Friday, January 30, 2009

The Obama work ethic



The New York Times has a richly detailed story today on President Barack Obama's early work habits.


Although his presidency is barely a week old, some of Mr. Obama’s work habits are already becoming clear. He shows up at the Oval Office shortly before 9 in the morning, roughly two hours later than his early-to-bed, early-to-rise predecessor. Mr. Obama likes to have his workout — weights and cardio — first thing in the morning, at 6:45. (Mr. Bush slipped away to exercise midday.)

He reads several papers, eats breakfast with his family and helps pack his daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, off to school before making the 30-second commute downstairs — a definite perk for a man trying to balance work and family life. He eats dinner with his family, then often returns to work; aides have seen him in the Oval Office as late as 10 p.m., reading briefing papers for the next day.

Giuliani's son making money as professional golfer



Rudy Giuliani's son Andrew seems to have known what he was doing when he decided during the 2008 campaign season to work on his golf game instead of stumping for dad like all those Romney boys.

As it turns Andrew Giuliani is now ranked 44th on The Gateway Tour's money list, having pulled in more than $4,000 in just three tournaments.

In checking some information on an Iowa golfer I spotted the younger Giuliani's name on the money list ...

The Bacon Explosion



This being Iowa, it is big business to talk about pork. And no recipe involving pork has ever made a splash like The Bacon Explosion. It's been blogged and Twittered to stardom -- and since we raise the hogs here, we think that's great.

The Bacon Explosion -- two pounds each of bacon and Italian sausage wrapped together with barbecue sauce and then smoked -- is a recipe that is literally exploding on the Internet.

Numerous bloggers and writers have given it play, largely because of the sheer audacity of the concoction.

It is one of the top stories now on The New York Times Web site.

The instructions for constructing this massive torpedo-shaped amalgamation of two pounds of bacon woven through and around two pounds of sausage and slathered in barbecue sauce first appeared last month on the Web site of a team of Kansas City competition barbecuers. They say a diverse collection of well over 16,000 Web sites have linked to the recipe, celebrating, or sometimes scolding, its excessiveness.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Cheap political ploys are not the way back

Today in our newsroom here at The Carroll Daily Times Herald we were working with our state legislator, Republican Rod Roberts, a sharp guy we all respect, on some basic information for a nice ceremonial proclamation he was doing on behalf of a local organization.

Obviously, this isn't serious business but we know Rod knows his legislation, and takes care of business -- and part of the job of being a lawmaker is mixing in some matters like this.

That considered, later today, I found it unbelievable and incredibly sophomoric that the State GOP would seek to make political hay out of a Muscatine Democrat's effort to honor the channel catfish.

Is this important? No. Should we be focusing with super intensity on economic matters? Of course.

But one thing has nothing to do with another ... So the following press release is just poor. It's the kind of attack that someone with no political experience might orchestrate in a college election or something along those lines.

Here it is:

(DES MOINES) – At a time of great economic uncertainty for Iowa families and small businesses, Rep. Nathan Reichert (D-Muscatine) is aggressively lobbying his fellow legislators to solve what he thinks is a very important dilemma - Iowa has no state fish.

Reichert filed House Joint Resolution 2 on January 22nd. The legislation would make ictalurus punctatus, more commonly known as the channel catfish, the State Fish of Iowa. The law also directs multiple agencies to obtain pictures and representations of the fish, enshrine it at the state historical museum, and publish promotional materials.

“It is bad enough that Rep. Reichert has been helping Governor Culver spend the state into a $700 million hole, but now he’s prioritizing his time, as well as directing state staff and resources, towards a frivolous pursuit that doesn’t create a single job or help one family,” said Nathan Treloar, spokesman for the Republican Party of Iowa.

“Serious times call for serious leadership and it is now time for Rep. Reichert and Governor Culver to channel their efforts into safeguarding Iowa’s future, not a fish.”


The Republican Party better get more serious because the nation needs it to bounce back strong from the 2008 elections and offer some alternatives.

Daily Yonder publishes Obama retrospective



The Center for Rural Strategies' Daily Yonder has published a retrospective I did on covering Barack Obama's presidential run in rural Iowa.

You can find the story on the Daily Yonder.

King mocked on 'Daily Show'

Any comedian who uses Steve King as material is competing in the handicapped division. It's just too easy.

That said, The Sioux City Journal's Bret Hayworth points out that Jon Stewart had a field day the other day with the western Iowa congressman.


What’s the latest with Iowa Congressman Steve King, you ask? Yesterday he voted against the $825 billion economic stimulus package, citing it being strewn with unnecessary pork. And he’s taken some more bashing in the media, with The Daily Iowan editorial Monday saying he’s continuing to be an embarassment to the state and then at night getting raked pretty hard in a comedy bit by Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show.”

Daily Times Herald staff members win AP awards

The following people at the Carroll Daily Times Herald have won awards in the Iowa APME news and photo contest.

Butch Heman
Douglas Burns
Ashley Schable
Chelsea Evers
Kate Arjes
Jeff Storjohann
Staff

We don't know the categories of places. Those will be announced next week ...

A Templeton Rye Cocktail Party




What a good idea ...


For those of you interested in hosting a wonderful social event, Templeton Rye is pleased to present the Classic Cocktail Bar: A special service provided by Templeton Rye offering your guests an exclusive opportunity to go back in time to an old speakeasy. A bartender and wait staff will be dressed in period attire and will prepare the classic American cocktails including the Old Fashioned, the Manhattan and the Sazerac.

You can email them at cocktailbar@templetonrye.com

Clooney coming to Omaha




This isn't political but it is Clooney ...


Academy Award winning actor George Clooney will be at the Omaha Visitors Center this spring filming for the new movie, Up in the Air.

Oscar nominated Juno director Jason Reitman wrote the screenplay and will direct the Paramount Pictures film. “Reitman and his crew have been to Omaha several times scouting locations and fell in love with the city” said Dana Markel, Executive Director of the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau (OCVB).

Up in the Air is based on the novel written by Walter Kirn about a constantly traveling corporate downsizer obsessed with collecting his one millionth frequent flyer mile. The main character Ryan Bingham, played by Clooney, endures some quirky twists and turns on his journey.

This isn’t Clooney’s first brush with Omaha. He won an Oscar nomination for his role in Michael Clayton, which includes a quick visual reference of Omaha. Clooney is expected to be in Omaha filming Up in the Air for three days.

Attached please find a photo of the Omaha Visitors Center for your use. The Visitors Center is located in downtown Omaha at the corner of 10th and Farnam.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Fort Dodge trooper sends anti-Obama emails

And this guy carries a gun?

This from The Associated Press:

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- An Iowa state trooper from Fort Dodge is being punished for forwarding an e-mail that included jail mug shots of people wearing Barack Obama T-shirts.

Sgt. Rodney Hicok received a 30-day suspension on his record, although he won't actually have to leave his job. Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Courtney Greene says labor law means suspending Hicok without pay would jeopardize overtime rules for salaried employees like Hicok.

Hicok also must attend training on department policies.

Officials took action after finding Hicok forwarded the e-mail from a state-issued laptop computer while off duty to people inside and outside the agency. It made disparaging remarks about 15 people in the photos and referred to Obama as having "quite a fan base."

Look out, Iowa, here comes Sarah


Of course she should make a run.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had more starpower at an appearance in Sioux City just before the election than all of the other 2008 GOP presidential candidates combined -- at all of the other Republican events I covered. If she'd only been at the straw poll in Ames ...

No surprise that the cheers of partisans (and anti-Obama rebel yells) went to Palin's head. She's formed a federal political action committee, a move that is a traditional signal of a potential run for the White House.

Here is The Washington Post:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has started a federal political action committee -- called Sarahpac -- that will allow her to raise money for and donate cash to candidates for office over the coming years, a move that should be seen as a precursor to a run for president in 2012.

Harper's Magazine asks a key question about Steve King



Harper's Magazine puts it out there. You decide:


GOP Marketing Makeover Hits Snag: How do you rebrand stupid?


By Ken Silverstein

“Let’s just say that, that, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of 9/11, is brought to the United States to be tried in a federal court in the United States, under a federal judge, and we know what some of those judges do, and on a technicality, such as, let’s just say he wasn’t read his Miranda rights. … He is released into the streets of America. Walks over and steps up into a US embassy and applies for asylum for fear that he can’t go back home cause he spilled the beans on al Qaeda. What happens then if another judge grants him asylum in the United States and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is on a path to citizenship.” Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa)

Friday, January 23, 2009

How Culver's infrastructure plan could kill state smoking ban

State Rep. Rod Roberts, R-Carroll, tells me I'm not the only one who sees Gov. Chet Culver's $700 million state infrastructure or stimulus plan as potentially killing the six-month-old state smoking ban.

If the state ties debt to gambling, as Culver suggests, the smoking ban exemption for casinos would enter a whole new off-limits level. Taken alone that doesn't change anything for bars, which have some legitimate gripes, particularly ones in close proximity to the casinos smokers covet as sort of a last refuge.

But should a court case rule the Iowa casino exemption as out of line, lawmakers, who had tied the state's finances to casino money, may have to opt to just kill the entire ban rather than add gaming houses to it and risk the financial fallout.

Having just been to a casino, Prairie Meadows in Altoona, last Saturday, I can tell you that smoking is a big part of business there, and trust me, many of the smoker-patrons aren't going to be content with stepping outside for a quick nic hit and going back to the tables or slots. The industry relies on the smoker in Iowa.

It's one thing to hurt casinos with the ban, but if the state goes deeper into bed with the industry by tying debt to its fortunes, can it stand by and absorb the effect of the 20 percent loss or associated with smoking ban -- the number it went it down in Illinois after the ban? More people than me should be thinking about this.

Here is The Chicago Tribune:


What is clear is that casino business is down since the ban started. Revenue at Illinois casinos dropped 20.2 percent between November 2007 and November 2008, according to the most recent figures available from the Illinois Gaming Board.

Several factors are to blame, among them the weak economy.

“But the majority of the decrease has been as a result of the smoking ban,” said Tom Swoik, executive director of the Illinois Casino Gaming Association.

Swoik points out that casinos in Indiana, Missouri and Iowa – neighboring states where smoking is legal in casinos – saw nothing like Illinois’ revenue drop, and he contends gamblers are leaving Illinois for casinos where they can smoke.

View from the inauguration



A 1993 Carroll Kuemper Catholic High School graduate had prime access to the presidential inaugural festivities Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

Sarah (Jensen) Shomshor, wife of State Rep. Paul Shomshor, D-Council Bluffs, (both pictured above) watched President Barack Obama’s address and the parade from a building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Later she stood near the stage in the Washington, D.C., Convention Center at the Midwestern Inaugural Ball as the first couple embraced for one of 10 official dances.



Sarah Shomshor, a daughter of retired Carroll physician Jim Jensen and his wife Darlene, said she could see the U.S. Capitol podium from which Obama spoke from her perch on Pennsylvania Avenue.

“When the man speaks and he’s done you just feel like you can go out and make something better,” Sarah Shomshor said.

For the Shomshors the inauguration served as the culmination of a political season in which they had up-close and personal interaction with key players.

Several presidential candidates visited their home, including the eventual commander in chief, Barack Obama. Vice President Joe Biden made a campaign stop at their home as well, just after Thanksgiving in 2007 during his own presidential run in Iowa.
The Shomshors supported Obama in the Iowa caucuses.

A highlight of a full and historic day for the Shomshors was seeing the Obamas dance at the ball headlined by singer Sheryl Crow.

“It was pretty moving,” Sarah Shomshor said.

She joked that the day involved dealing with cold weather getting from place to place.
“It was so cold we felt like we were at the Alaska ball,” Sarah said.

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and other major political figures from the Midwest were at the ball.

But Shomshor, a University of Iowa graduate and nursing instructor at Nebraska Methodist College in Omaha, Neb., said the interaction with regular Americans on the streets left lasting inspiration.

She ran into many people who, with no tickets or VIP access or clout, said they just wanted to be there as Obama took the oath of office.

“It was just very overwhelming,” Sarah Shomshor said.

Northey eyes Terrace Hill keys

The Sioux City Journal has a story up now reporting that Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey is considering a run for governor.

DES MOINES n Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey said Friday that he’s weighing a possible run for governor in 2010.

Northey, speaking on a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa Press,” said he hasn’t made up his mind about throwing his hat in the ring for the Republican nomination to challenge Gov. Chet Culver, the Democratic incumbent.

“I’m keeping the door open to running, but I’m very happy with what I’m doing,” he said.

Northey was elected in 2006, a tough year for Republican candidates during which Culver claimed the governorship and Democrats took majorities in both houses of the Legislature.

Great line from an Iowa funny man

Tom Lindsey with the Iowa humor site "Say Something Funny" gets off this great riff:

Some fancy restaurants in town have actually added macaroni and cheese to their ADULT menus and charge $15 a bowl. I’ve actually heard people say “Oh my god, they serve the best macaroni and cheese.” That’s like someone coming out of a sperm bank and saying, “Now that’s some of the best sex I’ve ever had.”

Where is Steve King's promised apology?




U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is no doubt looking for some YouTube video of terrorists dancing in the streets in the wake of President Obama's election Nov. 4 or swearing-in this Tuesday. If King can't find any, and if such video existed King surely would be all over it, the Kironian (he's from Kiron, Iowa) should apologize for an earlier blast against the new president.

Let's go back to what King said during the election.

In an interview in Spencer, Iowa, King said, "I'll just say this, that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected president of the United States - and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? And I will tell you that, if he is elected president, then the ... the radical Islamists, the ... the al-Qaida and the radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets in greater numbers than they did on September 11."

Later King told Geraldo Rivera that if is proven wrong with this prediction he'd apologize.

As Ted Knight famously said in "Caddyshack" -- "Well, We're waiting ..."

King uspet that Obama used middle name in swearing in as president



You have to give it to Steve King.

He's a master at finding controversy, issuing provocative statements, and reveling in the national media attention that follows.

His latest manufactured outrage: the fact that President Barack Obama used his middle name, "Hussein," in the swearing-in ceremony this Tuesday. Obama correctly notes that he's just following procedures -- former President Bush was introduced that day as George Walker Bush.

But King spots conspiracy. If King won the Iowa Lottery he'd complain that he had to drive to Des Moines to pick up the winning check.

Here is King according to The Politico:

King has moved on to the whole “Hussein” controversy.

He doesn’t like the fact that the president-elect will be sworn in using that middle name during Tuesday’s Inauguration.

After telling the Associated Press last year that Obama’s middle name was among the reasons Islamic terrorists would rejoice over his election, King says he’s since been careful to avoid using it. Thus he found Obama’s decision to allow it be mentioned on the steps of the Capitol “bizarre” and “a double-standard.”

“Is that reserved just for him, not his critics?” King asked.

The congressman says he doubts Obama’s sincerity when he explained that he chose to use his middle name so as to be historically consistent with past inaugurations, when America has heard the full names of its presidents echo from the inaugural stand.

“Whatever his reasons are,” King said, “the one he gave us could not be the reason.”

He continued: “The society is a little strange about this. If you’re speaking the truth and in an effort to be objective, there should be nothing off limits in a free society, [but] there are many biases building and clearly a double-standard.”

Daily Yonder carries Carroll, Iowa Obama retrospective



The Daily Yonder leads off its site now with a retrospective on The Carroll Daily Times Herald's coverage of Barack Obama's run to the presidency.


CARROLL, Iowa — History, this time around, started in Iowa.

Before President Barack Obama could address a Washington, D.C., swelled with revelers and in-the-moment seekers, the pandemonium of the day, he faced much smaller crowds in Iowa, places with more ponderous settings. As a correspondent for my family's newspaper, The Daily Times Herald, I saw a lot of this campaign close-up.

BlackBerry One

The Washington Post talks about who may be on the BlackBerry of President Barack Obama -- a device that is supposed to be tricked out to prevent interlopers from getting through with texts.

Obama's wife is a sure bet to be on the list, and maybe his kids. Vice President Biden will probably be able to get through, along with Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, adviser David Axelrod, aide Reggie Love and Gibbs.

There are the friends: Marty Nesbitt, Valerie Jarrett and Eric Whitaker from Chicago. Some Cabinet secretaries might make it; some might not. Bill Clinton might need to use his wife's account if he wants to send a message.

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Will Obama reach out to PWAR (Poor White Aging Rural) areas?

The executive director of The Kentucky League of Cities implores President Barack Obama to reach out to areas of the nation known as PWAR — poor, white, aging and rural.


Not all 100 or more million new Americans who will be here by 2050 will head for the eight supercities. The vast majority won’t find work that will allow them to settle in the so-called “creative” hotbeds. Many will head for small to mid-sized towns with more affordable lifestyles, and perhaps more durable values. Perhaps others will begin to believe in the old adage that we can live and work anywhere and will do so, taking the opportunity to bring change to our communities.

Obama should be more inspiration than answer



Watching people react to President Barack Obama is both inspiring and disturbing.

Our new president clearly has potential to bring a cease-fire to at least some the nation's culture wars so we can focus on the big picture, rally to be ready for the next generation of competition against India and China.

And as someone who has seen Obama's charisma in person I can report it is as radiant as televised.

During one interview with the Daily Times Herald it was heartening to hear that Obama himself finds the "American Idol" treatment, a bit over the top.

"There's been some places where people have grabbed us, and you couldn't get out of the place," Obama told me early in Iowa Caucuses campaigning, with a laugh. "Here (in Denison), I think, people were more measured, and I like that."

President Obama still seems to have perspective where his starpower is concerned. The rest of the nation needs a heaping helping of realism as well.

There is great promise with Obama.

But former U.S. Sen. Bill Bradley has it exactly right when he says the true measure of Obama will be whether he can shine the spotlight back on all of us as individuals, to provoke us to make the small and large changes in our own lives that collectively might just turn the world for the better.

To be sure there are challenges before the nation demanding the bold strokes, the audacity if you will, of our young president, a leader with no shrinking violets in the fertile garden of his character. You and I can't pull the macroeconomic levers to move glacial indicators like interest rates and big bank lending or make a national transition from the hubris of Bush to humility and grace in our foreign dealings.

Americans indeed elected Obama to do the big things.

But in the end, Obama should be more inspiration, than answer, for so much of our lives is determined more by the small choices we make each day. Spend or save that $10? Watch the game or read to the kids? Even if economic stimulus money thunderstorms on Carroll, Iowa, funding imrpoved roads and perhaps even a new library, it is still primnarily up to the individual to improve his lot.

Some people clearly get this.

“When the man speaks and he’s done you just feel like you can go out and make something better,” Sarah (Jensen) Shomshor, a Kuemper Catholic High School graduate who was at the inauguration in Washington, tells us.

That's the healthy response -- to see Obama as a source of motivation for your own good works, self-improvement.

As Obama huddles with economic and foreign policy advisors in the frenetic early days of his presidency what is it that we are doing to make our own lives better?

Yes, the economy is roiling, but I've interviewed many people doing quite well, thank you. One Carroll native told me he's having the best year of his career. Some local retailers have reported strong months around the holidays. Even in these times, those with pluck can make a buck.

That said, we can look to Obama for inspiration that has long been missing from the White House.

And one can no doubt find it many ways. The beautifully diverse family Obama brings to the White House is a powerful source of inspiration as nearly 25 percent of white Americans and perhaps as much as half of African-American families are members of multi-racial families.

Then there's his curiousity.

By now we have all seen photos and reports of the younger Obama as a community organizer, a man with rolled-up shirt sleeves, working the streets. It was during those years that Obama also cut a solitary figure, holed up with the richness of books. He remains a voracious reader, still hungry for words, ideas. No matter our politics or pursuits, this is a powerful lesson we can take from the new president: leaders are readers.

I haven't met too many regular readers of books who are failures.

Christian talk-radio host Dave Ramsey, an honest broker where it comes to both faith and finance, is fond of saying that the difference between you today and you next year is the books you read and the people you meet. He's right.

Don't wait for Obama to change your life. Open some more books this year and do it yourself.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Mixed-race families

The New York Times has a fascinating piece today on the Obama's family lineage -- one that goes deep into great-great grandparents.

It's a diverse family but that is not as unusual anymore as one might think ... Here is The New York Times:

As many as a quarter of white Americans and nearly half of black Americans belong to a multiracial family, estimates Joshua R. Goldstein of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research.

Diversity inside families, said Michael J. Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford University, is “the most interesting kind of diversity there is, because it brings people together cheek by jowl in a way that they never were before.”

“There’s nothing as powerful as family relationships,” Mr. Rosenfeld said, “and that’s why interracial marriage was illegal for so long in the U.S.”

Monday, January 19, 2009

Obama: A leader who is a reader



Readers are leaders ...

Of all things President Barack Obama can teach Americans, among the most valuable will be the power of reading.

It is clear Obama's life has been one rich with reading.

The New York Times explores that in some detail today:

As Fred Kaplan’s illuminating new biography (“Lincoln: The Biography of a Writer”) makes clear, Lincoln, like Mr. Obama, was a lifelong lover of books, indelibly shaped by his reading — most notably, in his case, the Bible and Shakespeare — which honed his poetic sense of language and his philosophical view of the world. Both men employ a densely allusive prose, richly embedded with the fruit of their reading, and both use language as a tool by which to explore and define themselves. Eventually in Lincoln’s case, Mr. Kaplan notes, “the tool, the toolmaker, and the tool user became inseparably one. He became what his language made him.”

Friday, January 16, 2009

Douglas Burns now contributing writer for The Daily Yonder


(Photo by Jeff Storjohann, Carroll Daily Times Herald)

A commentary on the advantages of small-town "commutes" is now on the Center For Rural Strategies online national rural newspaper, the Daily Yonder.

I am now a regular contributor to the Daily Yonder.

Here is the explanation the Daily Yonder's mission from its Web site:

The Daily Yonder is published on the web by the Center for Rural Strategies. Editors Julie Ardery and Bill Bishop have written for national magazines, for newspapers in Kentucky and Texas and authored books on American politics, art and culture. In the 1980s, they owned and ran the award-winning Bastrop County Times, the weekly newspaper in Smithville, Texas.

The Daily Yonder was developed with the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Media Democracy Fund (a project of the Proteus Fund).

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Vilsack supports fed fruits purchases, more trade deals



Sens. Tom Harkin (D-IA ) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA) talk with the Secretary of USDA-Designate, Gov. Tom Vilsack prior to the hearing


Former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat assured of becoming the next U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, in a confirmation hearing today pledged to support fruits and vegetable programs for schools, and said more international trade deals generally would benefit farmers.

Additionally, he said that cellulosic ethanol would be a key part of a move toward a bigger biofuels economy.

Here is The Des Moines Register:

The Obama administration wants to accelerate the development of new versions of biofuels made form crop residue and non-food crops such as switchgrass. The plants' fibrous material, or cellulose, can be converted into alcohols or even new versions of gasoline or diesel.

"Moving toward next-generation biofuels, cellulosic ethanol, is going to be really important in order to respond" to concerns about the impact on food prices of using grain for fuel, he said.

Vilsack addressed a range of other issues, pledging, for example, to promote fruit and vegetable consumption and promising to ensure that any new international trade agreement is a "net plus for all of agriculture."


And here is The Miami Herald:

Agriculture Secretary nominee Tom Vilsack sailed through his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday while pledging enthusiastic support for federal purchases of fruits and vegetables.

A former Iowa governor, Vilsack effectively reassured specialty crop growers in states such as California, Florida and Texas that their interests will be protected within a sprawling agency most often associated with traditional Midwestern commodities.

"We can work with our schools to make sure fruits and vegetables are available," Vilsack said at the start of his session before the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. "We will be very aggressive in this area."

Vilsack specifically praised groundbreaking specialty-crop provisions in the farm bill that was adopted last year over President George W. Bush's veto. These include $1 billion to purchase fruits and vegetables for school snacks in all 50 states. He endorsed other programs that help promote specialty crops overseas, and committed to support federal programs that assist organic agriculture.

Some cold truth ...

This from the Iowa Department of Public Health -- and it is useful as I just walked in the paper from outside:

The Iowa Dept. of Public Health (IDPH) has received several inquiries regarding the length of time it takes for skin to freeze in the predicted wind chill ranges for tonight and tomorrow. According to the National Weather Service, wind chills will range statewide from 30 to 40 below zero overnight and tomorrow morning when people will be going to work and children will be going to school. In those conditions, exposed skin could freeze within 10 minutes.

It is best to stay inside if possible, but if you must be outdoors during these extreme conditions, it is very important to protect yourself against frostbite. Cover all skin, including hands, head and ears, neck and face, if going outdoors for any length of time, even if only for a few minutes.

Frostbite causes a loss of feeling and a grayish color in affected areas. It most often affects the nose, ears, cheeks, chin, fingers, or toes. Frostbite can permanently damage the skin, causing scarring, and severe cases can lead to amputation. Signs of frostbite include a white or grayish-yellow skin area, skin that feels unusually firm or waxy, or numbness. A person is often unaware of frostbite until someone else points it out because the frozen tissues are numb.

If you must be outside for any lenghth of time, make sure you check yourself and your children for these signs. If your skin shows these signs of freezing, go into a warm place immediately. Warm up frozen/chilled skin by pressing agaist normal temperature skin (put frozen fingers in airpits). Do not massage frozen/chilled skin, do not rub with snow, or place hot items against skin as this could cause more damage. Seek medical attention if skin does not quickly return to normal color or pain occurs and continues.

Obama dines with George Will

This from The Washington Post:

Where does one dine a week before becoming the leader of the free world?

At the Chevy Chase, Md., house of conservative columnist George Will.

President-elect Barack Obama left his temporary home at the Hay-Adams Hotel at just after 6:15 this evening, arriving about 20 minutes later at Will's house, valued at $1.9 million.

Aides said the visit was a dinner party; eagle-eyed reporters spotted two other conservative columnists among the guests: William Kristol of the Weekly Standard and David Brooks of the New York Times.

New GOP congressman says party must ditch xenophobia



New Congressman Joseph Cao -- a Republican from Louisiana and a Vietnamese immigrant (like my sister Jane) -- has some strong views on how his party should handle the immigration issue -- according to an interview with Think Progress.

Here is a transcript of what Cao said when asked to respond to some ugly language from hate-talk host Michael Savage:

First of all, when I first came [to the United States], I never used a toilet. There were no toilets in Vietnam, there were no toilet papers back in Vietnam. We used water. So I would fall into the category that whoever stated quite well. But I have assimilated, and assimilated well, I believe.

You know, the Republican party should not have those kinds of views that you just conveyed. A statement like that would be very anti-immigrant, almost to me borderlining to almost being racist, if you ask me. So I take that statement as being quite repulsive, if you ask my opinion. So I hope that the GOP will not tolerate those kinds of views and will not take those positions.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Humble questions on death and life thereafter

While driving in the rural ghetto that is the stretch of U.S. 71 from south of Carroll County to the city limits of Maryville, Mo., one’s mind instinctively wanders toward thoughts about death.

It is not morbidity but rather a function of geography in this land that time left behind. Want to feel heel-clicking happy about living in Carroll? Drive here from northern Missouri, and you’ll be like Columbus spotting land when you see the blinking red lights of the wind-energy turbines now fencing Carroll’s northern reaches.

When you see dying town after dying town, neglected homes and feral animals roaming the roads, mortality is very much a fellow traveler. If whole towns can die, so will I.

There’s an obvious reason to contemplate death on a few miles of this route as eight people were killed in Villisca about a century ago in one of the more notorious crimes in U.S. history.

As I made my way Sunday past Villisca, home of the globally infamous and still unsolved 1912 ax murders, it occurred to me that upon departing this earth, and assuming my unabashedly conventional guess about the trappings of heaven proves to be true, I will have some questions for my maker.

I’d like to know who shot Kennedy — but probably after I learn the identity of the Villisca killer.

A few miles past Villisca it struck me that such curiosity is awfully trivial.

What we can’t know on this earth but may learn in the next life is where we went wrong with this one. What was down those roads not traveled? What was the most important decision in a life?

Terrifically small events are no doubt life-turning.

A few years ago in The New York Times, in a section of reader-submitted remembrances tucked in the middle pages, a man sent an anecdote that remains with me. This older gentleman recalled a moment, just a wrinkle in time, more than a half-century earlier, in which he was on a ferry. He glanced across at a passing boat and caught the eye of a young lady. Their gazes locked but they didn’t speak, and they never saw each other again.

Near the end of his life, after having a family, children, grandchildren, not to mention a loving marriage, the man’s mind often went back to the moment.

What if he had jumped off the boat, braving the East River, or yelled at the passing woman, asked her name, something?

God surely could run a film reel of some sort showing us how our lives would have turned out had we gone with different choices. Not marrying that guy or marrying the girl. Ships not just passing in the night.

What also would be interesting to learn is how close you came to death during your life before you actually died. A woman I interviewed after 9/11 told me she had just missed making it to work in one of the towers because she stayed faithful to her resolution to return movies to rental stores on time. She’d forgotten a movie that morning and lost 15 minutes so she go back and get it, avoid the late charge and, as it turns out, an early death. As she approached the towers, this woman saw people jumping from the inferno.

It will be nice to have some other answers — like what my conservative Republican grandfather has been thinking from above all these years as I used the editorial pages of the newspaper he founded to further a markedly different ideology than the one to which he subscribed.

But in the end it is comfort and peace in the next life for which we pray. And I found a measure of that in the words of Len Solomon, pastor of the McLean Bible Church in Virginia, who talks about his mentally challenged daughter Jill and what he thinks heaven holds for them in the January issue of Esquire magazine.

“At first I despised this fate and viewed it as a curse,” Solomon said of raising a handicapped daughter. “Now I know that it is a privilege.”

Then he says this—and it hit me like nothing I’ve heard from a preacher:

“I don’t have the slightest idea of what heaven looks like but I am convinced that when I get to heaven Jill is going to be whole, and she’s going to say, ‘That’s my dad.’ I will hear her voice.”

So often when we think of heaven, cliched clouds and bright lights and bearded men are foremost, visions planted in Sunday school minds. But I now like to think of heaven less that way, and more as Len Solomon does: a place where the people we love are found whole.

Check out 'Say Something Funny'

My old Iowa Independent colleague and eastern Iowa pal Tom Lindsey has launched a Web site that is, in a word, funny.

It should be.

The site is called "Say Something Funny" -- and it just had me laughing it up and ignoring Conan tonight.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Douglas Burns now writing column for Cityview



Just an FYI.

I am now writing a regular column and doing some other freelance work for Cityview in Des Moines.

The first column Cityview published is one I did on the ethics of full face transplants. Here is some of that:

The latest installment in the ongoing “yes, it really can happen” series in which science fiction turns into practical application, dime-store novel plots and screenwriters’ narcotics-fueled brainstorms become the substantive stuff of news features, is this: face transplants.

We’re not talking about a little skin here and a little there to cover the burn from the factory fire. No, this is a full-fledged deal. Apparently, one can get a whole new face, someone else’s mug in fact.


Read the rest of the column at Cityview ...

Kibbie: Go for the gas tax

Echoing sentiments of our mayor in Carroll, Iowa Senate president Jack Kibbie is calling for a gas tax increase to fund infrastructure.

Here is The Register:

Work on roads and bridges can no longer be put off — even if that means a higher state gas tax, Senate President Jack Kibbie said.

“It’s time to declare war on the potholes and put people to work,” said Kibbie, a Democrat from Emmetsburg. “I support efforts that result in a gas tax increase.”

That will mean better roads, jobs and an economic boost, he said.

Messenger: Keep funding for U.S. 20

The conservative editorial page of The Fort Dodge Messenger may be for fiscal restraint where other communities' projects are concerned. But the paper makes a case (and a good one) for moving ahead with funding of the four-laning of U.S. 20.

Despite the harsh financial realities 2009 poses, some long-term projects deserve to be pursued aggressively. Of particular importance are investments in the state's infrastructure that will yield benefits far into the future. A good example is the four-laning of U.S. Highway 20 statewide. This roadway is of enormous importance to the economic prospects of the counties in northern Iowa. Keeping this project moving forward as rapidly as possible is vital. There may be a temptation for legislators to allow highway projects to stall given the tight budgetary environment. That would be a mistake. If it is necessary to increase gasoline taxes a small amount to keep road construction on track, that should be given careful consideration. At the national level, the incoming Obama administration's apparent enthusiasm for infrastructure investments may provide an opportunity to help pay for some of these efforts with federal dollars. That also should be explored thoroughly.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Obama's 'Super Cabinet'

The Washington Post dissects Obama's developing 'super cabinet.'

Seeing the Hooters owl in the light of day



Whether in West Des Moines, Council Bluffs or Davenport, the mere presence of the fantastically unsubtle Hooters "restaurant" shouts a wallop of a cultural statement in the Hawkeye State: women are sexual objects, toys, things with which to be played and dominated.

No matter how thin you string the onion rings there's no getting around it: Hooters is a bordello lobby with barbeque, a strip club with wings, and increasingly, one wonders how the sex-as-universal-side for all orders flies in modernity.

Why bring this up now? Hooters isn't exactly new in the culture.

A disturbing story about domestic abuse that is only tangentially about Hooters nevertheless reveals the ugly side of the beach-themed purveyor of gut-buttressing foods and come-hither table service.

Think of it as spotting an owl at high noon.

A Rock Island, Ill., woman was barred from the Davenport Hooters where she worked because a wicked physical, and apparently domestic-violence-related, attack left her bruised and well under the "glamorous appearance" threshold required of the estimable Hooters girl.

"She probably would not be able to work because of her black eye and the bruises on her face," Davenport Hooters Manager Gina Sheedy said during an administrative hearing on benefits for the employee, according to The Des Moines Register. "Our handbook states you have to have a glamorous appearance. It doesn't actually say, 'Bruises on your face are not allowed.' It does talk about the all-American cheerleader look."

Hoosters surely isn't the only restaurant that doesn't want its wait staff showing up like a human monument of domestic violence.

But in defending its decision to keep the victim out of her cleavage-showcasing tight white shirts and orange shorts, the famous Hooters uniform, the shameless chain revealed just how ridiculous its family values market posturing is.

On its Web site, Hooters audaciously spotlights a photo of a family enjoying some wings and things. There's dad, with his best John-in-the-Lexus smile and just that hint of gray. And then they have all-American mom, drinking what appears to be a cola. After all, someone has to drive following this idolatry to the frontal female form.

But the Hooters excursion would be barren desert stuff, far short of full-flavored family fun, without the presence of the pre-teen son, who miraculously, in some real-world McLovin turn, seems to be captivating the Hooters waitress with witty banter in this promotional image.

Now, lasses, before you go dreaming of joining the ranks of Hooters girls, there, are, shall we say, standards.

Not any old Destiny, Amber or Savannah has the right stuff to be a "nearly" world famous Hooters girl.

Presumably, the company, Post 9/11, inserted that "nearly" caveat to account for nations in which it would be a beheading-worthy incident to parade around as Hooters girls.

Back to the standards.

"There is no set requirement in order to be a nearly World Famous Hooters Girl!," Hooters tells us on its Web site. "We look for the all-American cheerleader / surfer-girl-next-door image to fill our restaurants. In other words ... Very bubbly, outgoing personalities!"

I get the whole girl-next- door thing. But surfer girl? Admittedly, in western Iowa, we are not exposed to many surfing enthusiasts of the Kate Bosworth in "Blue Crush" variety. Regrettably, this is something with which we must make peace daily.

That said, I struggle to find wholesome, hometown girl elements under the lifestyle banner of "surfing" - a pursuit associated more with truancy, slackery and bong-huffing beach philosophizing than plucky Kate and the catchy Bananarama "Cruel Summer" remake that provides pitch-perfect atmospherics for her wave-piping ways

In a very detailed section of its Web site, full of photos and videos, all of which took me the last six hours to review for this column, Hooters offers a veritable anatomy course for women looking to make the life leap from a young lady interested in passing the bar to a teasy chick who hula-hoops around in one chasing tips.

At least street-corner pimps are up front and honest about their sex trafficking. They just get their whores addicted to drugs and promise to keep the fixes regular.

What's more, you can work with bruises.

(This originally appeared in The Carroll Daily Times Herald.)

Sarah Palin Takes On The Media

Former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is still taking on the media and bloggers.

She thinks the media had a hands-off policy with Barack Obama's kids and wife that didn't extend to her.

What's more, Palin talks about how her infamous Katie Couric interview didn't go so well.

Can the Midwest learn from Pittsburgh?



Having spent some time in Pittsburgh, I would rank it as one of the nicer, livable cities in the nation.

Not only that, but its economy is doing comparatively well as The New York Times points out today.

Perhaps struggling Midwestern cities can learn from The Burg. Here is The Times:

Deindustrialization in Pittsburgh was a protracted and painful experience. Yet it set the stage for an economy that is the envy of many recession-plagued communities, particularly those where the automobile industry is struggling for its life.

“If people are looking for hope, it’s here,” said Sabina Deitrick, an urban studies expert at the University of Pittsburgh. “You can have a decent economy over a long period of restructuring.”

Pittsburgh’s transition has been proceeding for decades in fits and starts, benefiting some areas much more than others. A development plan begun in the 1980s successfully used the local universities to pour state funds into technology research.

Entrepreneurship bloomed in computer software and biotechnology. Two of the biggest sectors are education and health care, among the most resistant to downturns. Prominent companies are doing well. Westinghouse Electric, a builder of nuclear reactors, expects to hire 350 new employees a year for the foreseeable future. And commercial construction, plunging in most places, is still thriving partly because of big projects like a casino and an arena for the Penguins hockey team.

Libertarians: We're Not Going to Spend Our Way to Economic Recovery

(From a news release ...)

Libertarian Party Slams Obama for Spending Proposals


WASHINGTON, D.C. – American's largest third party is calling plans by the incoming Obama administration a "multibillion-dollar boondoggle."

"We're not going to spend our way to economic recovery," says Andrew Davis, a spokesperson for the Libertarian Party. "You can't even call Obama's economic plans a gamble because the results are written in stone. We've tried this Keynesian experiment many times in the past, with no proven success. It's nothing but a multibillion-dollar boondoggle."

The Libertarian Party says that Obama's spending proposals, which include funding the largest public works program since the 1950s, will take too long to implement and don't pass a cost/benefit test.

"The best plan for economic recovery would be giving more money back to taxpayers in the form of tax cuts, which can increase consumer spending and increase job creation," says Davis. "It will also avoid the corruption and wastefulness of government spending—something that must be addressed at once if we expect to remain a free and prosperous nation."

"Public works projects, like those proposed by the Obama administration, will take too long to implement and many will cost far more than their economic benefit," Davis explains. "So, not only will the government be spending taxpayer money on wasteful projects, it be spending money during a time when economic relief is not needed. Conversely, tax cuts are always in season."

The Libertarian Party also warns that adding close to a trillion dollars in additional government spending to the budget will push the United States closer to financial ruin.

"Elected officials don't like to talk about the reality of government spending because it's not an issue that gets them reelected, especially when they will be long-gone before it comes time to pay the piper." says Davis. "However, we've reached an event horizon in spending that if government doesn't immediately begin to cut its programs, the only option will be massive tax increases unlike Americans have ever seen."

Davis says the government's focus should be on permanent and significant tax cuts. "However, any tax cuts absolutely have to be offset by a reduction in government spending, or else we're merely asking for higher taxes in the future," Davis explains. "We must not make the same mistakes of the Bush administration, which cut taxes, but also dramatically increased government spending."

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Lefty trolls hit Palin site with indefensible tactics

The Weekly Standard carries a disturbing piece about how liberal bloggers, apparently posing as racists and working in concert, trolled a pro-Sarah Palin Web site and posted vile items in attempt to discredit her base of support as racist.

It was an ugly and unnecessary tactic. Having covered a Palin event in Sioux City at which U.S. Rep. Steve King spoke, trust me, there was enough real-world bigotry to hang on Team Palin without the Web lefties having to resort to Watergate-style politics.

Yes, 2008 was historic

By Donald Kaul

I’m sure there have been worse years than 2008; I just can’t think of one right now.

Bad enough that the economy fell into a hole the bottom of which we have not yet seen, it has also become apparent that we are at the mercy of thieves and swindlers.

Ted Stevens of Alaska, then the longest serving Republican Senator, was found guilty of illegally accepting favors (a doubling of his house) from a contractor who did business with the government. Really, a two-bit bribe for someone charged with moving hundreds of millions of taxpayers’ dollars around. It makes you wonder what we didn’t find out about.

Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, once considered an up-and-coming star in the Democratic Party, was caught on tape talking about auctioning a U. S. Senate seat to the highest bidder.

Bernard Madoff, a genuine certified lion of Wall Street who thrilled hundreds of rich investors with the returns he produced on the money they gave him, was found to be a miserable fraud, as empty of substance as the Wizard of Oz and a very bad man besides. His worst offense was the damage done to charities that trusted their funds to him, money that was supposed to provide for the needy in many cases. But almost as serious was the stoking of the fires of anti-Semitism that his crookedness inspired, reinforcing the ugly stereotype of the dishonest, money-grubbing Jew.

It was a year when we saw legislators with platinum-plated government health insurance upbraid auto executives for giving workers gold-plated health plans.

When we saw investment bankers and other Wall Street brigands dipping into the federal treasury for billions of dollars to stave off collapse, all the while paying themselves handsome bonuses for their good work.

It was a year in which a billion became the new million. As recently as September our political candidates were still talking in terms of millions, as though that were real money. If a thing cost $100 million, well, that was too expensive. We couldn’t afford it. Then the economy went south and overnight the term “millions” became so yesterday. When the auto companies came to Washington looking for cash, they didn’t ask for $100 million to tide them over until payday---$35 billion was the number---and they weren’t the only ones. No problem it seemed could be addressed for less than $30 billion, not even as a stopgap.

Having agreed with the consigning of perhaps a trillion dollars or more to do nothing more than apply a tourniquet to our hemorrhaging economy, President-elect Obama has announced he’ll pour hundreds of billions more into the task of jump-starting it.

Will any of it work? No one really knows. It doesn’t seem right though, does it? Excessive borrowing got us into this mess in the first place; now we expect excessive borrowing will get us out.

They’re making money in the old-fashioned way these days; they print it. (Many of the geniuses counseling Obama, by the way, are the same geniuses who didn’t see the train coming until it hit them.)

All this borrowing means we’re saddling our children and grandchildren and their children and grandchildren with a mountainous debt that they will have to repay someday; the theory being that it’s better to do that than leave them with a bombed-out, burned up economy where no one can earn a living.

For now we’re left wondering whether we can count on our jobs, our pensions, our retirement accounts, our health insurance or even the ability of our children to get an education and/or job.

We had learned to take those things for granted but we can’t anymore and it’s damned scary. The threads of trust that bound us together as a society have been broken, one by one.

President Obama’s biggest job will be to reweave that web of trust along with its correlatives, confidence and optimism.

If he can do that, he’s going up on Mt. Rushmore.

(This is distributed by Minuteman Media)