Hoover Dam. Photo credit: Las Vegas News Bureau, undated.
Text on the postcard: “Looking towards the outlet tunnels and huge powerhouse below the world’s highest Dam. This $125,000,000 project is one of man’s greatest engineering achievements. Height 727 feet above bedrock, crest 1,244 feet, and 650 feet thick at the base.”
When I was in high school our family went to California so my parents could attend a union convention. We made a family vacation of it, the last one before Father died. Mother’s two brothers lived in the Los Angeles area so we spent time with each of them. We stopped to see Hoover Dam on the way home.
Today, Lake Mead, the reservoir created by the Hoover Dam, is at its lowest level since it was built. The continuing drought in the West will have a significant impact on people who live there. It’s clear we must act to slow global warming.
~ I’ve been writing about Afghanistan for what seems like forever. Here are two posts, the first was written as the surge happened and our company participated in deployment of equipment to Afghanistan. The second reiterated how long the United States has been involved in Afghanistan. As the U.S. makes a hasty and long overdue exit, and the Taliban resumes control, one has to wonder about the human cost of U.S. engagement.
The War Machine Goes On March 11, 2009
As I write this post, the military equipment moved from the depot to the coast continues its progress towards Afghanistan. There were hundreds of truckloads of vehicles and provisions moving out in a very large deployment over the past two weeks. We did not hear a lot about this in the mainstream media. If anything, this deployment would have gone on unnoticed, except for some of us in Big Grove.
For those of us who would rather see a world at peace combined with economic stability, we have been doubly disappointed. If the defense industry were to falter at this point, it would be another short circuit of an economy already on the fritz. The deployment to Afghanistan furthers the military spending, and while we agree that the influence of Osama Bin Laden and his followers should be neutralized, beyond that, it is difficult to see the importance of the Afghanistan-Pakistan issue.
So, as I drink morning coffee and turn down the heat to go into the office, I wonder how we can realize a sustainable peace in the world. With continued drought, famine, genocide and poverty, the global community is ripe for more conflict as populations move, oppressive regimes assert dominance and the United Stated assumes a larger role as “peace keeper” by these military deployments around the globe. In the words of John Lennon, “all we are saying is give peace a chance.”
An Iowan’s View of Afghanistan December 11, 2009
When I hear people talking about the 8th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan I shake my head. We should be marking the 30th anniversary of our Afghanistan policy because we have been engaging in Afghanistan’s affairs since at least 1979, when the former Soviet Union invaded that country.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan combined with the ongoing Islamic Revolution in neighboring Iran, and the United States view of the importance of Middle East oil, complicated the presidency of Jimmy Carter. In his memoir, Keeping Faith, former President Jimmy Carter wrote about the threat of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, “A successful takeover of Afghanistan would give the Soviets a deep penetration between Iran and Pakistan, and pose a threat to the rich oil fields of the Persian Gulf area and to the critical waterways through which so much of the world’s energy supplies had to pass.” There were also American interests. UNOCAL, a US company, was seeking to build an oil pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through Afghanistan at that time. For President Carter these were vital US interests and he felt it critical to address the Soviet aggression. As many of us remember, Carter was in the middle of his campaign for a second term, and believed that campaigning actively was inappropriate. Among other things, he canceled his participation in a nationally televised debate in Des Moines, Iowa and initiated a US boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Many of us remember President Carter as beleaguered by the challenges of Iran and Afghanistan.
In the end, President Carter forswore direct military action and implemented economic sanctions. The most notable sanction to Iowans may be the grain embargo of the former Soviet Union. His administration also decided to prop up what he called “Afghan freedom fighters.” According to Sonali Kolhatkar and James Ingalls in their book, Bleeding Afghanistan, the Afghan freedom fighters were “seven Islamist ‘Mujahideen’ or ‘jihadi’ groups based in the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.” These groups received monetary, military and logistical support from the United States and Saudi Arabia through a third party intermediary. This indicates indirect military action on the part of the United States interests during the Soviet aggression. According to Kolhatkar and Ingalls, U.S. military aid may have gone to a group called Makhtab al Khadimat, “a group that recruited and trained Muslim volunteers from Egypt, Algeria and other countries to fight in the Afghan war.”
Makhtab al Khadimat was founded in 1984 by the Saudi heir to a construction firm, Osama bin Laden. From the perspective of today, this all sounds too familiar, except that eight years ago, the United States intervened in Afghanistan militarily to remove a problem that it may have helped engender.
I hope the blood and treasure that we have invested in our engagement in Afghanistan serves as another reason the United States must get to energy independence. Our sons and daughters are fighting and dying in a country where our interest in oil blinded us to the values of Islamic extremists. As we were supporting the Mujahideen, and saying we could work with the Taliban, we failed to hear other voices in Afghanistan that called for an end to the Soviet occupation, but not a return to Islamic fundamentalism.
According to Zoya, a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), during a recent Iowa City appearance, little has changed since the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. The United States continues to support Islamic extremists in the Karzai government. To the extent Afghanistan is about United States interests in oil, it is one more manifestation of our addiction to hydrocarbon fuels. We need the will to cure our addiction to hydrocarbon fuel.
I empathize with my friends who call for demonstrations over President Obama’s escalation of the troop levels in Afghanistan. I have participated in these demonstrations. At the same time, I have to ask, where were they during the first escalation earlier this year? Where were they in 1979?
What I know is that President Obama, more than any president in my memory, appears to have put together the elements of a comprehensive plan to resolve the issues related to war and our addiction to hydrocarbon fuels. If Obama can extract us from three decades of engagement in Afghanistan, he will have truly done something for peace in that region and for the world. Iowans should support President Obama on Afghanistan. He is doing the dirty work that his predecessors, beginning with Jimmy Carter, left behind.
Side dish of sliced tomatoes at our picnic lunch on Aug. 13, 2021.
Friday was a travel day during which we visited family in Chicago. It was the first family gathering at their place in a long time. We’d been preparing for the trip for over a month. To maximize visiting time, we packed a picnic lunch and ate at the apartment.
It was a good day.
Children return to school in two weeks, Iowa hospital beds are close to full with COVID-19 patients, and we haven’t had a view of the sun unobstructed by haze from the Western fires since I don’t know when. A flotilla of 14 hot air balloons rose over us near Davenport as we drove home. Their bright colors were muted by the pall over the landscape.
Beyond family, these day are not so good.
Despite difficult times we go on living.
It is becoming a habit. I walked around the neighborhood where they live and ended up browsing in a used bookstore. I bought three books and got three punches in my frequent user card. Yes, I have a frequent user card, and plan to return to get all the punches. We made it home safely before sunset.
As I finish my seventieth year on planet Earth I’ve been considering why I read and why I should.
Reading has become such a habit it’s unclear I’m approaching it the right way. As Socrates is said to have asserted, an unexamined life is not worth living. I want my remaining days to be worth living and for reading to be part of them.
I’ve become a lazy book reader. I read in bed, in the middle of the night when sleep fails me, and when I wake too early to get up. I read when I can’t fall asleep when I should. I have four subscriptions to newspapers along with several daily newsletters and countless emails. I read articles linked in social media and of course the posts on my pages.
Most of that reading is good, yet the backlog of books to read is growing. There is also a randomness to how I pick books. Unless I’m on a deadline to write a review of an advance copy from a publisher, my choices are somewhat impulsive, based on what a friend said, who wrote the book, or the context in which I heard of it. A retiree has few deadlines and constraints when it comes to reading. There is a sense my impulses on reading have not always been the best for me.
According to my Goodreads tracker, I’ve read 30 of a 36-book goal for 2021. In July I read one book and I’m working on my first in August. I like the Goodreads reading challenge because it gives me a point of focus. I feel good clicking the link to say I finished a book. Whatever I do, I’ll keep using the social media platform.
There is an existential angst to all this although I don’t intend to dwell there long. I need to move from habit to active engagement in reading–I know that. I also need a better strategy for picking what to read and when to read it.
Taming the internet and it’s 24/7 fire hose of words is important. Scrollers gonna scroll, and I am one. It is one thing to get through the feed to find what’s engaging. There is no reason to follow a rabbit hole in real time, every time. When there is a linked article, I could use the application Pocket to save it to read later. If an article is worth reading, it will still be so at a designated time. I already devote some of my morning routine to reading. It should be easy to add saved Pocket articles to the mix at that time.
When I consider reading done this year, the best part was researching my ancestors settling in Minnesota. It resulted in this piece of writing for my autobiography. More of that would be good. As the gardening season commenced, my interest in autobiography waned and I moved on and outdoors. Once the garlic is planted in October, I expect that kind of reading to resume. It is some of the best I do and I want that.
Like many, I read to learn. I’ve been tracking my reading on this site for years. It’s a simple list of books with the most recently read at the top. If one looks through them, there is not a particular theme or concentration. Someone I know will recommend or write a book, and it falls into the reading queue. I have a long reading queue which want organization.
When we consider the gravest threats to our lives during the coming decades, the effects of climate change may be the most challenging. I expect to continue to read books , studies and articles about the environment as a mainstay of my reading.
This blog is about gardening and cooking, creating a “kitchen garden.” When I read about these topics, I’m looking for something specific: how to combat a pest, for instance. The best of what I read is doing the research in my library of cooking and gardening books–finding answers to questions about process. I don’t read many gardening or cooking books cover to cover.
An example of a cooking book I do read cover to cover is Tamar Adler’s An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. More than anything, she presents a narrative about cooking that goes beyond a single meal or dish to how we connect them together. I also read Anya von Bremzen’s Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing. Again for its narrative more than cooking tips.
The thing I’ve been dodging here is my book reading. How does one get from being a lazy reader to more engaged? The answer is obvious. Set aside prime daytime hours to read, and stick to a schedule. Instead of using reading to fill hours I should be sleeping, make it the main event for at least part of the day. Morning is the best time so adding an hour or two to my daily outline might serve.
The harder part is in book selection, working on the reading queue. It is easier when I’m working on a project like researching my Minnesota ancestors. Like a coal miner, you just follow the vein. I also want to be moved by what I read. I’m thinking of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. I want things from reading and haven’t given them adequate consideration. All I can see is the growing book stacks waiting to be read and no way out except to spend the time.
Why do I read? To learn, to enjoy, and to be a better human. Why should I read? To retain relevance in a changing world. Without devotion to ideas found in books relevancy can be difficult. So I end where I began, with questions. There are a couple of things I can do for better reading. I can’t wait to get started.
Summer pasta made with yellow and orange tomatoes.
I could eat fresh from the garden pasta dishes all summer and hopefully will. At the same time, summer is turning toward fall so we’d best enjoy them while we can.
There have been crates and crates of garden tomatoes this season. I sorted a crate of yellow and orange, cut ripe ones into a dutch oven, and turned on the heat. My process for making tomato sauce is easy.
Cook the cut tomato pieces on the stove top until the skins begin to loosen. Depending on the variety I add a little liquid to the pan so they don’t burn. Carefully put the tomatoes into a perforated funnel to drain. Mine is an old-style farm funnel with a wooden masher. Once they drain, save the liquid if there is an immediate use for it, otherwise discard. (A kitchen can only use so much of it). Finally, process the drained tomatoes with the wooden masher, pushing the pulp through the funnel. This thickens the sauce without cooking it to death on the stove, making a fresher-tasting pasta sauce.
When the day began all I knew was to use some tomatoes for a meal. I found a bag of Gemelli dried pasta in the storage rack and decided that would be dinner.
There are countless variations to making pasta. In addition to pasta noodles prepared according to instructions on the bag, I used orange and yellow tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil and eggplant. Garnishes were cherry tomatoes and fresh parsley. Parmesan cheese is optional, which if left out makes this a vegan dish.
Here is my current process.
In a large skillet sautee onions and diced eggplant in extra virgin olive oil. When the onions begin to turn translucent, add two cloves of minced garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. Stir constantly until everything is cooked.
Add the fresh tomato sauce and incorporate. Add a generous amount of fresh or dried basil and re-season. There is variation in the moisture level of tomato sauce made this way. Cook it to the desired thickness.
When the pasta is done, reserve a third cup of pasta water and drain it. Add the noodles to the sauce along with the pasta water. Mix gently until the pasta is thoroughly coated. Add halved cherry tomatoes and freshly chopped parsley and toss until the tomatoes warm.
Serve with a vegetable side dish like steamed green beans, broccoli or cauliflower.
This was my dinner. I hope readers are also enjoying fresh from the garden pasta this summer!
1997 Subaru Legacy Outback on the last day of ownership.
The coronavirus pandemic made a couple of things clear. I didn’t need to work outside home unless I wanted, and we didn’t need two vehicles.
I bought the used 1997 Subaru Legacy Outback in 2013 after I sold my pickup truck to our daughter. These Outbacks have a reputation as reliable and this one demonstrated the accuracy of the moniker. There were issues with the aging vehicle, the most serious of which was an overheating problem. It was repairable to the extent the car became what we call “a beater.” At 218,890 miles, those of us who drive a Subaru know at some point before 300,000 miles, the engine and transmission are going to go. After that the automobile becomes scrap because of a lack of repair parts availability.
The main use of our second car was getting me to work; hauling straw bales, soil mix and fertilizer for the garden; and basic transportation in and around Eastern Iowa. I delivered a few shares for the community supported agriculture project, worked on political campaigns, and generally supported household operations. The car was a work horse.
When it came to getting rid of it, the increased age of the vehicle had me worried about selling it to someone I know. The differential was acting up, the hatchback only sporadically opened, and… it was old. Someone else might want to drive a beater. I didn’t want the responsibility of being the previous owner.
I decided to donate the vehicle to Iowa Public Radio. I had been hearing the advertisements on the air for a while and they take old vehicles:
When you donate a vehicle to benefit Iowa Public Radio, you actually turn your car into the news and music you rely on and love. Donate your vehicle, and we’ll use the proceeds to support your favorite programs like Morning Edition and Talk of Iowa, plus the great variety of music you hear daily on IPR. This gift makes a difference at Iowa Public Radio.
Donating a car is fast, easy and secure. Iowa Public Radio accepts any vehicle – running or not – including cars, trucks, boats, RVs, motorcycles, and more. We work with our public radio colleagues at Charitable Adult Rides & Services (CARS) to ensure that your donation delivers the highest possible revenue to Iowa Public Radio and that your experience is convenient, efficient and even fun.
Public radio was a major part of my weekends for many years. I turned it on in the garage and took my solar powered radio with me out to the garden. I turned it on while preparing Saturday dinner in the kitchen. I recall Garrison Keillor’s “last show” on June 13, 1987. I set the cassette recorder to record the show then took our daughter for a walk. When we returned, the show had run over and I missed the last part. As we know, Keillor came back for a second version of the show. Like him or not, I was a fan.
Public radio doesn’t have the revenue to buy big shows like that any longer. The format is talk-oriented, and the string of Saturday music shows like Mountain Stage and A Prairie Home Companion were replaced by an aging guy and his eclectic record collection.
I feel good about donating the Subaru to Iowa Public Radio. It was the biggest financial donation I made to them. I took the last trip on Monday to deliver garden produce to the community food pantry. The vehicle reliably served its purpose, which is what a person wants from an automobile.
Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks appears to be dodging constituents in the Second Congressional District.
According to her congressional website she has two constituent offices available: in the District of Columbia and in Ottumwa. That’s not enough. It’s time for the congresswoman to be more accessible by staffing offices where her constituents live.
Ottumwa is Iowa’s 20th ranked city by population. Also in the Second Congressional District are Davenport (third ranked), Iowa City (fifth), Bettendorf (15th), Clinton (18th), and Burlington (19th).
I understand a slow opening while the election was being contested. Yet she won and it’s time to provide more inclusive access. At a minimum she should open an office in the Quad-Cities which is the biggest population center in the district. She should also open one in Iowa City, home of the University of Iowa which is an economic engine for the region.
Miller-Meeks needs to get to work doing the business of Iowans. That is, unless she doesn’t care what constituents who don’t share her politics think.
~ First published in the Little Village on Aug. 10, 2021. After publication, the congresswoman’s website was updated with the location of a Davenport office.
Today, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their sixth assessment report of the global climate. The news is not good.
Human kind must reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and fast, to avoid the worst effects of the climate crisis, according to the report. On tomorrow’s one-year anniversary of the derecho, Iowa’s latest extreme weather event, the Hawkeye State should pay attention to what scientists have to say. So should we all.
Climate change is affecting every region on earth, in multiple ways.
Increases in drought with continued increases going forward.
Projected increase in extreme precipitation.
Projected increase in river and pluvial flooding.
Projected increases in winter precipitation.
There is a lot of information in the report and rather than summarize it here, I’ll direct readers to the report itself. There are summaries and a wealth of information. It can be viewed and downloaded at this link: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/
“If we reduce emissions to net zero by 2050, we can keep temperatures close to 1.5C,” wrote Dr Valérie Masson-Delmotte, co-chair of the IPCC. Achieving that would help prevent climate change’s worst effects.
~ IPCC is the international body created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) for assessing the science related to climate change.
Nothing better illustrates what’s at stake in mitigating the worst effects of climate change than the debate between eliminating internal combustion cars, trucks and SUVs, and Iowa’s corn ethanol business which produces automotive fuel. Simply put, we must curtail greenhouse gas emissions to avert the worst effects of global warming. That means reducing, then eliminating, internal combustion engines in automotive transportation.
Last week’s events brought the debate into focus.
On Thursday, Aug. 5, President Biden signed an executive order intended to strengthen America’s leadership in clean cars and trucks. Biden set a goal “that 50 percent of all new passenger cars and light trucks sold in 2030 be zero-emission vehicles, including battery electric, plug-in hybrid electric, or fuel cell electric vehicles.” Biden also addressed tightening emissions standards, improving fuel economy, and fuel efficiency and emissions reductions for heavy duty trucks. If acted on, this executive order is a substantial government effort to reduce the number of polluting vehicles on American roads, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. The folks at The Climate Reality Project reflect my view, “Now we are moving in the right direction.”
Not so fast, said Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds, whose state devotes significant corn acreage to producing ethanol for automotive use. She apparently heard this executive order was coming and had the following statement ready to go the same afternoon.
President Biden’s short-sighted stance on electric vehicles is undermining Iowa’s renewable fuel industry while simultaneously jeopardizing America’s energy independence. This announcement follows the Biden Administration’s failure to support renewable fuels in the infrastructure package currently being negotiated in Congress. It’s a harmful pattern that must be reversed.
With the policies we see coming out of Washington, it’s never been more important that Iowa fights for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel while looking for new ways to invest in the high-quality products we produce right here, right now in our state.
Press release from the Office of the Iowa Governor via email, Aug. 5, 2021.
I couldn’t disagree more with Governor Reynolds. 53 percent of Iowa’s corn crop goes to ethanol production, according to Iowa Corn. A third of that makes a livestock feed co-product and the rest into ethanol fuel. One did not need to be a psychic to predict farmers were not going to like it when passenger cars, SUVs and light trucks all go electric, likely in my lifetime. The better action for the governor–than propping up the internal combustion engine in automobiles and light trucks–is determining the future use of those corn acres once ethanol is no longer needed as a fuel.
Either we have the political will to address the climate crisis or we don’t. It seems clear President Biden is willing to take bold action to address global warming, as evidenced by his direction on electrifying cars and light trucks. While some in the environmental movement say he is not bold enough, last week’s executive order would never have been signed by a Republican president. Governor Reynolds’ pushback was predictable and an argument for maintaining a status quo that has not been good for Iowa in terms of soil depletion, air quality, water quality, crop diversity, and economic and environmental sustainability.
As this plays out in coming weeks and months, the dynamic between the White House and Iowa’s Republican governor will be important to watch. What shall we do to address the climate crisis? According to President Biden we can and must do something. Moving toward electric transportation vehicles is a positive step, even though farmers will have to adjust. We have to do more to address the climate crisis.
Despite the debate and inevitable conflict, the country has to adjust to our future needs. The debate between government and farmers is not new. It has never been more important as the future livability of our planet is at stake. It’s now or never on climate.
Young men bagging freshly-picked sweet corn at Rebal’s Sweet Corn farm stand.
The decision to buy sweetcorn and not grow it was easy. It takes a lot of garden space and my results haven’t been as consistent as one can buy at a farm stand. The farm stand where we’ve been buying sweet corn is closing after this season.
This will be our last year of selling sweet corn. Yes, the rumors are correct. After 35 years of business, we’re decided to bring it to an end. We’ve loved meeting all of you, and hopefully have provided the best sweet we possibly could. But it’s time for us to make a few changes in life. We’ve appreciated your business over the years, and all the wonderful comments you’ve given us. Wow! This is a hard post to write! Thank you all so much for your business, and we hope to see you one last time before the season ends and Rebal’s Sweet Corn comes to a final close.
They had corn on Friday so I bought ten dozen ears to freeze and eat fresh on the cob, on pizzas, and in leek and potato soup. Next year I’ll have to find a new grower but I don’t see re-visiting my decision to outsource this crop.
Leveraging the work of others is an important part of managing a kitchen garden. Rebal’s Sweet Corn fits into my local food paradigm of knowing the face of the farmer. We will miss them when they move on.
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