Political Football

This “river” is usually a sand bar strewn trickle of a creek that is typically too shallow to canoe on most of the year. This is Interstate 80 between Wilton and West Liberty. 6/16 – the water has receded from this picture but…

6/14 – I thought I would write a personal update, especially since I’ve not posted for a while and the events in Iowa warrant this post. First let me get some housekeeping out of the way.

HERE is a link to my last update post from May – I thought it time to start a new one. You can take a link on that post to my original welcome post from when I started this blog over a year ago now.

I thought this was funny – from http://powerlineblog.com I always value approaching difficult situations with humor – when you don’t know how to react, humor is always well taken. In this case, a point is also made.

Republicans are jumping on Barack Obama for his statement about the Presidential campaign at a fundraiser last night, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” The McCain campaign said it was good to see Obama abandoning his opposition to the manufacture, sale or possession of handguns, but concluded:

[W]e’re having second thoughts about our proposed series of town halls.

My mind can not operate too far away from trying to parse what’s going on politically in the state, nation and world. With President Bush in Europe, much of the world seems in rapture of his last days in office. I for one, am not looking forward to that day. I hope American voters make a good decision when picking the next Leader of the Free World; I believe John McCain is the man for the job.

It seems clear to me that both the Republican and Democrat parties are dysfunctional with special interest groups trying to “own” what they should not. That makes me very uncomfortable.

A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves – Bertrand de Jouvenel.

I fear Americans have become “sheeple” following special interests groups blindly. I hope more engage in the process.

The candidate I worked for in the June 3rd primary, won – so I will also be busy working on her candidacy for the US House as well as others on the November ballot. This continues to be the most important election in my lifetime.

Thanks to all who are asking how things are going with flooding in Iowa – the problems in the state will take billions to repair and can’t even be quantified in dollars. I am not experiencing any difficulty other than not being able to get far out of the town without hitting a closed bridge over a small river gone mad.

Today we had a drenching albeit short storm that also left some dime sized hail that has since melted. I’ve heard we could be sitting in this situation for another week before we should expect changes.

I know one of the concerns that exist today is how the roads and foundations of some of the major infrastructure under water now will hold up once the water recedes.

This flood has been very different from the 1993 flood which affected the Mississippi river towns more but leaves us with the same feeling of helplessness. And it makes as much sense as it did to discuss “what should be rebuilt” as it should have been after Katrina. We no longer have the need to live close to water; Iowa should set that standard by making some tough decisions. I think we’ve had a 100 year flood 3 times in the last 40 years now in Iowa – and it’s time to consider the logic of building in any type of flood plain. Oh, and we’re waiting for Brad Pitt to show up to help us rebuild sometime in the next weeks. (jk)

Des Moines has be affected a bit harder than in 1993, although the changes made because of that flood saved the water system and more in that town. Cedar Rapids was not affected much in the 1993 floods, and has been devastated in this flood.

There is probably little need to tell you more about what’s going on in Iowa since it’s all you hear about in the news other than the sudden, sad and surprise death of Tim Russert. Russert was one of the few of the Main Street Media that seemed fair. Any one mentioned as his successor on MEET THE PRESS will be filling large shoes – and I hope to heck David Gregory is not on the short list, or Keith Obermann – both are insanely anti Bush and generally show their Democrat bias in ugly ways.

here is the most disturbing picture I’ve seen – I think it’s from Cedar Rapids:

Stay tuned, and pray for Iowans in trouble. – pf

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