When I open the Press-Citizen, the first thing I seek is letters to the editor. There have been less of them printed. Indeed, I’ve been trained to look for them only on Wednesdays and Saturdays. I counted only two issues in the last 24 days (as of Aug. 8) with letters.
This important forum has been de-emphasized. I get it that newspapers are under pressure to turn a profit and an opinion editor costs real dollars. Still, engaging reader-written content must count for something.
I’ve been writing letters since 1974 and accept the medium may be reaching toward obsolescence. It has been an outlet for my writing and a way to get my views in the commons for feedback. I’d like to see more people writing letters from diverse viewpoints.
If only the Press-Citizen could regularly print them
~ Published in the Iowa City Press-Citizen on Aug. 13, 2022.
Vegetables drying on the counter after harvest, Aug. 10, 2022.
The first thing I noticed upon my April 20, 2020 retirement is nothing changed. We were entering a period of living in a global pandemic, and a main goal was to live to see the other side of it. Since then, it has become clear the coronavirus pandemic will change, yet not end.
On Feb. 3, the Iowa governor extended the state’s Public Health Disaster Emergency Proclamation regarding the coronavirus pandemic. She announced it would expire at 11:59 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 15. After that, “the coronavirus becomes normalized in daily, routine public health operations,” she said. Agree, or not, our lives of living with the virus continue, such normalization as has been dictated by the government has not made life like it was before we heard the words “coronavirus pandemic.”
This is the first of a series of posts I hope to write about aging in America. While my reach is not far beyond Big Grove Township, universal themes run though my life and I hope to think about and tap into them for my writing.
Since retiring during the pandemic I became a pensioner, which means there is a fixed income mostly from my Social Security pension. I feel flush with cash when the monthly check hits our bank account. That feeling diminishes rapidly until I’m waiting for the next check to hit. As long as there are no major crises, we’ll be okay.
A while back I inventoried every distinct part of my body. There were issues with every major system, and aches and pains accumulated over a lifetime of being physically active. I’m not as flexible as at age 30, yet can bend and crawl in the garden much as I have since our first small one in 1983. The frequent jogging I began during military service has turned into walking. I take a cholesterol medication which is fully paid by insurance. Everything else I do regarding inputs is completely voluntary. My frame seems sturdy, I feel healthy, and am mostly ovo-lacto vegetarian.
Most concerning is my ability to see. I wore eyeglasses since high school and now have a pair of transition lens glasses for general use and a special pair for the computer. I expect my cataracts to harden with increased age. My ophthalmologist told me they have already begun to do so. I have an ophthalmologist.
While my financial and physical condition are important, they are not my main interest here. There are questions to be addressed, if not answered:
What does intellectual development mean to a septuagenarian?
How should my diet change with aging?
What types of social engagement should be pursued?
What role will I play in Democratic politics?
What kind of creative output do I seek to accomplish?
It is hard to say how many posts this will take. Like with other big topics, they may not be immediately following each other. Writing about aging in America is a worthy topic, though. I will do my best to not be boring.
Democracy can be subverted by a minority and that’s what the radical, conservative right is doing, according to David Pepper, former chair of the Ohio Democratic Party. The right realizes their views are unpopular on abortion, gun control, climate change, equal representation under the law, the economy, and other issues. Because they can’t win federal elections on their positions, their goal is to tear down democracy and the institutions built since the formation of our Democratic Republic in 1788 when the U.S. Constitution was ratified by the states. Our politics and our democracy are increasingly unstable.
People in a position to know remind us more often of threats to Democracy. What will it take to activate voters who normally sit out the midterms, voting only in presidential election years? As author Jane Mayer, Pepper and historian Michael Beschloss remind us, a lot of the action to subvert our democracy is happening at the state level. That’s true in Iowa as well as in other Republican-controlled states.
According to Pew Research, the economy was by far the most important issue to voters during the 2020 election, followed by healthcare. You wouldn’t know that in Iowa. Republicans seek to dismantle public schools, remove regulation from agricultural and other business operations, and rig the economy so it favors large-scale agricultural interests like those investing in Carbon Capture and Sequestration. The culture wars are in full engagement as Republicans pursue removing a woman’s right to control her body, transfer school funding from public to private schools, and attempts to regulate school curriculum to present a limited view of our history and lives in society. One could argue, and I do, that during the midterm elections we have to pay attention and address this radical governance.
Historian Michael Beschloss posted the following on Twitter Aug. 7:
Beschloss’ list is good and here’s how I would “do what I can.”
Supreme Court: Many of us realized the U.S. Supreme Court was an overarching issue during the 2016 presidential issue. It ranked highly in 2020. The damage of the 45th president appointing three young, conservative justices recommended by the right wing Federalist Society is done. There is no undoing a lifetime appointment to the judiciary in today’s political climate. We should watch what’s going on in the Supreme Court and support election of a Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate and a Democratic president.
State governors, legislature, secretaries of state and election officials: This is the ball game in 2022. The prospects of electing Democratic majorities in the Iowa Senate and House of Representatives is bleak. In the nine Johnson County precincts in Iowa House District 91, there are only three volunteer precinct captains, including me and the county auditor. In a better situation, we would have nine. There are 10,759 registered voters in the district in Johnson County, 10,824 in Iowa County. Of these, 6,357 are Democratic or 29 percent. Republicans have a 1,717 registration advantage, which means Democrats must get out a lot of non-Democratic votes to elect our candidates. As I’ve written before, our gubernatorial candidate is running behind in the recent Iowa poll, and in fundraising. A focus on voter registration and contacting the right section of the 71 percent of the electorate that is not Democrat is what’s needed.
Congress in 2022: Our first congressional district has in Christina Bohannan a candidate who is working. Whether she can win is an open question, and polling is conflicted about where she stands. The campaign has done some outreach yet what I can offer is to include her when canvassing in my Iowa House District. In retired Admiral Michael Franken we have the strongest candidate for U.S. Senate since the last time Tom Harkin ran. I know Franken better than most Senate candidates I supported in recent years. He appears to be doing the right things to increase his name recognition. He says voters are weary of Grassley. Because of his long Navy experience most Iowans could view him favorably. We need to get the word out.
Presidency in 2024: I don’t expect Joe Biden to announce whether he will run for president in 2024 until after the midterm elections. If he runs, I will support him. He has arguably done the best job, in terms of passing legislation, of any recent president. More of the same is fine by me if he’s up to it. If Biden doesn’t run, it is a jump ball. I like Kamala Harris as vice president. I don’t believe the nomination should just be handed to her if Biden doesn’t run.
When we break political activism down like this, it is easier to get a grip on what is possible for one person to do to save our democracy. Save it, we must.
My spouse and I processed local sweet corn for freezing last night. It is a relic from a past when food preservation played a bigger role in home life. We have stories about our lives with sweet corn to tell each other. A simple truth is we can buy big bags of frozen, organic cut corn from the wholesale club for less cost. If local corn is good, the taste of summer on a cob, it is worth the extra effort to buy local and put it up.
We have frozen corn leftover from last season, so our needs this year aren’t that much. Our main supplier went out of business and we’ve been hard-pressed to find a replacement. That is, we haven’t found outstanding sweet corn this year. Weather conditions have been a problem, according to our local ABC affiliate:
ELY, Iowa (KCRG) – Over thirty years as a farmer, Butch Wieneke knows what high quality sweet corn looks, and feels like. That’s why selling anything other than the best, is not an option for him and his family.
Last Thursday, they made the tough decision to stop selling.
“It just dried up. The ears weren’t filling out and I wasn’t going to sell sub-par corn. It’s just…I’m not going to do that. I don’t care what price it is,” said Wieneke.
The quality of sweet corn can change very quickly, and because of the lack of rain Eastern Iowa saw last week, the personal and public orders stopped.
Now, they’re waiting and watching to see how the crops develop.
When we moved to Big Grove, I decided quickly to outsource sweet corn growing, in the mid-1990s. After a year or two, I found corn takes too much space and the results were not as good as what farmers produce. Because of today’s shortage, I’m considering a patch of sweet corn in next year’s garden. We’re not ready to give up on the annual family tradition and if I can produce a couple of bushels, that would best serve our culture.
While August grinds into its second week with hot, humid temperatures and plenty of rain, I’m ready to return to daily writing. I’m thankful for the break, yet there are important happenings not being covered by traditional media. When I write such stories, people find my posts and view them. I don’t have an editorial calendar yet, although as something new, I blocked out time today to write one.
The rest of the year is expected to be like drinking from a fire hose as far as news goes. I may as well dust off the keyboard and dig in now that sweet corn is put up.
On June 8, Cleo Krejci of the Iowa City Press Citizen wrote the following headline for an article about an election for state representative, “In Iowa’s new House District 91, voters to choose between conservative pastor and LGBTQ activist.”
While the headline may be true, to frame the race like this is awful and wrong. Krejci wrote:
Come Nov. 8, voters in Iowa’s new House District 91 will have the choice of two starkly opposing candidates: Republican Brad Sherman, a conservative Christian pastor who opposes same-sex marriage, and Democrat Elle Wyant, a transgender woman and LGBTQ activist.
The contrast in this framing is easy for a journalist, misses a lot of what each candidate is about, and does a disservice to voters in the district.
The candidates are different. Sherman is from the party where controversial issues at the heart of his campaign are reduced to talking points, the meaning of which can be understood only if one knows how to interpret dog-whistle. According to a June 2 newspaper advertisement, Sherman stands for life, the second amendment, traditional family, state rights and energy independence, among others. Allow me to interpret: extremist anti-abortion, pro-gun ownership with minimal restrictions, anti LGBTQ+, especially anti-trans gender, don’t be making any federal laws with which he disagrees, and pro-fossil fuels extraction and exploitation over other forms of energy. Sherman is in the mainstream of the evangelical movement that brought us the 45th president. The best evidence of this is the endorsement he received from former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, a prominent Southern Baptist turned evangelical politician.
The mission of the church where Sherman is pastor “is to make preparations for the kingdom of God to come on earth as it is in heaven.” Sherman believes the purpose of government is to protect God-given rights. His non-denominational church is tucked away between a couple of Coralville restaurants. Being a pastor there is much different from being a pastor at a United Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian or other mainstream Protestant church, not to mention how different it is from Catholics, Jews and Muslims. From the git-go, Sherman is on the fringe.
Elle Wyant has a more specific agenda designed to serve the needs of everyone in the district. Wyant’s “Three Es” agenda doesn’t require any interpretation: education, economic development, and equity. These are topics the Iowa government addresses during each General Assembly and she’s ready to serve the needs of all constituents. In addition, Wyant has actually done things besides politics in broader society: 19 years working as a sales executive for a Fortune 50 company and five years as a row-crop farmer. Wyant seeks to fight for her community and be a voice for those left behind at the statehouse. As an advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, she knows what that means.
By now, voters in House District 91 may have forgotten sensationalized framing of the contest by the Iowa City Press Citizen. According to Pew Research, the economy was the top issue for voters during the 2020 general election. Wyant is positioned to address economic development while avoiding the noise of culture wars propagated by her opponent. Framing isn’t everything. It is a construct lying outside a campaign.
When we contrast what the candidates stand for, Sherman stands for the worst aspects of Iowa Republican policies. Elle Wyant stands for all of us. The choice is clear.
Hiroshima, Japan after U.S. Nuclear Attack. Photo Credit: The Telegraph
On the 77th anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, hundreds of diplomats representing the states-parties to the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), along with representatives from civil society, are convening at United Nations headquarters in New York for talks that will shape the future of the international nuclear arms control regime at a time when the risks of nuclear proliferation and nuclear competition are growing.
Godspeed to the delegates!
I have been writing about nuclear arms reduction since the nuclear freeze days in the 1980s. We don’t seem to be getting anywhere. When the 45th president was in office, he contemplated re-introducing so-called tactical nuclear weapons into our military arsenal and would likely have withdrawn from the NPT if given the chance. He rejected the idea of the U.S. eliminating nuclear weapons.
Where do we go from here?
Nuclear weapons should never be used again. Conservative forces that came to power in the wake of Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980 have been steadily deconstructing the nuclear arms protocols that took so much work to put in place. Unchecked, they will continue their work. It seems clear people with common sense about nuclear weapons need a new narrative. This gets to be a worn sawhorse, but we need to elect politicians willing to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons in accordance with Article VI of the NPT, an agreement the United States willingly signed and ratified. Who knows if the treaty could be ratified again in today’s polarized U.S. Senate?
So another year passed without progress on reducing our nuclear arsenals. If anything, the war between Ukraine and Russia heightened international tensions and has nations keeping their arsenals in place until we know the outcome.
Let’s hope the NPT Conference produces significant results and a viable plan for compliance with Article VI. The United States should lead this effort, although we have been recalcitrant about hanging on to our nukes.
Today we must consider what it will take to make needed change.
As the last month of summer proceeds to Labor Day, the official kickoff for the fall election campaign, our county party is not that organized. Partly, that’s to be expected as voters and activists engage in elections later each successive cycle.
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Ross Wilburn continues to make the case to the Democratic National Committee that Iowa should be first in the nation during presidential election years. The party has much bigger problems to address going forward than presidential preference.
The big news is there does not appear to be a state party coordinated campaign that helps synchronize efforts. Lack of a coordinated campaign creates an environment where every activist is free to do what they want regarding support of candidates. The county party chair asserted this was a good thing, freeing the group to turnout Democratic votes to increase county margin. It takes more than Democratic votes to win elections and that has in part been the work of individual campaigns. We don’t need a coordinated campaign for the simple reason of having one. What we have without one is a recipe for chaos. A skosh of chaos is okay.
Our county believes the best way they can help Democratic causes is to turnout as many Democratic voters as possible to offset the rest of the Republican state in statewide races. I call this the margin argument, which is spurious at best. Remove the votes from our county from the tallies for federal races in recent cycles and the outcome would be no different. The problem with the margin argument is precincts like mine, which have voted Republican in recent cycles, get lost in the push to turn out Democratic votes in our more populous areas. We need Democrats to win down ticket races and the margin approach doesn’t effectively help.
My years of working at the orchard made weekend campaign work difficult because of my schedule. As a retired septuagenarian, I’m reluctant to make phones calls and door knock people I don’t know, as I did in the past. Making phone calls and door knocking appears to be the main organizing activity being used in the county. I need to find another way.
I would feel better if more central committee members attended last night’s Zoom central committee meeting. By Labor Day, I hope to have an approach for this cycle because this year, more than previous, Democrats will need the help.
The number of hospitalizations for COVID-19 increased by 25 percent last week. The number of patients requiring intensive care nearly doubled. 35 Iowans died of the virus. The number of new people being vaccinated remained low in the state at less than 60 percent. The virus is ubiquitous. Click here to read a report from the local newspaper.
While fewer people don a protective mask in public, I still carry and wear mine when going to a retail store or large indoors gathering. I’m getting out with people more, yet it is mostly outdoors events where there is less risk of contracting the virus. Thus far I tested negative on the few times I got a COVID-19 test. I am learning to live with the virus.
Tomatoes, potatoes, onions, garlic and acorn squash on Aug. 3, 2022.
It rained most of Wednesday. In between showers I picked tomatoes so they would not burst from the influx of moisture. There are some problems with the way I planted tomatoes this year. They are too close together and the patch of Roma and cherry tomatoes is not producing as well as I would have liked. It was a mistake to plant them under the shade of the oak trees. However, the San Marzano tomatoes are doing fine and there are enough to can once they reach peak ripeness. I have some empty jars from our child to fill first, then will put up as many as possible for the pantry until the season is over.
There are too many cucumbers and plenty of pickles already prepared. A family can only eat so many. Every other abundance — bell peppers, zucchini, greens — can be dealt with by freezing them for future use. Herbs can be dried.
This year my participation in society is going through a sea change. I read the extensive activity list for seniors in the newspaper and don’t feel ready to join the group. There is too much to do at home. My cohort of elected officials is finding their way to the exits and it’s not the same with new folks. Local political candidates have not been engaging as they have in the past although that frees my time. The time since I left my last job at the home, farm and auto supply store has been a landing zone. I’ve not skidded to a full stop quite yet.
Once the garden finishes in October I’ll return to my autobiography. This will be the third winter writing it. In a good world, I’ll finish the draft of the timeline through completion of graduate school up to our wedding. When the written record begins in 1974, I have another choice to make: whether to edit writing from my journals, blog posts and letters into a narrative, or to write a new narrative based on them. It could go either way. For now, I’m focused on bringing the writing to the point in 1981 when I was living on Market Street in Iowa City.
For the moment, I’m still on holiday. I want to return to daily writing yet not that much. The picture of where I land after the pandemic is complicated by the fact it is not ending. I’ll have to seek other ways forward.
For the time being, the kitchen garden — harvesting and processing vegetables for storage — consumes much of my time. It is a good thing.
We moved to the Solon area in 1993. After redistricting, the new Senate District 46 and House District 91 are my fourth legislative districts. Each time I’ve gotten to know new people and adjusted to changes. I like my prospects for the general election.
Kevin Kinney is the Democrat running for re-election to the Iowa Senate. He farms in Johnson and Iowa counties. With Iowa being an agricultural state, we could use a farmer with his kind of common sense in the legislature. Solon Mayor Steve Stange endorsed Kinney and so do I.
Elle Wyant is running for the open house seat. I met with her at the Solon Beef Days Parade where she drove a classic car she sometimes enters in car shows. She has worked in sales for UPS for almost 20 years and has a tight focus on what she would work on if elected: education, economic development, and equity. Elle also worked as a row-crop farmer for five years so she knows agriculture. Like Kinney, she is possessed of common sense and would stay focused on her priorities.
The election is three months out. Meanwhile, I hope you will evaluate these candidates. I believe they are worth our votes.
~ Submitted as a letter to the editors of four local newspapers in the new legislative districts.
Iowa is heading into a major heat wave with ambient temperatures forecast in the high nineties by midweek. It seems it has been hot already yet this will be a scorcher with high humidity. My reaction to high heat and humidity is to get outdoors work done early in the morning, then move indoors to work at my desk or in the kitchen. Coping with heat waves has become ingrained into daily life.
I harvested the first of four tubs of potatoes yesterday. I grated and had the nicked ones for breakfast this morning. Hash browns, scrambled eggs and cherry tomatoes is one of my favorite summer breakfasts. These days we have tomatoes with everything, including locally grown sweet corn and green beans from the garden. It is the best time of year for a kitchen garden.
The freezer is beginning to fill with ingredients for future meals. The next big projects are putting up sweet corn and canning tomatoes.
Not much else to report at this point in the holiday. I’ve been getting out with people more. I avoid densely populated areas like the county seat and areas around it. It seems my sleep patterns are permanently changing to stay up and sleep later. I’ve begun reconstructing my daily schedule. Once that process is done, I’ll be back to daily writing here.
Journey Home 
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