Categories
Living in Society

Processing the Intake

Bee seeking pollen in a thistle plant.

As daylight moves toward summer’s end, the amount of information available has increased dramatically. After a busy Monday, I have to stop the input and process what I’ve gained. In an ever-forward life, that’s hard to do.

In the next township over, one of the Iowa CO2 pipelines is planned to cross Johnson County. The public debate is whether private companies should be able to use eminent domain provisions of the law the way a government would to run these pipelines. If you got everyone involved in the projects – companies, government, land owners, farmers, and citizens – I’m pretty sure we could agree that these pipelines serve no useful purpose to the environment. During initial rollout of the plans, companies hardly mentioned the environmental impact of CO2 emissions on earth because there are and may be more markets for the commodity. This is mostly about being able to export Iowa ethanol to California, which has stricter air quality regulations than Iowa. Well maybe I’m wrong these folks wouldn’t agree.

In Iowa’s First Congressional District, Republican incumbent Mariannette Miller-Meeks has defined her campaign as one tapping into a mother lode of money and crazy policies in her national party. In a way this makes the race easier for Democrats as she will be out of touch with what all district residents want and need. It will be harder because of the endless well of dark money in politics agitating everything. Democrat Christina Bohannan is busy doing the work of a candidate all over the district. There is a lot to take in as I plan my engagement in the fall campaign.

I am disengaging in my position as president of our home owners association in a development with a population of about 250 people. Finding people to be on our all volunteer board has been challenging. I served on the board in three different periods since first being elected in 1994. There are real responsibilities with managing our public water system, roads, trash and recycling removal, and a separate wastewater treatment plant. We kept the board fully staffed since I returned in 2017, yet few showed interest in leading the effort. Both managing the activities and finding a replacement will take time I’d rather be spending elsewhere.

Our family decided to become home owners. We built new in 1993 and 29 years later, a lot needs attention. Lilac bushes planted in 1994 are now overgrown. Repeated straight line winds and a derecho knocked down trees and branches. We are at 12 years since last roofing the house. Major appliances need upgrade. The list of home repairs and upgrades is pretty long. We have to be ready to slow down, and that means making the house more livable as we age. We tend to avoid these projects because we don’t want to think about them and how we finance them on a fixed income. We have to get going or the to-do list will only continue to grow.

Seems like I spent a lot of my life developing game plans and this is no different. I know enough to stop the input of new projects and focus on optimizing the use of time and resources. I’ll give it until Labor Day. If planning goes on past then, it may drive me crazy.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Tomato Season 2022

Small part of the tomato crop.

Tomato-growing has become a way of life in Big Grove. I planted tomatoes at the rented duplex in which my spouse and I lived in 1983, the first year of our marriage. With one or two brief exceptions, some tomatoes found their way from garden to kitchen every year since.

The best part of the tomato harvest is using fresh in the kitchen. Cherries are a great snack, slices go well on so many things, and making sauce daily provides a type of freshness one can’t find in the best canned tomato sauce. Sometimes I take a whole tomato with a salt shaker and eat it like an apple.

This year I planted two seedlings in each cage, over 150 plants in total. The results were mixed, with lessons to be learned. There were plenty of tomatoes for kitchen use, to give away, and to donate to the food pantry.

The daily harvest is a generous bushel right now. The season won’t last long, so we make the most of it.

When it is tomato time, daily inspection of fruit waiting to be processed is essential. Blemished tomatoes produce useful bi-products. I wrote and posted this process to my Instagram and Facebook accounts:

  • Cut off the bad spots, quarter and put them in a soup pan to cook. Bring to a boil, cook until the skins are loosened.Turn off the heat.
  • Ladle the tomatoes into a funnel, the kind that comes with a wooden tool to press the tomatoes against the screen. Let them sit until the liquid stops dripping out.
  • Remove the liquid and store for other use.
  • Using the wooden tool, press the tomato pulp against the screen until all that’s left is seeds and skin. In the catch-basin will be tomato puree.
  • Pour the tomato puree into a flexible muffin sheet and put it in the freezer.
  • Once frozen, remove from the muffin sheet and put in zip top freezer bags for storage in the freezer.

The plan for plum tomatoes was foiled by placing the two main varieties under the oak trees. Not enough sunlight affected production. The season is not over yet I know there won’t be as many jars of canned tomatoes for winter. The San Marzano variety was planted in the main tomato patch and did well. There won’t be enough of them to make up for the under-production of Amish Paste, Granadero and Speckled Roman.

Someone asked if I save seeds. I do not. Most of what I plant is F1, or not a pure genetic strain. I don’t like the idea of being constrained in the garden by choices made about which seeds were saved. There are a lot of available tomato varieties I haven’t tried. I also want seed companies to continue in business. I’d feel a bit like I was stealing the genetics and jobs from people who need them by saving seeds.

There is a never ending life with tomatoes. It can be a great life if one gets a grip on it. I feel I am almost there.

Categories
Living in Society

Politics At Summer’s End

Rural Polling Place

The conventional wisdom about Iowa’s First Congressional District election is incumbent Republican Mariannette Miller-Meeks has the advantage over Democrat Christina Bohannan. This was borne out by polling sponsored by the Bohannan campaign.

In a Change Research poll conducted June 30-July 4, the results confirmed Miller-Meeks enjoyed a one point advantage at 39-38 percent. This poll is getting stale, and with more than 20 percent of those polled not for either candidate, it is too early to make much of this one point lead. As summer ends with the last long weekend before the election, where do things stand?

Miller-Meeks first.

At her inaugural tailgate, where she announced her candidacy for re-election, Miller-Meeks assembled a typical cast of Republican characters.

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas joined an array of familiar Iowa Republican faces at Streb Construction to support the freshman congresswoman as she announced her intent to seek a second term representing Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District in 2022. Besides Cotton, who has become a regular visitor to Iowa, U.S. Reps. Ashley Hinson and Randy Feenstra, former Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, and Iowa Republican Party Chairman Jeff Kaufmann tried to fire up a crowd of about 200.

George Shillcock, Iowa City Press Citizen, Sept. 20, 2021.

As Miller-Meeks spent time in the 117th Congress, she got to know more Republicans there and began sounding like someone other than the person I met during her early campaigns and heard speak when she was Director of the Iowa Department of Public Health. More than any politician I’ve known, the conversion to Washington, D.C. insider was fast and complete. She sounds less like someone legislating on behalf of Iowans and more like someone who took a crazy pill.

As her re-election campaign shifts into gear after the Labor Day weekend, one of her first campaign events will be another football tailgate in Iowa City, this time with U.S. Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who is the author of the Republican plan to rescue America. Scott wrote, among other things, these two sentences into his plan, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.” Miller-Meeks tapped into the mainline of radical right wing Republicanism.

If it wasn’t known already, at a Thursday, Aug. 18 event in Jasper County, Miller-Meeks made her complete alignment with the 45th president clear. She participated in a town hall meeting hosted by America First Agenda with panelists Linda McMahon, former Administrator of the Small Business Administration, Doug Hoelscher, former assistant to the 45th president, and Matthew Whitaker, former Acting U.S. Attorney General (same person who attended her first tailgate). America First Agenda is an organization that supports the 45th president and his chosen candidates. He even gave the first keynote address for the group. The Jasper County event was the first stop in a nationwide rollout of candidate support by the organization.

Miller-Meeks is a Trump Republican and undoubtedly adheres to the policy statement of America First Agenda. These are hardly Iowa values, yet the Republican seems convinced embracing them will lead to re-election.

Christina Bohannan is different. She is a Democrat. I want to make clear that I am not a campaign insider. The majority of what they ask of me is for financial donations, occasional event invitations, and even less frequently for canvassing help. I am not active in Bohannan’s campaign the way I was and am in other campaigns. I offer no exclusive insider information in this post.

Bohannan check-boxed the summer with appearances throughout the district at Democratic gatherings, parades, meet and greet events, fund raisers, visits to county fairs, a State Fair appearance flipping pork burgers, voter canvassing, and other typical campaign events. Bohannan acknowledges she is behind in fund raising (she recently had $1.27 million cash on hand to Miller-Meeks’ $2.66 million), yet believes they have enough money to meet campaign goals. This is all fine, and necessary.

The issue Bohannan faces is threading the needle of support for President Joe Biden’s policies with sufficient distancing from him to counter Republican attacks of being a “Biden Democrat.” While I like Biden Democrats, when I say it, it means something different from Republicans who speak in dog-whistle language. Republicans have been relentless in pursuit of this attack meme.

Here is a link to a WHBF interview with an example of how Bohannan responded to a direct question, “Will you run on Joe Biden’s record or run away from it? Where do you disagree with the administration when it comes to policy, if at all?” I like her answers. She refused to accept the interviewer’s framing despite his showing more persistence on the point than most journalists. Attempting to re-direct attention from Biden to Miller-Meeks is a solid response for Bohannan. It needs work because she comes across as dodging the question more than getting us to focus on her opponent. If she doesn’t address her clear support for Joe Biden more directly, the meme will stick.

Having a Trump minion in the Congress is not good for me or for Iowa. Because Republicans need to retain the seat to gain a majority in the U.S. House, they have and will invest big in Iowa’s First District. I believe Christina Bohannan is up to the challenge yet it will be a long, hard road to election day. Bohannan can use our help. Click here to learn how you can join the effort.

Categories
Environment

Wildflower

Wildflowers on the state park trail.

Some days I’m thankful for the ability to walk the state park trail and see the ever-changing plant, animal and insect life. Being thankful is enough for this Saturday.

Categories
Juke Box

Juke Box – Don’t Dream It’s Over

There is something about the Hammond B-3 organ. We’ll look back on these coronavirus pandemic videos with fondness one day, I predict. (hat tip to David Shorr).

Make it a great weekend!

Don’t Dream It’s Over by Crowded House.
Categories
Living in Society

Franken Will Represent All Iowans in U.S. Senate

Michael Franken

I’ve been with retired Admiral Michael Franken enough to know he would make an excellent U.S. Senator. My comparison is with Tom Harkin, with whom I also spent time. Harkin was arguably Iowa’s best senator to date. If elected, Franken could also be one of the great U.S. Senators from Iowa.

Franken and I both served in the military. In my conversations with him – about his leaving the Navy after the election of the 45th president, about how he would control the military budget by knowing where the pork is hidden, and about ending the nuclear arms race – he is much like me. Many of us seek that in a candidate.

What makes him different from typical politicians is Franken is doing the work of a campaign by visiting all parts of Iowa and speaking with everyday people instead of to the limited network of party activists. He is positioning himself to represent all Iowans, something his opponent has forgotten in his many years of living in Washington, D.C.

Franken is doing things candidates are expected to do, flipping pork burgers at the State Fair, walking in parades, shaking hands with people wherever he goes, and considering a constituent question before he answers it.

Instead of electing Chuck Grassley again, we should send Michael Franken to the U.S. Senate because he is the best person for the job.

~ First published in The Little Village Magazine on Aug. 18, 2022.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Donating Potatoes

The rest of the potato harvest. It was a good crop.

In August there is plenty of extra garden produce for donations to the local food pantry. Potatoes are popular and I could easily have donated this whole bin. They all would have been taken. Potatoes are elemental.

After a period of rodents eating potatoes while they were still in the ground, I decided to plant in containers. That solved the problem. When I think of the future, I should plant six instead of four containers so I have more to donate. What we have will serve us until they are gone before the end of the year.

We cook potatoes in four primary ways: roasting; grated to make hash browns; as an ingredient in soup; and boiling. All of the smallest ones are used for soup. Every once in a while I use boiled potatoes to make potato salad. Whatever I make with potatoes gets eaten up because they are especially good.

I used to leave the containers buried and replant in the same location each season, using a little composted chicken or turkey manure as fertilizer. This year, I moved them and used soil from the two composters. The production was robust. Given the small amount of time and care it takes to grow potatoes, it is well worth it to have a fresh, great-tasting vegetable. Digging up the containers and harvesting potatoes has become a milestone in the garden season.

The food bank is a nice option to get what I produce into the hands of people who need it. The garden is at the point there are too many cucumbers, tomatoes, zucchini, and bell peppers. There will never be too many potatoes. It’s hard to believe a few years ago we didn’t have a food bank. It has become a vital part of the community in which we live.

Categories
Living in Society

Are Pollsters Also Trolls?

Newport Precinct Polling Place, Nov. 3, 2010.

These days it is a debate whether to answer the telephone when an unknown number rings. Monday I picked up a phone call from the 641 area code, which runs from Ottumwa to Mason City. It was a pollster administering poll number 19985 IAHD091. How do I know that code? The text message the firm sent me 15 minutes after I completed the telephone interview led to a Survey Monkey poll with that number as the header. It was the Republicans calling about House District 91.

I’m still curious about local politics, and the kind of questions asked during a telephone poll can be revealing of the funder’s tactics. I felt like a miner striking pay dirt during the 1849 California Gold Rush.

It is common practice for Iowa House Republicans to poll a number of districts in late summer of an election year, usually at least 10-15 districts, according to a person familiar with the practice. House District 91 is an open seat after redistricting and leans Republican. Iowa Republicans follow a well-developed and targeted playbook to maintain their majority in the state house. They don’t want to leave anything to chance when it comes to picking up an open seat, so putting a poll in the field is an inexpensive investment.

The telephone survey seemed different from the online survey sent via text message, although they were likely the same questions asked differently. The main give-away that the poll was from the Republicans was the issue list I had to use to decide which would be most important in deciding my vote for state government: the Second Amendment and gun rights; border security; public school education; pro-life and family values; inflation and the cost of living; gun control measures; crime and public safety; women’s reproductive rights; government spending; and healthcare. Some of these are written in dog-whistle language understood without an interpreter only by Republicans who speak it. I picked public school education because of these so-called issues it is the one that garners the largest part of the state budget.

The survey began by asking how I would vote (probably in-person at the polls on election day), whether Iowa was on the right or wrong track (mostly the wrong track), and if I would vote Republican or Democratic for Congress (definitely Democratic), the pollster name-checked, in this order, Elle Wyant (they pronounced Elle with two syllables rather than the normal single one), Joe Biden, Brad Sherman and Kim Reynolds.

I strongly support Deidre DeJear for governor and Elle Wyant for state representative. I voted for Joe Biden in 2020 rather than that other guy, I told the pollster. I thought they snickered after saying I think of myself as independent. We got back on track when I characterized my views toward politics and government as somewhat liberal.

Whoever this person with a strong non-Midwestern accent was, they were likely doing a job for which they needed the compensation. I doubt they were represented by a union. I’m more curious about how they got my name and phone number, although the Republican voter tracking software is legendary for aggregating information from multiple sources.

My takeaways? The pollster was not trolling me. Republicans have a well-oiled machine that will tell them where their problems lie in winning House District 91. They will adjust their plan accordingly after reviewing the poll results. They are a serious, formidable opponent, even if their candidate is a fringe preacher in a non-denominational Christian church who puts his campaign barn sign on the Interstate next to those supporting the 2020 Republican candidate for president. Yes, one is still there.

When I was campaign manager for a Democratic house candidate in 2012, the state party did a district poll. The call I got after they read it was something like, “spend all your time in the non-Johnson County parts of the district.” It wasn’t specific guidance nor was it particularly helpful as while we abandoned liberal parts of the district, the Republican made inroads there. He won enough votes to put him over the top during the general election.

Polls are another piece of information about the competitive environment in a house race. I welcomed the chance to participate for the information it gave me. Will they count my results twice, since I answered via telephone and via Survey Monkey? Probably not. Can Elle Wyant win as state representative? I hope so.

There are 84 days until the polls close on election day.

Categories
Kitchen Garden

Basil in the House

Pulling basil leaves from the stem.

This year I grew basil under row cover. It has been the best crop ever.

I harvested a full basket of it. When the leaves were washed and air-dried on the counter, I pulled them from the stems. The aroma of basil permeated the entire house. It is a welcome time.

The kitchen produces fresh pasta sauce when basil comes in. When I use fresh, home grown tomatoes and garlic, fresh basil makes pasta sauce that has me stopping to take note. It is that good!

Most of my basil goes into pesto. I’m still using last year’s production and the new vintage will keep in the freezer until winter. I experimented with kale pesto, mustard greens pesto, and others. It is a local tradition to make pesto with garlic mustard leaves after removing them in a futile attempt to control its invasive growth. It tastes good, yet it is not the same. I am a basil boy when it comes to pesto.

A few times each season I’ll make a cheese pizza with fresh basil leaves thrown on top after baking. In season, basil is a mainstay of our Iowa vegetarian kitchen.

Basil does not keep long, on the counter, in water, or in the refrigerator. I tried freezing the leaves on a baking sheet, although I find myself using dried basil leaves instead of frozen fresh. I put a batch or two of basil leaves in the dehydrator and let them air dry. It provides most of what we need until next year’s crop.

A kitchen is not as alive as it is during August when basil, tomatoes, garlic and onions are all in. It is a time gardeners and chefs await all year.

Categories
Living in Society

Aging in America – Part II

On Aug. 14, 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act into law. FDR is rightly credited with leading the United States out of the Depression and re-framing the relationship between government and society. It is hard to imagine what modern life would be like without The New Deal.

By the time I made my first payroll contribution to Social Security in 1968, the program was stable. One hoped to be able to earn a pension or save money for retirement but I didn’t know how that would unfold during my work life. The job I held as a stock boy in the drug department of an early big box store wasn’t intended to pay for the retirement of a 16-year old entering the work force. I knew then Social Security would be there for me when I retired, no matter the financial outcome of a lifetime of work. This freed me to do other things, like being a teenager.

As I wrote in 2017, the Social Security Administration is currently doing fine. It follows a plan that begins to deplete the trust fund in 2034. In the current Trustees Report, that date holds true. The problem is longer term.

Social Security and Medicare both face long-term financing shortfalls under currently scheduled benefits and financing. Costs of both programs will grow faster than gross domestic product (GDP) through the mid-2030s primarily due to the rapid aging of the U.S. population. Medicare costs will continue to grow faster than GDP through the late 2070s due to projected increases in the volume and intensity of services provided.

A summary of the 2022 Annual Reports from the Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, Social Security Administration website.

The Republican plan to address this can be found in U.S. Senator Rick Scott’s plan to rescue America, in this sentence, “All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again.”

When asked about sunsetting Social Security and Medicare, Senator Scott said, “No one that I know of wants to sunset Medicare or Social Security, but what we’re doing is we don’t even talk about it. Medicare goes bankrupt in four years. Social Security goes bankrupt in 12 years. I think we ought to figure out how we preserve those programs.”

The fact is Democrats are talking about it and have introduced appropriate legislation to address the long-term problems presented by the Trustees. For Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, fixing the program is straight forward, “As Republicans try to phase out Social Security and raise taxes on more than 70 million hardworking Americans, I’m working with Senator Sanders to expand Social Security and extend its solvency by making the wealthy pay their fair share, so everyone can retire with dignity.” Warren and Sanders introduced The Social Security Expansion Act in the U.S. Senate.

The weasel-words of Senator Scott are evident. Rather than offer solutions to long-term problems, he speaks vaguely about the people he knows and what they believe. The only purpose this serves is to raise doubts about choices pensioners like me made over the last 54 years. It is a scare tactic from Republicans’ long list of them.

As much as I’d like to see Democrats and Republicans engage together in solving the long-term issues with Social Security and Medicare, I don’t think that’s possible in today’s divided Congress. As President Joe Biden has demonstrated with a series of recently passed legislation, finding common ground and passing laws is possible even in the toxic political climate of Washington, D.C. We need to do more of it.

Pensioners and other senior citizens vote, so I’m confident Social Security will be addressed at the ballot box. Just give us the facts, without your political spin, and we can make a good decision. Today we appear to be in the spin cycle.

Sorting the facts from bogus assertions is an ongoing issue. Democrats have a good story to tell about expanding Social Security. We need to bring Republicans in, if we can, and solve the long-term problems. If we can’t bring them in, we must solve them on our own.