Categories
Living in Society

Toward the 2020 Iowa Caucuses

Jimmy Carter at the Iowa State Fair, August 1976 – Photo Credit – Des Moines Register

I didn’t vote in the 1976 general election where the choice for president was between incumbent Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter of Georgia.

1976 was the first election in which new Democratic National Committee rules were in effect to change the presidential nominating process. Iowa went first, Carter realized it, and he showed up with an aid at the Iowa State Fair that August to campaign.

I was in military training and couldn’t figure out where I’d be on election day. I was unfamiliar with how service members voted and there was no mention of voting as I trained to became a military officer at Fort Benning, Georgia.

In 1976 voting didn’t matter to me. I was doing my part to serve our country, and the national nightmare that was the Richard Nixon administration had ended. I felt comfortable with the electorate deciding between Ford and Carter without me.

Even with its problems, the nominating process that now begins in Iowa is more open than it was when Hubert Humphrey was picked as the 1968 Democratic candidate for president in a Chicago hotel room by a small group of cigar-smoking men.

In 2016 complaints about “establishment Democrats” tilting the caucuses toward Hillary Clinton were frequent. George McGovern and other architects of the current nominating process did reasonable work and shouldn’t be blamed for the rise of internet chat rooms, social media, and reporters that look for stories with an easy hook to garner clicks on the web. The rise of the internet had an impact on the Iowa caucuses by facilitating easy communication about almost any topic and promoting the rise of conspiracy theories like the one that something called “establishment Democrats” exists and is a force for no good.

It looks like the Iowa Caucuses will go first again in 2020, although that’s not guaranteed. It also looks like the field of Democratic candidates will be large, maybe as many as 20 men and women when we get into the thick of it. For Iowa Democrats, who wins the horse race here is insignificant compared to the need for party building.

Under Troy Price’s leadership, the Iowa Democratic Party made progress rebuilding its brand during the 2018 midterm elections. That work should continue. More than anything, the Iowa Democratic Party should encourage participation by all in the presidential preference part of an open caucus process. IDP should not forget their main role is to build the party, something sorely needed if one looks at Fred Hubbell’s 2018 election map.

With limited time and resources, a focus on party building instead of selecting and supporting our favorite pick for president is the harder choice. What I sense already is many active Democrats will start to hunker down behind their fave presidential candidates and leave party building to others. That is a recipe for failure. It doesn’t have to be that way.

I’m no longer a fan of having a presidential preference pick as part of the Iowa caucuses, mostly because it doesn’t accomplish what is needed most — building our party into a winning team. I know the consequences of giving up “first in the nation,” and am ready to let go. However, that’s not the process we have so I’m stuck dealing with reality. Dealing with reality is a narrative I can back.

I do plan to vote in 2020.

Categories
Writing

So It Begins

The holiday season is over and today I return for a shift at the home, farm and auto supply store. I’m fine… I’ll be fine.

Since the orchard closed for the season it has been two months of reading, writing and cooking in the kitchen. Existential errands have been run. There was a special election Dec. 18. I eschewed the company of anyone but those closest to me plus people I encountered in the world of commerce.

My daily journal of meetings with family, friends and acquaintances is the emptiest it’s been since I began keeping it. It has been the kind of holiday isolation a writer needs and appreciates. I’m ready for the holidays to be over, even as winter has just begun.

It was quiet on New Year’s Day. Using the rest of a jug of sweet cider and a packet of spices from the orchard, I mulled cider which was warm and comforting. The flavor of spices combined with local apples tasted just right.

I curled up with a book, a cup of mulled cider, and dwelt in the narrative that is Bruce Springsteen’s memoir. It was great escape. I wasn’t that familiar with him or his music. It was day to forget about the outside world before the 2019 maelstrom begins. 

Seven or eight weeks remain until soil blocking begins at the farms. With time on my hands one would think I’d have a better plan for the coming year. It’s sketchy at best. Time isn’t waiting for me to catch up.

So it begins, my 67th trip around the sun. Ready or not, here we go.

Categories
Sustainability

Nuclear Disarmament in Trump World

B-61 Nuclear Bombs

Elimination of nuclear weapons remains a priority for many of us who followed disarmament progress through the years. Our work hasn’t ended. What should be our priorities in Trump World?

To a large extent, society answered that question in the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), to which the United States is a party. Article VI has been and remains a sticking point in meeting treaty obligations. Here’s the text,

“Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Nuclear states have taken inadequate steps toward compliance with Article VI. U.S. backpedaling on disarmament treaties began when in 2002 President George W. Bush removed the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972. Under Donald Trump, the United States is expected to withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and negotiations for renewal of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) have yet to commence. The Trump administration is heading the opposite direction of good faith negotiations to end the arms race. It is creating a political environment for a new arms race, a complete refurbishment of the U.S. nuclear triad, and development of new nuclear weapons.

Where should disarmament advocates focus their efforts? Here’s my list.

As the two largest nuclear states, the U.S. and Russia should de-escalate nuclear competition and establish a regular dialogue on strategic stability. At a minimum, we should make a mutual decision to extend the New START Treaty before it expires in 2021.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said publicly Russia would not make first use of nuclear weapons. The United States should adopt a no first use policy regardless of what Russia says or does.

During negotiations for U.S. Senate ratification of New START, Arizona Senator Jon Kyl negotiated a refurbishment of the nuclear weapons complex. Under President Trump, this budget has grown to over a trillion dollars. We should encourage the new U.S. House of Representatives leadership to cut back on the administration’s plan to upgrade the nuclear complex.

There has been talk of developing new types of more usable nuclear weapons. We should advocate to block administration plans to develop such weapons.

As President Trump withdraws from the Iran Nuclear Deal we should encourage and support our international partners to implement it without us.

Now is the time to implement realistic, action-for-action steps toward disarmament with North Korea. Any dialogue with North Korea should proceed with that goal as the basis for talks.

Finally, advocates should promote compliance with Article VI in the run up to the 2020 NPT Review Conference.

A nuclear weapons-free world remains possible. In Trump World making progress toward that goal will continue to be challenging. Like most citizens we have limited resources and a large number of issues wanting our attention. This list serves to focus on what’s most important politically, and look for opportunities to advance each item as they present themselves.

To learn more about nuclear disarmament efforts in the U.S., check out the Arms Control Association website by clicking here.

Categories
Home Life Kitchen Garden

Winter Soup to Relieve Punk Times

Garden in Winter

The end of year has been punk times without relief.

Some blame it on social media.

Social media users post they need a break. They want to cleanse their mind of the drivel, hostility and tumult often found in feeds they scroll.

How is “cleansing” possible? Social media is an addiction and once hooked, that’s it. Few want to make a permanent break from social media, so what’s really the point of a cleanse? A better idea is to exercise moderation when using social media. I think the ancient Greeks said something like this.

Some blame it on our president.

Sequestered in the White House, his spouse in Florida with their son, a phone nearby, he waits for Democrats to call. The current stalemate is the president’s doing, so why would they call? He lashes out with ill-informed, ill-mannered tweets. I don’t know anyone who would object if he took a break from Twitter.

Relief from punk times can be found in getting busy. Today I made a hearty winter soup.

Butternut Squash and Turnip Soup

  • One medium butternut squash, peeled and cut into half inch cubes.
  • Two large turnips peeled and cut into quarter inch cubes.
  • One cup thinly sliced celery.
  • One cup medium dice onions.
  • One quart tomato juice.
  • Vegetable broth to cover.
  • Quarter teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, allspice and coriander.
  • Teaspoon ground cinnamon.
  • One large bay leaf.
  • Salt and pepper to taste.

Cover the bottom of a Dutch oven with vegetable broth and add the celery and onion. Stir until the onions start to soften. Add the turnips and squash. Add a quart of tomato juice and spices with vegetable broth to cover. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to a simmer and cook until the vegetables are soft. Remove and discard the bay leaf. Use a blender to smooth the mixture and serve with a dollop of sour cream and finely chopped parsley or chives.

Warm winter soup to chase away these punk times.

Categories
Home Life

Build the Fire House

Firefighter Gear

I encourage readers to contribute financially to the fund to build a new fire station.

During my four years as a Big Grove Township Trustee, where part of our work was to manage the Solon Tri-Township Fire Department, it became clear the need for a new facility is real.

The current property tax levy will not cover the expense of building a new fire station along with everything else in the budget. Because the service is not managed by the city, exclusive use of city funds would be inappropriate. Management falls to the Solon Tri-Township Emergency Response Agency whose minutes are published regularly in the Economist.

Set funding issues aside and the need is there. When the current facility is ready for deployment on a call, equipment is crowded everywhere, potentially delaying response time. Additional space would make it easier for our firefighters to respond. Training is a crucial part of managing volunteer firefighters and the proposed enhancements to training facilities would serve that purpose.

At the Dec. 12 agency meeting, Chief Siddell reported 428 calls had been made in 2018, 50 more than they have ever made in one year. The combination of a growing need for emergency response and a volunteer fire department makes it important we provide what resources we can to support the effort.

Contributing to the capital fund to build the new fire station is a pragmatic way to do that. Any contribution would be welcome.

Find the campaign at www.solonfirehouse.com.

~ Published in the Jan. 10 edition of the Solon Economist

Categories
Living in Society

Dreaming of Tom Vilsack

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack

Last night I dreamed about Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa Governor and Barack Obama’s Secretary of Agriculture.

It wasn’t a nightmare. Vilsack provided a recommendation for three varieties of apple trees. Each contained the word “garam,” which isn’t a word I associate with apples.

I Googled elements of my dream this morning. The seasoning garam masala is used with apples in Indian cooking, but I found no evidence of such an apple variety. It was a dream.

With my involvement in politics I spent enough time with Vilsack that the mind has plenty of footage from which to draw images of us together. It made last night’s dream realistic-seeming. Yet there are no garam apples. There is Tom Vilsack and his politics, which are of interest going into the 2020 general election.

It would be tough for me to support a Vilsack nomination for anything.

My dislike of the man’s policy stems from a 2005 speech he gave on energy security at New York’s Council on Foreign Relations. He touted Iowa’s success at building six new coal and natural gas electricity generating stations. The coal plant in Council Bluffs remains a burr under my saddle. He mentioned cleaning up coal. Clean coal is a dirty lie. He discussed government intervention in the nuclear power industry to resolve problems that remain unsolved since Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace initiative. There are cheaper, more environmentally friendly energy options available. He covered Iowa’s bipartisan darling, the Renewable Fuels Standard. Iowa should transition out of growing so much corn and soybeans into crops that yield a higher revenue per acre. It seems unlikely any 2020 candidate Vilsack could overcome my bias against him.

If Vilsack ran for president and won, he would be 70 years old upon inauguration. The problem with septuagenarians running for president isn’t their age, it’s their ideas. We need new ones. I’m haven’t heard any from Tom Vilsack.

If Vilsack ran against U.S. Senator Joni Ernst, her coalition would trample him. While Vilsack won 68 counties in 2002, Iowa, especially rural Iowa, has changed. I’m not a pundit or prognosticator. Just a guy who can’t see how Vilsack wins with increased politicization of geography where Iowans live. It seems doubtful Vilsack could match Fred Hubbell’s gubernatorial campaign performance state-wide.

Last night wasn’t a nightmare because Vilsack is not really that scary until one examines his policies in daylight. I don’t mind him populating my dreams because my personal interactions with him were mostly positive. Unlike most dreams, this one persisted into waking, and I believe that means something. Supporting another Vilsack candidacy would be possible only if we are asleep. I’m confident Iowa voters are not sleeping in the run up to 2020.

Categories
Work Life

Retail Rumors

Retail Space for Rent

After work at the home, farm and auto supply store I stopped at the warehouse club to get a few groceries. Shopping there is never a quick in and out because of my relationships with people from when I worked there. There’s is catching up to do every week and the expanse of concrete floor serves as our modern piazza.

A person can only get certain kinds of goods at a warehouse club, and some of my friends don’t have membership cards as they work there. A recurring conversation is about my 2015 move down the hill to the home, farm and auto supply store where the idea of pay with benefits takes on an other-worldly aura. My low wage colleagues shop there and like our store’s offerings. Yesterday’s conversation went a little differently.

We’re not over the closures of K-Mart, Sears and Paul’s Discount. We worry that J.C. Penney will close as well, concerns driven around available and reasonably priced goods. On low wages, we don’t shop at Tiffany & Company or Bloomingdale’s so it matters.

The rumor is a couple of shops at the outlet mall in Williamsburg are shuttering in January, and a couple more will close at the nearby Coral Ridge Mall. Consolidation and reduction of competition is not positive. Consensus was we’ll get by and pay more as we often do.

There is a certain inevitability to changes in retail. As stores carry a smaller number of items, it becomes inconvenient to drive here for one thing, there for another, making hard goods available on line more attractive and accelerating the demise of storefronts.

Chaos reigns in many retail establishments. We discussed nearby Kohl’s Department store where certain types of goods fall to the floor where customers trample them. That’s not a positive experience. If I had all day, we could have enumerated them all. Time drew short and we said pleasantries to end conversations in a sociable manner.

Our lives no longer inhabit the town square. In many modern cities, there is no town square. That’s so modern, so American.

Instead of spending time at the piazza we trade in rumors spoken among friends. Maybe society has always been that way and always will. It was yesterday, such self-awareness helping sustain our lives in a turbulent world.

Categories
Home Life

Winter Rain

Raindrops

We have yet to see our first winter snowstorm. Some of my neighbors would be fine if temperatures never got below freezing. As a gardener, I know the value of a long, deep freeze in killing insects, and enabling tree pruning the way I learned it at the orchard.

I relish a couple of cold spells each winter.

It’s raining now and expected to continue all day into tomorrow. The forecast has snowflakes coming, but that is laughable with all the heat in the ground. Maybe by Monday conditions will be right for some to stick. For now, we have winter rain.

Aside from a couple of errands, the next five days are clear to plan 2019. Maybe the rain and snow will precipitate some brilliant ideas on how to spend time. In some respects, there is not that much to plan.

Financially the only decisions are whether and when to move to full retirement. For the time being, a couple of days at the home, farm and auto supply store is useful, and the income finds a home every month. How the money is spent was predetermined by household decisions already made. Every bill payment is known, with anything left at month’s end going against debt. The main calculation is developing an escrow system that accommodates property taxes and several other categories of expense to even them out over the year.

The garden almost plans itself. Seeds have mostly arrived and how the seven plots will be planted consists of a vague notion to rotate different varieties of vegetables among patches of sunlight. As a soil blocker at the farms, I’m well in tune with which seeds need to be planted when, and like always, will follow their schedule. I have enough fertilizer for most of the first planting, and expect to use the spade and rake method for planting. I no longer dig up entire plots for planting, but narrow strips. The purpose is to preserve soil structure. Based on tomato production last year, it’s a viable method. Some thought will go into the garden, and it will require only a bit of energy to finalize it.

In the end, our financial picture and food ecology will take care of themselves with a combination of experience, habit and awareness to new opportunity. What’s left?

That’s what the next five days will determine.

Categories
Writing

Overcoming Inertia

Book Bench

When I left full time work March 16 I had no expectations.

After all, there was work at two farms in spring and early summer, and fall weekend shifts at the orchard, all to keep me busy. That’s along with two days a week at the home, farm and auto supply store.

Once the farm work ended in October, my outside work schedule left me with five days a week at home. I didn’t know what to do.

I continued my habit of reading and writing in early morning. I read more full length books than I have in years. With my Social Security pension our household income rebounded to a livable amount. Our garden was the best ever and the extras from barter arrangements made a reduction in grocery expense possible. We cooked more meals at home and ate better quality food. The sum was that if I continued that direction, I could get by, and live well, but it wouldn’t be very good for my life in society. I’m not ready to settle into an easy chair and kick back during my remaining days.

I’m okay with slowing down and taking stock. It’s a luxury many people don’t have. It is time to overcome the inertia that’s settled in since October and get to work. The challenge is picking a couple of meaningful goals and bringing a reasonable level of focus to them. That’s where I’ve been stuck for a couple of months.

If I were to get a legal pad and write down tasks needing done it wouldn’t take long to fill several pages. Filling time and making lists is not the point. Finding meaningful work is the goal, work meaningful not only to me but to those around me. That is a harder planning session.

That’s where I land after 50 years of applying my driven personality to society in the workforce. What I do next is more optional than it has been since I was a teen. It will be work and I want to make sure it is the right kind of work for a sixty-something.

The remaining December days are a perfect time to set course for 2019 and beyond, and so I shall.

Categories
Home Life

Christmas 2018

Holiday Greeting – 2018

Best wishes to readers during this time of striving in a world where peace is elusive.

It’s 32 degrees in Iowa. During a tour of the yard and garden it looked like the kale might recover, but only if there is a warming spell. That’s a lot to ask on the fifth day of winter. We still have fresh in the ice box and a dozen packages in the freezer. Kale is never in short supply in our household.

We miss our daughter at Christmas. When she left home, she really left, first for Florida, then Colorado, and back to Florida. I liked Colorado better because we could leave in the morning and arrive in time for supper. Not so with Florida which is a 23-hour drive to where she does work she loves.

Since graduating from college she spent one Christmas at home, in 2010. Over the years, her absence changed things. Her job requires her to work on the holidays so we developed new patterns.

One by one, old Christmas family traditions peeled off until the holiday became centered around food and phone calls. We continue to have a bowl of chili on Christmas eve and will fix a special Christmas dinner, although the menu isn’t quite planned. We have a lot of turnips and joked serving turnips would be like getting a lump of coal in our stockings. With the right recipe, though, they might make a valued new tradition… or maybe not. Whatever personal traditions we may have had were sanded off in the woodshed of time, so anything goes.

There is redemption in the calm quiet of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. It is a chance to save ourselves from errors made while living in society, to ask forgiveness from those we’ve wronged, to chart a new course through the coming years. There is hope.

My Christmas wish is for peace on earth. It is elusive, yet hope springs, and we believe it within our reach. I hope it’s within reach. I plan to work toward that end.

Best wishes to my readers for a Happy New Year!