Resolutions To Keep Democracy Alive

Posted on January 2, 2025 by Trish Nelson

George Lakoff, cognitive linguist and author of Don’t Think of an Elephant! Know Your Values and Frame the Debate: The Essential Guide for Progressives  and other books has a website and newsletter called FrameLab.  You can follow FrameLab free or be a paid subscriber to the newsletter by clicking the link below.

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It is hard to compete with Woody Guthrie’s timeless list of New Year resolutions from 1943, which includes these ever-relevant goals:

Work more and better.
Read lots of good books.
Keep hoping machine running.
Help win war – beat fascism.
Wake up and fight.

Here’s a list of FrameLab resolutions for 2025:

Be Brave. Avoid helpless/hopeless talk. Authoritarians want you to feel powerless because it makes their work easier. Courage, faith, and optimism are essential. Fascism feeds on cynicism and pessimism. Starve it. No regime lasts forever. Resolve to do your part to ensure the survival of democracy. Choose to believe that we will find a way to come out stronger.

Cultivate empathy. One way authoritarians defeat democracy is by trying to destroy empathy. Their strategies depend on dehumanization, demonization, and division. One of the best ways to resist is to actively cultivate empathy. Do your best to understand other people’s feelings and perspectives. Empathy is a powerful antidote to fascism and hatred. Democracy depends on empathy – you can’t have democracy without it.

Stay focused. Authoritarians try to overwhelm you with constant attacks to keep you distracted and unbalanced. Maintain a steely focus on what matters: Your health, your family, and the survival of our country. Constant chaos and provocation are a strategy to undermine freedom and the rule of law. Keep your eye on the big picture. Limit your intake of social media, which is designed to destroy your attention span and manipulate your brain.

See more

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The Times They Are A Changing

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Trish Nelson

Photo: Wikipedia.org – Joan Baez and Bob Dylan at the civil rights march on Washington, 1963

We saw the Bob Dylan movie A Complete Unknown over Christmas. I had mentioned in a conversation on social media that I wasn’t planning to see it because I didn’t trust Hollywood to do justice to Dylan or the times. I would say I turned out to be generally correct.

Not that it was a terrible movie by any means. It was good and I recommend seeing it. In typical Hollywood fashion though, they did really well in certain aspects but seemed to run out of gas or budget or just didn’t bother to get everything right. So it was half of a good movie.

The actor that played Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) was great as you’ve probably heard. He looked and sounded enough like Dylan that you could suspend belief and it didn’t take effort to sustain. He not only sang the songs in the movie himself, he actually performed them live on camera. That part is impressive. It was nice to not have to watch fakey lip syncing.

The thing that bugged me was they didn’t get his hair right. I guess everybody gets a wig now if you’re an actor in the movies, but the Dylan character’s hair was and looked like an obvious wig. Maybe most wouldn’t notice or care but for those of us who actually came of age during those times, that minor detail could break the spell. Plus, there was a close-up of Dylan riding his motorcycle through the streets and his hair wasn’t blowing in the wind. At all.

The Woodie Guthrie character (played by Scoot McNairy) was well cast. That was a touching part of the Bob Dylan story I hadn’t known about.

The Pete Seeger character (Edward Norton) was amazing. He was on the screen a lot, I would say even more than Joan Baez. He was perfectly cast and the film focused on the changing relationship between Seeger and Dylan throughout.

Johnny Cash (Boyd Holbrook) shows up. I won’t spoil it if you haven’t seen it yet.

Full disclosure the film is based on the 2015 book Dylan Goes Electric!  by Elijah Wald which I have not read.  It was trying to highlight the story of the folk music genre, Dylan’s importance to it and the inevitable changes that were coming. This necessarily included the traumatic (for the folk music crowd) shift by Dylan away from the traditional songs when he turned toward rock music and from acoustic to electric.

For my money,  the filmmaker missed opportunities to highlight for audiences the true nature of that time of transition, what the folk musicians were hanging onto through the music, why it was important, what was at stake. They believed they could create a better world through the music, that they were on the verge of arriving and that Bob Dylan and his songs could help get them there.  I felt like if they had spent a bit more time on that aspect it would have been a better movie overall.

There was a scene where it looked like they were going to give us a better glimpse into their world but stopped short. Pete Seeger was on his way to jail and stopped outside of the courthouse to answer reporters’ questions. He picked up his guitar and started singing, “This Land is Your Land.” There were a few people standing around and they started to sing along with him. And just as I started to think, this is cool, maybe they will actually do a good thing here, they abruptly cut away from the song after only a few bars of the timeless folk classic that still would carry so much meaning today.

I’m sure they didn’t play a single entire song or close to it, even the songs sung at live events. They were clipped super short. It was frustrating.

My other trouble with the movie was how they handled the Joan Baez character (played by Monica Barbaro). She didn’t have as big a speaking role as I would have thought.  (Barbaro did her own performances and had voice training to sound like Joan Baez, a daunting task).

The movie didn’t tell you much about Joan and Bob’s relationship. The director skipped opportunities to enlighten us about folk music, but they had plenty of time to show Joan Baez making coffee and parading around Dylan’s apartment in her underwear.  Baez was actually much more famous and successful at the time than Dylan and helped him in his career. But I’d say the film glossed over that.

Despite these things, I wouldn’t say don’t go see the film. It was enjoyable. I came away from it feeling lucky to have grown up with the music of those times.

Last but not least, it is a great thing to have Bob Dylan and his music front and center in American pop culture again, sixty years later.

Maybe it will help us somehow.

Here’s to 2025!

For the loser nowWill be later to winFor the times they are a-changin’

– Bob Dylan

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Ben Wikler for DNC Chair

Posted on December 31, 2024 by Trish Nelson

Iowa DNC members:

Scott Brennan, DNC Member
June Owens, DNC Member
Jan Bauer, DNC Member At-Large
Sandy Opstvedt, DNC Member At-Large

Contact IDP:
5661 Fleur Drive| Des Moines, IA 50321|Phone: 515-244-7292|info@iowademocrats.org

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Lesson 6: Be Wary Of Paramilitaries

Posted on December 30, 2024 by Trish Nelson

From the On Tyranny series by Timothy Snyder, lesson #6 of twenty. Check here for a lesson every Monday or you can find them on YouTube.  They are all short videos, no ads.

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President Biden Remarks On The Passing Of Jimmy Carter

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Trish Nelson

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Sunday Funday: The End Is Coming Edition

Posted on December 29, 2024 by Dave Bradley

 

Yep. Tuesday night or Wednesday morning however you parse it, the end of the year will be coming. Do not expect anything earth shaking or cataclysmic. Some where about that time a cute cat will crawl into bed and under the covers with me. At some point he will do something cat like and will become air borne for a few seconds. Thus will be the change of years be commemorated in our household.

Now for something entertaining: the comedy stylings of Cat and Dog: (10 minutes)

Now is the calm before the storm. So let’s relax while we can.

A) New year’s day is not the last of the major winter holidays. What major winter holiday(s) are yet to come next week?

B) in what could be a bad sign for things to come, gofundme said posts for requests to pay personal expenses rose by what multiple between last year and this year?

C) According to the BBC, how many mass shootings took place in the US in 2024?

D) Before becoming president, Trump has already threatened some form of action against which western hemisphere countries?

E) we’ll do some looking back in this quiz – What were the names of the two hurricanes that devastated the US east coast in August and September?

F) The House Ethics Committee released a report last week on what former congress member?

G) A war of words seems to have broken out between what right wing “influencer” and what unelected Trump advisor?

H) Few people realize that because Australia is in the southern hemisphere they will be celebrating what holiday this Wednesday?

I) Biden gives us the bird. Biden is still president and last week he signed a bill to make what bird the official national bird?

J) The owner of a restaurant that specializes in what kind of meat died after contracting rabies from cooking one of his dishes?

K) In 2024 what former candidate for president was associated with a bear, a brain worm and a whale?

L) Last April 8th a swath of the US from Texas to Maine was engaged in what activity?

M) In a crazy Christmas tweet Trump claimed who was operating the Panama Canal?

N) World Weather Attribution and Climate Central said how many days of dangerous heat were added to the world in 2024 due to climate change?

O) President Biden commuted the death sentences of all but how many prisoners on federal death row last week?

P) Trump tried to convince what Canadian to run for that country’s premiership in the next election?

Q) What country made a public statement saying they would like to buy the US?

R) NASA has a probe making a really close pass at what object it was sent to study?

S) How fast is that above mentioned probe going as it nears its objective?

T) When did the tradition of dropping the ball in NYC’s Times Square begin?

Trump Says Bone Spurs Will Prevent Him From Participating in Seizure of Panama Canal. – Andy Borowitz

Answers:

A) January 6, the Epiphany. January 7, Orthodox New Year 

B) 4 times greater than 2023

C) 488

D) Greenland, Panama and Canada

E) Helene and Milton

F) Matt Gaetz

G) Laura Loomis and Elon Musk

H) New Year’s Day just like us – except it is summer down under

I) the bald eagle

J) dog meat (and some cat meat)

K) RFK, jr.

L) watching a full solar eclipse

M) Chinese soldiers

N) 41

O) 3

P) Wayne Gretzky

Q) Denmark in retaliation for Trump’s remarks about the US buying Greenland

R) the sun

S) 430,000 mph

T) 1907

FUN FACT: President Biden has never said “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL” as part of a Christmas message. In fact, NO incoming or outgoing President in their right mind has ever done so.   “In their right mind.” – mmpaellan

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Planning 2025 And Beyond

Posted on December 28, 2024 by Dave Bradley

As if America didn’t have enough problems here comes a cowboy from South Africa stepping into the mess (8 minutes)

As I type this we are experiencing a power outage, one of life’s little annoyances that mess with your plans. As humans, one of the things we all do is plan. We choose living arrangements to maximize living the life we want and then set up arrangements around those plans.

We plan for children, we plan for jobs, we plan for medical care and eventually we plan to retire and many plan that in their deaths their loved ones are taken care of. A major part of this planning is to take an inventory of what you have at your disposal in assets. Among such assets are things the government gives you access to such as Social Security. 

Thus as we plan our day, our week, our month our year and on into the future we take an inventory and base plans on that. The government plays a vital role in our planning simply because we give things to the government such as taxes, license fees etc. and get things back from the government. For most Americans this comes in the form of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.

Now we stand at the threshold of a new year which is a common time for humans to re-evaluate their plans. That includes taking an inventory of assets. Most Americans do have Social Security and Medicare among assets they plan on because since their inceptions both of the programs have been sustained and untouchable.

As you know with the election in November Americans elected a majority MAGA congress and a MAGA president who made it no secret that they intend to make Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and a slew of other programs subject to change. Not having these programs as a cornerstone of individuals’ ability to plan is going to be one of many changes that will throw our economy into a major mess.

Whatever were Americans thinking when they voted for Trump? The election seems to have been some kind of payback for an inflationary period plus the propaganda that placed blame for the inflation on Democrats. Instead of voting to continue one of the best economies America has ever seen and continuing the downward trajectory of inflation voters chose the path of almost total uncertainty.

Trump has no plan and never had a plan. His method of operation is total spur of the moment and his hand-picked advisors consist mostly of rich white guys who have never felt any need to think of any other human. We have seen many signs of the chaos that awaits us in the new year and the new administration.

Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are hardly the only programs threatened. Those are just the ones that will hurt the quickest and the most on an individual scale. Everything from farm policy to foreign policy will feel the bite of the chaos to come. There will be no ability for planning for individuals, businesses (who is buying when their money is unsure?). local governments, community groups and certainly the rest of the world. 

Trump’s lack of planning and his primary focus on revenge will give us a government in unbelievable chaos. Gee, if people would only have given a few moments of thought on how Trump would govern. Or maybe if the media would have covered the predictable chaos.

When you sit down at the kitchen table next week to make some plans for 2025 make sure you come up with some alternative plans for when the government stops functioning the way it has for nearly 100 years. We all know through experience that when things start a downward spiral, it is often hard to stop. 

In this case the group that is normally charged with meeting the challenges that will be created won’t care because it won’t affect them.

But Happy New Year! Maybe, despite the foreshadowing nothing I say will happen and America will somehow survive. But we all have to be watching and be willing to stand up against Trump policies when needed. 

Maybe a year from now we will be on the verge total chaos as Trump readies the country for the wars in the north against Greenland and Canada and in the south against Panama. Those wars will divert attention from an economy on the edge of collapsing.

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ISU Says Robot Could Help Iowa’s Water Quality

Posted on December 27, 2024 by Trish Nelson

Christian Luedtke, a researcher at Michigan State University, demonstrates a prototype of a tile robot. (Screenshot from Iowa Learning Farms)

This robot could find nitrate hot spots by crawling through tile drainage

by Cami Koons, Iowa Capital Dispatch
December 26, 2024

Researchers from Iowa State University have partnered with Michigan State University to develop a robot that would detect nitrates and monitor tile health to help farmers keep their land productive.

Nearly half of Iowa’s harvested cropland has tile drainage, according to ag census data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The underground drainage systems help to boost crop productivity, but environmental and water groups have pointed out they can also deliver excessive amounts of nitrate and other nutrients downstream.

Mike Castellano, a professor of soil science at ISU, said the robots and nitrate sensors could help farmers detect where, how and how much nitrate they are losing. Castellano spoke at a virtual field day with Iowa Learning Farms Dec. 19.

“That allows farmers to better manage their field at a precision scale, to improve both productivity and environmental performance of our crop production systems,” Castellano said.

Castellano said current technologies limit nitrate testing to the end of the tile pipe, but the robot would be able to pinpoint “exactly when and where those nutrients are being lost.”

Liang Dong, the director of the microelectronics research center at ISU has worked with Castellano to develop the nitrate sensor portion of this technology.

Dong said the sensor is completed and is being commercialized to be an affordable technology for farmers.

“When the sensor is small enough and the price is low enough, farmers can put the sensors into their drainage tile, and then they will know what is the waterflow and what is the nitrate loss from their field,” Dong said.

The end goal is to put the nitrate sensor, along with a camera and a waterflow sensor, onto a robot that can crawl through an entire tile drainage system and store the information for farmers.

The robot, which is being developed by team led by Xiaobo Tan, a professor of electrical engineering at Michigan State University, is still a prototype.

Christian Luedtke, a graduate researcher working with Tan on the project, spoke at the virtual field day and demonstrated the current prototype.

The nearly two-foot long robot is currently designed to use several fin-like barbs on the front and back to move through corrugated pipes.

Luedtke said he has learned through this project that not all tile is corrugated and it often will change diameters across a field, which present additional challenges to creating the robot.

“We do not know that being engineers and not farmers,” Luedtke said.

These are things he learned while in Iowa this summer while talking about the project with farmers, many of whom have clay or concrete tiles that were installed many generations prior.

Luedtke said the robot also needs to be quicker at moving through the pipes, have a battery life of at least a couple of hours and be waterproofed before the research team can begin practical tests in actual tile.

“The water quality issues here in Iowa, if we can help provide a cheap and easy solution for farmers to make decisions to help that, I think that’d be a great effect for our work to have,” Luedtke said.

Iowa Capital Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Iowa Capital Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Kathie Obradovich for questions: info@iowacapitaldispatch.com.

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Democrat Running For Iowa Senate In District 35

Posted on December 26, 2024 by Trish Nelson

Following Gov. Kim Reynolds appointment of Sen. Chris Cournoyer as her new lieutenant governor, there will be a special election to fill Cournoyer’s seat in the Iowa Senate. Voters in Scott, Clinton and Jackson counties will vote Jan. 28 for a new state senator, Reynolds announced Monday. Candidates wanting to run for the seat have until Jan. 14 to file their paperwork.  CRGazette

Democrat Mike Zimmer has launched his campaign. Check out his Facebook page and campaign website mikezimmerforIowa .

Here is some starter info from Mike Zimmer’s FB page:

Hi friends, I’m thrilled to announce that I’m running for the Iowa Senate in District 35 in January’s Special Election!

As a lifelong Iowan, educator, coach, and president of the Central DeWitt School Board, I’ve dedicated my life to strengthening our communities and creating opportunities for people to succeed. I’m ready to bring bold, people-first solutions to the Statehouse.

Here’s what I’ll fight for:

✅ Stronger public schools that give every child the tools they need to thrive.

✅ Better wages for hardworking Iowans so families don’t just get by—they get ahead.

✅ Real stability for working families and opportunities that grow our middle class.

Tammy and I have been blessed to call Eastern Iowa home for 42 years. We’ve raised our five children here and are proud grandparents of ten! I’m running to ensure a better future for all Iowans—a future where our communities are stronger, our families are thriving, and our shared values lead the way.

Let’s get to work, together.

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If You’re Not Feeling Particularly Festive Right Now

Posted on December 25, 2024 by Trish Nelson

“We are in the season of hope and goodwill.. but many are suffering with information poisoning.”

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