Around Des Moines

There are plenty of activities for this weekend so put off doing your taxes until Monday night. Or, reward yourself with a new piece of art, an ice cream cone, or a night under the stars for finishing the pesky paperwork early.

As part of the Des Moines Public Library’s AVID series, George Guidall will talk about his experiences narrating and recording audio books. The event is at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 10th, at the Central Library.

Valley Junction’s spring Gallery Night is on Friday, the 11th., from 5:00 to 9:00 p.m. Eleven galleries, plus other shops and restaurants, will be open.

This is the last weekend for Sarah, Plan and Tall at the Des Moines Playhouse. Friday at 7:00 p.m., Saturday at 1:00 p.m., and Sunday at 1:00 and at 4:00 p.m. Adult tickets are $15.00. The Pajama Game opens at the Playhouse on Friday, April 11th.

For stargazers, Drake University’s spring series at the Drake Municipal Observatory (Observatory Lane off of Polk Boulevard in Des Moines) is on Friday, the 11th, at 8:00 p.m. This week’s topic is Stars That Are Not Stable. On Saturday, the 12th, the Des Moines Astronomical Society will offer tips on stargazing at 8:00 p.m. at the Ashton Observatory (Hwy. F-17, off of Hwy. 330, west of Baxter).

Ritual Cafe (13th between Grand and Locust) has performers scheduled Thursday through Saturday: Julie Loyd at 7:00 p.m. on the 10th, Nikki Lunden at 8:00 on the 11th, and Big John Burns at 8:00 p.m. on the 12th.

Java Joe’s CoffeeHouse (4th Street between Walnut and Court) offers a family game night and ice cream social on Thursday the 10th. The ice cream costs $2.50 per scoop and is provided by KaleidoScoops Ice Cream & More of Ankeny. On Sunday, the 13th, Pastor John Colyer will host an open forum on “The Bible,” from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

A recommendation for QWIKSAND comes from a reader. The group will play at the House of Bricks (525 East Grand) on April 10th at 7:00 p.m. Because of the locale, this performance is age restricted (21 or older). There is a $5 charge. According to a February 28th press release, the band was in Los Angeles filming the pilot for a reality TV show.

Conversations with a group of people last week made it very clear that this is the season for new puppies and kittens. If you want to help make sure they have good and healthy lives, consider volunteering with the Animal Rescue League of Iowa. ARL has a volunteer orientation the second Saturday of every month. One is scheduled for April 12th. These events are held from 9:00 to 11:00 a.m. at 5452 NE 22nd Street in Des Moines. Volunteers are important for providing services to animals, including making sure dogs are walked. No pre-registration is required for the orientation.

If you do nothing else, take a walk, look at the flowers, imagine a canopy of leaves overhead, and wave to your neighbors.

M.R. Field encourages organizations and performers to send news about their upcoming events to events@AroundDesMoines.com. 

At a campaign rally in Wisconsin last week, Michelle Obama stated that she is proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. She added that she said that not only because her husband is leading in the contest to be nominated as the presidential candidate of a major political party but also because people are pushing for change. She did not specify what change means to her and there have been a variety of interpretations. Some people claim that it means African Americans will be given more respect and they cite how the federal government responded when the levees broke in New Orleans. Other people accept that Michelle meant political change and they cite the presidents who have been in office since she was 18 years old in 1982, starting with Ronald Reagan. Still other people have decided that change refers to the number of youth who are flocking to the Obama campaign. I interpreted the statement as meaning that Americans have not been working for change over the last quarter of a century.

Many Americans, including a large number of Iowans, have been and are working for change. They may do this as members of the Peace Corps or as Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). They may do it as elected officials or as appointees to a governmental commission. They may do it as mentors to boys and girls.

People can lead an effort for change or they can participate in some other capacity. We need thinkers who come up with new ideas. We need laborers who can donate a bit of their time. We need bankers to help keep the people working for change from starving. We need managers who can coordinate the various parts. We need politicians to codify policies. Even the critic is important for change as he or she can help people think about why there should or should not be change.

A country is both its government and its people. Change can be a massive event such as World War II or Social Security but it can also be something smaller such as countering urban sprawl or growing organic food. Rep. Wayne Ford (D-Polk County) ran for office because he wanted to change the high rate of incarceration for African Americans in Iowa’s prisons. Katy Flynn started Des Moines for Darfur because nobody else had. Sue Dinsdale switched jobs to push withdrawal from Iraq as a campaign issue. The list of individual Iowans working for change goes on and on.

Often I disagree with individuals about specific changes and have written about the harm some supposedly good changes have wrought. In addition, I oppose change just to have change and oppose maintaining the status quo just because that’s the way things are. Nevertheless, I take pride in the number of Americans I have observed giving of their time, their money, and their lives to bring change to our communities and to our country.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

The quilts now on display at the Polk County Heritage Gallery are more craft than art. That is to say they were made using parts that were mostly uniform and interchangeable. How the quilters used color, repetition, and themes allowed for some individual touches of art to appear.

The quilts hanging at the gallery are part of 100 that were made for C-on Kinshuko, a Christian family camp in Iwate, Japan. Each quilt had one of several bible verses printed on a label in Japanese and sewn onto the backside. Each quilt also had an 18-inch by 18-inch center square, surrounded by long strips of cloth and with assorted blocks placed in a pattern that resembled brick walkways. Quilters had attended a class on longarm quilting and then gathered for over a year using equipment furnished by American Professional Quilting Systems (8033 University Avenue, Clive). Techniques used on the center squares included machine piecing, sashiko (a Japanese technique), hand and machine applique, foundation paper piecing, and embroidery. The main church identified in the exhibit is the Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines. Participating quilters were from congregations in Altoona, Ankeny, Colfax, Des Moines, Johnston, Prairie City, Urbandale, and West Des Moines. The choice of style for blocks, and thus for the quilts, was made with the ease of cutting them out of donated fabric scraps in mind

Some of the quilts are too busy, with too many competing colors and shapes. Other quilts have a soothing flow of color. The katakuri flower, or dog-tooth violet, is common around the camp and it was incorporated into the center of at least one quilt.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the intent of each quilt designer. Was a theme selected because the quilter liked that object or was there a conscious decision to share a touch of Americana or to acknowledge elements of nature as presented in Japanese art? All three approaches appear to have been used in the course of making the hundred quilts.

Just as the message of each quilt’s theme is open to interpretation, the effectiveness of design choices depends on the perception of the viewer. Such perception is influenced by personal experience and knowledge. While stitched center designs were interesting, I found myself favoring quilts with layered designs. This had more to do with aging eyes than with the quilters’ work. The center square is useful as a means of identifying individual quilts and thus a viewer is drawn to that part of the object. It would be unjust, though, not to observe how that center square ties into displays of color, use of materials, and placement of shapes in the entire quilt.

My favorite quilt was of a canoe and pine tree. It echoes the rustic setting of the camp, connects it with land and water near Iowa, and the blocks surrounding the center square help to create a feeling of being surrounded by a forest.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

December 1st is World AIDS Day. AIDS stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that can cause AIDS. HIV is passed through blood, semen, vaginal fluid, and breast milk. Although relatively rare in Iowa, the number of HIV/AIDS diagnoses has been creeping upwards in the past couple of years. In Iowa as in the entire United States, while more men than women are diagnosed, women are making up a greater portion of new diagnoses. In other parts of the world, AIDS remains a much more serious disease for women, their children, and their countries.

According to the Iowa Department of Public Health, State of Iowa HIV and AIDS Surveillance Report for June 30, 2007, there are 411 cases of HIV/AIDS in Polk County and 1,489 in the entire state. Statewide, 79% of the people diagnosed are male, while 21% are female. New diagnoses are now running at about 100 per year. Sex is identified as the main method by which the virus is transmitted.

Iowans for AIDS Action held a dozen prayer vigils and rallies on November 27 to ask presidential candidates for support in ending AIDS. One of those candlelight vigils was held outside of Mike Huckabee’s campaign headquarters at 6th and Locust in Des Moines. I was told by someone familiar with the event that about twenty people participated and Huckabee’s staff invited them into the offices to discuss the issue. The flyer promoting the vigils notes that 50,000 Americans were diagnosed with AIDS in 2006, bringing the total of people with the disease to one million.

Based in the East Village, the AIDS Project of Central Iowa has a care team and a prevention team. Care Services Supervisor Becky Johnson talked with me about the project for this article. The AIDS Project was started about 15 years ago by a group of concerned individuals. Now, a staff of 12 part-time and full-time employees help more than 300 people in central Iowa with HIV and AIDS get medication, housing, and other necessities of life. The prevention team uses an evidence-based curriculum approved by the CDC in its outreach efforts. The project is funded in part by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), with corporate donations, and through the Iowa Department of Public Health.

The project has one phone number that can be used by people seeking confidential HIV testing, Hepatitis C testing, information about the disease, help in keeping a friend from getting HIV, to donate money and/or time, and to talk with an intake counselor about services. That phone is: (515) 284-0245.

The Fall 2007 newsletter of the Iowa Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics has a summary of changes made in the Iowa Code related to HIV testing protocols that took effect on July 1. Pre-test counseling is no longer required nor is special consent. A general release for medical tests and procedures will suffice. In addition, pregnant women now must decide to opt out, instead of opt in, for HIV testing as part of prenatal care. These changes bring Iowa’s practices closer to the recommendations of the CDC. The newsletter article notes that the rate of transmission of HIV from mother to new born child can drop from between 25% and 35% to between 2% and 3% with testing..

The AIDS Project has an HIV Day on the Hill. Johnson said the legislature has been very responsive in providing resources for medications. The next goal is to get money to help with prevention. There is also need for surveillance of Hepatitis C, which is transmitted through blood.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa. 

Over the past year, as I have beaten the laundry of women’s equality against the rocks lining river banks, I have observed the old girls’ network holding fast. If the old boys’ network is Ivy League connections, corporate boardrooms, and bonding rituals that include hazings and sports, then the old girls’ network is humanitarian service organizations, not-for-profit meeting rooms, and bonding rituals based in shared nurturing. There are women, however, of all ages, who want to move away from the old girls’ network and merge the old boys and the old girls into a new power girls’ network. Hopefully we can drop the hazing rituals, though.

Volunteer work seems to have been replaced with e-mail petitions. All we have to do to make a difference anymore, it seems, is to type our name into a form provided by some organization funded by a financier and send it off into cyberspace. Meanwhile, local organizations and local chapters of national groups struggle to attract people to meetings, let alone to do all the work involved in maintaining and promoting an organization.

We are spread thin by daily demands. Our daily newspapers and other publications (broadband, broadcast, or broadsheet) seem only to leave us wanting more, or take so much time to sort through that we have no time left to volunteer. Yet, we are offered a multitude of choices for networking that seek to make our lives better.

As I rush out the door to attend yet another meaningless political talk about women and families, I hasten to finish this commentary. I keep waiting to see the presidential candidates talk about men and families. Heck, maybe someone can bring back the idea that men should receive wages when they marry and then when the first child is born. (By the way, November 25 was the United Nations International Day for Elimination of Violence Against Women.)

I am asking for readers’ input on two items. There is a survey to assess what a permanent edition of Leading Voices: Iowa might include. The survey will take only a few minutes to complete. I also have started to put together a list of women’s organizations and groups in Iowa. This is incomplete and in need of better online formatting, but it already is an impressively-long list. I know there are organizations and other items missing from it and would appreciate help completing the list. Thank you.

M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.

These Obama volunteers from Kansas City came to Des Moines last weekend to listen to Barack at a morning event in Union Park. Then they headed out into the neighborhoods for a little canvassing.

The Obama For America headquarters are located at 323 E Locust Street in Des Moines. Contact Aaron Gardner, Field Organizer at (515) 883.2008 to see how you can get involved.

For those of you living in or visiting Iowa, Union Park (map) is located at 1895 Pennsylvania Avenue. According to neighborhood leaders, Union Park is an area that has been naturally integrated for many, many years. I tried to find more history - but couldn’t - so if you know more about the area, please comment and we’ll keep the conversation going.

It’s also home of the Heritage Carousel. Look for another post about an upcoming event there.

5th Annual Asian Heritage Festival
Saturday, May 12, 2007
10 a.m.-9 p.m.
Des Moines Water Works Park (directions)
Free admission. Parking $2.

Each May the different Asian American communities in Iowa unite for a daylong celebrAsian. Villages at the 2007 Asian Heritage Festival include: Burmese, Cambodian, Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Japanese, Korean, Laotian, Nepalese, Thai, Taidam, and Vietnamese. It’s the largest Asian American event in Iowa. The program this year includes:

• cultural exhibits
• history
• food
• performance artists
• sports
• martial arts
• children’s villages and rides
• other family-friendly activities

There’s plenty of opportunities to get involved.

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