A Classic Lesson from "The Prince"

Friends of mine often swear they’ve never seen anybody use the dog park in Oak Hill. Well, anybody who does, they likely have to drive. My objection that amenities should be centrally located, equally accessible, not in richest neighborhood was poo-pooed. That set me to considering Cascade’s ethics, and I concluded I that after a dozen years or more of going to Council meetings, that this town was not just corrupt, it was concertedly, committedly so. Ethical ideas count for nothing. I began entertaining the notion of moving, but friends elsewhere assured me it was “No different here.” “Same everywhere!” Concurrently, the proposal to put pickleball courts in Oak Hill was being discussed. I begged Dale Mescher and Terry Frasher, not to put an amenity in the toniest neighborhood in town. Everybody knows that by agreeing to accept a piece of property from a developer, Mike Beck or any other, we are also aiding and abetting tax malfeasance. The property (likely overvalued—so much limestone beneath the top layer, they couldn’t dig a basement) used to lessen the developer’s tax liability. Pretty hypocritical for a city, which exists on tax dollars, huh? Mind you, I was not the only one against the pickleball courts on Oak Hill. A couple other, older wiser types were as well. Now the ones in the community park sit chipping and cracking, and I am betting for the few tennis players there are, the city won’t have the money to repair them. The single objection the promoters of the Oak Hill pickleball courts—the ground was soggy—is still true for the tennis courts. I just quit going to council meetings. My first week in Florida, in my sister's local Library, I found the most spectacular copy of The Prince by Niccoli Machiavelli. The cover is bright yellow with bronze embossing; the pages are glossy and heavy as magazine covers; the illustrations are reproductions of medieval paintings of Renaissance leaders—the Medici, Sforzas, and the Kings of France. I checked it out just to marvel at it. Only I began reading it and found this fabulous quote: “…men are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly and covetous, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life and children…” Reading this classic from the 15th Century, I saw clearly that I had expected a sense of justice, concern for the environment and the larger society. However, the human race is mostly duplicitous, greed and self-serving. My own fault: I wouldn’t have expected anything else if I’d read The Prince years ago. Read the classics and save yourself a lot of grief and time: a fabulous waste expecting moral behavior from our leaders.

The Choas of Arrogant Politics

Well, this week the Iowa legislature removed all LGBTQ protections from the law. Unfortunate on one hand; understandable on the other. Looks like there is a big demonstration against it today. The MOMA photo is so appropriate because neither side in this debate acknowledged the other's right to exist. Non-gender conforming people have as much right to credit, apartments, and services as anyone. However, people are not going to stand for genetic males playing sports against women. This is a big sports state and people are almost uniformly against that. Likewise, there is a sizable portion of the population against gay "marriage". Most folks don't (like me) care either way, hard-line religious types refuse to accept it. They define term "marriage" exclusively as a genetic man and a genetic woman. For better or worse, they own it; it has been that way for 6, or 8 or 10 thousand years, despite gay. So if you want to give tax and legal protections to gay unions, which they should have a right to, you have to call it something else--unions, liaisons, pacts. No, they had to have the term "marriage." Well, now we have a backlash and there will be people who will take advantage of it. It makes me unbearably sad, but I totally understand it, and I can't believe that if the gay community hadn't been so pushy and righteous about their "rights," but given some credence to the basic reservations of legit voters out there, we wouldn't be here.

An Anniversary of Sorts

It’s an anniversary of sorts: For a whole year, other than one meeting in early August 2024, to watch citizens toss out Lisa Kotter out on her inglorious bum, I have not attended a Cascade City Council meeting. I said nothing at that meeting, because neither I heard or saw there led me to believe that the systemic corruption of the entitled making every decision to suit their fancies continues unabated. Earlier on in the summer, a man who I had seen at only one council meeting tells me how “Much Mike Beck has done for this community…” I almost barfed on his shoes. Since I have been back from Florida this year, I had a beer with the Mayor, and he tells me it cost us $50,000 to fix the sewer line Beck transferred to the city several years back. Last year, Feb. 2024, when I got back to town, I discovered an end run around democracy: Ms. Kotter and the entitled, instead of a public discussion and decision about where the dog park should be moved to, it was decided behind closed doors to put it in Oak Hill. By the middle of July new pickleball courts were sited there despite the fact that it is not centrally located, and a community should not be using public money to augment property values in its well-off neighborhoods.

Twinzies--I am the prototypical and perfect Cascader: I have a house, drive a car and wear clothes none of which I could afford without assistance or at least borrowing big time. In short, I live beyond my means. A woman with a street urchin budget should look like it, but of course, when I am not too arrogant to be honest--I admit I am elated my family doesn’t mind subsidizing this old bat on the homeplace. I love wearing new duds, living in a “painted lady” with a new deck, etc. Cascade, a city with a limited budget in the same situation, but lacking flush, generous relatives, bleeds its taxpayers and defers maintenance. Like a private home owner ignoring maintenance at his own peril, the city has in the last 7-10 years quit maintaining alleys, abolished the sidewalk committee, is marginally maintaining the streets, reserved nothing to do Hwy 136, and has shot its wad on a new gazebo, a dog park, Cougar blue pool roof, parking there and other amenities. In conjunction with the state, the city has fixed the Monroe St. Bridge, which serves two businesses, and resurfaced the corner by Casey’s, which serves two more. Rather than fixing streets, alleys and sidewalks or prioritizing the library and doing a bang-up job of it, the City and Park Board accepted some ground in Oak Hill Mike Beck wants to pawn for favors from the city, and has endorsed a group fundraising for five or six new pickleball courts there. There is a class of Cascade folks who go to Ft. Myers (Guilty, as charged!) and Mesa every winter and wants to come home to the amenities communities with a lot of half-million dollar 2nd homes have. They refuse to acknowledge that this is a place with a lot of houses and people worth barely $100,000 (Guilty as charged!) and deluxe pickleball courts and dog parks are out of line. Maybe even a morally questionable. Adding 2 or 3 courts in the community park, though feasible and ersatz, not showy and brand-spanking like Oak Hill is the right thing to do. I will be donating a sum of money I can barely afford contingent on the organizers doing the right thing.

Deciding in the Age of Ambivalence

We are living in the Age of Ambivalence. I admire City Administrator Lisa Kotter—I even gave her a going-away present—though I’m both sad and glad she’s going. During Hometown Days I trekked down to Riverview Park one afternoon to clap for Bob Green and other Cascaders receiving Valor Quilts. But as I told Bob--“This doesn’t mean I don’t abhor war, despise the off-the-books secret military budget (Could that be why the U.S is so in debt?), and especially the bastards who profit from it.” I went because I like and respect these guys and I don’t believe you can have a country without a military, (Look at Ukraine.) In spite of the fact that militaries are mostly misused--consider the Israeli military’s support of land-grabbing Jewish settlers, and Major General Smedley Darlington Butler’s analysis of the U. S. military: I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. Capitalism, with its well-recognized capacity to play into the hands of the greediest, has little redeeming social value and has created the inequality that is currently destroying democracy here, in Germany and democracies around the world. However, the most vexing dichotomy the current Age of Ambivalence is whether to donate to the pickleball fundraiser. Especially now that we know Mike Beck turned over to the city a storm sewer line in Oak Hill is broken, and it will cost us $30 or $40,000 to fix. Beck is donating some rocky ground he can’t do anything else with to build new pickleball courts on. This was a problem from the get-go. It is: 1) NOT centrally located giving all citizens equal access, as city parks should 2) NOT environmentally-conscious because players will have to drive 3) NOT socially-conscious to solicit donated funds and use them to build an amenity in the newest, highest property value neighborhood in the city. So what do you do? I have been agonizing for weeks over this one because I play frequently and feel obligated. So, I will be giving the pickleball people a promissory note for far more than I can afford to donate, contingent on them NOT accepting ground from Mike Beck. They’ll need it if they do the right thing.

Is Cascade a Democracy?

You don’t think Cascade is an undemocratic outlier? Guess again. The reason Cascade ended up with an ordinance that says Council people have to run on their records every two years is because that’s what most towns with decent democracies do. The company that put our ordinances online made a template, presumed we had a democracy, so the glitch. In response, Councilwoman Megan Oliphant said she needed “two years to get up to speed on the issues.” Well, I was on council once and it took me two months—I came up with the list of questions about rebar & concrete and picked the brains of everybody that knew. If Oliphant isn’t willing to expend the effort, she should resign. If she’s not smart enough, ditto. That’s not the only problem on the Cascade City Council: with the mic off before a council meeting one night early this year, Mike Delaney told me: “This is NOT a democracy; it’s a Republic, and these people (he gestures to the rest of council) and I were elected to make the decisions. OK, King Mike. Yeah, I was the one who discovered this glitch, and I have called Secretary of State Paul Pate’s office to try to get some help in putting this up for the vote of the people, so here’s hoping they care more about democracy in Cascade than the people on council.

Devils & "The Devil's Element"

A McDermott Farms Honey Wagon returning for a load.

I can't quite believe I haven't made a post to Critical Eye since Feb. Well, like many another American, I am having trouble believing we have democracy here any more. It's not simply a matter of all all the time and energy I have expended in public service, it's men like Charles Grassley, who seem to do little more, but have established themselves on the right side of the power dynamic and have no compunctions. 

The Democrats drummed Joe Biden out, but 10 years older and infinitely more on ag questions Charles Grassley is going strong. This is no credit to the Republican Party, the Farm Bureau, Grassley himself or the rest of the superstructure that keeps him in power. 

Last week 17 beaches were closed in Iowa for excess E-coli bacteria--liberally applied to Iowa fields as animal manure, from hog, dairy and poultry operations, but I thought if we just got control of Grassley,  & Big Ag, the environment would recover overnight. Not so according Dan Egan, the author of The Devil's Element, who quotes David Schindler, who devoted his life to outlining the effects of Phosphorus, which it sounds like is a bigger problem than nitrogen.

On page 165 of The Devil's Element, he says: "What we better be prepare to do is make pretty draconian restrictions on phosphorus applications and on land uses that promote runoff, but then also be patient... This isn't going to happen in a few years. It's that patience factor that always stymies things, because for some reason people can spend 50 years screwing up a lake  but expect to be able to fix it in a couple years. It just isn't the way it happens."