Shame—Much Needed Private AA?

The other morning, going out the road, my walking partner scoffed loudly and observed, “I am so disgusted with myself, I ate so-o-o much last night.. .”

I had to laugh. “You aren't alone in overeating, but you may alone in being ashamed of it!”

A couple summers back, the science types, came out with a “major diet revelation.” Women who have fitness buddies, thin friends and relatives manage to stay thinner themselves.

Duh, to the science types telling us what we already know. Women, but I bet a few men as well, share both the positive and negative aspects of weight control—approval for positive acts, weight loss. and good food choices as well as the negative—expressions and disgust and shame over “falling off the wagon.” A kind of informal, private AA!

Critical Eye desperately does not want to return to a time, when the shame ruled and certain individuals (i.e. “retarded, crippled”etc. ) were secreted at home and could not appear in public—even in church. However, one can't help but wonder if the public dismantling of shame ethic over everything from private peccadilloes (think Anthony Wiener) to out-of-wedlock pregnancies, to fat has benefited American society.

Leveling the Playing Field. . .Positive?

The best laid plans of mice, men and women. . .so they say.

That certainly applies to Title IX of the Civil Rights Act. It prohibits discrimination against women in education from kindergarten to post grad.

The most profound effect, however, by far has been in sports. Especially at the high school and college level—girls'/women's participation in sports has increased 900%. Spending on sports at high schools and colleges has increased proportionately.
I would have given a discreet number of body parts to have played high school basketball, but the only physical activity that was open to girls was cheerleading. Which is jumping up and down and screaming your head off​, a made-to-order activity for the oldest in a family dealing with the father's death and her mother's reoccurring TB.

Of late, I have made the acquaintance of a woman who did what you had to do if you wanted to play girl's basketball in Cascade—enroll in Monticello High School. Then I would have envied her green and changed places with her in a heartbeat. Now, not so much.

She spends lots of time in doc's offices dealing with the effects of excessive physical activity, and I am counting my blessings, as I cast a critical eye at the parade of girls in high schools wearing ace bandages and on crutches. The competition has become more intense and I cannot believe it benefits young women. Moderate exercise is essential, excessive exercise will haunt a kid her entire life.

Teary Amish Visit

Made my annual trek up to Amish Country north of Independence3 yesterday.

They had had 5 inches of rain in a couple hours earlier this week and when we turned onto the gravel, it was apparent from the mud and debris that the river had been up over the bridge and road. Low spots in corn fields stood in water as did wide swaths of pasture along the river.

Amish gardens are admirable—far fewer weeds than mine—the consummate eat-what-you-grow ethic. If outdoors, Amish women are weeding, hanging clothes or this time of year picking berries. If in Miller's Store, they are likely after what I am after—pectin. Costing almost $2 for 3 ounces in local stores makes canning jelly and jam impossibly dear. I bought 32 oz. For less than $6 along with bulk oatmeal, peanuts, and an array of spices, garlic salt, etc.

I adore Amish country. Not just the quilts, bonnets, horses and buggies. One spies the odd hand-lettered sign, addressed to state road crews “Do Not Spray.” nailed to wooden to fence posts. The fields are smallish, there is pasture land and trees that signal a balanced agriculture of animals and crops, rather than the landscape denuded of trees to create the largest fields possible ignoring the effects of erosion, no crop rotation or nitrogen runoff.

Amish country always leaves me with a tear in the Critical Eye—lamenting the respect for the land is so rare in most of the rest of Iowa, and wondering if what I see there is only possible in a religious context.

Pill Pushers Prefs?

My bud on Claddagh Court. gets a glowing bill of health—praise from the doc. He takes a handful of pills every day, insulin shots and to the frig is the longest walk he takes.

The doc whines to me about my cholesterol. I take the odd aspirin, spend an hour on average a day in the garden, ride my bike everywhere I go in this burg, mow, walk, and eat the greens I grow in the garden.

Critical Eye wonders if this little picture isn't writ large across the entire American health system and its companion industries big ag and industrial food. So here we are, spending more med money on life style choice illness than almost any other.

Extremely Revealing Conversation. . .

with Councilman Kearney after the pool meeting Monday night.
He expressed his unhappiness about the fissure on council and asked what I made of Mr Hosch's actions. I said, as I have blogged and to the Pioneer editor: “I consider this open meetings question a perennial problem that goes all the way back to Clay Gavin's days as mayor.”

The large number of 10-15 minute meetings was proof things were being decided elsewhere and often in advance. Mr. Kearney seemed taken aback and told me that he was elected because the people thought he could walk, talk and chew gum at the same time. He went on to intimate that not every decision could or should be made in a meeting.

I insisted, "It damn well better be because otherwise people smell a rat!

A less than critical eye could have taken umbrage, concluded that Kearney was dissing me—I was running at the same time, but he doesn't strike me as petty. He has made a large, typical male error of concluding that winning an election is tantamount to carte blanche. It is not, & Mr. Hosch is doing us all a favor insisting that public business be done publicly.

Response: Regent Robert Downer

Thur. May 22, I posted a long blog criticizing University of Iowa President Sally Mason, but unsure that I have any Board of Regents blog readers,, I sent them it. (They make the decision.)

From Regent Robert Downer I received the following:“Whoever coined the phrase 'Lies, damned lies and statistics' must have had in mind the "analysis" that determined that Sally Mason had the fifth highest compensation of any U.S. public university president.  She was given this ranking only because a 5-year deferred compensation agreement vested in 2013, which required that she serve in the position for five years to be able to receive anything.  Had she voluntarily left the position even one day early she would have received nothing.  I am certainly not arguing that President Mason is not well paid, but this ranking is a snapshot and is not indicative of her compensation since she became President of the University of Iowa on August 1, 2007.”

I wrote back, thanked Downer sincerely for his response observing that such chunk payments should probably NEVER be made to public officials precisely because they  might lead to misinterpretation.  One-time payment or no, I have long objected to the disparity between university remuneration and difficulty of affording college as an imitation of the American CEO model, which has been a major factor in the demise of the American Middle Class. In some cases, CEOs make hundreds of times what their workers do.

Of course, business is business, primarily responsible to the bottom line, and despite what the Supreme Court would have us believe, not persons capable of moral choices, especially requiring self-sacrifice.  However, by its very nature, one expects more responsible, intellectually defensible behavior from the university.

A critical eye tries to interrelate current trends and ideas.

Summertime, & the Livin' is. . .

Whoever said “easy” didn't have a garden, a yard, flowers, etc. At least not the size of mine. Spent a chunk of yesterday removing the volunteer daisies. One shouldn't complain—they were exceedingly lovely and planted themselves, so no work on the front end either.

Doing “plows” in the garden (a yoga move, bending in half from the waist with your feet suspended over your head) is what pulling weeds is standing up, so gardening is actually as good or perhaps better exercise than yoga. Not to mention the spinach, radishes, lettuce and arugula these cooler temps have brought us.

Saw on the Internet that George Bush, Sr. turned 90; they were throwing him a “bash.” There is a guy who deserves a couple bashes. My Netflix choice brought me a 1990's documentary this week: Enron—the Smartest Guys in the Room. Not “the smartest,” but the most corrupt. Both Geo Bush father & son were involved in that , and a lot of other people suffered, lost jobs, stock value, etc. A nice bash for both Bushes!

Critical Eye has discovered that film documentary is a convenient, easy device for keeping track of stuff we shouldn't forget.

Merci & Many Thanx to the McD Organizers

Already Wednesday! 
So I am already amiss not thanking the organizers of the McD Family Reunion last Sat. in Placid.  I was not able to make the previous (2012) one, but was glad I did this one. Especially because I found the illustrated posters of the of Priscilla and James's offspring absorbing and informative. Geneology often bedevils me because it is difficult to conceptualize the individuals, as there are seldom descriptions to distinguish them. All the names start sounding the same, in fact, sometimes are.  (I.e. Two Vincent McDs) The posters made a compelling and easy-to=conceptualize overview.

Likewise, compliments to one and all for the lunch.  The Irish have a rather marginal, potato-ridden reputation for cuisine, but the extant McDermotts have risen above it with great skill and in some cases, one suspects, impressive gardens.  
 

Nice when I critical eye is impressed with its relatives!!!!

Dynamite ?

Am beginning to think that a 2 or 3 strategically placed sticks of dynamite may well be the only answer to the intransigence on Cascade City Council!

We are worse than broke with no choice but to expand sewer plant thanks to inept planning. Long-time administrator Lansing was a great one for economic development, which outpaced the capacity of the sewer plant. Cities are sitting ducks because the DNR can measure every drop we do-do in the river. Farmers get by with it because the DNR can't collar them easy as us.

Now, up to our eyeballs in capital projects, it sounds like another one is on deck—renovations to the pool. I complained last year when unnecessary amounts of cement were laid down. There is a joint Council-Park Board meeting to be held next Monday, June 16^th to discuss them. Will they tear out cement installed last year to expand?

Anybody interested in making sure no more projects are undertaken before we get the ones in the works paid for, should be there. Ready to swear.

A critical eye knows when enough's enough.

Give the River Back

            Heard a worrisome idea proposed the other day: a farm group spokesman promoting enlarging the locks on the Mississippi to facilitate larger shipments of grain and farm products to world markets. The spokesman complained that problem of 80-year-old, undersized locks and dams, “impacts every farmer.”

            His proposed solution, enlarging them will impact more than farmers, however. He wants the federal government to pay half the multimillion-dollar cost of the project. Yup. Me 'n You. Taxpayers. He made the suggestion shamelessly, as if it is not already a national scandal federal payments going to the biggest farms, corporate ag, whom you can bet your booty are the biggest beneficiaries. 

            The spokesman did not mention who would do this, but you can bet it will be the Army Corps of Engineers. The other thing he did not breathe a word of was the impact of this grand idea on the environment, the river itself. This national resource has already been so greatly altered, it is a fair bet the Indians living along it two hundred years ago wouldn't recognize it.

            Any remotely critical eye/ear will conclude, “Nuff already!”

Cascade's Philomena Connection--Recalling Josie

You probably heard about Cascade's Philomena connection. I saw the film the other night, and anything with Judy Dench in it is excellent. Of course, Philomena's Irish son was adopted by Josie Lane's daughter, married to a dentist in Rockford, IL. I can't claim to have ever met him or the even the daughter, but I am eternally grateful to old Josie, who lived across from Cascade Elementary until the late 1970's.

I was long gone to Clarke, CA and Denver by then, but when I was a kid, 8 or 10, she used to hire me to pull weeds from the petunia border along the curved sidewalk to her back door. Josie also hired me to do dishes after her family left. She was a grandmother several times over, and would tell me anxious tales about her grandson who was a hemophiliac. “You know what that is, don't you?”

“Like a maniac?”

Vocabulary was the least of what I learned from Josie Lane. She exuded art and style and let me watch her paint. She did one of the bishop's (Most Rev. Dr. Loras T. Lane) coat of arms. I'd probably call it garish and ugly now, but she had taken apart some of her jewelry to glitz it up a bit, and I thought it was magnificent.

Doing her dishes when the family came was a trial and a tribulation. You had to have separate water for the glasses, (I know now must have been real crystal) silverware, real silver, and dishes, bone China. I was panic-stricken about breaking something. My favorite things in her house, which I adored, were a glass lamp shade that is still there and I warrant, a Tiffany and a white sheepskin that was on the landing to her stairwell. Long gone.

Years later, Fall 2006 to be exact, I was in an open market in Damascus, Syria and saw just such sheepskin. I ran into the stall and bought it without questioning or dickering, which also befuddles men in that part of the world, but it was ole Josie Lane I was thinking of.

I'd give the critical eye out of my head—the one with the cataract—to be able sit, chat and watch ole Josie Lane paint and talk. RIP Josie!

In Deep Dark Debt, & Up the Creek

without the proverbial paddle is Cascade city with Clerk Shelley Annis, leaving to take a position at Williamsburg.

I know I am not alone in suspecting Mayor Henry is responsible for the loss of two good and one excellent employee—a decent cop, whose sexual orientation wasn't to his liking, a city administrator, whose MO didn't suit the Mayor's fancy, and now, a reliable clerk of almost a decade.

Of course, the mayor doesn't deserve all the credit. He couldn't have pulled it off without the votes of his ole boy clones on council: Staner, Kearney and now Ed Recker, who would rather squander $8,000 plus with Callahan to hire an administrator we don't need anyway, than give a woman who has proven herself honest and competent a chance.Of course, nobody blames Shelley. YOU GO, Girl!!!

This is a democracy and we get what we vote for, though you can't always know.  I enthusiastically voted for Pat Kearney. Having known him since we were kids, I was in his sister's class for 17 years, his older brothers alternately throughout the grades and respected the intelligence of the entire family. It's been pure consternation watching a bright guy taking his cues from a used car salesman who spent too long in Texas.

The part of this story that makes critical eyes wide is the fact that Williamsburg, a town which is a tad over 3,000 people doesn't have an administrator. Since the position was inaugurated here 25 years ago, I have wondered why we are spending almost $70,000 for a job a clerk could do. Could have done. Now we have no choice.