Des Moines and San Francisco: a subjective view

Last month I visited family in the Bay Area of California – plenty of time to see some differences between Polk County in Central Iowa and San Mateo County just south of San Francisco. In the earlier post, more objective, quantifiable data were compared.

While some of the differences can be easily compared, it is harder to quantify other differences, such as

• food, gardening
• travel, commuting
• baseball, activities
• stress

Grocery shopping? California may have a big edge here.

• CA has New Leaf, Whole Foods, and Andronico’s, natural food stores where you can get everything you need; while the prices are a little higher on some items (especially the meat), the produce is ripe and fresh – likely because it doesn’t travel far.
• The only places like that in IA are the farmers’ markets: Des Moines Farmer’s Market, and other local markets; Iowa City’s New Pioneer Food Coop; Ames’ Wheatsfield Grocery. In contrast to CA, Des Moines-based New City Market and Campbell’s Nutrition are quite small by comparison.
• When it comes to the commercial chains (except for the produce) IA’s Hy-Vee and Dahl’s compare favorably with Safeway in CA.

Home gardening? This will get your attention! There is a wait of 4 to 7 years to get a 100 sq ft garden plot in the Fort Mason Community Garden. That is a plot about the size of a very small bedroom. We’ve had picnics at Fort Mason more than once, and it is a beautiful spot as you can see on the right; but it’s easier to find a spot to garden in Iowa.

Food, in general? My impression is that

• Iowa wins on beef and pork
• California wins on fruits and vegetables

Driving? I find it easier to drive in the Bay Area, but enough said about that.

Cars? This is a strange experience. I drove my sister’s hot rod Lincoln for 4 weeks, and you wouldn’t believe what I have seen and have not seen.

• I saw only ten 2009 Chevrolet Impalas in 20 days
• instead? Toyota, Mercedes, Lexus, Hyundai, BMW, Acura, Honda, Volvo and a few Ford cars and Chevy trucks

Public Transit? The Purple Wren and I stayed in a coastal California community about the size of Grinnell, Iowa and took lots of public transit too.

• twice to San Francisco and back (SamTrans bus and CalTrain)
• once to Oakland and part way back (walked a block to SamTrans buses then BART right to the Coliseum)
• around San Francisco (Muni)

Baseball? Definitely a lot of winners here! Whether you live in the Bay Area or Des Moines, you can see good professional baseball: San Francisco Giants; Oakland A’s; Iowa Cubs. I saw the A’s and the Tigers and my favorite Tiger Curtis Granderson (shown left), but the best part was spending the afternoon with my nephew John who rode BART from Berkeley. We had great seats, but you know, it’s hard to beat an afternoon in Principal Park right here in Des Moines!

Activities? There is more to do in both places than I can ever get to.

Stress? I am not sure that stress is the right word – intensity might be better. The pace is faster, and the crowd is larger in CA. It is a line-up kind of place, and longer lines – at the movies, banks, grocery stores, restaurants, traffic, bus/CalTrain/BART stops. It’s all exciting and intense, but it creates a little more stress. When the Purple Wren and I moved back after a year in CA 10 years ago, I said, “I could live in CA, but I wouldn’t live as long.” I’ll stand by that.

Well, you win some, you lose some, and sometimes you tie. I’m happy to be here; I was happy to be there.

Des Moines and San Francisco: factual differences

Bernie Madoff in Des Moines dollars

By his own admission Bernie Madoff engaged in criminal acts using $65 billion of other people’s money. He lost it.

How much is $65 billion in Des Moines dollars?

The median annual household income in Polk County is under $55,000.

If the average Polk County family worked 1 million years, they would still be $10 billion short.

You say you don’t have a million years? Enlist your friends. There are about 150,000 households. If every man, woman, and child in Polk County pooled their income for about 8 years, we could match the $65 billion. 

That’s one perspective on the crime: Bernie Madoff took the equivalent of 8 years of labor of every man, woman, child in Polk County, Iowa.

I wonder where his thinking went wrong. 

photo by flickr by Steve Rhodes of a painting by Yan Pei Ming

Trouble at GM? It’s not the first time

The wheels have come off at GM, but it could be worse.

After all, you will wake up on Tuesday June 2, 2009, and there will still be a General Motors. (That’s good.) You will own the lion’s share of GM until (and if) it starts to make money, and then someone else will get to buy it back. (That’s mixed.) I would probably favor the idea that we (aka, the federal government/U. S. Treasury) would make some big bucks before we sell. Some question whether making money anytime soon is going to happen.

If you read 2008 Salisbury Automobile Classic on AroundDesMoines.com last September -especially the links to Billy Durant – you know that GM has had its share of trouble.

Billy Durant created GM in 1908 for a small sum of money, raised a large sum of money by selling stock, bought Buick, Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland (Pontiac), was pushed out in 1910, quickly joined forces with a race driver named Chevrolet and founded Chevrolet Motors, regained GM in 1916, was forced out again in 1920, and before he could rebuild his fortune, was ruined in the stock market crash of 1929. Durant was a dandy entrepreneur who lived too close to the edge once too often.

You can examine the way GM views its history. While the Web site has a corporate spin, the photos make it great fun for a car buff.

CNBC.com has a timeline history that was posted on May 27 2009. While it wanders a bit, it has a lot of facts.

The foreign press is sometimes a nice read since they mince fewer words. Try the Telegraph.co.uk from England.

So while the trouble at GM is not the first trouble, it is the biggest bankruptcy in U. S. history, and it does have our attention.

I sure hope we like the changes in GM ‘cuz looking for a Chevy is never going to be the same.

photos by flickr by bobster885 and James G. Lindberg

Thomas Friedman at Grinnell College

Good message!

Become the generation that will be called the Re-Generation.

Thomas Friedman, New York Times world affairs columnist and prolific author, gave the commencement address at Grinnell College on Monday May 19, 2009. You can hear the entire address (in 3 installments totaling just under 25 minutes) courtesy of YouTube.

In his initial remarks Friedman related several issues cited by fellow journalist Kurt Andersen in his recent Time magazine article, The End of Excess.

Continuing, Friedman then focused on a generational theme, first on the The Greatest Generation (that of his parents and grandparents – the generation that survived The Great Depression then fought in World War II). He cited the qualities that characterized the greatest generation:

• hard work
• delayed gratification
• achievement oriented
• focused attention

Those were my parents too and I would add to that list

• frugal
• humble
• accountable

Friedman contrasted the Greatest Generation with his own generation, the baby boomers (post-WWII babies) and named that generation the Grasshopper Generation – eating through the fabric of the nation like hungry locusts. He credited the grasshopper generation with such dubious qualities as

• excess (over-consuming, over-building, over-borrowing, over-lending, over-eating) and
• dumb as we wanna be (delaying the solutions to Social Security, health care, energy, environment, and immigration).

He cited the subprime meltdown in particular as illuminating a decline in basic values, risk management, accountability, and ethics.

Friedman then challenged the Grinnell graduates to become the Re-Generation

that could restore the basic values of

• hard work
• accountability

and added that the graduates should carry with them

• ethics
• uncompromising idealism
• unbending convictions
• principled behaviors

and that they should create value through

• invention
• innovation
• imagination

all in order to do real engineering of materials, of services, of societal movement that fulfill needs, both seen and unseen.

It was great advice to the Grinnell College Class of 2009.

Friedman also told an interesting story with several Iowa connections. While studying in London in 1975 and dating wife-to-be Ann Bucksbaum, daughter of Carolyn “Kay” (a Grinnell alum) and Matthew Bucksbaum (an Iowa alum), Friedman (not a journalist at the time) was so stirred by the politics of the day that he wrote an op-ed piece. Ann carried it back to Des Moines. The piece made its way to The Des Moines Register editorial page editor who published it. Friedman received $50, and he was hooked as a journalist. Thus, Friedman’s exceptional career has a strong Des Moines connection.

If you’d like to read two recent Friedman books try

• The World Is Flat
• Hot, Flat and Crowded.

photos by James G. Lindberg

DOA in Iowa

In the State of Iowa the Department of Elder Affairs is changing its name to Department on Aging. Local politicos think that the acronym DOA is too much of an in-your-face reminder. They are falling all over themselves trying not to use it.

The change from elder affairs to aging was made in order to conform with the names of federal agencies dealing with the elderly. Reuters reports that Iowa’s elder affairs chief John McCalley will not use the DOA acronym; he favors DA. That’s very sensitive of him. It’s bad enough to be feeling a little arthritic. We surely don’t want to be heading through a door that says DOA !

On the other hand DOA has a nice ring to it.

• It is a medical term, dead on arrival, meaning that a person was already dead upon the arrival of medical personnel. Oops. Sorry. That’s the reminder we’re trying to avoid here, isn’t it?
• D.O.A. was a 1950 movie, and if you remember it, you have business with the Department of Elder Affairs.
• It was also a 1988 movie and If you only saw the D.O.A. remake with Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid, try the DONQOTH BC, Department of Not Quite Over the Hill, But Close.
• If you think DOA stands for Dogbert Outplacement Agency (Dilbert), you probably have a sense of humor that allows you to think Iowa’s DOA flap is funny.
• If you think that DOA stands for the band Disciples of Annihilation with hits like Ya Mutha and Pound Down on Your Brain, I’m sure you’re not reading this blog.

In the meantime, don’t take yourself too seriously.

photo by flickr by Mike Licht

Obama: Starting quietly in Iowa

It started pretty quietly.

There were hundreds of early, up-close-and-personal chances to meet Barack Obama including

• a house party in Ida Grove
• a meet-the-candidate session at the VFW Post 5240 in Dakota City
• a visit with diners at the Maid-Rite restaurant in Newton
• a box lunch for about 100 at the Des Moines Public Library

You can see a list of most of the events, but it doesn’t include the box lunch at the Library – Friday, May 11, 2007. Organizers had trouble getting enough people to fill the room. But there were many more events in Des Moines. In July Obama and his family were back in Des Moines for a 4th of July picnic at Beaverdale Park. More people were there, maybe 400, but Iowans were still able to shake hands and speak to Barack and Michelle Obama face to face. At the end of July he was in Union Park and numbers were greater, perhaps 500. In early October at the Convention Center there were over 1,000, and the chances of speaking personally were less. By November at the Jefferson Jackson banquet, his team of organizers stuffed plenty of vocal, passionate people into Vets Auditorium; by that time I felt that Obama would win the Democratic caucuses. By December when Oprah came, 18,000 came to Hy-Vee Hall even without a free lunch. The rallies were getting big and loud. Leading up to the caucuses there were many more Iowa events including some in Des Moines: Scottish Rite Temple; Roosevelt High School. Iowans did their homework; we knew him well. Then came the Iowa caucuses, he won, and it got quiet in Iowa again.

In the two years that Barack Obama visited and campaigned here, he took us seriously; we took him seriously. He left a lot of himself in Iowa; he took some of Iowa with him. He got a fair hearing and a favorable reception among Iowa Democrats, and the door to the nomination was a little more open.

And when it was clear that he was going to secure the nomination, on May 20, 2008 he came back to say thanks.

Couldn’t we claim that he is just a little bit Iowan? I know he was born in Hawaii, but I’d like to think of him as a Hawaii-owan. How about you?

A breath-taking moment in American history

I have witnessed a transforming moment in American history. I am proud to have been there.

Did you read the post Are we too divided? It was written 10 months ago, early in the campaign, before the Iowa primaries, before either Obama or McCain was the front runner. At the time I felt that the division and rancor prevalent in the politics of the 1990s (and beyond) was the greatest threat to the nation. For whatever reason, as a nation we had lost civility, a common purpose, and dedication to the common good. I thought that Barack Obama had the best chance to bring about some semblance of civil discourse and healing. At the same time I was happy that John McCain was the Republican nominee. He had looked like a good choice in 2000 too when he seemed direct and sincere. It was disappointing in 2008 when his campaign became more negative. Tonight I was glad to see the old John McCain return.

If you did not hear John McCain’s concession speech, you must listen to him and read the comments of Joe Candelman. This was one of John McCain’s finest political moments. He rose again to stature worthy of the American hero that he is. Around the world he is being recognized for the class and grace he showed tonight. (Recognize too that throughout the campaign John McCain never used race in any way to divide the nation. It was clear in his concession speech that racial sensitivity is a core value for McCain.)

Barack Obama too, spoke of the remarkable transformation that has taken place in America.

During the long campaigns 100 million American voters listened to two voices and judged the speakers primarily by their messages. While many of the network news stars seemed quite fascinated by race, America never took the bait. Instead we listened, we watched, we considered, and we judged – but not on the basis of race. Listening, watching, considering, and judging without making race a critical component of the process has never happened before to this extent. That is the transforming moment: setting aside race. (As Americans we are such a mixture anyway that it’s just too much bother.)

In my experience the vast majority of people under 25 have lost track of the concept of race (and lots of those young people voted); but when the election statistics are revealed, we will also discover that Barack Obama ran well with men over 65.

That’s good. It’s time. Now let’s get down to business. We have some Republican-Democrat reconciliation to do too, and as a nation we have some problems to fix.

photos by Lindberg and photo flickr by VictoryNH: Protect Our Primary

Where to vote in Iowa

Want to find your polling place in Iowa? Ask the Iowa Secretary of State. The website will help you locate your polling place.

See also Voting early in Around Des Moines.

Just vote!

The voting booths are ready, the poll workers in place.

The ballots are printed.

You have heard and studied the positions on each issue.

Now the nation and the world are waiting for your best judgment.

-

OK, then.

Just vote.

photo by flicker by momboleum

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