February 2010 Archives

It's part of the City Charter, the Mayor gives a State of the City speech by February 28th each year. A tradition has been for the League of Women Voters to host a luncheon for this event.

Mayor Corbett had a pleasant speech for his guests on Wednesday during the $30 luncheon.  Seats were available for those who did not purchase a lunch.

Mayor Corbett added a bit of the Christian religion into his speech using a couple of verses from the Bible.

" I personally have one more piece to add to the trio and that is a 'guiding principle'. I am going to mix a little spirituality, not really religion, to this speech. This is just me talking, not the City Council or City staff. I have a bible verse that I have adopted as the Mayor's verse. I have chosen Proverbs 31:8-9, as my guiding principle. This is the New International Version: 'Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.' I believe this is what life is all about... helping people. And that's my role as the mayor of your city. This is step one in achieving results.

I can't help but thinking that it is rather ironic that the poor and needy are being talked about as some of the City's most rich and powerful are sitting around tables eating their $30 dinners. 

I was told by a county employee there were a couple of tables with flood victims, guests of the City. However, just because they were flood victims does not necessarily mean they are poor and needy.

It's not always the ones that look poor and needy that are in need.  A small businessman or woman can be stretched so thin they don't have a dime to spare.  Would they sit on the sideline and not eat lunch?  Would you?

Perhaps we should not have an important city event where the needy, those obvious and not so obvious ones, don't feel able to participate. Make it open and equal to all, not just those with money in their pockets.


Kathy Potts

Evidently, I am not alone in thinking that the City Council adding $540,000 into the City's budget on Kim Brokaw's yardy device to "protect" us is ridiculous.  Many, many Cedar Rapidians have spoken up on the subject.  Note: This has been added into the budget but the budget has not yet been approved.  However, this money was specifically added into the budget after cuts were made to reduce spending.  Next budget meeting is March 6. (Correction: March 9th is the budget meeting for the discussion of the Cart Guard).

Why is the amount of money that Kim Brokaw donated to Ron Corbett's campaign of interest?  Let's look at Mr. Brokaw's donations since 2005 in the State of Iowa for those running for local or state elections according to the Iowa Board of Ethics.

1. Bankers Unite in Legislate Decisions (BUILD) 4/5/2006 $100
2. Schulte for Senate  $250  6-1-2006
3. Linn Eagles  $150  1-31-2007
4. BUILD  $100  3-16-2007
5. Paulsen for State House Committee $100  10-5-2007
6. BUILD 4-1-2008  $100
7. BUILD 3-19-2009 $100
8. Corbett for Mayor $250  4-1-2009
9. Corbett for Mayor $149  10-9-2009

As you can see, it is uncommon for Mr. Brokaw to donate to campaigns.  He donated more to Corbett's campaign than he donated totally to all other candidates in the last three years.  To me, it's interesting.  What do you think?

Kathy Potts

I was able to listen to the Podcast of the Bob Bruce Radio Show on WMTradio.com early Sunday morning.  You can find it here.  Bob talks about the latest hot topic in Cedar Rapids, the Yardy and the safety device that has been pitched to the City Council and has been added to the City Budget for $540,000.  He spoke with Inventor Kim Brokaw.  Kim Brokaw admitted that he was NOT following directions when he was injured, he did NOT have the lid closed. 

You've got to listen to this podcast if for no other reason to listen to Bob singing "yardy" to the tune of "Feelings", it's a once in a lifetime experience :-)  or at least we can hope!  Just kidding Bob!

I also spent some time watching the video from Budget meeting #10 on www.neighborhoodnetworknews.com.  Councilman Chuck Wieneke had the best idea of all.  If indeed, the Yardy is a danger to us, let's collect them all and just start using paper sacks to put yard trash in.  I agree.  That's a lot better than spending a half a million bucks!!!

If you have not taken the time to read the comment section on KCRG you've got to go there.  Be ready to laugh.  Some of the comments are hilarious.  Several people have commented that this is the first time they have seen everyone on the same page in a comment section.  There seem to be more than a few of us that think this is a stupid decision by our Council.

Another comment about watching the video.  I was amazed to watch how giddy Kris Gulick was as he talked about being able to help Kim Brokaw get his product marketed.

Wednesday's City Council meeting should be an interesting one.  I wonder just how long the public comment line will be.

Kathy Potts

First and foremost I must admit, I love my Yardy.  My Yardy has been a faithful companion in working with me, keeping my yard clean.  I've been able to deposit all of the broken branches and leaves from my neighbors trees, that fall into my yard uninvited, and Yardy has accepted them just as though it were my own debris.  Not once has my Yardy attacked me.  The wind got between Yardy and I once, but just like the wind attacked my umbrella, I knew when I was beaten and waited for the wind to subside. My Yardy is in good shape  and is ready to go to work this spring!  I don't want to hamper Yardy with attaching a device that will only make it difficult for us to work together.  Yardy would no longer be able to tilt backward so I could drag him up the driveway in back or the incline in front.  Yardy is strong and can stand on his own!  I stand with you Yardy!  Stay Strong!

The comments page on the Gazette Online is on fire!  Rick Smith's article,City to spend $540,000 to protect residents... , is getting all kinds of comments.  One guy suggested that the next invention just might be adding a siren so we know when we are starting to back up our Yardy.  Another commenter wanted to know how it felt to wake up in a Saturday Night Live skit.

This would be funny if it weren't so darn pathetic.  Here we are still facing the disastrous results of the last flood and small businesses are going down the tubes and our City Council is concerned that less than a dozen residents have complained about being injured by their Yardy in the last decade.  The instructions are clear.  Close the lid before moving.  Perhaps some of these people are better suited to have someone else move their Yardy.  This might be a new badge for the Boy Scouts.  It's a good deed to help out your neighbor.

On the political side of this event it looks bad that Kim Brokaw gave his largest total political contribution in the last five years to Ron Corbett, according to the Iowa Board of Ethics individual search feature.  Mr. Brokaw is also a hunting buddy of Pat Shey and Kris Gullick.  The survey that Mr. Brokaw is using to push the need of his device was done by Monica Vernon's research company.  That's a lot of personal contact with these people.  Monica was not on the City Council when she did the research.  However, no other research has been done. 

Chuck Wieneke took a stand and said it was hypocritical, according to Smith's article, to demand the budget to be cut and then add this right back in. I agree.   Did Wieneke stand alone in his thinking?  We don't know where the others stand.  Let's see if they vote on this in public.

In his article, Smith states they signaled they would purchase the devices.  Let's hope the signal goes from a green light to a red light and of course a camera is there to catch it!\

UPDATE - Friday 3:48PM

I mentioned to Rick Smith of the Gazette that I had seen a photo of Kris Gullick, Pat Shey and Kim Brokaw along with a couple of others who had been hunting.  Rick forwarded my email to Kris.  This is his response:

Kathy - Just an FYI.  I wouldn't characterize Mr. Brokaw as a hunting buddy.  I had met him once before regarding this product and then met him while hunting with Pat and others.  I don't recall talking to him about the device at that time since we were outside most of the day.  I know him but that would be about the extent of any relationship there. 

Regardless no decision has been made.


Kris

Rick Smith with The Gazette is reporting on his blog, http://bit.ly/b8ah9a, the City Council will be voting this evening as to whether or not they will be buying anti-tipping devices for our Yardys.  Inventor, Kim Brokaw, wants to sell the City 54,000 of the devices at $6, the City will spend an additional $2 for installation.  That's a grand total of $432,000! 

I have a different solution, how about people who believe they might need one of these devices buy the product themselves from Mr. Brokaw. I see no reason for the City to purchase all of these devices.

Kathy Potts

I've been listening to the interviews by the CR City Council for the Long-Range Planning Commission.  There's one question that keeps popping up and it's their wanting to know if the applicants are from Cedar Rapids or not.  What the heck difference does that make?  Maybe none.  It'll be interesting to see when the list comes out just how many of the chosen ones are from Cedar Rapids.

This has nothing to do with the fact that I am an "outsider".  I've lived in Cedar Rapids for over 10 years now.  Three of my four children consider this their home town. 

Maybe "old-timers" are afraid some of the "outsiders" will bring ideas to town that might actually work?

Kathy Potts

Three contributors to feministing.com -- Vanessa Valenti, Samhita Mukhopadhyay and Miriam Perez -- will be speaking next month in Iowa City.

The event, "A Conversation with the Editors of Feministing.com," is part of an annual observance by the Women's Resource and Action Center at the University of Iowa of International Women's Month. The trio will speak on a panel at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March 9, in 100 Phillips Hall.

The event is free and open to the public.

Some of the questions the panelists plan to address:

• How is the failing economy changing gender roles?
• What's up with the sexual climate on college campuses? Is hooking up really tantamount to sexual liberation?
• Is there such a thing as "women's issues" anymore?
• How can we heal intergenerational and interracial tensions after the contentious 2008 presidential election?
• Is feminism today still a bona fide movement? If so, where's the "moving?"

Thursday, February 18
Candidate for Governor, Bob Vander Plaats will be at the Pizza Ranch, 1005 Linden Drive, Marion, from Noon to 1:30 PM to talk about his bid to unseat Governor Chet Culver and outline his priorities for the State.

Friday, February 19
Candidate for Iowa Attorney General, Brenna Findley will be at a Coffee at 4:00 PM, Mr. Beans in Marion, 1080 East Post Road.

Saturday, February 20
The League of Women Voters will be hosting a Legislative Forum with all Legislators in the area.  10:30 AM - 11:45 AM, Hallagan Center, Mercy Hospital, Cedar Rapids.

Wednesday, February 24
Former Governor Mike Huckabee will be joining gubernatorial candidate Bob Vander Plaats at the Marriot Hotel, Cedar Rapids from 5:30 - 7:00 PM.

 

To celebrate Presidents Day I selected several old Reader's Digests to browse for articles on Presidents.  With President Obama just completing his first year as Commander in Chief I found an article I thought appropriate. The following is not the complete article.

Reader's Digest, 1962.
pp 53-54

Condensed from
Time (January 5, '62)

The Testing of a President

Fourteen tough months in office have proved a sobering and maturing experience for the youngest elected chief executive in America's history

The taste of victory was fresh and sweet to John Fitzgerald Kennedy.  He sat in the drawing room of his Georgetown home and spoke breezily about the office he would assume.  "Sure, it's a big job," he said.  "But, I don't know anybody who can do it any better than I can.  It isn't going to be so bad.  You've got time to think - and besides, the pay is pretty good."

One year later, on a cool, gray day, the 35th President of the United States sat at his desk in the oval office of the White House and discussed the same subject.  "This job is interesting," he said in the combination of Irish slur and broad Bostonese that has become immediately identifiable on all the world's radios, "but the possibilities for trouble are unlimited.  It takes a lot of thought and effort.  It's been a tough first year, but then they're all going to be tough."

Kennedy has come to realize that national and international issues look much different from the President's chair than from a candidate's rostrum.  There are fewer certainties, and far more complexities.  "We must face problems which do not lend themselves to easy, quick or permanent solutions," he said recently. "And we must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent not omniscient, and that we cannot right every wrong or reverse each adversity, and that therefore there cannot be an American solution for every world problem."

That sober view of the limitations of power and authority is far removed from Kennedy's campaign oratory.  He promised a "New Frontier" to "get America moving again." He soon found that it was tough enough just to keep the old problems from getting out of hand.

In the 1960 campaign he effectively used the charge that U.S. prestige had plummeted during Dwight Eisenhower's administration.  In fact, the United States had under Ike, and retains under Kennedy, a high reservoir of good will in the free world - as Kennedy saw for himself in his triumphal trips to London, Paris and, more recently, Latin America. 

When Kennedy first came to the White House, he resented his inheritance, constantly referred to problems "not of his own making."  But now those old problems tend to become "our problems" and the fact that the world is in trouble seems to Kennedy less Dwight Eisenhower's fault than he once suspected.

Behind such changes of attitude lies the central story of a U.S. President's coming of age.  Personality is a key to the use of Presidential power, and John Kennedy in 1961 passed through three distinct phases of Presidential personality.  First there was the cocksure new man in office.  Then, after the disastrous, U.S. invasion of Cuba, which might have ruined some Presidents, came disillusionment.  Finally, in the year's last months, came a return of confidence, but of a wiser, more mature kind that had been tempered by the bitter lessons of experience.

It's difficult to know exactly where Shane Goodman, editor of CityView, stands based on a quick read of his latest editorial. On one hand, he seems to think there are too many women staffing news desks around the land, and that their very presence is leading to him being force-fed soft news stories on throw pillows. On the other, he wants readers to enjoy the publication's latest soft news piece on how women can get and keep a man -- which is, ironically, written by what must be one of the last few male reporters on the CityView roster.

His primary dig seems to be directed to The Des Moines Register, but there is little need for me to start defending that publication's honor. Rekha Basu, a seasoned journalist on the DMR staff that I greatly admire, already took care of business in that respect.

What's important to note is that CityView promotes itself as central Iowa's "alternative" weekly. Basically, CityView wants you to think that it is an alternative to what is customary and conventional. Viewing Goodman's column in that light, several things come into focus.

1) The column is an apology to (like-minded male) readers. He is simply saying, "Damn it, I don't want to run this useless fluff, but these silly women have taken up reading and writing and forced my hand."

2) Goodman has a very low opinion of his own female employees and readers. He wrote, "Only a third of our staff at the office is men..." and "...occasional static from some females about not having enough news for women." Logically, if his news crew was predominantly women and, at least in his mind's eye, women are only interested in reporting on "hot colors for throw pillows," then it would follow that CityView would offer a more than adequate supply of soft news that would appeal to soft-news-seeking female readers, right?

3) Goodman stereotypes his male readership, possibly in an attempt to remake them in his own image. He wrote, "There's something for all of us guys to learn in the book, too, if we can put down our TV remotes, wrenches and the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition long enough to soak it in."

I've worked with enough older male journalists and editors to understand the whole hankering for days gone by -- newsrooms filled with male smoke, male obscenities and male flatulence. It was so much easier when the sexes didn't publicly mingle, male reporters covered male policymakers and community leaders, and "skirts" were only good for the occasional scandal. Back then, at least I'm told, reporters felt free to call each other "boobs" or "panty-waists" or even "pussies" for not getting out there and banging some heads together -- well, at least when they weren't sharing a cigar and beer at the country club with those who were overdue for public flogging. 

I also get that it is much more convenient to point to 'chickification' instead of unraveling the news industry's woes of technological advancements, decreased readership, low ad revenues and ever-increasing expenditure costs.

What I get most of all -- and this is mostly due to the wonderful and educational time I've spent with older journalists both male and female -- is that leaders don't scapegoat. Leaders consider all options and, upon having made a thoughtful decision, don't screw it up with public blood- or testosterone-letting.

It never pays to insult others.  Sarah Palin was speaking at the Tea Party Convention and made several negative remarks about President Obama using a teleprompter.  It wasn't too long afterward she was seen with writing on her hand.  So, we're going to make fun of the President for using the latest technology and we are going to do what we did in elementary school?  Give me a break! 

Did you see Chairman Steele of the RNC explaining that the leadership of the RNC was in Hawaii for business and not a vacation while wearing a floral shirt with a lei around his neck.  Nice move there Mr. Chairman.  The comedians appreciate material being handed to them.  It makes their job like Fox News, they just report it.  We look stupid all by ourselves.  It must be nice to be a rich Republican and not live in the real world with all of the rest of us dealing with a poor economy, high gas prices, a lack of job growth, etc.

Are there any Log Cabin Republicans in Iowa?  If you are here would you please speak up LOUDLY!!!  I am tired of hearing about the marriage issue.  I know that not all Republicans want a vote on marriage.  I am not interested in forcing my religious beliefs on anyone.  I don't want my government enforcing religious beliefs period.  Freedom of Religion matters. 

Kathy Potts

Probably not appropriate for work due to questionable language, but nonetheless one of the best spoofs/responses I've seen in ages:

And for those who haven't had the misfortune of seeing the original ad, which supposedly promotes the Dodge Charger, here it is:

There really are some out there who believe that equality for women will result in some lower social standing for men. Samantha Bee of The Daily Show has more...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Male Inequality
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

You hear a lot of jokes about Iowa City, Johnson County and the liberals who live there and the very few conservatives who dare to.  A couple of years ago I was sitting at the Old Capitol Mall waiting on Tom when an older gentleman walking by commented to his wife about a car having a Bush '04 bumper sticker, "I can't believe they have the guts to drive over here with that bumper sticker!"  

Iowa City is its own little part of Iowa and I think that has not everything to do with political parties but with the University and the diversity of people who make up the City and County.  I love visiting there <grin>.  Every now and then you do find a Conservative, it's like finding a rare bird!

I recently met a delightful lady, Karen Fesler, who lives in Coralville.  She is a Conservative who has been involved in political campaigns behind the scenes in Iowa and Missouri.  She  recently began writing a blog.  She is very thoughtful in her postings and I believe will give Independents and Democrats insight into why a woman would be a Republican.

Go read her blog, A Reluctant Revolutionary, let her know I sent you.

Kathy Potts

When women are faced with a difficult pregnancy they really only need two things:

1) Unfettered access to doctors' opinions about their situation
2) Freedom to make an informed choice based on those opinions

The ad that has caused the latest stir features a mother and her son. The son happens to be the quarterback at the University of Florida and a Heisman trophy winner -- but that is supposedly only important in the context of this ad being connected to the "big game." (The ad is being created by a conservative religious group, Focus on the Family, and they are continuing to build excitement and speculation by not pre-releasing it.)

Members of the Tebow family, including Pam, the mom, have been overseas missionaries, and founded the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association in the Philippines. During one of their mission trips to the country Pam developed dysentery, which escalated until she was comatose. The medications she was given at that time are known to possibly cause harm or death to a developing fetus -- and she was unknowingly pregnant at that time with her son, Tim Tebow.

The Tebow family was given medical advice by doctors and they then made their decision to continue the pregnancy.

Some may say the Tebow's "were fortunate" or "got lucky." Others will say it was the "grace of God" or the "power of prayer." Quite frankly, people's thoughts about the outcome of the pregnancy aren't nearly as important as the fact that a woman was presented with unfettered access to information about her personal situation, and that same woman, understanding all the risks, made a decision that she felt was best for her and her family.

That's a beautiful story. That's a story we can all be proud to hear and proud to share. The fact that Focus on the Family and its donors feel compelled to spend between $2 and $3 million so that viewers can know what a good thing it is to trust women? We should all be up applauding.

I never thought I would see the day when a law was a suggestion.  I guess if you live long enough you'll see a lot of things you never expected to see.

Governor Culver wants large construction projects to "consider" using project labor agreements.  I don't have a problem with fair agreements, I have a couple of more things I think they should consider like equal pay for women and equal numbers of women working on the project.  Why just consider a few things.  After all guys, if you're going to actually start thinking you might as well think about more than just that one thing.

Bits and Pieces

Did you hear that Cedar Rapids City Councilman Chuck Wieneke actually called the smokestack at the former Sinclair Plant a phallic symbol?  Is that how he views every smokestack in town or just this one.  Maybe he knows something more about the meat packing that went on there than what we've all heard?

Linn County Supervisor Linda Langston wanted to put a Republican on the Linn County Conservation Board.  He didn't make it.  When it came up for a vote she wasn't present and the post went to a Democrat.  Yep, nominated by the Republican, Brent Oleson.  Who says we don't have bi-partisanship in Linn County!  Congratulations Mike Wyrick!!!

Kathy Potts