
Ultimately Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and on Aug. 6 the U.S. Air Force delivered it. On Aug. 9 the Air Force bombed Nagasaki. The Japanese surrendered Aug. 10.
Historian Gar Alperovitz, in his book The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb, asked two well-known questions about Truman’s decision.
“To what degree did (the president) understand that a clarification of the officially stated demand for ‘unconditional surrender’ specifying that Japan could keep its Emperor would be likely to end the war?”
“To what degree did (the president) understand that the force of a Russian declaration of war might itself bring about an early end to the fighting?”
The book based on his research is 847 pages.
The idea that dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved tens of thousands of allied forces lives by ending the war early is a myth perpetuated by those who would absolve our country from a decision to kill tens of thousands of Japanese children and as many or more other non-combatants. Historian Howard Zinn asked, “Would we have sacrificed as many U.S. children to end the war early?” Obviously we wouldn’t.
A friend, the late Samuel Becker, was in Guam in August 1945 preparing for the invasion of Japan. I recently asked him about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The reaction in Guam was positive he said. U.S. military personnel were in favor of it because they felt it would bring a quick end to what could have been a prolonged, bloody conclusion to World War II. Before he died, Becker changed his mind. With time and reflection he found the notion that the atomic bombings saved many lives was a myth. The Japanese were already in a position to surrender.
Alperovitz said in a recent webinar that, to a person, contemporary military leaders went on the record to say there was no need to use the atomic bombs to end the war early. The war had already been won.
Truth matters and one truth is the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unnecessary. Their effects would fuel the Cold War and the idea of mutually assured destruction should they be used. This is crazy talk. Nuclear weapons must be eliminated and the only way to do that, to pierce the wall of our federal government, is citizen action demanding it.
On the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima it’s past time we took action.
~ Written for the Cedar Rapids Gazette and published Aug. 9, 2020.
More than 30 million people viewed a short video of Marjorie Taylor Green speaking about what the Biden administration is doing to the country. If you haven’t seen it, here it is:
Biden-Harris campaign ad on July 19, 2023.
It’s not about the words she spoke. Greene appears to be framing Biden in a certain way, assuming people will accept her framing and vote Biden out. In more popular jargon among right-wing politicians, she is attempting to “own the liberals.” You know, because that’s what the crazies do.
It didn’t quite work if that was her assumption. Biden received a lot of free, public media because of the way their campaign used words she spoke. It was a moment of brilliance on the part of team Biden in a campaign expected to have many advertisements. Biden got the better of Greene in this face-off.
It is early in the campaign to think much about a single advertisement. I enjoyed this one and as it runs its course, will forget it just as quickly as it was created. The lesson is not only do words matter, the context in which they are spoken does too. When words like Greene’s are spoken in the right-wing media echo chamber, the speaker should do a reality check, something she didn’t do before the Turning Point conference where she unwittingly made a Biden Harris ad.
Last night I led the last annual meeting of our home owners association as president. About a dozen members gathered at the shelter in town to share a potluck dinner, socialize, and hear news of what our board has been doing. I did my best to be thorough. It has taken me a while to shed volunteer activities undertaken since retiring in July 2009. This one dates back to 1994.
I’m almost there. The last will be to leave the county party central committee and become a regular voter. This one is tricky in that no one else in our precinct expressed interest in taking the responsibility for more than one term. I’ll figure a way to let go and it won’t be long.
I lost track of how many hours I volunteered in my life. After retirement it became a way of life for more than ten years. We’re at the end of the line. Going forward, I plan to concentrate on writing, gardening, and fixing up the house.
People should be helpers in society. I plan to continue to grow more food than we can use and donate extras to the food banks. Books, kitchenware and other excess possessions will be donated as well. Yet to lend time and experience to leadership of social groups is not in my future. If there was a catastrophe, I’d surely help out.
It’s not that I’ve earned time working on myself and our home, although I have multiple times over. It’s that the male drive that brought me this far needs to step back to let a new generation of people take the baton from here. I’m confident we’ll be fine, and so will my ego.
It is a brilliant day near the lake today. Wildflowers are blooming, and the ambient temperature hasn’t been too hot. For a while, I was able to walk the trail and just breathe.
When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe vs. Wade in 1973, I was a junior at university. I re-read the decision after retirement in 2009, along with dissenting opinions and some of the briefs. I know exactly one thing about House File 732 passed in a special session of the Iowa legislature this summer: It did nothing, zero, to resolve controversy over abortion.
In 2022, a Republican-stacked Supreme Court overturned Roe which had enabled women with the right to seek an abortion. Discarding legal precedent, the justices ignored what’s best for the common good. Along with this decision, male dominance over women is re-surging. Abortion restrictions have led to a significant uptick in intimate partner violence, according to PBS Newshour.
Presently and throughout American history men have sought to dominate women at home, in the boardroom, and notably in legislation. A new generation of women, subservient to mostly male Republican legislators, are taking their marching orders. As Governor Kim Reynolds signed a near total ban on abortion in Iowa, women are faced with a familiar historic uphill struggle.
“Receiving an abortion does not harm the health and well-being of women,” according to The Turnaway Study by Diana Greene Foster. “Being denied an abortion results in worse financial, health and family outcomes.”
Failure to enable women with bodily autonomy and to make their own health decisions is a human rights violation.
A majority of Iowans can begin to take back rights denied us by House File 732 during the 2024 election.
~ A version of this post appeared in the July 21, 2023 edition of the Cedar Rapids Gazette.
We are at the point of summer where if I see you in person, I’m likely to give you a cucumber. Two if you’ll take them. Last night at a meeting of mostly grey-haired friends, the box of cucumbers was empty when I left. Those who took one seemed to want and like the vegetable.
There is always something to do in the county where I live. In part, that was why I moved here in 1980. I attended three gatherings in the last 30 days. When I reflect upon them, I noticed there was little age difference between most participants. To the extent we can discuss new ideas and avoid worn out tropes, I am okay with being with members of my cohort. All of these meet ups were initiated because of politics.
In part, we get political news at these gatherings unavailable elsewhere. In part, people are working to organize for the 2024 general election campaign. The fallacy in this is while I enjoy being with people who work together on politics, unless we get some new ideas and new people involved, Democrats will remain the minority party in Iowa for years to come. The common denominator has been that we are all in the same U.S. Congressional District, Iowa-01.
Iowa Democrats have a long history of difficulty finding candidates for congressional elections, and winning races. The sawhorse I drag out when describing this is the Art Small U.S. Senate race against Chuck Grassley in 2004. Small and former Davenport mayor Bill Gluba were both elected to the Iowa legislature in 1970. I remember chatting with Art at the county central committee meeting where he announced his candidacy for the Senate. He showed me a letter from Gluba which said that somebody had to run against Grassley, and it was down to Gluba or Small. Art agreed to fill the ballot and lost.
When my congressional district paired us with Cedar Rapids, prominent Linn County Democrats “took turns” running against long-time incumbent Jim Leach. By the time the 2004 election came along, the party had pretty much given up on beating Leach, and ran Dave Franker who had no money, no following, and no chance against the popular Republican. Franker got only 38.7 percent of the vote.
No one has announced for U.S. Congress in Iowa-01. There was agreement at the meetings that the talent pool is shallow. It was also noted that each year our current congresswoman serves she becomes a stronger incumbent. We are at about the place Art Small and Bill Gluba were in 2004. I’m sure someone will run. In the current political environment I’m hoping the candidate is doing more than filling the ballot or taking their turn as we used to say.
If the coronavirus pandemic hadn’t happened, it seems likely Democrat Rita Hart would have won the 2020 congressional race when Dave Loebsack retired. The pandemic motivated Republicans like I’ve never seen before and they swept. 2020 was a precursor to 2022 when Republicans took all statewide offices except auditor and gained a super-majority in the Iowa legislature. Rebuilding from here won’t be possible without good candidates, starting with the Congress. We’ll see who steps forward. I don’t think it will be Rita Hart since she took a role as chair of the Iowa Democratic Party. Christina Bohannan is said to be kicking the tires on another run. She lost every county in the district except for Johnson, where she lives, with 46.6 percent of the vote. I doubt there will be enough Democratic interest for there to be a competitive primary.
Three gatherings in a month seems close to the right amount. I want to be with people more although I avoid the county seat and stick to events closer to home. For one event I drove across the lakes to North Liberty. It was a stretch of my distance requirements, yet truth be told, I had excess cucumbers needing distribution and a potential outlet. It worked out well.
Journey Home 
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