Council Passes Potentially Dangerous Nuisance Ordinance 5-0

 Despite dangerously undemocratic provisions in it, Monday Evening the Cascade City Council voted 5-0 for an amendment to the Nuisance Ordinance. There were several building owners in chamber, one of whom, Jake McAllister, asked how long it would take to enact. (After the 1st of the year.) It doesn't require a genius IQ to understand that the ordinance, which allows the city to act against a property owner for "General dilapidation or improper maintenance," could very easily be abused. After the 1st and 2nd provisions, most of the rest of the ordinance is an enumeration of the specific conditions under which the city can order a property owner to make the changes, but there seems to be nothing to protect the property owner. Clear and present nuisances like flooding and toxic chemicals being sprayed on people are not classified as nuisances, but when the business community wants to condemn some building, well folks, that's a nuisance. 

Council has also voted to go forward the an agreement with ECIA for Building Inspection Services, the cost of which will be borne by the homeowner. Council voted to increase Garbage collection rates across the board, not bothering to set up changing scheme that penalizes heavy garbage producers or rewards composters, recyclers, reusers and gardeners. 

Watching those poor sad people in Ukraine fight for democracy and going to Cascade City Council meetings is about the most dispiriting activity anyone could imagine. Some democracy.

"Ag-gag" Law Violates the 1st; Creates Dilemma

Query to Megan Oliphant and the others who commented on my mini set-to with the honeywagon haulers: Do you  know that the "Ag-gag" law the Iowa legislature passed, was found to be illegal, a violation of the First Amendment? A succinct report by Rachael Oatman published in Meat + Poultry at https://www.meatpoultry.com/articles/27330-iowa-ag-gag-law-found-unconstitutional outlines the issue. Chief Justice Stephanie M. Rose of the U.S. Southern Iowa District wrote that the law violates the First Amendment. “It is true that the act does not prohibit the editing, publication, or distribution of recordings or photographs on trespassed property...,”

Rose wrote, and she goes on to point out that trespassing is against the law, but that it is a "...necessary predicate to produce this protected speech..." In short, you must trespass to get the shot, though that wasn't necessary for this one: 

All I am trying to do is illustrate my contention that neither industry nor agriculture pays the real cost of producing products. Consider 1,889 Superfund sites on the EPA website proof. As far as I could see only 37 have been cleaned up, but the company owners and stockholders have (in many cases, they are already out of business) been paid handsomely, and now the rest of us have to clean up their messes. Hardly fair, huh? The same applies to the dead zone in the Gulf.

In Praise of Advent

 One of my favorite things about the Catholicism I recall from my childhood was psychological accuracy and discipline of concepts like Advent and Lent. It was probably not till I got into college and started "studying" Theology that I even realized what they were. Rest assured, as a kid I thought they were about giving up candy. I did not understand what was actually occurring was the individual discipling him/herself, earning the right to celebrate, in a sense making oneself worthy. In retrospect, I like it even more because it was a very democratic notion--that everybody, rich, poor and otherwise was supposed to mind the season. 

The concept of Advent as mindful restraint with a rationale, was violated big time by the business community this year when they started stocking Christmas before Halloween. The idea of restraint in any form is an anethema because it inhibits buying. I understand why small businesses must go along with it, but not why wealthy corporations like Walmart and Amazon chart this course. They certainly don't need the money, but inflation means some people aren't buying anything.

I understand even less why people go along with it. What seems revealing is who is going along. Most of the older folks (sometimes wiser in spite of ourselves!) don't. We understand why business does what it does, but we know we are entitled to protect our customs, concepts like Advent and what is psychologically valuable even though it runs counter to the business goal of making as much money as possible.  No matter what is sacrificed in doing so. We can protect our own culture and what is good about it by keeping our own council, preserving what is good, despite the commercialization urging us to do otherwise. But everybody has to do it.

Honeywagons and Nitro Tankers are Rolling

 

This fall I wrote a review of a very intriguing book published by the Cato Institute called Super-abundance.  Authors Marian L. Tupy and Gale L. Pooley set out to prove that more people leads to having more stuff. You don’t need Plato or Aristotle to refute this. Any three-year-old on any playground anywhere will assure you they are wrong. But us grown-ups have to use words like counterintuitive and prove it. With illustrations. 

So Thursday I stopped at the hog confinement building just west of town as they were pumping it out. I took a couple pictures and a young man came running over, started calling me demeaning names, demanded my phone, and told me I was in violation of the law taking pictures of an agriculture installation. If I am not mistaken a judge found that law an illegal violation of the people’s right to know.  

I called him demeaning names in return, refused to give him my phone and left. Still, sticking his hand in front of my camera takes a lot of gall—especially in view of the fact that agriculture one of the most heavily tax-subsidized industries in this country. Thanks especially to the Grassley dynasty.

As the crops are mostly out of the fields, the honey wagons and nitro tankers are rolling and so is the offal down the Mississippi to the hypoxic, dead zone in the Gulf. But of course, I can sit on my front porch and watch them fly by there and take pix whenever I have a little spare time. 

Happy Thanksgiving. I will post a link to the review when it is published.