Tag: #amwriting

Categories
Writing

Market and Linn Streets

T-Spoons at the Corner of Market and Linn Streets

Editor’s Note: Originally posted on Nov. 4, 2011.

I live in the country, in case this is the first time you are reading this blog. In economic tough times, we have to multitask any resource use, so when I drive to the county seat, I try to combine tasks. I book events and meetings then schedule others around them. This is what I did yesterday when I spent the better part of five hours near the intersection of Market and Linn Streets in Iowa City.

Riverside Theatre and my volunteer ushering for “The Cripple of Inishmaan” was the anchor event. I scheduled a student meeting for 5:30 p.m. at T-Spoons and planned to have dinner and browse the used book stores before I had to be at the theater at 6:45 p.m. I ordered a hazelnut roasted coffee with a shot of hazelnut syrup. My coffee was ready by the time he arrived and he had nothing to drink since he was enroute to a class. We talked about the project and then he left for his 6 p.m. class. I reviewed someone’s resume while I finished my coffee in a faux leather chair.

There are lots of restaurants near the intersection of Market and Linn. Long established ones like Pagliai’s Pizza and Hamburg Inn No. 2, and newer ones like Oasis Falafel, Blue Bird Diner and Linn Street Cafe. I decided to read menus and look inside to see how crowded they were. I ended up going into Oasis: The Falafel Joint where I ordered Falafel, Babba Ganoush, Red Cabbage Salad and Madjadra with pita bread. I sat in the window and ate the tasty meal. It was enough food for two meals, so I took one home in a clam shell, leaving it on the floor of my nearby pick up truck before I going to the book store.

At the Haunted Book Store I asked the attendant for directions to the poetry section. In my current life, I view poetry as an indulgence the same way a smoker views a pack of cigarettes, for consumption and an addiction. It wasn’t always that way. There were many shelves of poetry in the store, and not many people: one gent with a portable typewriter was writing on it at a nearby table. I found Ode to the Cold War: Poems New and Selected by Dick Allen and read a couple of poems. For $4.95 it went home with me. I also picked up An Inconvenient Genocide by Alicia Ghiragossián about the conflict between Turkey and Armenia for seven bucks. Stopping by the Iowa section, there was a copy of a 1918 bibliography titled Iowa Authors and Their Works by Alice Marple. I bought this Historical Department of Iowa book for ten bucks to add to my collection of bibliographies of Iowa authors. Thus far, the evening was a success and it I had not been in town 90 minutes.

Stopping by the truck again, I left the books on the seat, stashed my mobile phone and headed to the theater across the parking lot. I took tickets and got to meet all of the theater-goers. The performance was very good.

Why do I write about this? Partly because other writers have done as much near the corner of Market and Linn Streets, and I hope I too will be famous for my writing. Too, this district of Iowa City is part of my personal history. I lived a few block away on Market, went on dates here, saw politicians and plays, did research for my writing, had meals and coffee with people who are important to me and browsed Murphy Brookfield Book Store and Haunted Book Store (and its predecessor) countless times over the years. I write about it because it is part of who I am and hope that is reason enough.

~ Here’s another post about Market and Linn Streets if you liked this one.

Categories
Writing

Rest of the Way Out

Light from Outside

Seems like I’ve been hunkered down and bunkered in since apple season. I’ve been thoroughly funkified. With 45 days left until spring I’m restless to get out of my lair.

The number of indoor places I spend time is limited: the chair or couch in the living room, the kitchen, the bedroom, the laundry room, the bathrooms, or in my writing room.

It was comfortable early on. Now I’m itching for something.

We live during an assault on reason. I mentioned in my last post the greatest threat to society is a weaponization of ignorance and apathy. Politicians are unable or unwilling to change the status quo, lobbying groups don’t want change, and the public doesn’t seem to care, Matt Field wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. That’s a hell of a sticky mess out of which to gain traction.

Still the light from outside beckons us to go there.

Categories
Environment

Dispatch from the Polar Vortex

Winter in Iowa

Editor’s Note: This email was sent to members of our home owners association at the beginning of the polar vortex of 2019. As I write this note, the outdoors ambient temperature is 26 degrees below zero and one person in the county seat has died from exposure.

Member,

As you likely know, ambient temperatures are forecast to get down to -25 degrees by 8 a.m. tomorrow morning and to -30 degrees overnight tomorrow. After that temperatures are expected to warm through Saturday and Sunday when it is forecast to be in the 40s.

That’s a seventy degree swing in a couple of days, which can be hard on things like water and sewer lines.

19th century British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli said, “Be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.”

We will do everything reasonable to get service back up as soon as possible if it is interrupted. Asking a contractor to work in wind chills like we haven’t seen since we moved here is not reasonable. I plan to contact our main contractor Wednesday and discuss the situation so we know our options in the event of a breakage.

What you can do to prepare for a potential outage is keep a temporary water supply if you don’t already.

In our household we keep a large Rubbermaid beverage container filled with water to use for washing hands and cooking in case we lose water.

We used to buy bottled water to have on hand but quit doing that over the years. It is an option.

If we know there will be an outage ahead of time, we fill up our two stock pots and keep them on the stove to be boiled and used to wash up in lieu of a shower, or as otherwise needed. We have also filled up coolers in the bathtub to use to flush the toilet.

Fingers crossed we will make it through the cold spell without a line breakage.

If something does happen, the procedures for reporting a water problem are below.

I hope this is helpful.

Paul Deaton
President

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Soup for the Polar Vortex

Vegetable Soup on a Wintry Day

Monday I made a big pot of vegetable soup using what has become a standard process.

Mirepoix of onion, celery, carrot and salt sautéed in a couple tablespoons of vegetable broth.

Potatoes peeled and cut in large chunks, a 15 ounce can of rinsed, prepared beans, a pint of diced tomatoes, a quarter cup of barley, a half cup of dried lentils, a few bay leaves, two cups frozen sweet corn, a quart of home made tomato juice and vegetable broth to cover. I added lots of potatoes and carrots for texture and flavor. Toward the end of cooking I added a cup of frozen peas.

The soup cooks up thick and hearty, just the thing for subzero temperatures the polar vortex is bringing our way tonight and tomorrow.

Other soups I make are similar, adding every kind of vegetable we have on hand — after harvest or after cleaning the refrigerator. The limited number of ingredients in this recipe standardizes the outcome into something recognizable and delicious. Importantly, it is repeatable.

Over the weekend I sorted recipes, an act of curation. I found I’m much less attached to dessert recipes. Over the course of a year I make a few batches of cookies, an apple crisp or two, maybe a spiced raisin or applesauce cake. Those recipes are well used and written in my red book. I love dessert, but not that much.

The dessert recipes I kept included blueberry buckle, a seasonal item we serve at the orchard after the first blueberries come in from Michigan. The recipe our bakers use is called “Betty’s Blueberry Buckle,” but the one I have will serve.

While in graduate school I conducted a series of interviews with a subject for a class on aging. She had a letter from William F. Cody inquiring about his legacy in Davenport. I kept her recipe for custard for the memory, although I’m not sure if and when I might use it.

I find it hard to dispose of artifacts of consumption, although about half of the unsorted pile of recipes went into the paper recycling bin. That I got rid of anything is a sign of progress. So many things compete for attention that piles of artifacts, like these recipes, sit around indefinitely.

Winter is a great time to enjoy a bowl of soup and sort through the detritus of a life on the prairie. I look forward to spring.

Categories
Writing

Addicted to Writing

Desk Work

I’m addicted to writing.

Since retiring in 2009 my morning routine includes making a French press of coffee shortly after waking, wandering downstairs with sleep sand in my eyes, reading at a computer for the first cup, then writing.

When I’m writing everything fades into background as I consider words on a screen. It is bliss.

This blog hit a record number of views in January with four more days to go. I’ve posted almost every day since apple season ended. If I consistently apply my skills as a proof reader and editor I can produce a post that engages readers without calling attention to the prose. I live for return readers and discussions in society about what I’ve written. That too is addictive.

I’ve become some kind of writer animal. The work is not really process, more like a habit that roots out meaning in a common life. Some days are better than others, but an intellectual or human side appears only irregularly.

The addiction worries me.

Cognizant of increasing age I’m reluctant to spend too much time writing. When I begin, minutes and hours go by in a mysterious vortex that sucks away time leaving a few hundred words. That’s not all bad, just worrisome.

With the economic security of income from diverse sources, I’m free to do what I want. From time to time I think about building a wooden bench to place under one of the trees I planted. In good weather I’d read poetry and consume Galoises and Pernod Ricard while immersed in sunlight and pondering the muse. I’ve been drunk in France after too many anise aperitifs and don’t smoke. As good as it sounds, I doubt that’s my future.

Process isn’t everything but it helps. If I were to improve my writing — take out some of the animal-like habits — that’s where I’d focus. Seeking raw material in memory and artifact, discovery of meaning in society, followed by writing, re-writing and more re-writing. Something positive seems likely to result.

As I finish my second French press of coffee I’m wide awake.

I’m drawn to this comforting place, surrounded by books, with a small space heater keeping away the subzero temperatures outside. I’ll ponder my craft a while longer before turning everything off until tomorrow. Such pondering making us human as much as writing ever might.

Categories
Writing

Newspapers Are Dying – What About Blogs?

Iowa City Press Citizen Jan. 23, 2019

Every Wednesday evidence newspapers are dying is delivered to the end of our driveway.

I’ve asked the Iowa City Press Citizen to stop this delivery as we get a digital subscription. They can’t. They deliver the paper free on ad days to boost circulation numbers upon which advertising revenue depends.

The whole newspaper business seems to be on life support: advertising revenue diverted on line, subscriptions down, profitability gone. If governments could forego publication of notices, minutes and official announcements, they would. It would sink many low circulation weeklies in small cities. There are no easy answers and in many homes it is not a question: how can newspapers survive?

It is a big commitment to read a daily newspaper. I know because only in semi-retirement could I read two dailies — The Iowa City Press Citizen and the Cedar Rapids Gazette. With life being a time crunch to address other priorities, it is easier and more relevant to read from a score of internet news sites on the go than be restricted to a single newspaper. That’s part of the problem.

It goes deeper than that. Steve Cavendish of the Washington Post wrote today,

Print revenue is down, digital and mobile revenue aren’t nearly enough, and now a hedge fund promising even deeper cuts wants to acquire the company (Gannett). If the future of corporate news operations looks bleak, that’s because it is.

Newspapers have been under pressure since a heyday that ended in the late 1980s. Hedge funds owning newspapers is the final butcher block upon which the pieces get cut up and sold to the highest bidder. People continue to want news, so what is the next evolution?

There is talk about blogs being a potential supplement or replacement for formal news organizations. I doubt it for a couple of reasons.

Part of what makes good reporting possible is the financial backing of a large organization. Even though news organizations are diminished in that regard, a blogger is either self-financed or just barely capitalized. Pat Rynard of Iowa Starting Line took “this month off from writing to handle our financial and administrative side of things.” Rynard is proving the model of blogging as a political news source, however, he is one guy. Whether his operation is scalable to the level of a news organization is an open question. He reported today he should be solvent through the February 2020 Iowa caucuses, which is a positive. As much as I’d like to see him succeed with sustainable funding and revenue, he faces a lonely and uphill struggle compared to a stressed but viable news organization with adequate financing.

Laura Belin, publisher of Bleeding Heartland, is self financed so her struggle is not financing but access. Associated Press reported today she is trying to get a press pass in the Iowa House of Representatives. AP’s Ryan Foley wrote,

Belin applied for formal credentials for the first time to cover this session, which would grant her work space and easier access to briefings with key lawmakers, among other things.

She was denied but is persisting with her request. Judging from the quality of Belin’s previous coverage a press pass would make logistics easier, although her coverage already sets a high journalistic standard. She breaks news and covers topics newspapers don’t. This leads to another issue, readership.

Foley reported Bleeding Heartland gets 1,500 or more unique daily views while in session. That is great exposure for a blog, however, not nearly what a newspaper, with a print circulation of thousands would get between print and on line. Once I got more than 3,500 unique website views when I freelanced for the Iowa City Press Citizen. My average was much lower than that, but print edition plus on line clicks was always more than 10,000: hard to beat for a blogger. While I stop in at Bleeding Heartland and Iowa Starting Line frequently, they do not yet have the general audience penetration to compete with formal news organizations. As political blogs with a devoted following, maybe they don’t need it.

The first job I held was as a paper boy delivering the Des Moines Register. There weren’t many sales and it was a long walk between deliveries. When I ran into customers while making collections I got feedback on what they liked and didn’t like about the newspaper. (Mostly they didn’t like Donald Kaul’s Over the Coffee). Those days are mostly gone.

I hope the Iowa City Press Citizen survives the next acquisition. They already got rid of their big facility off North Dodge Street and are tucked away in rental space above a couple of restaurants. The idea of delivering free papers to boost circulation sounds like it came from an accounting meeting. I’m reminded every Wednesday the newspaper business as I knew it has dim prospects for the future.

Categories
Living in Society Writing

Legislative Priorities – IPERS Edition

Iowa State Capitol

This is part of a series about political issues that garner interest, but maybe too much or for the wrong reasons.

Main events occurred today at the Iowa State Capitol in the second week of the first session of the 88th General Assembly. Among them was a meeting of the State Government Committee about IPERS.

In a 5:22 a.m. email to my state representative and committee chair Bobby Kaufmann I wrote,

Good luck with the IPERS hearing today. I believe Iowa Policy Project and Progress Iowa are foolish to continue to hammer away at Republicans about IPERS. I agree it was problematic a couple of years ago to bring in the Reason Foundation to “evaluate IPERS,” however, the governor and Republican leadership got the message from Iowans not to mess with it. Time to move on.

A few hours later, I continue to believe that is true.

At the meeting Kaufmann reiterated his Dec. 6, 2018 assertion that under Republican leadership, and as long as he chaired the State Government committee, no changes would be made to IPERS. I’m sure today was meant to be the final word since everyone, including the governor, house speaker and senate majority leader said the same thing.

During the committee meeting, State Representative Mary Mascher, one of my favorite politicians and human beings ever, was mentioned by reporter Caroline Cummings in this tweet:

Cut to chase. Messaging the senate is not going to happen. Kaufmann would not have said what he did without Republican leadership support. After the 87th Iowa General Assembly, in which Republicans were noted for last minute bills Democrats barely had time to read before voting, any trust between Democratic and Republican members broke down. As Bobby Kaufmann’s father Jeff told me at the Solon Public Library on Jan. 21 2012, “There is no longer a Daniel Webster moment where people’s minds are changed in floor debates.” The “trust issue” to which Mascher referred is real and not going away.

At 1:01 p.m., shortly after the meeting, I received an email from Progress Iowa about it, confirming what was said, with a surprising addition, “We won’t be bullied by Bobby Kaufmann.”

IPERS is an important retirement program for many Iowans. It is right to stand up for it as was done the summer of 2017. However, it seems unlikely to be changed this session and maybe next because of the negative impact change would have on Republican chances in the 2020 general election. At what point do we move on to issues that matter as much or more?

When there is no imminent threat to IPERS the posturing, misrepresentation and hyperbole of groups like Progress Iowa seems misdirected. The cliche in politics is follow the money. Who is financially backing them? Why IPERS? The organization’s financial reports would likely provide answers.

It is important to watch the progress of IPERS in the legislature. It is simmering on a back burner and the governor said in 2017 she would like to evaluate changing the program to a hybrid with a defined contribution instead of a defined benefit for new members. She said she would protect the defined benefit workers were promised. Wealthy libertarians behind Dark Money in politics are playing a long game. Waiting a couple of years so house members can get re-elected is not an issue. Vigilance is required to make sure the IPERS pot doesn’t boil over unexpectedly. For now, the committee chair who would have to pass a bill has declared, “Not on my watch.” Democrats will be keeping watch.

It is time to set this one aside and focus on other, better, equally important things this session.

Categories
Writing

After 50 Years

Author at Kraft Foods Oscar Mayer plant on Second Street in Davenport, Iowa Nov. 25, 2011

Feb. 1 will mark 50 years since Father was killed in an accident at the meat packing plant. Memories of Dad have hardened into meaningful stories. I was thinking of him when I woke this morning.

What I remember most is his trying to get out of life as a factory worker. He never made it.

He didn’t like it that he got his hands so dirty, that work in the plant was degrading. His father felt the same way about mining coal. Father and son, they both tried to escape their work culture and couldn’t. Dad encouraged me to find a different path and I tried. After two summers working at the plant during college, doing some of the hardest work in my life, I declined their job offer to become a plant foreman after graduation. It was the only offer I had.

The most important decision I made after Dad died was whether to leave Davenport and attend the University of Iowa as he and I discussed. Mother encouraged me to go and I did. For years I didn’t understand that the August 1970 trip to Iowa City was it. My relationship with family changed in a way that was unexpected and forever. I didn’t realize it at the time but I mourned Dad’s death long afterward. I don’t know exactly when — probably during military service — I was able to live with the loss.

After a shift Dad would head over to the Knotty Pine or Pete’s Midwest Tavern where he would cash his paycheck and socialize. It was what people did, the culture of meat packing. That night he cashed his check at Pete’s Midwest over his lunch break. I kept the coins from his pocket after he died, Mom used the bills the way she would had he gone on living.

Losing a parent before life begins can be tough. It was life-altering for me. Fifty years later I don’t think of the loss. It is a part of me about which there is no thinking, only doing. What else is there to do except go on living?

Categories
Environment Living in Society Sustainability

Day to Day Politics

2018 Top Instagram Photos

Last June I broke publicly from our state representative Bobby Kaufmann and endorsed Democratic candidate Jodi Clemens for House District 73 in a letter to the editor of the Solon Economist.

With a circulation of less than 1,000 weekly copies, I’m not sure my endorsement was widely read.

I went on to post three additional pieces critical of Kaufmann before the midterm elections. I am confident he saw the ones in the local newspaper. He won the election without breaking a sweat.

Today’s question is whether I should drive to town to attend his town hall meeting. The 88th Iowa General Assembly convenes tomorrow.

Yesterday I emailed Kaufmann my priorities for the session, mentioning three things:

  • The legislature should support ways farmers can produce more revenue per acre.
  • I questioned the need for more tax relief and encouraged him to find a permanent solution to the back fill problem Republicans created in 2013 when they altered property taxes for farmers and corporations.
  • I reminded him of our local issue of keeping the restriction on larger horsepower boat motors on Lake Macbride during boating season.

Of everything on my political wish list, these three things seem possible yet also insufficient. The better way to impact the legislature would have been for Clemens to have won the election. We came up short. It’s time to accept the results and move on.

In a Sept. 24, 2016 opinion piece in the Cedar Rapids Gazette I articulated what is most important in society: follow the golden rule, nuclear abolition, and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Under President Trump, none of these is going well in our government. My work continues regardless of who my elected officials might be. Politics by its nature will almost always disappoint and party affiliation of our leaders does nothing to change the primacy of these focal points for action.

I’m left wondering why I would attend today’s town hall meeting when there is other, more important work to do.

The legislative agenda is being set by Republicans. If Democrats were in charge, it would be much different. I don’t accept the mental construct that the opposition party should resist the party in power as an end goal for the Iowa legislature. Likewise the idea we are “holding elected officials accountable” by constantly calling and emailing them is off the mark. I’ve been in Senator Chuck Grassley’s D.C. office when such calls came in and the impact was a tick mark in a pro or con column on a tally sheet to be read by staff. Grassley gets his legislative feedback directly from Iowans in his annual tour around the state, and from the Washington, D.C. community of which he has long been a part. So it is with with local representatives. That’s a case for showing up today, although not a strong one.

When I wake each day I don’t think about politics until I read the newspapers. As humans we are attracted to conflict and there’s plenty of it recounted in news media. Republicans have been a long time coming to power. Now that they have it, they are remaking the state in their eyes, changing long-standing policy. That’s the nature of political power. The longer conservative Republicans maintain control of government the harder it becomes for Democrats to undo policy changes. With two more years under Republican hegemony it seems unlikely there is any going back to what used to be.

 

Snow stopped falling overnight. The driveway needs clearing then there’s community organizing work for the coming year. Our infrastructure needs maintenance and if we don’t do it, no one will. Isn’t that always the case?

It reduces to a simple maxim that guides me through life: there is no other, just the one of which we are all a part. That perspective gets lost in today’s political culture. Working to improve our culture is as important as anything else we do. Such work starts at home where I expect I will spend the day.

Categories
Kitchen Garden Writing

Bunkering in During Snowfall

Last of the Fresh Kale

Snow began overnight and is expected to continue all day — the first real snow this winter.

We need more from winter, a week of subzero temperatures to kill bugs in the ground and to stop the sap flow in trees before pruning. Today’s snowfall gets us started, although the long-range forecast shows ambient temperatures well above zero the rest of the month.

We are ready to bunker in. We have reading piles, plenty of food, an internet connection, and an operational forced air furnace. I expect to drive my spouse into town for work so she doesn’t have to scrape windshields afterward. Having lived in Iowa and the Midwest most of our lives we know what to do.

Breakfast was kale cooked in a style of central Mexico with caramelized onions, finely chopped garlic and red pepper flakes. This recipe is worth trying because it allays the bitterness sometimes associated with kale, making a hearty and delicious vegetarian meal. Here’s what I did.

In a medium sized frying pan warm extra virgin olive oil on medium high heat. Cut three medium onions in half,  slice them into quarter-inch ribbons, and add to the olive oil. Salt generously to taste. Once the mixture is cooking, reduce the heat and caramelize the onions. Finely chop three cloves of garlic and add them to the caramelized onions along with red pepper flakes to taste. Mix and cook just until the garlic loses it’s raw taste. Add one half cup of vegetable broth and a generous amount of kale. Cover the pan with a lid and let it cook for five minutes on medium low heat or until the kale is tender. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. At this point I laid two home made bean burgers from the freezer on top of the kale and covered again until the pre-cooked burgers were warmed through and the moisture evaporated. (If you want to use the kale mixture as a taco filling, the bean burgers aren’t needed). Transfer the kale and a burger to plates and top with Mexican cheese and fresh salsa. If you have it, freshly chopped cilantro would be a nice addition. The breakfast of champions.

Five weeks remain until soil blocking begins at the farms. It’s a chance to garage the car for days at a time and turn inward as if there is just us in the world. The snow is getting deep enough to shovel the driveway before heading to town.

Already it is becoming a productive, mostly indoors day. Winter at its best.