With Al Gore and Company in Chicago 2013. This is about half the attendees. I’m in there somewhere.
The 29th Conference of the Parties was a disappointment. Fossil fuel interests hindered the ability to accomplish constructive things since the beginning of the process. Now, they stopped anything except the most minimal action at COP29. Former Vice President Al Gore summarized the situation in this statement:
November 23, 2024
While the agreement reached at COP29 avoids immediate failure, it is far from a success. On the key issues like climate finance and the transition away from fossil fuels, this is — yet again — the bare minimum.
We cannot continue to rely on last-minute half measures. Leaders today shirk their responsibility by focusing on long-term, aspirational goals that extend far beyond their own terms in office. To meet the challenge of our time, we need real action at the scale of months and years, not decades and quarter-centuries.
This experience in Baku illuminates deeper flaws in the COP process, including the outsized influence of fossil fuel interests that has hobbled this process since its inception. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been particularly obstructive. Putting the future of humanity at severe risk in order to make more money is truly disgraceful behavior. Reforming this process so that the polluters are not in effective control must be a priority.
On climate finance, our primary task in the coming years must be to not only fulfill and build upon the financial commitments agreed to at COP29, but to unleash even larger flows of affordable and fair private capital for developing countries.
Ultimately, coming out of COP29, we must transform disappointment into determination. We can solve the climate crisis. Whether we do so in time to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement will depend on what comes next.
The climate is changing. Do humans have the capacity to protect all we hold dear from the ravages of the climate crisis? Time will tell. The Conference of the Parties is our last, best hope to stave off the worst impacts of human-caused climate change.
Like with so many other parts of my life, my reading was punk in 2024. I had to cut back on my goal to 52 books because I picked some long ones that weren’t that interesting. There were some real winners this year and a bit of ticket punching. Here is the best of the lot. I’m on Goodreads so you can find me here.
The best book I read was Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus. I recommended it to others repeatedly, and would likely read it again once a bit more water goes under the bridge. The combination of discrimination against women in science, a single mother, a cooking show, and daring women who view her television program to change the status quo was irresistible. I don’t often read a book twice, but expect this will be an exception.
I read multiple books that attempt to write the history of our times and forecast our immediate future. The best of these was Ari Berman’s Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It. I’ve been following Berman since he emerged from his home in Fairfield, Iowa to become more prominent on the national stage. Few people have written about the Trump administration as he does in this book. It is worth reading just for that. Other books I would categorize with Berman include something lost, something gained by Hillary Clinton, Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen, and Attack from Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America by Barbara McQuade.
Important memoirs and biographies I read this year include On Call: A Doctor’s Journey in Public Service by Anthony Fauci and The Art of Power: My Story as America’s First Woman Speaker of the House by Nancy Pelosi. All told, I read ten books in the memoir/biography category in 2024. None of them was a dog.
I read a number of books from my “To Be Read” pile. Noteworthy are the ones that serve as historical artifacts: In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Mathiessen, Narrative of Sojourner Truth by herself, Starved Rock: A Chapter of Colonial History by Eaton G. Osman, Wakefield’s History of the Black Hawk War by John Allen Wakefield, and Chief of Scouts, As Pilot to Emigrant and Government Trains, Across the Plains of the Wild West of Fifty Years Ago by William F. Drannan. While the to be read pile is not as glamorous as getting new books, it is valid work to be done. These were all worth the work.
Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie is a new book by what I would call a young person (She was born in 1993). Ritchie brings a new perspective to environmental and nuclear weapons issues that has been wanting in the current literature. To say the book was refreshing would be an understatement.
The Cooking of Provincial France by M.F.K. Fisher discussed the cuisine of French provinces and provides many traditional recipes from these regions. More than that, it made the case for cuisines that rise up from the geography of soil, water, terrain, and animal husbandry to create foodstuffs, and by association, people, distinct to a region. This stands in sharp contrast to homogenized food ingredients as are available in grocery stores, or whose seeds are planted locally even though the environment has not nurtured them as if they were native to the region. The lesson from this Time-Life book was unexpected: when people are tied to food produced in a specific, local region, they gain a resilience some in the United States find wanting in our food culture.
I also read from my close circle of friends and acquaintances. Thom Hartmann published The Hidden History of the American Dream: The Demise of the Middle Class―and How to Rescue Our Future. Maureen McCue published Dancing in a Disabled World in October. I believe we have a duty to read books written by people we know. The conversations I have with Hartmann and McCue about their books inform my own writing.
The whole list of books I read this year is posted as a Reading Challenge on Goodreads. If you are on that platform, I hope you will follow me so I can follow back to see what you are reading.
The reason the president-elect’s plan to deport millions of immigrants will fail has little to do with his ability to strong-arm law enforcement, and potentially the U.S. military, into corralling people in large, fenced-in Texas prisons. He may be able to do that. Missing is that immigrants are a part of the fabric of American society in a way that promotes and values the individual nature of people. While Trump talks about mass deportations of millions of people, each of the targeted people will have a name, a face, and a presence in the community in which they find themselves. To treat them as a fungible commodity, thus dehumanizing them, goes against the American grain and Trump will encounter that. I believe this is a significant enough obstacle that whatever the plan is, it will fail.
Where will federal officers find all these undocumented immigrants? They may have some records, like those Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate is trying to obtain regarding non-citizens who registered to vote. Voter fraud is so rare that will not fill Texas stockades.
When children of immigrants attend public schools, they are visible. Will teachers turn them over to federal authorities? It’s an open question. I suppose they are counting on people to snitch on their neighbors. In my neighborhood, I suspect that fellow who flies the Gadsden flag near his Trump 2024 flag might serve as a MAGA snitch. I hope not, yet this sounds a bit like North Korea, actually. It is like the North Korea portrayed in Barbara Demick’s book Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea where neighbors snitch on neighbors. Maybe that’s what Republicans want in the United States.
In his book, The Audacity of Hope, then Senator Barack Obama recounted the story of how in 2006, Senator Chuck Grassley and he worked together on immigration reform. According to Obama,
Under the leadership of Ted Kennedy and John McCain, the Senate crafted a compromise (immigration reform) bill with three major components. The bill provided much tougher border security and, through an amendment I wrote with Chuck Grassley, made it significantly more difficult for employers to hire workers illegally. The bill also recognized the difficulty of deporting twelve million undocumented immigrants and instead created a long, eleven-year process under which many of them could earn citizenship.
The reasonableness of this story makes it seem more like a fairy tale than actual behavior of U.S. Senators.
Locally, the story we hear in the community is more granular and personal. There is an increase in the number of immigrants from countries other than Mexico. Parts of Iowa, especially university centers are international communities. We find landlords rent to immigrants more often and schools enroll more immigrant children. People who work in social safety net organizations like free medical clinics, food banks and neighborhood centers see a large number of immigrant clients. Public Health workers in Northwest Iowa require some staff members to speak Spanish to work effectively with immigrant communities. An increasing number of churches are being founded by immigrants. These are some of the things we see. The point is we know these people as individuals with a personality and a life woven into ours.
Because of the way Trump framed mass deportations, people are running scared, and I don’t mean undocumented residents. If the expectation is that undocumented residents will be found harboring kilos of fentanyl, there will be disappointment, especially here in Iowa. Anyone who has read Methland by Nick Reding or Dream Land by Sam Quinones knows that’s not how illegal international drug trafficking works.
The problems caused by a flawed immigration system are many. Native born workers have seen a decline in standard of living. Businesses want access to inexpensive labor provided by immigrants. Undocumented workers compete with native born/naturalized workers on an uneven playing field for jobs. Guest workers and work visa programs replace permanent jobs with temporary jobs without benefits or the legal protections guaranteed to most U.S. workers. Undocumented immigrants are most likely to receive abuse and mistreatment in social situations and in housing and employment. There is a language barrier and skin color may be different. Non-Christian religious backgrounds result in discrimination and mistreatment. All of these are symptoms. So what can we do?
Whatever that is, I expect the Trump administration to pay it little attention. Remember, Trump was the person who begged Republican Senators to kill the long negotiated immigration reform bill because he wanted to use the issue to get elected. Well, Mr. Trump. When your program deteriorates into chaos, what then? We all know you aren’t concerned about immigration. Let’s hope some of the real people involved as targets in the proposed mass deportations get a lifeline from the rest of us.
Dekulakisation. A parade under the banners “We will liquidate the kulaks as a class” and “All to the struggle against the wreckers of agriculture”. Photo Credit: Wikipedia.
In search of a decent cup of coffee, we turn from Thanksgiving Day leftovers to the promise of a happy end of year holiday season. This has been a special time since I spent a lonely few weeks after arriving in Mainz, Germany in mid-December 1976. Through the years the loneliness diminished. Part of this month is reflection on the immediate year past and planning for the next 12 months. It is a time to slow down and enter into a tribal time.
20 of 25 copies of my book are out among early readers. I need to conserve financial resources, so that will be it for now. The next decisions are what to do next: print more, publish it on various on-demand platforms, or take another whack at editing. I need to reserve a few copies until I make a decision. Finishing the book was the major accomplishment, so I am in no hurry to take next steps.
I cleared off a 42″ x 31″ space for a memoir writing table. On here, I will go through boxes of artifacts and store items in immediate use in the writing project. It may not be enough space, yet it will serve the purpose for now. The next memoir task is to re-write my outline and go through the manuscript. I sense many of the 65,000 words already written need revision. If I’m lucky, I can finish some of that work before the new year.
Our family is scattered about this December. My spouse is helping her sister recover from surgery, our child has their own life in Illinois, and I am in the Grove holding down the fort: conserving energy, eating out of the pantry, and doing things to improve my health.
I ordered tomato and cucumber seeds. The best varieties sell out, so I want to get them delivered early. There are plenty of cruciferous vegetable seeds leftover from last year. I’m not sure what else I need. Because 2024 was a punk year for gardening, there is more prep work than usual to get ready for spring planting in the ground. I’ll place another seed order once my December pension payment hits the bank account the fourth week of the month.
The rest of today is going through files, papers, and magazines stacked in my physical inbox. I suspect some things were missed. That’s par for the course with so much going on in this life. The snow makes it feel like winter, yet it is not that. The lake is freezing over, yet tomorrow ambient temperatures are forecast in the 40s. One day at a time while living in Big Grove Township.
2024 was transformational. I feel like a different person today than I did a year ago. It is hard to describe, yet I feel more engaged in life than I have been, with a different attitude toward creative projects and mundane household chores. Four big things happened this year.
In August I published An Iowa Life: A Memoir. It brought closure to the autobiography process in a way that encourages me to finish the second volume. I have more confidence with part one finished. I had no expectation of that.
My spouse has been gone helping her sister for much of the year. Besides earlier extended trips, I delivered her in late August, and except for coming home to vote, she has been there since. My sister-in-law has been recovering from surgery and is not ready to live on her own. Neither am I, but I take stock in the fact that the situation is temporary. That commonplace “absence makes the heart grow fonder” is true in my case.
The coronavirus found me in August and on the 29th I tested positive for COVID-19. I wrote about this. While I’m much better, some aspects of my health remain affected. Specifically, my glucose level spiked and my liver function is out of the normal range. I am privileged to get great medical treatment. We’ll see how it is going next check in with the physician. Whatever permanence there may be to the condition, I hope to able to live with it. I didn’t think I would ever die, until I got COVID.
I’m reconnecting with old friends. My high school class decided to have a reunion this year, so I spent time organizing attendance. It also seems like we are getting the band of social activism back together. We need to mount resistance with conservatives taking over our governance. Politics in this election affirmed what I saw in 2022: the old way of running a campaign is obsolete. No one I know identified the new paradigm… yet.
These four things combined made 2024 a very different year. No more of the commonplace issues of finance, gardening, reading, and cooking in plain sight. I found the end point for my autobiography in my infection with the virus. While a number of normal concerns fell off the radar, I like where this post-COVID life is going. It is a great place from which to enter 2025.
Pastries from The Eat Shop, a small, locally owned business. A Small Business Saturday purchase to support them.
Shopping small local businesses is challenging. Before dawn I went to town and got cash at a locally owned ATM, bought gasoline after my trip to Des Moines at a local franchise of the Iowa Casey’s convenience store company (definitely not a small business), and then splurged for a box of four pastries at the locally owned The Eat Shop in Solon. No one local is getting rich from my purchases, but that’s not the point of Small Business Saturday.
The Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday began in 2010, promoted by the American Express Company. The following year the U.S. Congress passed a resolution recognizing the day. It adds to the post-holiday shopping trend retailers hope to generate. Black Friday needs no explanation, and I just explained today. Next is National Secondhand Sunday, then Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday. Weeping Wednesday is supposed to be the day you receive the bill for all the shopping. In the days of online banking, we can tally the expense before then and regulate how much we spend.
The ATM I used is locally owned yet my money is kept at a bank in Texas. I have been a member of an automobile insurance company since 1976 and in the 1990s they started a bank. I joined and have been with them ever since. By having everything immediately available online once the internet came along, I have been able to stop bank fraud by crooks before it happens. I met and like both the local banker and his father. In a small city one gets to know all the bankers. I’m glad my bank contracted with the one they did.
Don’t get me started about the gasoline I bought to refill the tank after the Thanksgiving trip to Des Moines. Who really knows who makes money and how much on that commodity. The major oil companies have the system rigged so they make money every step of the way from pumping it out of the ground overseas, to managing the ocean vessels carrying it to the U.S., to refining, and pipelines, and truck transport, to the local station. Each step in the journey of a barrel of crude oil is a pricing point for the oil company. The locals work on a tight margin and make their money by selling convenience items, gas station pizza and sandwiches, and drinks.
At least there is hope for the bakery, which is owned by a woman with six or so area locations. The goods are all made from scratch and a bit pricey for everyday eating. They call themselves a boutique bakery, which means fancy stuff intended for purposes other than nourishment. Their philosophy, according the their website, is
In today’s world, people are increasingly health-conscious. It seems nearly everyone diets or allows themselves to have that coveted “cheat day.”
So, when you do indulge, it better be worth it. Worth the calories. Worth the sugar. Worth the carbs.
I do buy things from them a couple times a year, so why not on Small Business Saturday? Cheat day or no.
Couple of bits for the ATM transaction, buck or so margin on the gasoline sale, and $18.70 for the pastries is about it for my Small Business Saturday. At least I feel like I did something.
Locally owned hotel in Solon, Iowa on Small Business Saturday, Nov. 30, 2024.
Listed below, in descending order by number of views, are my top ten posts thus far in 2024. Statistics from Blog for Iowa and Journey Home were combined in the tally. Each item has a link to the original post.
My review of Nancy Pelosi’s memoir of her time as Speaker of the House was most viewed. Click here.
My review of Barbara McQuade’s Attack from Within. Click here.
House District 92 candidate Ana Banowsky’s story of being a delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Click here.
Reporting on Julie Persons’ campaign to become Johnson County, Iowa auditor. Click here.
Interview with Iowa House Democratic Leader Jennifer Konfrst. Click here.
Reporting on the poorly attended 2024 Iowa Precinct Caucuses. Click here.
I bought a three-quart saucier and wrote about it. Click here.
In the face of insurmountable pressure to withdraw from his presidential campaign, I wrote “Progressives Stand By Biden.” Click here.
“Nuclear Power Isn’t It” provides an update on the lack of progress with regard to nuclear power generation. We should look elsewhere for power. Click here.
I wrote a remembrance of childhood friend and neighbor Katie Tritt. Click here.
A Confederate flag is on display near where I live. These flags are sprinkled around the state like confetti from a party with too few guests. I have this to say.
I served in the U.S. Army and protected the right to free speech. Flyers of these flags can go on. I protected their right to do so. That doesn’t protect them from criticism.
I understand fascination with the Civil War. My great, great grandfather served in the Confederate Army. The Confederate flag was part of my family history. As a child, I bought one and hung it in my bedroom.
The Civil War was fought over property rights: the right to enslave human beings as chattel. Catholic nuns taught us about Robert E. Lee in grade school. They said what a great military tactician he was. They omitted the fact he enslaved human beings: he owned them, rented them out, and inherited them as property on his plantations. I set their lesson about Lee aside, and took down my flag.
Nuns also taught 1 Corinthians 13:11, which is:
When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
Confederate flag flyers should become adults, revere Iowans who fought for the Union in the Civil War, and join the rest of humanity, including the descendants of slaves. The war is over, take down the flag.
~ Published in the Cedar Rapids Gazette on Nov. 28, 2024.
We all have access to the news, so I need not recap what happened during the Nov. 5 election. Suffice it the front face for the Heritage Foundation, which is the front face for right-wing billionaires like Charles Koch and his club, was elected president. The Republican win was so deep it was and will be disabling for a while. It’s time to begin getting over the loss and move forward.
In a Nov. 20 article originally published in Hankyoreh, John Feffer provides a possible future as progressives pick up the pieces of our shattered dream of continuing the successes of the Biden administration with Kamala Harris. The entire article is printed here.
The challenge of navigating uncharted political waters is we don’t always know what to expect or what it might look like. Feffer provides some ideas toward envisioning the future as follows:
In 2016, Trump himself was surprised by his own victory, and his team was ill-prepared to take power. In 2024, his team is ready to hit the ground running on day one.
A demoralized Democratic Party is busy trying to figure out why it lost so badly in the elections.
The next four years promise to be chaotic, vengeful, and dangerous.
What can be done to prevent the new administration from doing its worst?
At the global level, many countries will step into the vacuum created by U.S. withdrawal—from the Paris agreement, the effort to supply Ukraine, and various global human rights institutions. European powers will likely step up their assistance to Ukraine if the Trump administration ends all military support for the besieged country. Europe, too, will continue to take the lead in terms of a clean energy transition. China, Brazil, and India are also producing a growing amount of electricity from renewable sources.
Inside the United States, the greatest resistance will come from the states. These states controlled by Democrats—California, Washington, Massachusetts—are already preparing to work together to block Trump from executing his extremist agenda. This resistance will likely take the form of filing suits that tangle up the new administration in court.
States have authority to set policy. For instance, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s repeal of Roe v. Wade, a number of states preserved access to abortion services through court rulings, legislative policy, or popular referenda. Regarding mass deportations, some Democratic governors have already said that they will not allow state police to assist federal authorities with the removals. Democrat-led states will do their best to create islands of sanctuary against the overreach of federal authorities.
NGOs and social movements will also mount resistance. A women’s march in Washington, DC just after Trump’s inauguration in 2017 demonstrated the depth and breadth of anger at the new president’s attitudes and proposed policies toward women. A comparable march is planned for January 2025.
The resistance is organizing to push the Democratic Party toward economic populism. The goal is to highlight the economic costs of Trump’s early moves—mass deportations, tariffs, corporate tax cuts—to build momentum to win the 2026 midterm elections. As we crawl out of our cave, and the outrage at Trump’s actual policies explodes, new movements will emerge to mobilize public anger.
While I am as guilty as the next person in being shocked and angry about the choices of the U.S. electorate, it would be a mistake to accept the next four years as set in stone. When Trump’s policies begin to bite, the anger will return and, with it, a new determined resistance. I, for one, want to be a part of that.
I ran out of bread and didn’t want to leave home to go shopping. I baked a loaf instead. We need more of this as the Republican sh*t storm approaches. We must get along in society, conserve resources, pay down debt, use the automobile less, and eat from our garden and pantry. A bug out bag would not hurt. We must go into survival mode until the dust settles, if it ever does. It will be a while before we can see where we might impact the new society.
Last week a podiatrist said I have to start wearing shoes indoors if I want my feet to heal. Not any shoes, but special shoes that are more expensive than what I usually buy. I bought a pair of these expensive, special shoes. Buying cheap shoes may be part of the original problem. My feet feel better already and my outlook is on the mend. After discussing process with my spouse we developed a solution to prevent tracking dirt all over the house.
The problem is I am a creature of habit and can’t remember to keep them on. When I leave my downstairs writing space, five or ten minutes can elapse before I realize that comme d’habitude I took off my indoors shoes at the bottom of the stairs. My habits are so ingrained, I don’t turn on lights when I get up in the middle of the night, finding my way by memory. Breaking some of my habits is also in the works in the new Republican society.
As Americans , politically, we are sailing into uncharted waters. At home we try to get by, increasingly drawing on friends and acquaintances in multiple virtual and physical communities. For now, we withdraw, resupply, refit, and get ready for what maelstrom is next.
Journey Home 
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