In which Joni Ernst makes me so mad I could spit

I got an email from Joni Ernst today. Normally I look at them, roll my eyes, and discard. But this one touched on a topic near and dear to my heart: the waters of the United States.

Here, in part, is the message. 

Home | Newsroom | Helping Iowans | Contact Don’t Mess with the New WOTUS Rule When the Obama-Biden administration attempted to regulate nearly 97% of the land in Iowa with their Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, I fought back and stood up for the livelihoods of hardworking Americans. We won that fight, and a new, more flexible WOTUS rule was put in place.  Now, the Biden Administration is working at a rapid pace to undo this work. Everyone should agree that clean water should be a national priority. But I can’t stand by and allow for another Washington power grab that will make it harder for Iowans to farm, ranch, and build.  As the daughter of a farmer, and an unwavering advocate for Iowa’s agriculture community, I will never stop fighting to defend the livelihoods of those who are feeding and fueling our world.

Ooooh this just made me so mad! So I wrote a letter. I copied it into this blog so that I could share it with everyone. Feel free to respond to Ernst's email or call or email her yourself if you feel similarly infuriated.

Dear Senator Ernst:

I'm glad you are supporting farmers in Iowa. Someone needs to. The nature of farming has changed so much over the past 50 years that someone needs to remember what farmers truly need. 

But FARMERS have also changed a lot in the last 50 years. First of all, there are way fewer farmers than there used to be 50 years ago. Iowans are mostly not farmers. There are lots of acres in production, but they are worked by fewer and fewer people.  

More and more, "farmers" run giant industrial agricultural sites, producing hundreds of acres of the same crop, or raising thousands of animals for slaughter in tightly-confined spaces. They do this right up to the edges of fields and along waterways, draining wetlands, covering soil with fertilizer, and emptying waste into the WOTUS. And those Waters of the United States are the same waters that nurture our flora and fauna--and provide us all with water to drink and use.

It's important that farmers are able to produce food for our nation. But it's also important to make sure that as they do so, they don't irreparably harm the land they farm. That's what the Clean Water regulations aim to protect. 

I am not a native Iowan, like you are. I grew up in Cleveland Ohio. Yes, the city where the river caught on fire back in the late 60s and early 70s when I was a girl. The Cuyahoga River was so filled with pollutants from the manufacturing industry (Northeastern Ohio's "farming") that it caught on fire, and not just once. It was stories about those fires that sparked discussion and passage of important clean water regulations. 

Yes, those regulations came from Washington. But they were not a "power grab." (And by the way, "Washington" is us! "Washington" is you, and the people who elected you!) They are a response to poisoned, dirty, and sometimes flaming waters, the side-effects of industry, including the farming industry. Those regulations provide farmers and manufacturers with guidelines about how to expand, to create, to grow--without damaging this planet that we all need to live on.

I am very disappointed in you for upholding Trump's attempt to pull back these important regulations. It would be much more useful if you would use your ability to speak to the people of Iowa to explain the ways we can get our waters off of the impaired waters lists--by following the regulations of the WOTUS bills.

Respectfully,

your constituent,

Jane Nesmith

Bodies and embodiment in our Capitol

During the spring of 2018, we lived in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington DC, on 5th Street, NE. Every day, as I walked to and from places, I got to see this beautiful sight: the dome of the nation's capitol building. 

You can see the Capitol building from most places in DC--it's on a hill, and the other buildings in the immediate area are smaller. It stands out.

I remember one of the first times I glimpsed it in January 2018--maybe on the exact day that I took this photo--I felt comforted by how big it was, how stately and classical and sturdy it looked, how it gleamed in the sun, and could be seen from everywhere. It can withstand anything, I remember thinking. Even Trump. 

All that spring, I came to love having the presence of the Capitol in my life--not just the glimpses of its shining white dome as I went about my daily business, and its beautiful grounds, where Bruce and I frequently went for walks. I also loved the knowledge that in its marble halls, the work of government was continuing--including resistance to the awful policies that were being made that spring.

And then just this week, as I sat with Bruce in our home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, watching what we thought would be the ceremonial acceptance of the Electoral College's votes making Joe Biden and Kamala Harris our next president and vice president, I saw the Capitol--my Capitol--overrun by angry and violent mobs incited to insurrection by President Trump. They waved Trump and Confederate flags, broke windows and doors, beat up Capitol Hill police, and shouted angry and profane chants. They defaced the building. They almost reached the chamber where senators had been debating.

How can I describe the feelings that washed over me at that time? Horror, disgust, anger, fear. At one point, I had to leave the room:  I just could not watch anymore. 

January 6 was, of course, Epiphany, the day when Christians celebrate the visit of "wise men from the East" to the baby Jesus, as described in Matthew 2:1-12. I'd posted some pictures on Facebook to celebrate: one of the magi and a camel from my mom's nativity set (that I now have set up on our mantelpiece) 

and one of 4-year-old Eli (in the back there) dressed up as one of the Three Kings from a preschool celebration of Three Kings Day. One of his teachers was from Mexico, where Epiphany is celebrated vigorously!

I like Epiphany--coming as it does after the busy and often overwhelming Christmas season when commercial voices and general noise and bustle threaten to overpower the radical message of Christmas: that despite jealous rulers, God--Love--has come down to earth in flesh, love embodied.

Epiphany and this past week have made me think about Incarnation and incarnation--the Christian concept, of course, but also just the idea of embodying ideas. How do people put flesh on their beliefs, and what does it look like when they embody those ideas?

The insurrection this week was certainly an embodiment of some ideas: of privilege, of enraged grievance, of the power of lies, desperation, tyranny, and racism. We can no longer ignore those ideas because there they were, embodied before us in chants for lynching, destruction of our capitol building, and murderous actions! It's enough to make me despair.

And yet. If I think back to our time in DC in 2018, I remember despairing about President Trump's nastiness. But I also remember realizing that DC isn't just about the president. He is not the only embodiment of our nation.

In visits that spring with people who worked for the U.S. Government, like Daniel, Aaron, Katie, Mary Ellen, Mary, and Larry, I heard about how the day-to-day work of civil servants in our capitol city embodied the strongest ideals of our country: democracy, freedom, community. They kept on working for our country despite the roadblocks thrown up by Trump and his allies, and despite Trump's inability to embody decency and democracy.

It's time for embodiments of hatred, division, privilege, and racism to go. We now see them for what they are. They have embodied their ideals, and we no longer want them anywhere near our Capitol or in our country. It's time for the incarnations of our country's highest ideals to be manifest in us. 

Covid at Coe, week 5ish: learning new things I didn't want to learn

When Coe's administration was making plans to go back to in-person classes in the midst of a global pandemic, I predicted we'd have enough cases by week 4 or 5 that we'd have to go online.

I am happy to say that I was wrong! We are still operating on campus!

Why did I guess week 4 or 5 for a big Covid outbreak? That's about the time every semester when The Fall Semester's First Cold starts making its way around campus. So I figured the same thing would happen with Covid.

Yet neither Covid nor a cold have really been circulating much at Coe, and I'm relieved.

Though we haven't had the giant outbreak I'd feared, we have had some Covid on campus. 

The New York Times is compiling data on Covid in colleges, and shows that Coe has had 36 positive cases of Covid out of 1400 students, so 2% of the student body. The NYTimes chart lists all cases since the beginning of the year.

Above us on the list is Clarke University with 28 (they enroll about 1000 students), so about the same percentage as Coe. Below us is Cornell College, also about 1000 students these days, with only 3 cases! There was a writeup in the local paper about their protocol. For comparison, Iowa State University in Ames, has had 1247 cases out of about 35,000 students, 3.6%, according to the NYT chart. 

When students arrived on campus here at Coe, they were ALL tested with the swab-up-your-nose-into-your-brain test. Faculty got tested, too (ow), during the week before classes started. About 25 students tested positive at that point, so they were quarantined, and those who'd interacted with them were isolated. 

I don't know if all colleges were proactive, testing all students. Probably that's easier at a smaller college. 

Early during the semester, I was concerned when I saw students hanging out in groups outdoors without masks, or sitting very close together outdoors with masks. 

Others must have seen this, too, because right after classes started, two emails went out: one very sternly-worded email from the Dean of Students, telling students they'd be kicked off campus if they were not following Covid precautions! 

And the other from our mascot, Charlie Kohawk, telling students that he would be walking around campus, randomly giving out gift cards to students who WERE following Covid precautions. Our rule: wear a mask anytime you're on campus except when in your room or when eating. 

Here's Charlie in one of his "Protect our Nest" videos:

This Good Cop/Bad Cop approach must have been fairly effective; I haven't seen so much rule-flaunting these days.

I don't see students much at all, to be honest. It seems that they're pretty much staying in their rooms--to eat, to study, and to relax. That's good--for Covid mitigation. But it's really strange. 

We are all getting used to doing college in the era of a global pandemic. I teach one class online, and my Writing Center Theory and Practice classes in person, so I get to do both. I'm finding I like teaching online more than I thought. It does take a lot of work to consider how to divide up 90 minutes worth of material into segments (most of us do this anyway--it's just good teaching), and figure out what will provide active learning for students sitting and looking at screens (breakout rooms for discussions, quick polls and quizzes, using the chat function to get responses).

I'm starting some material that really requires discussion this week. I'm using online forums, breakout groups, and the chat function on Zoom to help facilitate discussion--whole-class, free-flowing discussion is weird on Zoom. It's hard to read nonverbal cues on Zoom. It's hard to think when all those faces are looking at you in a big block--or when you're staring at black squares if students have their videos turned off. . . 

And in the classroom, having students six feet apart makes group work challenging. Not impossible, though; I've done it. I also have to remember NOT to walk around when I teach! That's hard for me!

In other news, the city is still clearing up debris from the derecho, which was 7 weeks ago on August 10. 

Tree debris in our median. Our street has already been cleared once and there's still more to go.

Our roof still has a hole in it, and the rain was coming in today. We've had shingles and a dumpster trailer in our driveway since Thursday afternoon, waiting to be used, which has been a bit frustrating...hoping they'll work on the roof tomorrow.

This is where the rain comes in . . . .

Between Covid and the derecho, learning new things--ones that I really didn't want to learn.

I still remember talking to my mom after my dad was diagnosed with cancer--because of the nature of his cancer, they had to give up going to Elderhostels. Mom pointed out that that Elderhostels was what they did before--learning about history and nature and such in beautiful locations. Now they were learning about cancer at home. I thought that was a pretty awful trade-off.

As a teacher during Covid, I've learned more than I ever wanted about Zoom and about effective teaching online. As a homeowner during a weather catastrophe, I've learned about insurance, contractors, and positioning buckets under a dripping hole in the roof. I didn't really want to learn those things, but what are you going to do?

I've also learned that I can be flexible. I can deal with things I never even guessed I'd have to deal with. 

Anne and I went to the Farmer's Market in Hiawatha today--I bought sweet corn, a watermelon, apples, beets, and peppers. Burgers, sweet corn and watermelon for dinner tonight: a summer meal before the weather turns cooler next week. That's my reward.

Our derecho in photos

I've been working on a new craft project, a tiny basket made of pine needles. 

I learned how to do this from watching a YouTube video that appeared in my Facebook feed a few days ago. After I watched the video, I knew I needed to make a basket.

The needles came from the huge white pines that used to stand along the eastern side of our home, the pines that were snapped off about ten feet up their two-foot diameter trunks in the derecho that passed through Cedar Rapids one month ago. I consider the basket to be a small memorial to those pines.

It's been exactly one month since the derecho, and I haven't posted on this blog the whole time. I've been a writer not writing, which seems odd for me. In most times of stress in my life, I've used writing as a way to process what's going on, to ease my mind, to sort through my own thoughts. But I haven't been able to write since the storm, even though I kept thinking I should.

By now, the story of the August 10 derecho has been shared by many people, reporters, bloggers, photographers. And at this point, it's probably been eclipsed by the story of Hurricane Laura and the California wildfires. But we're still living the derecho here in Cedar Rapids. More than 1000 homes were placarded as unsafe to enter after the storm. Businesses, already stressed from the pandemic, have closed. Some residents still don't have internet or landline phone service.

And our streets are still lined with debris: fences, insulation, pieces of shingles, and trees, trees, trees. Piles of branches, now crisp and brown. Eight-foot-long logs, chain-sawed at each end. Uprooted monsters with trunks at one end and slices of lawn and black Iowa soil at the other. It's hard not to think about the destruction when I'm reminded of it every time I go somewhere.

Here are some photos from the time of the derecho; I'm just going to park them here in this blog because I'm not sure I want to make a derecho scrapbook.

So here's a video of what the derecho was like:

Bruce and I were both working from home. We watched from the main floor for a while. I looked out, willing the trees to "bend, not break!" but eventually, the terrifying sounds of wind and of things hitting the house drove us to the basement. 

Eventually, we came out to this.

Our majestic blue spruce toppled over onto the house. Branches broke through the siding and roof. As of today, September 12, we still have holes in our roof, covered by blue tarp. Thanks to our friend Justin for patching the roof!

Our backyard in the moments after the storm passed through, August 10, 2020.

Cars were trapped in the garage for several days, but a bunch of colleagues and friends came with saws and pruned away enough branches to let us out! Thanks Jon, Wes, and Nathan!

Everyone said "don't get taken advantage of by out-of-town storm-chasers! Hire local people!" but that was impossible. Local crews weren't answering their phones--I'm sure they were completely overwhelmed. So we hired a crew from Atlanta, who took the trees off our house and garage.

At one point, the National Guard arrived! That's the view from our front door. Under all those trees is a power pole . . . 

Here's a photo with me for scale.

We were without power for one week, which was actually not bad. Robbie and Aubrey's outage lasted almost 2 weeks. So they stayed with us, which was a bright spot!

Playing Yahtzee and working on wood projects.

Our internet came back on after 2 weeks, and the insurance adjuster arrived September 3. Our contractor is ready to start working on the roof, but we've had rain all week, so they've been on hold while we worked on strategic placement of buckets in our leaking attic. Weather is supposed to be nicer this week, so we hope the roof will get repaired.

We'd already been working with a local nursery to redo our front plantings, and they plan to get them in this fall. 

Through all this, we've had to readjust work plans; the derecho put power and internet out at Coe, too, and many beautiful trees on campus came down. So the college postponed classes for a week. Oh, and that's right: there's still a global pandemic, so we got Covid tests and are teaching in socially-distanced ways. . . . overlapping crises: it's all so 2020. 

Signs and Wonders

May you live in interesting times.
                                --a curse, reported by an early 20th c. British ambassador to China

Look around, look around
At how lucky we are to be alive right now.
                                --Hamilton

Despite the signs that the coronavirus is still surging in the U.S., that colleges are already experiencing outbreaks (despite the fact that fall classes haven't started yet), and that people are  desperately willing to believe all kinds of misinformation about cures, 

Yet the natural world keeps surprising and delighting me with wonders, most of them right here in our yard. Let me share a few with you.

Look at this caterpillar,  munching its way through a bit of my dill plant. 

It might become a butterfly like this one.

Speaking of insects, I got to see a cicada emerging from its shell the other night. 

It was at once a horrifying and amazing sight: a wonder to behold!

Despite the insect life, tiny pickle-sized cucumbers on my cucumber plant are growing into useful produce. 

I made tabouli out of this cuke and tomato, the parsley, some mint, and even some second-chance green onions I sprouted in a juice glass on the counter!  I find it pretty wondrous to be able to make almost an entire dish with stuff from my garden. 

I have heard that more people have been into gardening this summer because of Covid. I hope all the newcomers to gardening have satisfying experiences.

One amazing wonder of this month wasn't alive. It was comet Neowise, which made a once-in-7000-years visit to our solar system. When I heard it was easily visible, I became obsessed with seeing it. I missed Hale-Bopp, which apparently came through in 1997, but I was busy then. And Halley's comet, in 1986, was a dud. So this was my chance!

We decided to go out of town to see it so we would be away from the bright lights. We drove northwest, and after we got off the highway, I told Bruce to watch for "a small road" for me to turn on. 

We found a gravel road, turned, and discovered probably a half-dozen or more cars already parked at the side of the road, and people out looking heavenward with binos!

It reminded me of the solar eclipse in 2017, when I joined a group of people congregated by the side of the highway in Missouri to Experience Totality. Strangers became friendly--we chatted together and encouraged one another.

Same thing the night we went to see the comet. The people there helped us find the comet. We could easily see it with our binos: there it was below the Big Dipper, with its fizzy tail, going somewhere.  Without binos, you could see it best out of the corner of your eye--it didn't quite want to be seen. It's a Wonder: it deserves to be a bit hard to spot.

The next night, we took Anne with us, and met Robbie and Aubrey at the same place. Robbie took this amazing photo, above.

Last week, activist and congressman John Lewis passed away at age 80. His death hit me: I remember learning about him in my FYS back in 1980: SNCC, Pettus Bridge, marching and speaking with Dr. King. His dedication to voting rights and racial justice--despite all, including the current administration--is an inspiration. 

I heard about this commemoration of John Lewis, involving ringing church bells. Our church doesn't have bells (how many do, really?), but I knew where there was a bell: on Coe's campus. So I asked the administration if Coe was going to commemorate John Lewis in this way. President McInally liked the idea, but was out of town. He asked me if I could organize the bell-ringing.

The time for the bell-ringing was less than 24 hours away, but we were able to do it.

The younger people who came by to help ring hadn't heard about the movie Selma, so I urged them to watch it. That moment when the entire group of protesters kneels down in prayer--as one--on the bridge gives me chills just to think about it. I remember watching it and thinking "Oh Christian brothers and sisters! Where are you now?"

An essay by Lewis appeared in the NYTimes today, the day of his funeral. In it he reminded us:

Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

It's time for all of us to follow in John Lewis's footsteps. He was a wonder, and he wanted us to be wonders, too.

Covid Summer: another graph

While the number of Covid cases in the US has continued to rise for the past few weeks, I've been consoling myself by looking at the number of deaths, which for a long time, kept falling.

Maybe they've got some good care protocols figured out, I thought. Maybe the virus isn't as dangerous as we'd first thought.

Bruce gently reminded me that the death rate is a lagging indicator, though. And the past three days, I've noticed that it's starting to catch up.

Do you see the little bend at the end of this graph where it turns from being a downward slope to an upward one? That's where the 7-day average starts to change: once again, the number of deaths from Covid in the US is rising.

Sadly, almost the entire country is experiencing a rise in cases--today, all states but Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine are either "mostly the same" or "rising."

Despite this, the president is threatening schools that if they don't open in the fall, they'll lose federal funding. And there have been no general updates about Coe's plans for having in-person classes, so I'm continuing to plan for f2f.

For example, I reserved a room for the Writing Center's first staff meeting--an important event for reconnecting with consultants, setting a tone for the year, and introducing new staff. Usually, we cram into the Writing Center Space for a fun photo op, complete with hugs, laughter, and whooping.

From fall 2019. This is not going to happen in fall 2020, alas.

This year, we'll be meeting in Sinclair Auditorium, which usually holds hundreds. Now its limit is 100.

Sinclair Auditorium when the presidential candidates visited last fall.  It'll be me up on the stage for our meeting. Gazette photo.

We found out this morning that the roommate of one of Aubrey's co-workers has a roommate who tested positive for Covid. Aubrey's co-worker tested negative, but she and Robbie are self-isolating for a while anyway. Yikes: that's about as close as we've gotten to Covid so far. At least as far as we know. We're going to bring them some pesto Sunday night--our usual time for dinner together. Maybe we'll have a distanced meal, maybe we'll just meet via Zoom.

Meanwhile, the weather's turned cooler after about 2 weeks of hot n humid. We had one monarch caterpillar on our milkweed, but I can't find it now: eaten by a bird?

On the other hand, a tulle row-cover has kept the Evil White Butterflies from laying eggs on my kale; no green caterpillars there!

And we are about to begin tomato season.

Summer rolls on, despite Covid.

Covid turnaround for July

One month ago, I would not have guessed that things would be where they are today, Covid-wise.  One month ago, June 1, it looked like maybe we'd flattened the curve. The number of covid cases was kind of in a plateau--maybe a high plateau, like a mesa? Things looked pretty calm.

1 July Covid cases in U.S. graph from NYTimes.com

But one month ago was about when many states in the US started opening up, allowing restaurants and bars to open, and stopping regular briefings on the virus. States that had shelter-in-place orders were lifting those orders (Iowa was one of very few states that never did have an order).

At first, things were OK. But then. Well, you can see for yourself, and you probably have. The hardest hit states are in the south, with Florida, Texas, and Arizona all reporting big surges in infections and hospitalizations, but the Times noted that 39 states (!) had growth in reported cases over the past 2 weeks. Including Iowa.

It's gotten so bad that many states are pausing, or even reversing, their reopening decisions. And even Republicans are starting to wear masks and urging people to wear them. Not Trump, of course. He is such a disaster.

I've noticed more people NOT wearing masks when I've been out. The other day when I stopped in at the grocery store for just a few items, the only other person I saw with a mask was the cashier. And today at the post office, the workers were wearing masks, but none of the customers (except me). One customer was a gentleman who looked to be over 65. . . what are people thinking?

I think they are thinking that Covid is over. Maybe they haven't seen the graphs.

There were no recommendations for mask-wearing in the guidelines for reopening schools this fall that Iowa's Department of Education published this week. There was some odd language about not allowing people to be shamed for not wearing masks. ("Teach and reinforce the prevention of stigma associated with the use or non-use of facial coverings to support a respectful, inclusive, and supportive school environment.")

Meanwhile, Coe seems to be forging ahead with its plan to open on-campus. The college is going to supply students with masks and faceshields! Yay! Faculty will get masks and faceshields, too.
On the other hand, we've got a strange plan for getting students to campus. Returning students (upperclassmen) can move in August 10-13. First-years move in August 14-15.

Classes start August 19.

What will the students be doing all that time between move-in and classes starting? The returning students might be on campus for 10 days before classes start.

I'm planning the Writing Center New Consultant Orientation (which will probably take place mostly online this year, right before classes start), so I asked the Residence Life staff what they had planned for students. Is there programming happening during that time? Res Life says nope. Students will be expected to "keep to themselves" in their dorms while awaiting Covid testing, which Coe is arranging for everyone. First-years will have some "static programming" for orientation, but nothing in large groups, of course.
So 1400 students on a campus with little to do other than wait. What could possibly go wrong?

Here's a hint: two Iowa counties experiencing huge surges in Covid--among the 18-34 year old crowd--are Johnson County and Story County, the homes of University of Iowa and Iowa State, and where athletes have just returned to campus for practices.

********

In fun news, we had a little weekend getaway with Robbie and Aubrey, up in Decorah, Iowa (which has reported only 32 cases of Covid). We planned this trip a few weeks ago when we found out that Aubrey's employer prohibited out-of-state travel, which mean she would be unable to join her family at their Wisconsin cabin. A trip to Decorah in "lower Minnesota" would be a nice way to get away for a bit, but stay in-state.

We had a great time, staying in an Airbnb, visiting Robbie's alma mater--Luther College--and visiting lots of beautiful outdoor spots. We self-catered some meals and also supported local restaurants that had carry-out.

Seed Savers Exchange is a great place to see heirloom vegetables and flowers growing in demonstration gardens.

I took this photo of Aubrey taking a photo of Robbie taking a photo of Dunning's Springs waterfall. Very "meta."