Category: Living in Society

Politics mostly social commentary.

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Social Commentary

2020 In Review

Lake Macbride

There was life before the pandemic, then there is now. Everything got scrambled, some things literally during the Aug. 10 derecho. Yet the biggest event, the one that brought the most change, has been adjusting to the coronavirus pandemic.

It is a pandemic. A next door neighbor got the virus. So did one across the street. It’s hard to do a census of contagion because people don’t talk about the coronavirus. When people are sickened, they stay isolated at home or are taken away from the community to hospitals where they either recover or die, for the most part alone. It remains out of sight and mind.

While working outside I often forgot and approached a neighbor without a mask even though I had one in my pocket and knew better. We don’t know everyone who is infected and may never know in advance who will be affected next.

A former mayor who lived near us died from complications of COVID-19. The minister who officiated at our wedding did too. My cousin Don died of it Christmas eve. Other friends and relatives got the virus and recovered. It is everywhere. We have worked hard and smart to avoid getting infected and so far our efforts paid off. We never know, though.

Here’s a short list of what happened after the Iowa governor signed a proclamation of disaster emergency regarding COVID-19 on March 9:

  • Last restaurant meal on March 13.
  • Moved the sewer district and home owners association monthly meetings to conference call because of the pandemic.
  • Final shift at the home, farm and auto supply store on April 2 because of the pandemic.
  • Interviewed by Andrew Keshner of MarketWatch for an article about the impact of the pandemic on gardening, April 16.
  • Eliminated in-person political meetings beginning April 23 because of the pandemic.
  • Had three COVID-19 screenings, all negative.
  • Left the Johnson County Food Policy Council at the end of my term.
  • Began bicycling for exercise June 27.
  • Began donating garden extras to the local food rescue organization on July 23
  • Published a guest opinion in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Aug. 9
  • Derecho, Aug. 10.
  • Started a website for The Prairie Progressive.
  • Informed the chief apple officer I would not return to the orchard for the apple season because of the pandemic.
  • Got haircuts at home because of the pandemic.
  • Observed the Jupiter – Saturn conjunction.

I did a lot of the cooking, trying to integrate the kitchen with the garden. That’s a work in progress. It was a good year for gardening, with a variety of crops, plenty of rain, and a productive, abundant harvest.

I read 56 books. More of the books were poetry this year.

I wrote more emails, made more phone calls, and stayed active on my socials. I craved human interaction that used to be taken for granted as a natural part of life. I began writing letters on paper and sending them via U.S. Postal Service. Some wrote back.

I had more interaction with people I’ve known for years, including my sister who joined me at home a long time ago. There was processing and grieving to do for Mother. I also grieved for friends and for people I’d come to know, but didn’t realize how much they would be missed when they died.

It was a good year for doing what was important. The coronavirus was a constant companion reminding us of what that is.

Like many, I didn’t expect 2020 but took it as it unfolded. It looks like I’ll make it another year. Regardless of the ongoing pandemic, may we all make 2021 a Happy New Year.

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Living in Society Writing

Bush v Gore

Lake Macbride State Park, Dec. 21, 2020.

Al Gore conceded the Nov. 7, 2000 general election on Dec. 13. It was close, and as we know, it came down to a hand count of ballots in Florida which the U.S. Supreme Court stopped. While Gore won more popular votes than George W. Bush, he lost the electoral college. It was unlike anything I remembered in presidential politics. For weeks I printed out briefs filed in the court case at home and read them all.

I emailed a friend a couple of days after the election while on a business trip to Chicago:

11/9/00 8:35:57 PM
Got your note…what an election. I left the house at about 7:10PM and drove to Princeton, IL, listening to the returns coming in. I stopped at the Days Inn (trying to be closer to Chicago for my early morning meeting Wednesday), and stayed up until after midnight watching CNN and their commentary.
Whoever it is that gets elected is going to have a bear of a time making anything happen. I do not look forward to the next year or two.

Email to Dan Czolgosz, Nov. 9, 2000.

I had hope there would be some redeeming qualities about Bush. Such hope was reinforced by his inaugural address.

I am honored and humbled to stand here, where so many of America’s leaders have come before me, and so many will follow.

We have a place, all of us, in a long story — a story we continue, but whose end we will not see. It is the story of a new world that became a friend and liberator of the old, a story of a slave-holding society that became a servant of freedom, the story of a power that went into the world to protect but not possess, to defend but not to conquer.

It is the American story–a story of flawed and fallible people, united across the generations by grand and enduring ideals.

The grandest of these ideals is an unfolding American promise that everyone belongs, that everyone deserves a chance, that no insignificant person was ever born.

George W. Bush Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 2001.

Following a brief period of support which lasted until after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Bush lost me.

The point I would make about the election today is the winning margin in Florida was close, yet the closeness of the race did not make it too difficult for Bush to govern. Whatever support Bush had from the opposition, he squandered it in his reaction to the terrorist attacks and in the invasion of Iraq. Lack of a majority constituency was insufficient constraint to furtherance of Republican goals.

Al Gore’s 2000 loss and the Bush administration’s actions radicalized me to get involved in party politics again. I would no longer take politics for granted. The story about my radicalization unfolded during each of the next ten election cycles.

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Reviews

Wildland Sentinel

Wildland Sentinel: Field Notes from an Iowa Conservation Officer

By Erika Billerbeck

Wildland Sentinel is a well-written account of Erika Billerbeck’s experiences as a conservation officer in the state park and wilderness refuge adjacent to where I live.

While I was well aware of the diversity of experiences in the area, the author provided a perspective I would not otherwise have had. Her descriptions of being a female conservation officer in a male dominated profession seem archetypal. She showed the other side of stories I read in the newspaper. She explained the other half of conversations I’ve had with friends and associates about what it means to go camping outside state park camp grounds.

Besides the excellent writing, the book is recommended as a primer of what the job of conservation officer entails. I look forward to seeing what else Billerbeck writes.

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Living in Society

Need Some New Sawhorses

Woman Writing Letter

I read with interest three letters in the Dec. 10 Solon Economist about the Second Congressional District election in which Mariannette Miller-Meeks won by six votes, according to Secretary of State certified results.

Give it a rest folks.

If Rita Hart wants to pursue her legal rights by appealing to the U.S. House for a new recount, she has that option, it has been used before, and it is perfectly legal.

Hart explained in clear terms why she is appealing to the House: to count every vote. The letter writers apparently didn’t get the message. There will be political consequences for Hart for taking the issue to the House. I don’t think she’s worried about that now.

Republicans better find a new whipping post than Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, though. In November she was nominated for another term as speaker and indicated the next congress could be her last. Time will tell, but if she does announce her retirement before the midterms, those old Pelosi-demonizing sawhorses won’t cut wood any more.

By the way, urging folks to contact their congressman with demands is fine. Just remember ours is still Dave Loebsack who supports Hart’s quest for a recount.

~ Published in the Dec. 17, 2020 edition of the Solon Economist

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Living in Society

Building Back Better – a New Farm Bill

Chet Culver and Joe Biden in Cedar Rapids, May 18, 2010. Culver lost his re-election bid as Iowa voters preferred Terry Branstad redux.

My favorite Biden-Harris campaign slogan was “build back better.”

Under Donald Trump, Republicans continued their deconstruction of a government largely built by Democratic administrations beginning with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They have been trying to undo Democratic programs since FDR passed the New Deal. The Trump administration provided an unprecedented opportunity for them to get to work and they took advantage of it with a wrecking ball. The country will never be the same.

Voters rejected Trump, sort of. He received more popular votes than any previous presidential candidate. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris got more, though, more than 7 million more. Now Biden has a chance to stop the destruction and salvage the good work our government is or should be doing. Whether and how he can build back better is an open question.

In Barack Obama’s presidential memoir, A Promised Land, he indicated the limits of his presidency were substantial. Obama wrote his political capital was mostly spent by the end of summer of his second year in office. The difference between Obama and Biden is the Obama administration briefly had a 60 senator, filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate during his first term. We don’t yet know if Biden will have a majority of even 50 U.S. Senators, plus the vice president. That depends on the outcome of two U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia on Jan. 5, 2021 and there is no reason to assume Democrats will win those two seats. There is even less reason to believe Mitch McConnell has changed since 2009. He will obstruct what legislation the Biden administration proposes from day one whether he is in the majority or minority.

Biden did win the 2020 general election with substantial margins in both the popular vote and in the electoral college, which meets on Dec. 14. After the electoral college vote, even Trump acolyte and President Pro Tempore of the U.S. Senate Chuck Grassley said he would recognize the winner. There is no question the winner is Joe Biden.

While we wait for the electoral college to meet, Biden has been appointing his cabinet. Many of the appointees are familiar for their role in the Obama administration.

For Secretary of Agriculture Biden picked the same guy as Obama, Tom Vilsack, who served during the entire Obama presidency in that role. In Iowa people are divided about the Vilsack announcement yesterday. One expects a lackluster technocrat who will undo the damage done by Trump appointee Sonny Perdue, yet do little to accomplish what ag groups say is needed: enforce antitrust laws, strengthen local food systems, advance racial equity in ag, mitigate climate change, and bolster nutrition assistance.

I’ve been with Vilsack on a number of occasions and “lackluster” well describes his personality. If the alternative was four more years of Sonny Perdue, then we are better off if Vilsack does little else besides keep the chair warm. He’ll do more than that. The current farm bill expires in 2023, so a major task of the Biden administration will be to create and pass the next one. It is possible to influence Vilsack, and I don’t mean just by large, corporate agricultural interests. The fact that Chuck Grassley gave a thumbs up to Tom Vilsack last week is a sign that massive subsidies to the wrong kinds of agriculture will be preserved.

We can’t wring our hands and do nothing about the farm bill though. It is the single biggest agricultural policy statement during the next four years. That we don’t start from ground zero with the secretary of agriculture has pluses and minuses.

We wanted a landslide election for Democrats in 2020. The electorate had other ideas. We’ll have to do the best we can. It remains possible to find common ground with Republicans although the slim majority in the U.S. Senate makes change more difficult regardless which party holds it. After the disastrous 2010 midterm elections Obama had a productive lame duck session the rest of that year. Comparatively speaking, Obama had the wind in his sails and Biden’s decisive win in the presidential race did not have the coattails needed to enable change of the kind Obama was able to make.

I live in a red state that went big for Republicans, including President Trump. I’m just happy the rest of the country felt otherwise about defeating the president. I hope Vilsack can get beyond his previous support for big agriculture. It will be up to us to make sure he does.

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Living in Society

Dusty Books

Lake Macbride State Park, Dec. 2, 2020.

Wednesday was discovering thick layers of dust on shelved books in my writing room. A long stream of cobwebs wove its way along the top shelf of one side, through 15 toy trucks collected during my transportation career. To get any focused writing done, of the kind an autobiography represents, the books must be rearranged for quick reference… and dusted.

With all of that I managed a walk on the trail.

I’ve been writing about the closest congressional race in the country here in my congressional district. Yesterday Rita Hart’s campaign identified next steps after the results of the election were certified on Monday. She lost by six votes. Here is the unedited press release for readers as I get back to work planning 2021.

Make it a great day!

Rita Hart Announces Next Steps to Ensure All Iowans’ Votes Are Counted, Calls on Miller-Meeks to Join Effort

WHEATLAND, IOWA — Today, Rita Hart announced plans to challenge the latest vote totals in Iowa’s Second Congressional District, reflecting the need to count all votes cast in the Second District, including legally cast ballots that were not considered in the state recount process, which far outnumber the number of ballots needed to change the outcome of the election. Additionally, given the short six day timeline allotted for a state elections contest in Iowa and the volume of ballots left to be examined across 24 counties, Rita Hart plans to file a petition with the House Committee on Administration under the Federal Contested Elections Act, a decision that allows for enough time for all legally cast ballots to be considered, ensuring Iowans’ votes are accurately counted.

Since Election Day, significant errors in the counting process have led to confusion over whom Iowans in the Second District elected to represent them:

  • On November 6, Secretary of State Paul Pate announced a significant over-reporting error in Jasper County, triggering a county-wide recount. 
  • Then, on November 10, Pate announced yet another reporting error, this time involving under-reported votes in Lucas County. 
  • On November 23, the recount board in Jasper County conducted a machine recount that netted 9 votes for Rita Hart. However, at the urging of the Miller-Meeks campaign, the recount board conducted yet another recount on November 25 that netted just one vote for Rita.
  • Many counties did not fully review ballots to identify valid votes that the machines did not recognize, in part because of the time and burden that would have been required for such a thorough count.

Once the initial district-wide canvass was completed on November 12, the gap between the two candidates was 47 votes. After the state recount process, the margin has narrowed further to just 6 votes — making this the closest federal race since 1984. More Iowans’ votes were counted after the state recount process, but time constraints and a lack of standard rules prevented all votes from being counted. The Federal Contested Elections Act petition will ensure that more Iowans’ votes are counted.

“When the recount process began more than two weeks ago, Rita Hart was down by 47 votes. Since then, more Iowans’ ballots have been counted and Rita has continuously gained ground, narrowing the gap to a mere 6 votes. While that recount considered more votes, limitations in Iowa law mean there are more legally cast votes left to be counted. With a margin this small, it is critical that we take this next step to ensure Iowans’ ballots that were legally cast are counted. In the weeks to come, we will file a petition with the House Committee on Administration requesting that these votes be counted, and we hope that Mariannette Miller-Meeks will join us in working to ensure that every Iowans’ voice is heard,” said Rita Hart for Iowa Campaign Manager Zach Meunier. 

The Associated Press announced earlier this week that it will not declare a winner in the race until all legal options are exhausted.

On background:

  • According to Iowa law, a state election challenge must be completed by December 8, 2020. That tight timeline would not allow for adequate time in which to examine the ballots and evidence needed to ensure all Iowans’ votes are accurately counted in this historically close election.
  • Iowa law prohibits ballots not counting in the initial canvass from being considered in a recount. As a result, there are legally cast ballots that have yet to be counted, far exceeding the current 6 vote margin in this race. These ballots that still have not been counted include ballots cast by military members serving overseas, ballots that were not counted on Election Night despite being legally cast, and thousands of unexamined overvotes and undervotes.
  • It is unacceptable that ballots in an election this close would go uncounted, particularly those belonging to active-duty service members overseas. 
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Living in Society

Blue Dot in Iowa

Earth from Voyager at 6 billion kilometers, Feb. 14, 1990. Photo Credit – NASA

The recount in Iowa’s Second Congressional District was completed Saturday afternoon resulting in a win for Mariannette Miller-Meeks over Rita Hart with a margin of six votes. According to this morning’s data on the Secretary of State website, 394,430 votes were cast in the race.

Miller-Meeks won our precinct hands down, so I’m not surprised at the result.

The state is expected to certify the election results tomorrow. Unless there is substantial evidence of foul play, that will be that. Because the race was so close, I expect the 2022 campaign for the seat to begin immediately. In a politics imbued with money, that was a given for the congresswoman. If Hart runs again, she should start now.

The Des Moines Register reported the Iowa Democratic Party is expected to release the results of an investigation into the 2020 Iowa Precinct Caucuses. I’m not sure what there is to investigate. The problem was they developed a computer application on the cheap and the results reported through it were all balled up. The brouhaha about the reporting application masked something else at the time.

There were only 70 percent of the caucus attendees in our precinct compared to 2008. What happened to the missing 80 voters? I gave an answer only passing thought after the caucus. After the general election it’s pretty clear what happened. The missing voters died or moved, and new people moving into the precinct lean Republican. We are a more Republican precinct this year than when we moved here in 1993. I’m not sure if Dave Loebsack were on the ballot he would have won. It was that kind of year in local politics.

Nationally, there is a ray of hope. We elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, and retained a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The U.S. Senate race is complicated by the two Georgia Republican Senators who failed to get a majority of votes in the general election. Both are facing a Jan. 5, 2021 runoff election. If Democrats win those elections, the senate will be split 50-50 with Harris breaking any ties. There are no guarantees Democrats will win the Georgia runoff races.

There is a ray of hope, yet like the bands of sunlight reflected by the camera in the photo it is not real. Our politics has lost its way. What is the benefit of the tens of millions of dollars being spent on politics? To common folk like me, not much. It is a crime against people who are less fortunate.

For the time being we Democrats are a pale blue dot in a vast, dark universe. It’s always been that way, although the epiphany came late to me. We have to seek the light, avoiding the camera’s refraction, and find a better way. None of us can do that alone.

Next is a jump ball and I haven’t played basketball since being a grader.

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Living in Society

Pandemic Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Dinner 2020

The measure of Thanksgiving came this morning when I took my blood pressure and stepped on the scale.

My systolic blood pressure was normal and the diastolic slightly elevated. It was elevated to the same point where my medical practitioner and I had a conversation about medication a couple of visits ago. We decided I wouldn’t take meds and I expect my blood pressure to return to normal by tomorrow.

My weight was the same as 24 hours ago, meaning the huge plates of food consumed in the celebration, which made me feel stuffed and drowsy, won’t likely be added to my waistline.

The two of us were alone for the holiday as we’ve been for many years. Our family is small and no one makes a big deal of the holiday. We do all have some kind of feast. Phone calls, text messages, emails and social media posts were made. It was all reassuring. It all felt like normal.

Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2020

The coronavirus pandemic is here and the incidence of cases elevated to the highest level since it began in March. Keeping the gathering small was easy for us: we just had to be ourselves. The Centers for Disease Control recommended Americans not travel. Americans are not good listeners. “In a pandemic-era record, 1,070,967 people passed through security at America’s airports on the day before Thanksgiving,” CNN reported. I expect the numbers on this chart to soar higher in the next couple of weeks.

We are lucky to have enough to eat. CNN reported yesterday some 50 million Americans didn’t on Thanksgiving. Food pantries were swamped and some ran out of food. The toll of the coronavirus pandemic on health, on employment, and on income is tangible. In graduate school, during interviews with survivors of the great depression, they told me having a garden was a big part of how they put food on the table. Because so much of what was on our plate was produced locally or from our garden, food insecurity was not a direct issue here. For that we are thankful.

I did most of the cooking beginning at 11 a.m., continuing for six hours. Over the years we developed recipes for baked beans and wild rice which are the two most complicated dishes and take the most cooking time. Beans and rice are the center of a vegetarian meal. For sides we had steamed broccoli, cooked carrots, butternut squash and sweet potato. I ate a few home made pickles while I was cooking. For beverage it was fresh apple cider and for dessert a take and bake peach pie, both from the local orchard. Everything in the main meal was low fat. Except for the peach pie there was little refined sugar. Eating an ovo-lacto vegetarian diet has its advantages.

Part of my Thanksgiving is politics and I spent time reading Barack Obama’s presidential memoir, A Promised Land. He wrote about the 2006 Tom Harkin Steak Fry where he spoke and my friends and I had a chance to shake his hand in the rope line. While others have written about the campaign, notably David Plouffe in The Audacity to Win, it was good to read familiar stories of that campaign. There may not be another like it because of changes in American society since then.

The president took press questions for the first time since the election while I was cooking dinner. He made what were described as “stunning claims” about the election, without evidence. We are a nation of laws. Mr. President, either show us evidence the election was rigged or shut up. He did say he will plan to leave the White House after the electoral college votes on Dec. 14. There is no doubt Joe Biden won the election. President Trump really has no say in the matter of his leaving by Jan. 20, 2021.

In normal times I would be scheduled for work at the home, farm and auto supply store this morning for Black Friday sales. I left retail work because of the pandemic. I’m not sure I will return to it. We’ve discovered how to get by on our pensions.

During my regular end of year planning it appears our budget for next year is sustainable. My best hope is 2021 does not bring another pandemic Thanksgiving.

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Living in Society

When Fools Rush In

Atmospheric Haze

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread” was written by Alexander Pope in An Essay on Criticism in 1711. I’m no angel yet it’s time to let the dust settle from the disastrous general election before devising schemes to react to the loss.

With two key races waiting for certification of results, for president and for the Second Congressional District, we should be in no hurry to implement solutions when we don’t understand the problems. We can wait for the haze to dissipate so we can survey the landscape in better light.

The delays provide needed time to collect data and discuss the future of Democratic politics in Iowa. Brainstorming of solutions is to be expected, politically active Democrats will not be suppressed. Settling on a course of action should wait at least until the new chair of the Iowa Democratic Party is elected and has a chance to organize their team.

As recently as a few hours ago National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters in the Philippines, “On Jan. 20 we’ll have continuity of government. We’ll either have a second Trump term or we’ll have a Biden-Harris administration.” Republican elected officials have begun to weigh in that it will be the latter and transition assets should be released by the GSA. The president’s legal challenges to the election have proven in court to be like the slight of hand trick of an aging carnival magician in the last weeks before leaving to winter in Florida. There will be a 46th president.

The recount in the Mariannette Miller-Meeks – Rita Hart contest is ongoing. It’s anyone’s guess how things will turn out. In a press release last night, the Hart campaign said, “The Secretary of State’s office has repeatedly made clear that the Recount Boards have discretion over the mechanics of conducting the recount.” As the difference between the two candidates is revealed, and Miller-Meeks loses ground, her campaign questions the integrity of the Recount Board in Scott County, the district’s largest. With Secretary of State certification of the election on Nov. 30, this can only be seen as an attempt to run out the clock before all votes are recounted. We need to let the county boards do their work.

While we wait, a couple of things seem clear.

Centralized political organizing using current technology to text, mail and phone voters did not work for Democrats. Republicans appear to have had the same kinds of tools. Republican political action groups I follow offered the same kinds of volunteer opportunities as did Democrats. In fact, the solicitations for volunteers were almost interchangeable. Neither party seemed short of volunteers. Both parties had the technology to canvass during the coronavirus pandemic.

What we don’t know is whether the organizers were slug-a-beds or whether the electorate has changed. Well, we do know. It’s not the organizing effort that was the problem. The electorate has changed. It’s a change that has been coming for some time and the stark difference between Democrats and Republicans was highlighted during the coronavirus pandemic by the Secretary of State’s decision to send an absentee ballot request to every active voter. Voter turnout was notably high this cycle as a result. As I’ve written before increased absentee voting served Republican interests. If I were the Republican Party chair, I’d lobby the legislature and governor to convert our voting process to universal vote by mail because other factors are driving people to become Republicans in large numbers and vote by mail makes it easier for people to vote. No need to mention this to Jeff Kaufmann. He’s smart enough to see the efficacy of what I’m saying.

Democrats don’t need solutions yet as we don’t adequately understand the problem. I saw an analysis of Iowa voting trends Sunday afternoon and there were no surprises. Counties with less population favor Republicans, larger counties favor Democrats. Those in between appear to be in transition from Democratic to Republican. There is little the Iowa Democratic Party, on its own, can do about this other than to let go of a focus on campaigns and work on improving our cultural presence. That’s not their role.

My colleague Dave Bradley at Blog for Iowa posted an Iowa Democratic Election Post-Mortem on Saturday. In explaining what happened in the general election he points to cultural differences between Democrats and Republicans. Specifically, he discussed the impact of right wing talk radio and television on the electorate after President Ronald Reagan’s FCC abolished the fairness doctrine. The impact of this relatively new media is significant in small and medium-sized counties. President Barack Obama was unsuccessful in putting the genie back in the bottle regarding the policy so we are stuck with FOX News and right wing talkers. Creating left wing talk radio has been attempted yet none of them survived on public air waves and folks like Randi Rhodes and Thom Hartmann moved to the internet and satellite radio.

The Iowa Democratic Party is not well equipped to address cultural issues in Iowa anyway. The party should focus on key things we’ll need during future election cycles. We need good candidates (we had those in 2020), we need a source of financial support (money didn’t seem to be a problem in 2020), and we need someone to host access to the voter contact software for campaigns and continuously improve the integrity of data and user interface (also did not seem a problem in 2020). Where IDP did poorly was in messaging and to be honest they should just give it up since they and the consultants they engage are no good at it. Messaging is better left to be grassroots driven by candidates familiar with voters in their district, including those who are not Democrats. I’m going to scream if I see another “Bobble-head Bobby” ad out of the minds in Des Moines and Washington, D.C.

It can’t be said enough the dust should settle on this election before getting too carried away with “what Democrats should do,” or “what needs to be worked on,” or “IDP should do this.” For my money, what matters more is collection of observations at this point. What did we see happening that should be addressed? We should let everyone who wants provide input.

The end of year holidays are here and we’re in the middle of a devastating pandemic. Let’s just stop, take a deep breath, and let the folks analyzing the results do their work. Let’s elect a great party chair and let them get organized. It’s not unlike what I’m saying about the Second District recount. For the time being, I’m okay with being a blue dot in my red precinct. There is another opportunity to flip it coming up soon.

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Reviews

Favorite Movies

Morning in Iowa.

Someone asked, “What is your favorite movie and why?”

I had to think. After considering some options I answered, “The Lion King because of the music.”

I’m not sure that was completely right.

I’m also not sure which movie was the last I saw on television or in a theater. In the time of the coronavirus I watch movies on my desktop computer, either from a disk or streaming. I do keep track of what I watch. The last was on line, Public Trust: The Fight for America’s Lands.

When our daughter visited in December 2014 we watched a video cassette recording of Christmas in Connecticut together, part of a series of “dinner and a movie” events we discontinued as a regular thing. In 2017 I watched The Brainwashing of My Dad from a disk on my desktop. It was a powerful story of a family where the father got caught up in right wing media hegemony to his detriment, and then came out of it — a happy ending. I also watched The Princess Bride (for the first time) on Amazon May 31, 2013. Too many cultural references to avoid it forever. Since 2012, I watched about 20 movies, not many.

When we talk about “favorite movies” what does that mean? For me it means films seen long ago, the memory of which persists. The Lion King fits that description and I would view it again. I’d listen to the CD of the soundtrack more. There are about a dozen movies that mean something to me.

Blade Runner: We saw this at a theater the first time Jacque and I did something together outside of work where we met.

Out of Africa: Because of the cinematography. It’s a gorgeous film and I don’t use the “g” word often.

The Conformist: Few films of that era stick with me the way this one does.

The Matrix: How could someone with a Cartesian outlook not love this movie?

In a Year of 13 Moons: I was obsessed with Rainer Werner Fassbinder the way he was obsessed with subjects and themes in this movie.

Lord of the Rings Trilogy: I recall my argument with Father Harasyn as a freshman in high school about whether J.R.R. Tolkien’s books were literature. I lost the argument and was not given credit for reading them. The movie is a faithful rendering of the book.

The 400 Blows: I was enamored of Francois Truffaut during graduate school. Not as much now, but still.

The Tree of Wooden Clogs: I could easily have been one of the peasants in this film. The cinematography of Ermanno Olmi was unlike anything I’d seen.

Apocalypse Now: The first film I saw in a theater after returning stateside from Germany. It alone launched an interest in movies that persisted for the following five or six years.

Patton: The go-to film for soldiers maneuvering in the Fulda Gap. We would show it on a film projector run by a diesel generator. I knew to carry several replacement bulbs for the projector when we left garrison.

The Sound of Music: Grandmother insisted our family see this together and she paid for the tickets. She would have been the Maria Rainer character if life had been kinder to her.

There are others yet few recent ones. As the holidays draw near, and we contemplate the events of 2020, there are worse things to do than consider things we love. Movies have been part of my life in society as they are for many.