T's Mexican Stove
Just couldn't resist sharing this colorful kitchen stove a friend from Dubuque built in the house where he's living in Puebla, Mexico. Clearly, covering it with local, hand-painted tiles, he has made it something more than utilitarian. The Critical Eye is not sure it will make cooking any less onerous if you have worked all day, but it could be a step in the right direction!

Reading the Weather Writing on the Wall

Spring has theoretically sprung, but the robins are reluctant—more grackles than harbingers of spring in my yard. Undaunted and enticed by the bright sun, I hopped on my bike: rode south to main street and then due west, but when I turned north, winter blasted me and my face was froze when I arrived at my destination on Claddagh hill. Perfect time/place for a Sunday morning Bloody Mary!

Someone with perhaps more insight called this one at the Club Saturday night: no spring this year, we will launch right into summer. OK. Open the pool! They might be right.

Talking about the Weather

Two balmy days have banished our archipelagos of snow. Only very low and shaded spots sport it now. Thur. & Fri were the first days warm enough to take the Christmas lights down. Skis, shovels, and ice cracker tools are stashed anticipating spring, but according to the weather folks, nix this weekend.

Frankly, I ought to be too embarrassed to bring it up; the body politic has far greater worries. Somebody—the media or us, who knows?—is fixated on a lost Malaysian Airlines plane, and we have put $2.5 million into the search even though there doesn't seem to be a single American aboard.

Somebody wrote my political mailbox encouraging me to vote and donate to keep the NRA from intimidating Democratic senators. Dems and Republicans alike, they are so concerned about money for reelection campaigns they are incapable of doing what their constituents' want, which effectively means democracy is dead in this country.

Americans, critical or not, have a lot more to talk about than the weather.

Skype Question from Abroad Hits V. Close to Home

A discomforting question this week from an old Berlin buddy, Eva-Marie. Though she turns 90 next month and laments she can no longer read (lamentable because she was a literature teacher), but she can still ride her bike! I Skype her every month or so to hear her news and keep my Deutsch from falling to ruins. The Politzei stopped her recently and asked her why she was riding so fast. I am confident she replied suitably exasperated, “Because I am in a HURRY!!!”

So this week Eva-Marie wants to know, “Mensch! Was macht der Obama da?I thought he cared about democracy and self-determination and such. Why isn't he the one calling for elections in Crimea? I mean, most of the people there are Russian and want to be part of Russia. When did they ever get 96% vote for anything in the U.S?”

I concede, “Not in recent memory,” and plead, “Well, it's all Khrushchev's fault for giving the Crimea to Ukraine anyway.”

“Aber, was macht Obama jetzt?”

A critical eye must admit when an action is indefensible no matter who else approves it.

Inequality for All – A Film Review of Middle Class/Immigrant Reality

Of late my mailbox has been full of invites to view Robert Reich's new film Inequality for All. Reich, in case you don't remember him, was Bill Clinton's labor secretary who left for an economics prof-ship at Stanford. More than a little disgruntled, undoubtedly, because ole Billy's pro-biz policies resulted the 90's portion of the demise of the American middle class.

I downloaded the film the other night and recommend it highly. Reich's numbers and charts rivet. Likewise, his bottom line warning—no country can be great without a middle class. The U.S. is approaching feudal with 1% of the population receiving half the reward of the national productivity.

When he enumerates the various reasons for the morbidity of the American middle class—1)globalization, 2)technology and 3) the demise of unions—Reich neglects to note what has done unions in: immigration.

As recently as the middle of last month, workers at a Tennessee VW plant voted down a union, though management encouraged instituting it! This does not surprise me as I have lived in Germany, where workers are unionized and unions have a far greater say in business and education. However, immigrants from disadvantaged countries have no such standards and their desperation and willingness to work for even a non-living wage is destroying the very country they have fled to.

A critical eye doesn't accept its favorites uncritically either.

Bring on Spring!

Another dreary day, islands of dirty snow in open lots and along driveways. One disgusted looking robin surveying the scene from a pile in my front yard may have gone back where he came from. Winter just won't shove off!

No matter, get your bike out anyway. Grand to feel the wind in your hair even if it's a bit chilly. After -30 in January, we're all tough!

As a mode of travel, the bicycle stands head and shoulders above all others: Walking is too slow; running too jarring, cars and trucks too fast, noisy, and polluting, air travel is nasty on all fronts and getting worse by the day.

But biking—now there's the way to go. You sit up above the fray so you can see everything and arrive at your destination quickly. It's not only fine exercise but unlike walking and running, far easier on the joints. You can check out the river as you hurtle down the town hill, hear and see the birds—when they finally land.

So spit in winter's eye—get the bike out, and keep a critical eye out for sand until the city gets the streets swept.

Give the Devil His Due

A story we never dreamed we have to report, certainly not so soon: Late last week Toby Donovan was re-arrested for violating the explicit no contact order that was one of the main provisions of his parole. Only he will be surprised when the judge throws the book at him. Cascade may have accustomed him to indulgence. Dubuque County Prosecuting Chris Corken told Critical Eye Monday afternoon that she will be filing two additional charges lodged that morning.

The U.S. Army blew its chance to give the devil due and make a major statement on sexual crimes rampant within its ranks. It could have thrown the book at General Jeffrey Sinclair by prosecuting him. Instead, he was allowed plead to lesser charges and receive a reduction in rank. Arguably, pedophilia is a different class of crime owing to the vulnerability of its victim, but sexual coercion of women is rampant in the military. No mystery why either. The command structure keeps subordinates vulnerable, perhaps not as children, but the men in control like it that way. Which is why I could never figure out why women wanted in the military so badly because the danger—the power structure—is obviously diabolical.

An even mildly critical eye should have seen all this coming. Shame on. . .

Down the River Forever

Have you, like me, always wondered how it was possible that half of Iowa's topsoil has ended up down the river?  How we lose 3, 4 or 5 tons a year?
According to a recent article in Mother Jones that you can read at http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2014/02/iowas-vaunted-farms-are-losing-topsoil-alarming-rate topsoil erosion has increased sixteen times.
The new  culprit is climate change. But some of the old culprits are still with us and at work. I drove by field the other day and snow on the west side of it was black with dirt that had been blown there since the snow melted in the field.
The Mother Jones article describes a brand new and more vigorous sort of erosion in the wake of the drought of 2012 and wettest spring on record that followed in 2013. Making sustainable farming more important than ever.

Something so glaring we shouldn't need a critical eye to see!

The Joys of Memory & Stuff Loss

As we were leaving town Sunday to take him to the airport, the newly-retired Denver brother observed that he probably left something.  
We all assured him, no matter, we would send it post-haste. 
Whereupon he replied, "Don't bother. I probably won't even remember I owned it, and more likely I don't even need it!!!

No kidding! A shrewd reflection on most stuff thinks Critical Eye.

Critical Eye Quizzes City Administrator

Critical Eye called up Cascade City Administrator Tim Long this morning and asked him, "If we impeached the mayor, would you stay?"
He fell out laughing in a way that let me know I had hit a nail bang on.
Actually, my purpose was to thank him for the thoughtful way he did his job here. It takes a while to know how honest an administrator is, and I was beginning to decide I liked Mr. Long a lot.
I explained that by the time we got the measure of our last administrator, he had done immeasurable damage, and his "mistakes" were nothing but lies that benefited the powers that be. When Randy Lansing left left, I wrote a letter to the editor of the paper where he was going and told them what they were getting in terms of what he left us with.
Which I told Mr. Long, who chuckled and replied, "Well, the next administrator is going to have to deal with that." Which tells me a whole lot more even than my original question.

A Critical Eye Q asks lots of questions.

RIP Glitz

Good thing I sub in high school occasionally or I might be running around in bling or bell bottoms, both of which are fashion faux pas these days.  Trust me, it’s easy to get on watch list of the fashion police.

Judging from the high school set, glitz is out. Gone. A good thing because it is rumored that the St. Matthias in Cascade had to replace its pews because metal rhinestone settings gouged holes in the old ones.

Glitz on jeans back pockets was an unfortunate trend not only in terms of pews and chairs—it drew a lot of attention to wide behinds--but the newest trend is little better--tight to the ankle, pastel jeans. The bells at the bottom balanced the behinds visually.
The top half of the newest vogue will make us schizoid. We have been vamping in faux leopard & glitz for the past few years. If the high schoolers, who are always on the front edge of fashion, are correct, the opposite is in—pastels, lace, gauzy fabric, softly falling rather than form-fitting.

One day we look like street walking ladies of the night, the next day we are dressing up like baby dolls. Now, is it any wonder we’re schizoid?

Ole Oscar Wilde had the ultimate critical eye observing that the reason fashion changes so often is that it is basically its ugly. The holy grail is still authentic personal style.

Makes One Wonder

Stumbled on some pix of downtown Damascus, Syria, a very interesting city I visited in 2006, when I was teaching in nearby Turkey.

Sad to look at these images of  the central city market and a city square with a statue of Saladin. One can only wonder what they look like now.