Aurevoir, Lovely May. Hello Summer

Being a tad “domestically disabled,” I was intensely grateful for the warm weather just before Memorial Day, which launched the bloom boom—a florid floral display that successfully diverted attention from my less-than-stellarly housecleaned house. Rah, yeah, May!!! The Memorial weekend house guests never noticed, as they spent most of the time in the yard/garden.

Now, the pinks and peonies and daisies have replaced the lilacs and daffodils, baseball has begun, the pool set to open, I am inundated with spinach and summer is in full swing. My work is cut out for me. Well, in addition to mowing, which makes me a tad schizoid: always praying for rain, I end up cursing it. Rain=frequent mowing. In addition to mowing, I have a king size quilt and my Margaret Chew Monologue on John Yates Beall, Cascade's Civil War spy to finish by fall.

The research has taken me most of the winter and is not yet done, and when it took 2 months to finish his memoir, I also began to wonder, but the shank of it is the legal proceeding that condemned him to death. Legal papers from last week can be daunting, those from the Civil War!

Sometimes you need to train a critical eye on yourself. I see with all the work, I will not be posting to this blog as frequently, but I will be checking on city council as it squanders $8,000 to Callahan Consultants looking for a new administrator, when there is a perfectly good candidate sitting in the clerk's seat.

Who Would Have Thought. . .

that one of the coldest winters on record followed by a dreary, overcast spring could have given us this abundant exuberant Memorial weekend: the lilacs are still in bloom, as are the lilies of the valley, likewise some  flowering trees; the bridal wreath have just begun, also the iris.

My early garden diligence was rewarded yesterday—fresh French breakfast radishes for breakfast, spinach, mustard and arugula for lunch and dinner.

The wonders spring are upon us. All at once! One hardly needs a critical eye to appreciate this.

Our Gal Sal—Iowa High Ed Corruption

            Thanks to a recent Chronicle of Higher Education survey, Iowans now know the extent of compensation and the resultant value for money the state is receiving from University of Iowa President Sally Mason. She appeared at No. 5 on a list of top compensated public university CEOs making a total of $1.1 million.

It’s not as if paying our gal Sal so much has given us a better institution. The university made another dubious list—Rutgers Top Party Schools. It came in No. 2. (www.collegeatlas.org/top-party-schools.html)

            This goes a long way to explaining why many middle class young Iowans are being priced out of college—her combo salary and bonuses are twice the average public college president. The American CEO model (paying company presidents many times what the average worker) has been a portion of the vanishing-American-middle-class story, but you’d think a university would have the wit, wisdom and will to buck the trend. Many European countries have outpaced the U.S. in upward mobility and social welfare parameters control factors like CEO salaries and benies. And their young people attend college free!

            Not that anybody blames ole Sal for getting all she can. Blame the Board of Regents and the  Governor who appointed them, content to raise tuition (most years). We can only speculate about what Sal’s salary does for morale among the professors. Never mind, Bruce Rastetter essentially bought the head regent seat by donating $234,000 to Branstad’s campaign.

            If Iowa students were the only losers here, it would be bad enough, but they are not. The Regents have gradually withdrawn funding from Iowa Public Radio, so every single Iowan who wants in-depth news and thoughtful programing loses. When news organizations sell advertising and solicit support news coverage is compromised.

IPR has more and more “underwriting,” thinly disguised ads.Late winter and early spring IPR ran a raft of these from the Iowa Pork Producers. How will that affect stories about hog confinements and manure spills?

Every Critical Eye in the state should write the people who installed our Gal Sal. Nothing like displeasure on paper.

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City TV

           

            The Open Meetings law is NOT a new dilemma in Cascade, though a senior citizen admitted that he didn't recall then-Mayor Clay Gavin filing suit on the rest of council over off-the-record meetings and agreements in the early 90s.

            Gavin hired a lawyer out of his own pocket, lost the case, and has not run for city office since. He confided to me at the time that  his lawyer told him judges don't like to interfere in local politics. Or sentiments to that effect.

            Councilman Bill Hosch's efforts to force meeting notifications and recording minutes may lead to more front-end openness, but unfortunately probably NOT less policy made by the city oligarchy.

            It was noteworthy that during the discussion of Mr. Hosch's consultation with the city attorney Mayor Henry made certain that the law didn't require meetings be televised. I can see why: this allows  committee and council members to come to meetings with policies, i.e. the grocery store, buying Reiff Ambulance, sidewalk expenditures, or infrastructure already formulated in private. So ones like mine for a city market never get considered.

             At an early Sidewalk Committee meeting we were presented a figure of $50,000, told this is what council would accept, (How was that ascertained?) and my efforts to call that figure into question since have been shut down decisively. If committee meetings were televised (as the Council that installed the system intended), more ideas could be considered. Mayor Henry is undoubtedly correct that many too expensive and unworkable plans would be the result. That's democracy.

            We all know people don't have time for more meetings; we need to get into the modern era and televise every one that considers city ANY business.

No Magnolias

Now that the leaves are emerging on my magnolia tree, one may conclude it will not bloom this spring. Neither did the forsythia. This is my own fault, I warrant, the basic-roses-in-winter fixation of the human race. Shakespeare warned against it in Love's Labour Lost:

At Christmas I no more desire a rose
Than wish a snow in May's new-fangled mirth;
But like of each thing that in season grows.
The grass-is-greener/prettier elsewhere and malcontent nature of the human race, wants magnolias, azaleas and rhododendron and other beauties not native to this place, but Mother Nature likes to remind us that this is lilac country.

Forewarned is forearmed, but even a high Critical Eye Q probably can't protect against the foibles and fallibilities of human nature. Today, love the lilacs.

Company Hype as News?

Yesterday's 40th anniversary of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo, downwind of us & north of Cedar Rapids, was an occasion of much back patting & self-congratulation bv NextEra, the owner. Naturally, the ole Gov Branstad got into the act lauding the place as a “terrific asset. . .delivering clean, emissions-free energy. . .”

A press release you can read at www.marketwarch.com touts a 2011 study showing that Duane Arnold has a $250 million impact on the local economy providing high-paying, high tech jobs, undeniably a good thing, while providing 8% of Iowa's energy.

Though “emissions-free” is a bit of a stretch, isn't it? Sure, there are no airborne emissions, but the 500-lb gorilla in the place is spent nuclear fuel, which lasts practically to perpetuity. And is not even alluded to in any of the reports.

Such discrepancies make a critical eye cringe. But news these days seems so often such company hype. Ronald McDonald comes to grade school to talk about qualities that count—trustworthiness, respect, responsibility & fairness. Yeah, the company largely responsible for the obesity epidemic! That one often hears defrauding workers of their wages—as if $7.25 is a fair wage! Come on, Ronnie, give us a break!

The Promise of Spring

Weather people keep promising us an inch of rain; Sat. last I had 1/10, Sun. another 1/10^th, and Mon. a smidge over 2/10s. For rain gauge half-full folks, we are closing in on half an inch!

In view of the temps Tues. night I don't know if it was wise to take the flannel sheets off the beds, but I did. The asparagus is in, but we'll probably have to make soup, it is so cool. Covered the cabbage with milk cartons last night, but there was no frost, only a flirt with it, and I had better keep them handy.

Iowa Climate honchos—that would be the folks responsible for keeping our sewer & water lines running—well, not ours, but the multitudes in the states'sin big cities—are meeting in Des Moines to plan strategies for colder cold snaps and hotter hot ones. They will need more than milk cartons & flannel sheets.

Any critical eye who wants to survey a situation where no decision/action has rendered a far thornier outcome likely has no farther to go than climate change. Since the sixties, people from Rachel Carson to the Prince of Wales including most of the scientific community have warned us, but we can't seem to change. This much is certain—the climate is!!!

The Horrors & Rewards of Housecleaning

You probably already guessed: I hate housecleaning. My heroine is my sister, Colleen; she housecleans less than me. In fact, she tries to avoid it altogether—just moves, often to a foreign country, throws everything out but the kids' projects and starts over.

I have Cleaning Mimi friends whose diligence I admire: they clean their closets twice  a year and get rid of the things they don't wear. I try to clean mine once a decade.
“Decadent!” you say, and you are undoubtedly right.

But once-a-decade-closet cleaning-has advantages. While admittedly cobwebby, my closets resemble vintage clothing stores. Now that bell bottoms are passe, I needn't spend $ on straight-legged. I just go into the back of my closet and haul out a pair I bought in Berlin in 1999. Memories are made of this!

There is another advantage here that is not as apparent—those old clothes are size 8 and 10 and in sometimes tighter than the 4's and 6's you buy now. If you keep your old duds you are far more likely to go on a good spring diet and stay in them!!!

Critical Eye says a cobweb never killed anybody!!!

They Say You Become Your Mother,

but I have a hard time believing it.

Helen Callahan McDermott, my mother, who has been dead for over a quarter century, was about the obverse of me. Her preferred method of socializing was card playing, especially with people she didn't appreciate because the conversation centered on the cards and it was easier to steer away from dicey discussions. I dislike cards because there is more than enough we should discuss, and I feel if this is a free country, it purports to be we should be able to talk openly.

Put up or shut up—the kind of thing Helen would never say.

My mother's other outstanding characteristics were in the personal responsibility and constantcy categories. She wouldn't go to Bingo at the Legion to because it cost 50 cents and that was the price of a pound of hamburger then, and she worried we ate too little meat. For the same reason she did not buy cigarettes or liquor, though I never saw her turn down a smoke or a beer. Valuable lesson in values, moderation, toughness, self-discipline, and a variety of other characteristics. Of her five kids nobody is addicted to anything. . .

Casting a critical eye on the comparison, perhaps I am wrong. Only someone with a mentor like Helen would have the fiber to write what I write, say what I say. Happy Mother's Day and thanks Mom wherever you are this Mother Day 2014.

Recognizing a Remarkable War

Vietnam Vet Recognition Day.

Vietnam veterans experienced combat every bit as real, frightful, lethal, and certifiably more chemical than any that preceded it. But that's not all that should be recognized.

Five or 6 years ago, I subbed in a History class. They were studying Vietnam and reading The Things They Carried, by Tim O'Brien. The teacher had asked me to say a few words about the Peace Movement. Having lived through that remarkable war—the only one in the history of mankind stopped by the citizens—I was pleased to.

Picked up the text that a.m. to review the dates and got the shock of my life! The illustration on intro to chapter featured a soldier wearing both a peace sign and dog tags! The text explained that the U.S. military was poised to win the war when the anti-war movement intervened and the politicians were forced to half it. Massive protests in the streets of major cities, Kent State, etc.

The military learned a valuable lesson: it should not undertake any conflict without having the people on board first. Thus, massive PR campaigns have preceded both Gulf Wars. The people can stop a bogus war, but seem to have forgotten their own power.

The most remarkable aspect of the most remarkable war in the history of mankind should be front and center in every Critical political, military, and personal Eye, a pattern for every war.

Friend Weekend

Friends: the folks who love and admire you for what the wider world disparages you. They require no pretense, as they already know the truth and love you anyway. One of the genuine joys of age is the privilege of having friends who have known you in all your incarnations—in my case from fatuous college freshman, through international publisher, ESL/English teacher, to country woman/writer.

One showed up this weekend—my NYC college roommate Ms. Costello. We stopped by Mt. Carmel and took one of our teachers to lunch, to River Lights Bookstore, and the Dubuque Chorale's Let the River Run concert, which featured two Cascaders, Sr. La Donna Manternach and Alyce Dolphin, who acquitted themselves admirably.

We were impressed at the well-rehearsed excellence of the chorus, choice of music, expression of the river theme and overall color and execution. Eastern Iowa looked not only green and gorgeous, but fertile and cultivated enough to pass New York muster.

My cinco de mayo birthday feels very special indeed, serendipity of critical success.

Fortunate & Un- Failures

It looks like the Bullying Bill languished and expired in the Iowa Legislature.
A fortunate failure, in that there are far cheaper means to address the issue, & no guarantee that a 1/2 million-dollar bullying office in Des Moines would remedy it. The Governor Brandstad's bullying style will be with us for a while yet. The Democrats & Wanna-Be Governor Hatch are making hay with his firing of workers. It seems a tad excessive on both sides, but then that's politics and the critical eye wonders this Friday morning how we should expect much of a positive nature from this shameful game. Like fairness to the underdog.
The most unfortunate failure has to be Senator Harkin's to float a bill to raise the minimum wage, to to $15, which would help the middle class regain some of the parity it has lost in the last 30 years. (Tho' Seattle is bringing forward such a measure.) But the 1% benefiting from keeping workers below a living wage has no compunctions.

Definitely keep a critical eye on them!!!