For a recipe I got out my copy of the Holy Family School PTA cookbook. I like this book for the familiar names of the recipe authors, some of whom I knew. Monsignor T.V. Lawlor served as the church’s second pastor from 1943 until 1961 and his photograph is printed inside the front cover of the book. This dates the cookbook in the 1950s most likely, after the school moved to the location I attended a couple of blocks south of the church on Fillmore Street.
I chose a banana bread recipe contributed by Mrs. H.A. Tholen. It called for shortening, although I substituted butter and kept everything else the same. Here are the ingredients as written:
1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup shortening, 2 eggs, 3 bananas mashed, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon soda, 1-3/4 cup flour, and a pinch of salt.
Instructions are, “Mix in the order given and bake in a slow oven.”
Well that won’t do. Looking at other sweet breads in the book I decided on a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes. It turned out great as you can see in the image.
Making banana bread from overly ripe bananas is a cultural inheritance not only from my mother and maternal grandmother, but from a broader society where fruit like the Cavendish banana is readily and cheaply available. However, like most mass marketed fruit and vegetables it is subject to change from climate and from other pressures, forcing old habits and patterns to change.
There was something positive in yesterday’s bakery. It was a warning too, that life is fragile and ever changing. We seek comfort in what we know, delaying the embrace of what is coming. I don’t just mean what’s coming for Cavendish bananas.
Dr. Maureen McCue speaking for the Iran Deal at Rep. Dave Loebsack’s Office Aug. 31, 2015
The politics of Iran has been on my radar since the Iranian Revolution when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979 and an Islamic republic replaced the monarchy.
I lived in Mainz, Germany that year. I was a mechanized infantry battalion adjutant in the Eighth Infantry Division, which, as part of V Corps, was training for a war in the Middle East over oil. Across the Rhine river from us was Wiesbaden, the evacuation point for American citizens fleeing Iran in the wake of the revolution. Our unit provided support to the Wiesbaden operation during the evacuation.
One of the choices I made during that time was which of my peers in the battalion would be sent to Iran during the aftermath of the Shah’s overthrow. I picked someone whose family wasn’t with him in Germany. My friend was never deployed to Iran and we were all grateful for that.
In this context it is natural that the United States assassination of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force would catch my attention. What I wasn’t prepared for was spending so much time following developments. When I write “developments” what I really mean is the slow, uneven release of information about what happened and what it means. Yesterday’s post is a list of the main questions raised early on in the discovery process. Answers have proven complicated and elusive.
I was reading the news right when I wrote Soleimani was a target of opportunity. That means the U.S. intelligence community had long been tracking his movements and after President Trump gave the order to slay him, when his movements at the Baghdad airport exposed him and his entourage, there was an opportunity to take action and our military did. While our president seems impulsive, in this case there was a developed plan to assassinate Soleimani.
Two things make this different. First, Soleimani was revered in Shia Muslim culture. His death by unmanned drone attack elevated him to martyrdom and could bring a ruptured Iranian society together in opposition to the United States. Second, he was part of the Iranian government the way Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army General Mark Milley is. It is important to note Soleimani’s status was distinct from a figure like Osama bin Laden who was a rogue, non-state actor. People who make a proportional comparison between Soleimani and bin Laden are wrong to do so.
The politics of this have been predictable as Heather Cox Richardson pointed out in her daily Letters from an American:
Last night’s news about the assassination of Iran’s military leader Qassem Soleimani has today turned into a predictable split. Defenders of the president insist that Soleimani was an evildoer and the United States absolutely should have taken him out. They have no patience for anyone questioning Trump’s decision, suggesting that those questioners are anti-American and pro-terrorist if they do not support the killing of a man they insist has been one of our key enemies for years.
Those questioning the president’s decision to assassinate a member of a foreign government as a terrorist freely acknowledge that Soleimani was a dangerous man. But they are concerned that Trump appears to have ordered the man assassinated illegally and has, in the process, ignited a firestorm.
If you are reading this post, you should consider subscribing to Richardson’s daily emails.
Whether President Trump had constitutional or legal authority to assassinate a member of the Iranian government without consulting the Congress remains an open question. The administration claimed it was free to act under the 2002 Authority for the Use of Military Force enacted by congress in the wake of the 911 terrorist attacks. The U.S. named the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, of which Quds Force is a part, a terrorist organization. Friends Committee on National Legislation has been lobbying the Congress to repeal the 2002 AUMF. The incident yesterday in Baghdad highlights the pressing nature of Congress reasserting its authority over the executive branch of government in matters of war and peace.
In today’s Iowa City Press Citizen, Zachary Oren Smith posted the reactions of three people running for congress. Smith’s framing was “early reactions to the U.S. military strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani fell along party lines in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District.“
Democrat Newman Abuissa, a native of Damascus, Syria, reacted to the assassination, “If the goal of the U.S. is a regime change or to negotiate a better deal, this attack makes both goals impossible to achieve. It strengthens the government of Iran and makes it impossible for them to sit down with the U.S. president.”
Both Republicans supported the president and Schilling was quoted at length, parroting long-debunked talking points.
What makes easy media narratives like Smith’s difficult is the decades-long context in which Thursday’s assassination took place. Simple comparisons serve little purpose and push a struggling news outlet closer to irrelevance.
My questions from yesterday aren’t answered. After spending too much time following the news, my work on other projects lagged behind. I need to keep moving. 2020 is here and there is much I want to accomplish.
I did make time to visit a friend whose spouse died Wednesday. She said of him, “at least he got out of here before all this shit happened.” It remains for those of us living to deal with it and carry on.
At 3:15 a.m. CST my phone rang. It was an international call from Jordan. I don’t know anyone in Jordan and the caller did not leave a message.
I know a few people who travel in the Middle East from time to time. None of them stood out as a person who might be calling the morning our country assassinated Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani, head of the Iranian Quds Force, as a target of opportunity at the Baghdad airport.
I had not heard of Soleimani so I found and read Dexter Filkins Sept. 23, 2013 New Yorker profile. However this decision was made, intentionally or not, the U.S. Government kicked the beehive of Shia efforts toward hegemony in the Middle East. We will likely be stung by this extrajudicial exercise of American military force.
There is not enough information despite the rapid response of social media. The vacuum generates questions:
Why didn’t the president inform the gang of eight of the imminent assassination? Given the prominence of the target in Iranian and Middle East society he should have. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was clear he hadn’t.
Why didn’t the administration seek an authorization for the use of force from the U.S. Congress? According to Pelosi, there is no existing authorization relative to Iran.
When will the president address the public on what he did and why?
Was this assassination retaliation for the recent attack on the U.S. Embassy compound in Baghdad or part of a long-term plan to enter war with Iran?
What will be the consequences for U.S. interests in the region? Iranian officials have already stated publicly there will be revenge for the slaying. We can expect them to act with thoughtful reserve and to think outside the box.
Who will replace Soleimani in the established and future operations for which he was responsible?
What was the benefit to U.S. interests of elevating Soleimani to the status of martyr?
There are a lot of questions, few answers, and a grim pall has been cast over this Friday in Iowa.
Snow flurried outside the dining room window for a while. I thought we might return to normal winter weather. The thought passed and snow stopped without accumulation.
We need a good streak of very cold days to prune the fruit trees. Last year it was difficult to find such a streak yet I’m hopeful this year. I’m not going to wait for ideal conditions. I’ll take what we get in our evolving climate.
This year’s reckoning with the past and planning for the future is taking more time and effort. It’s not because I did more. The process has been more organized and thoughtful than in recent years. I’m conscious of my age and weighing carefully which projects and activities will get my attention. At the end of it I want a definite plan with time lines. It’s a better process.
While our personal lives went okay in 2019, our participation in broader society was like the wafting odors from nearby feedlots. It was hard to stay separate from the international shit storm.
As Julian Borger pointed out in The Guardian, 2019 was the year U.S. foreign policy fell apart. “Donald Trump’s approach to the world is little more than a tangle of personal interests, narcissism and Twitter outbursts,” he wrote. That’s no way to run a country, even if a majority seeks to isolate American interests from the rest of global society. We can do better than this.
Steven Piersanti wrote on DCReport.org, “Under the bankrupter-in-chief, the national debt is skyrocketing while economic growth is lagging.” Trump is running the country just like he ran his failed businesses, according to Piersanti. “The country’s economic resources are being wasted and our economic health is endangered.”
“The next 12 months will determine whether the world is capable of controlling nuclear proliferation, arresting runaway climate change, and restoring faith in the United Nations,” Stewart Patrick wrote at World Politics Review. Those things matter to everyone and positive outcomes on any of them are dubious without American leadership. President Trump, ditcher of nuclear arms control agreements, critic of the need to address climate change, and bad-mouther of the United Nations does not appear to have an appetite or the capacity to lead at home or abroad. The prospects are bleak on these fronts and more until government changes hands.
It comes back to personal planning for next year. What amount of time will I devote to addressing these problems? The overarching motivation is to remove our current federal elected representatives from office and replace them with people who understand the importance of foreign policy.
At the same time, I can’t let politics be a single thing that absorbs all my time. Regardless of the Republican shit storm, we each need balance in our lives.
It’s taking a little longer to plan this year but the premise of it comes back to my tag line. How shall we best sustain our lives in a turbulent world?
A toast to 2019, an aspirin and vitamin for 2020, and off we go into an uncertain future with the potential for great things.
Our family holiday season begins with our Dec. 18 wedding anniversary and continues until New Year’s Day. Two weeks of slowing down, eating more traditional food, reading, reviewing the past, writing, and planning.
2019 was a difficult year. It was a pivotal year. It was a year of coming to terms. There were gift cards.
The first gift card came from the home, farm and auto supply store in the amount of $125. Receiving a gift card in lieu of a salary bonus is a leftover from when the family that founded the retail chain was more involved. The founder’s son continues to make rounds of the stores and knows me by name. He sent a personal birthday card with some bad information about how long I’d been employed. It’s the thought that matters. They also provide a paid holiday on our birthday which in my case falls during this end of year period. I made it to age 68!
The second gift card was re-purposed by my spouse. She spent the $100 gift on herself, but didn’t use the card. She gave it to me and I considered it a welcome birthday present since it was the only one.
Where does one spend this kind of gifted money? At grocery, hardware and other retail stores mostly.
Major purchases included some premium bay leaves ($8.99), a fifth of Jack Daniels No. 7 ($27.55), a Craftsman screwdriver set ($29.67), a 24-bottle case of Stella Artois ($26.63) and a set of storage bins for garden seeds ($29.67). I also got a bottle each of low-dose aspirin and B-12 at the pharmacy, jars of organic seasonings clearanced at the home, farm and auto supply store, some Boetje’s mustard (a local specialty that used to be made in Rock Island, Ill.), a package of roasted chestnuts for New Year’s Eve, and a new Craftsman box cutter to place near the recycling bin. We’re lucky to be able to afford these luxuries.
We received a screwdriver set from the best man at our wedding. Some of them had gone missing over 37 years. It was a purchase of hope as in I hope to spend more time organizing the workspace in the garage and shedding some of the duplicated and unnecessary tools accumulated at dozens of household and farm auctions. Something just feels good about having new tools. They match the ones we got as a wedding present exactly.
The price of the whisky was shocking as I hadn’t bought any for more than a decade. A recent newspaper survey showed Iowans prefer cheaper varieties like Black Velvet Whisky and Hawkeye Vodka. I don’t drink spirits very often and the gift cards were the reason I even considered getting a bottle, it’s like free money and Jack Daniels is a personal holiday tradition. Besides, the local small batch spirits were too expensive at $50 for a fifth.
I bought the beer at the wholesale club, another luxury. My favorite is Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, which my father preferred. PBR is not available there. The plan is to drink a bottle when we have pizza or chili for dinner while reminiscing about my several trips to Belgium. The case should last into spring. At that time my memories will likely be worn out and I’ll get a case of something else to ice down in a cooler for after yard work. Had it not been for the gift cards I would likely have gone without beer at home until summer.
The bins for seeds were an impulse purchase. I examined them and found there was enough space in each drawer for the packets to lay flat. It will go a long way to clean up the workspace where I sort seeds for my weekly planting sessions at the greenhouse. Now the bins need to be labeled so I know what’s in them. More work to do this holiday season.
No one got rich off my shopping spree. I feel better for the fun of unexpected shopping. Whatever anxiety I had about whether the gift cards would work was offset by the adventure in spending them. It was just enough of our consumer society to recall what it is and sate my desire to shop. That done, I can better consider what 2020 will bring.
Voters should attend the Democratic or Republican precinct caucuses on Feb. 3, 2020 if they prefer either party.
The main attraction is the presidential preference. Plus, there is more! It’s a good way to hear what’s going on inside each party without filters. Good heavens! No filters! We need that.
I live in Big Grove precinct in which the number of registered Democrats dropped by about 20 percent since 2008, with Republicans remaining about the same. According to the Johnson County Auditor’s office, Democrats currently have more voters than Republicans with 32.6 percent compared to 31.7. No preference voters are the largest group at 35.3 percent.
Our precinct voted for President Obama in the 2008 and 2012 general elections, for President Trump in 2016. What that says is a lot of no preference voters do have a preference; it’s just not for a political party. They prefer to vote for candidates they feel will address the country’s most pressing needs regardless of party. That likely remains the same for the 2020 election.
No one knows how the general election will turn out. I’m willing to bet people will continue to say they are “not political” as they did during the recent school board election. Still, there are parties; there have to be in our form of government. The precinct caucuses offer the best opportunity to find out what politics is like in a welcoming environment.
I hope voters will consider being “political” at least this one night.
~ Published in the Solon Economist on Jan. 2, 2020 and in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Jan. 5, 2020.
Elizabeth Warren at North Central Junior High School, North Liberty, Iowa. Dec. 21, 2019.
On a clear, beautiful day when ambient temperatures reached into the 50s, I drove across the lakes to North Liberty where Elizabeth Warren held a town hall meeting.
James Q. Lynch of the Cedar Rapids Gazette estimated 500 attended. There was not a lot of other action in the area to occupy us the Saturday before Christmas.
It was Warren’s first town hall meeting since the Dec. 19 Democratic candidate debate.
Warren’s campaign staff will be released for the holidays on Monday so the weekend was a busy time for them and staff of several candidates touring Iowa, notably Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bennet and Joe Biden.
This was my fourth Warren town hall this cycle. I know the pitch well. Her presidency would focus on the long-standing issue of corruption in government. Corruption has been present since the founding, although is more visible today, blatantly so. That Warren makes addressing corruption the centerpiece of her campaign and potential presidency is most of what attracts me.
Each time I’ve heard her speak I learned something new. The first question was what to do about the media environment that contests basic truths and contributes to a lack of legislative progress. Warren pushed back on this, using her family as an example.
She has three brothers of which one is a Democrat and two are Republicans. She and her siblings debate politics yet often agree on issues, she said. She expanded that to say there is much agreement among people in society regardless of their politics. What puts the brakes on solving problems, especially big problems like the climate crisis, environmental quality, finance, and excessive student debt, is corruption by powerful and moneyed interests. She has a plan to address that. Having such plans is a hallmark of her campaign.
The recent Solon School Board election highlighted how right Warren is to push back on the media as the main problem confronting us. Our election was hardly covered by news media outside our local newspaper and me. It is easier to find common ground when our children’s education and future are at stake. I knew the political party registration of the six candidates but that played only a minor role is picking two for whom to vote. Somewhere in the wilderness between relevant local politics and the national government things get lost.
Warren talked about how a toaster oven caught fire in her kitchen when she was a young mother. Eventually regulation solved the problem by requiring an automatic shutoff switch in such small appliances. The same basic principal of problem identification, scientific investigation, and working through potential solutions until one could be found and regulated has other, more profound applications. It is a common sense approach at a time when common sense seems sorely lacking in our politics and government.
I drove home immediately after the event, retracing my route. Neighborhood families were out walking on the trail and working in their yards in the mild weather this Winter Solstice. It was great to hear Elizabeth Warren again in Iowa. I’ll miss it when the Democratic National Committee eventually removes our first in the nation status. That is not today.
For the third time in my lifetime the U.S. House of Representatives advanced articles of impeachment of a president. The full House debate and vote on them is scheduled today.
It didn’t take Jeane Dixon to determine the Trump presidency would end up here.
I’m part of a small number of Democrats willing to give him a chance to govern after the election. Beginning with his inaugural address he lost me. His vision of the United States is so much different from mine… and wrong. His presidency has been more that of conservative and right wing groups backing him than his. Trump has proven to be a vessel for everything libertarians and conservatives have wanted since the Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration.
Yesterday the conservative Heritage Foundation offered talking points:
These articles of impeachment are a part of a politically motivated process, speculative testimony, and no accusation of criminal action. It is absurd that House Democrats are trying to overturn the will of the American people and undo the 2016 election.
My response is there was no mandate for what has happened in our federal government, for what Republicans engineered. Saying the administration represents the “will of the people” is an inherent falsehood that contributes to a toxic political environment. I’m not sure what “undo the 2016 election” means but Nancy Pelosi would become president if Trump and Pence were removed from office. Trump has had almost three years in office and damage is done.
The House of Representatives drafted two articles of impeachment, one for the president’s abuse of power regarding Ukraine, and a second for obstruction of Congress, which arose after the impeachment hearings had begun. While the public doesn’t know everything about the Ukraine situation, the president prevented us from learning it by ordering his people to ignore subpoenas to testify. Trump is as crooked as a three-dollar bill and he got caught.
The current belief is the president will not be convicted during a trial in the U.S. Senate. Yesterday speculation arose that the House speaker would delay sending the impeachment articles to the Senate until there were assurances that the trial would include Democratic processes. I’m not holding my breath. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell may be repugnant but he knows how to count votes. All indications are he has enough to acquit the president should there be a trial.
The three presidents who had articles of impeachment drafted in my lifetime — Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton and Donald Trump — have not been my favorites. What makes the current president different is his intentional, lawless efforts to rend the fabric of society. The future under Republican governance looks dim and decent people would want no part of it.
Like the president, I don’t plan to listen to today’s debate.
As the sun rises on Big Grove Township an electric space heater keeps my writing room warm. It snowed overnight and I can’t be distracted by chills. I did chores and am ready to go.
The current president won the 2016 election by 46 votes in Big Grove precinct after Barack Obama won in 2008 and 2012. Despite the attention Iowa gets as first in the nation, the general election is more important here.
Of 1,431 registered voters, only 467 registered as Democrats. A more practical way to look at precinct politics is two out of three (66.7 percent) voters are not Democrats. While our county is strongly Democratic, our precinct is a swing district, regularly picking candidates based on factors other than party registration. This year local Republicans are expected to support Donald Trump for a second term, whereas Democrats have several major candidates and decisions to make. No preference voters will decide who wins in Nov. 3, 2020.
Between now and the caucuses I’m reaching out to Democrats. My purpose is to encourage caucus attendance and find volunteers. With the rule changes from the Democratic National Committee and Iowa Democratic Party, there is a lot of new stuff to learn. I attended training on how to run a precinct caucus last Saturday and will need help to check voters in and manage the gathering. I secured a voter list from the county auditor’s office to help find them.
The number of Democrats here shrunk by 20 percent since 2008, the last time we had so many candidates for president. I’m expecting 225 or so attendees in February, less than the 268 we had in 2008. That would be 48 percent turnout. There are a lot of new names on my list. In addition, about half of my volunteers from previous years either died or moved out of the precinct. I’ll need to get to know new people to recruit those I need.
With end of year holidays upon us the best use of today is to get organized so the final month can be spent pulling everything together.
I read with interest Monte Whitlock’s exhortation in the Dec. 2 Cedar Rapids Gazette that, “every American should vote Republican next election.”
Despite the author’s assertions, I decline to follow his advice. He presented no evidence of his claims, and as a life-long Democrat I need to see something before changing my views.
What interests me is that he even wrote to the newspaper. Views like his are found more frequently in the realm of talk radio and cable news shows. Public engagement is a good sign that all hope for our governance is not lost. I disagree with what Whitlock said but don’t argue with his right to hold opinions and write about them. I’m glad he wrote to a newspaper to get his views in the public domain.
Solon, from which the author hails, is a place with a strong Trump following. One can count at least five blue and white Trump banners flying in front of homes here. It seems a bit early for yard displays, but the fandom is evident.
The main question I have is will Trump supporters abide by the 2020 general election if Democrats win? I hope so.
~ Published Dec. 9, 2019 as a letter to the editor of the Cedar Rapids Gazette
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