An Emotional Trip Down Derecho Memory Lane

 

Aug. 10, 2020—a day that will loom large in the memory of Cedar Rapidians.

This week, on Wednesday, I zoomed into a session sponsored by The Gazette, our daily paper. Their four-person photojournalism staff shared many images that they made and discussed memories of the devastating storm.

A tornado can be bad. A big, powerful one may stay on the ground for a hundred miles, leaving a sometimes mile-wide swath of destruction. But such monster twisters are rare even here in Iowa where we are used to tornado safety drills and listen for those warning sirens when the summer skies darken.

But the derecho was a whole level of crazy beyond that. We were expecting a storm Aug. 10, but nobody expected an unusual bow of destruction, a bent wall of straight-line winds that would sweep across much of the state, flattening crops, ripping off roofs and uprooting trees as it blew and blew.

Aug. 10, after the storm, C Avenue traffic slows to a crawl as street is blocked by power lines. (Not a Gazette image, see theirs on their video above, all images in this post are mine).

Hurricane-force winds devastated wide areas of the state. Cedar Rapids, its immediately connected communities such as Marion, Hiawatha and Robins, and the small towns in the county surrounding us were hit with a storm that started as a thunderstorm but quickly escalated and seemed like it would never stop. “Derecho” means both “right” and “straight on” in Spanish, and the Spanish word labels a straight-on storm whose violence is hard to image if you have not lived through one.

And in many ways the derecho hasn’t ended. Many homes were damaged—apartments and houses—and the impact of derecho devastation still reverberates in town. One result is that this city, which just last summer featured a beautiful canopy of mature trees, will take a generation to recover its shade. Me and my family were lucky—even though our houses were damaged, and we just signed a contract this week for one derecho-recovery project with more to come.

Last August! I remember the sense of survival instinct in those dark powerless days following the storm. Much food was spoiled, gasoline was not to be had in town, and we had to get creative. But we were among the fortunate one—our problems were manageable and our house inhabitable even if not fully intact.

In Cedar Rapids, we are blessed to have a local newspaper owned by a local company. In many places, photojournalists are an endangered species. We have four talented photographers who freeze historic moments in time, and The Gazette published a book based on their images.

At the session, moderator Mary Sharp noted that Gazette photographers made more than 10,000 images of the storm and its aftermath, and used 1,000 by printing them or sharing them online.

Then, 195 of them were used to publish a book about that storm. The Gazette is donating a part of the proceeds to replanting trees.

Aug. 11, campus of Mount Mercy University. There was a much beloved grove of huge pines that were in the lawn by Warde Hall. Past tense, they are gone with the wind now. Here, one lies on the building the day after the storm. The campus suffered millions of dollars in damage.

Each photographer took turns describing the story behind the images shown Wednesday. Andy Abeyta shot both the image that become the book cover—it was chosen partly because the image had room for the cover text—and the more famous front-page image of passersby aiding a truck driver caught in an overturned truck.

As Abeyta described it, he was in Iowa City that day to make images of a protest there. He was returning to Cedar Rapids when the once in a century (knock on wood) storm blew through. He saw a truck that had just overturned, parked and ran back to see if he could help—but three other people were already there to aid the driver, so Abeyta took out his cell phone and shot some images.

It is an interesting note that a media photographer with fine digital SLR cameras ended up capturing this key moment with his phone. But I think angle, timing and an eye that can quickly see the possible images—I always tell my students that journalism requires imagination, and I do not mean making stuff up but rather recognizing possibilities in gathering information or making images—are a photojournalist’s most important tools.

It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer. Nothing substitutes for recognizing you’re in the right place at a key moment and using whatever tool you have.

All of the photographers—Liz Martin, the Gazette’s head photographer; Jim Slosiarek, who has recorded the first draft of Cedar Rapids history for many years; Rebecca Miller; and Abeyta told interesting stories of many images.

One lesson driven home again and again is the importance of journalists to get out and about—to report by being there. Again, it’s a key point I try to make with my students, with mixed results. Don’t email all your sources or consult Google to retread information—the best journalism is what you find in the world, and you have to be out there to encounter it. That’s always true of photographers, but is a lesson for the rest of the tribe, too.

And, as Martin noted, news photographers are always looking for “the human impact.” Another journalism 101—don’t just show “the thing.” Show what the thing means to people—and that is very true of photography. I often make images of nature—because I’m a journalism professor, not a journalist—but I have a pretty good reputation as an event image maker at MMU, and I always think what I try to do is capture what something means by capturing the emotions of the people.

Things can be important too, and Martin made the point while showing an image without a person in it, so not every news pictures requires a person in it—but people are usually key.

Later in August, power is finally back on. Butterflies, birds, deer--wildlife had been scarce since the storm, but critters are starting to reappear. Here, an angry squirrel on the felled giant ash tree in front of my house seems to hold me accountable for the disruptions to its life.

One question posed was whether the news photographers were invading people’s privacy at vulnerable moments. They all described asking for consent—and for tying to make images in a respectful way that does not interfere with the moment.

And that gets to anther point. People who suffer through an experience like the derecho can be vulnerable—but what they least want is to be ignored. Journalists—photojournalists like this panel of four but also writers, videographers, radio reporters, TV reporters, web site journalists—are there to prevent that, to tell the stories that otherwise might be ignored.

It was a bit emotional watching the images float by. Photography has power because it does freeze an instant in time, and the best images capture the emotion of that instant. And those of us who lived through the derecho can’t help but recall the intense feelings of that time as we watched the slide show on Martin’s shared desktop.

It was an interesting night. I’m glad that the Gazette gave us this opportunity to learn more about the stories behind the news images.

The Poetry and Peril of Public Speaking

I flew the flag on the porch today. A patriotic day for old Joes.

Ever since the mob attacked the Capitol, I’ve been full of thoughts. I’ve wanted to blog about many things:

• Reforms we need to our election system. No, I don’t buy into the Trump “steal” lie, but there is plenty to think about. How money corrupts the system. How gerrymandering keeps state governments and the U.S. House unrepresentative. How I actually don’t care for mail voting. It’s not that I worry so much about fraud—although even without it, the fact that so many don’t trust it still causes me to pause—but that I want elections decided, by and large, by a vote on election day. I don’t want voting over weeks—I would rather the campaigns play out to the end.

• The need for new ways to think about the marketplace of ideas. I don’t want to curtail free speech, but the interconnected nature of the internet has created all kinds of odd alternative universes. As Hank Green ruminated in a recent post, the need to appeal to eyeballs online drives us to more extremes. Our walled gardens and echo chambers are getting deadly dangerous, and I want to explore ways to break out of that structure—without killing free speech.

• The tragic need to advocate for reality. Big Lies are winning, in some segments. A huge number of Republicans, despite a lack of evidence and the fact that their main source is a known liar, don’t believe Joe Biden won fairly. Which is rich, considering that Trump’s win was a more bitter pill to swallow—at least Biden also won the popular vote. Trump did win, but only because of odd American electoral quirks in which votes are not counted equally. I don’t dispute that those are the rules of our game—but the rules need to be questioned, and, anyway Joe won both ways, in the popular vote and the Electoral College. Wake up and smell the fraud. The “steal” wasn’t trying to bring Trump down after he lost, it was Trump trying to negate a free and fair election. But we don’t all agree on that. Reality is ephemeral, elusive, subjective and without some anchoring in the real world, you have delusional idiots in horns invading the temple of democracy with murder on their feeble minds. In today’s screen age, rationality needs better PR, and that’s a shame.

But the crush of a busy condensed school term, my own mixed emotional reaction at unfathomable events; in the end I have written none of the planned essays.

As was most of America, I was horrified by the events of Jan. 6. A president whips his basket of deplorables into a frenzy, and they attempt to toss sand into the gears of democracy. They even hunt for Mike Pence, only because the vice president decided, in the end, to do his constitutional duty as he saw it. Think about it—they were ready to hang Mike Pence not because he violated a law, but because he was doing his best to follow it.

Yes, violence was predictable. Yes, I think there are a lot of questions about who helped who and why security was so lax.

So, I’ve been on edge during this final fortnight of darkness. “Democracy dies in darkness” and Trump threw way too much shade.

Then today. Trump climbed aboard the chopper and said some final stupid before jetting off to rudely snub the incoming Joe. And I was in my office working and checked the CNN live feed on my computer when it was almost time.

I caught Kamala Harris taking the oath and could not believe the sense of relief that washed over me. And a few minutes early, just before noon in Washington, John Roberts began to feed Joe Biden the words of the oath.

And with that, Old Joe was President. Praise God, I have survived the Trump presidency, something that lately I had not been so sure of.

Then the little Black lady poet approached the microphone. I thought my heart would burst.

Amanda Gorman: “We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation, because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children’s birthright.”

Joe Biden spoke well, too—words that were articulate, in complete sentences. He didn’t try to scare us with the false bogeyman of “American carnage,” but soberly talked about the great challenges we face.

And now, as it ever was despite what tangerine depots may have said, Journalists are again not our enemies. The media you traduce brought you the sounds and images of today.

On the other hand, our bruised and battered country is not healed. And our media, a vital piece of the democracy built over generations, is in a state of flux.

I feel some hope. Change has come.

Still, we have to look back and try to figure out how a reality TV star captivated enough of the nation to capture high office. The Trump legacy must leave us asking: How did it happen? How did we come so close to descending into fascism? How did democracy almost die in delusion?

Today we saw some examples of soaring rhetoric that can lift our nation. But it comes after four years of crude, cruel, churlish language that was too popular and makes us look diminished. Public speaking is one of the keys to our continued public life, and we both live and die by it.

And how can we keep our freedom and yet ensure that this fragile, flawed form of government, imperfect yet better than any alternative, continues to endure?

The ongoing work must continue. The fight is never over; our liberties we prize and our rights we must maintain. But how? I don't yet know, but I am seeking. And taking some solace in voices like Lady Gaga's:

 

Going for Lie of the Year Two Years Running?

Image of President Trump boarding a plane. When he flies our Jan. 20, good riddance. Image from White House Facebook page.

The phone call. From a man with a history of spectacular phone calls. President Trump called the Secretary of State of Georgia to demand that the election, long since certified and over, be called back.

And he spouted a fire hose of  nonsense—but many craven Republicans in the House and Senate still vow to object to Joe Biden’s win. Odd—new GOP members selected in the same election aren't objecting to their shady wins. If an election is bogus, isn't it bogus up and down the ballot? Meanwhile, Trump calls for a rally in the street.

Well, we have an interesting fortnight plus change of crazy before us, and I just hope it ends without riots or war with Iran. Avoiding either is not a sure bet.

Official White House wanted poster.

 

It is very interesting how the nuttiest corners of right-wing media imagine an election conspiracy, then Trump mirrors and amplifies the message, and suddenly the worst of GOP political opportunists (I’m looking at you, Ted Cruz) say a huge investigation is needed because so many millions do not trust the vote. Which the liar-in-chief has falsely told them is fake.

I’m not shocked that Trump has gone off the deep end. Nobody could drive him crazy when it’s more of a putt. No need to move to Crazy Town when you're already the mayor. But the lack of principle and spine among so many other Republicans is as depressing as the fact that, in the midst of this pathetic spectacle, our loser Prez retains the loyalty of the Trumpers.

Last year, Politifact.com, a fact check site run by the Poynter Institute, named COVID-19 denial as their lie of the year. The Denier-in-Chief was voted out of office, I think partly due to the consequences of that lie, but the orange one refuses to admit he lost.

I know it’s early in 2021, but even in January, the spectacularly fact-challenged call by Trump would seem to make election denial a strong contender for this 2021’s lie of the year.

A potential for a twofer! The same master of BS, Donald Jessica Trump (thank you, Randy Rainbow, you’re a national treasure) could win it again! Lie of the year for two years in a row—they’ll have to find a special piece of stone for that Pinocchio nose when they add him to Rushmore. Tired of all the winning yet?

Marking Some Holiday Cheer

Decorations in Greene Square. The colorful flecks in the air are snow falling Dec. 23, 2020, when I made this image.

As I noted in a blog post on another blog, holidays this year are different. That makes me sad on this eve of Christmas Eve, if I think only of loss.

But I read this article posted by “Little Village” magazine about Christmas decorations in downtown Cedar Rapids, and my wife and I decided to brave the windy cold and go see Greene Square.

Others visited Greene Square tonight, making images of each other to spread some holiday cheer on social media, I assume.

Well, it was nice. And as my wife sat in our warm vehicle and I wandered around a windy and cold park, snow began to blow in. It was very Christmassy. And the "Little Village" story is by a student at Mount Mercy University, where I teach.

Angel atop my tree.

We put up lights to shine in the darkest time of year. Our airwaves are full of seasonal tunes, and plenty of old movies get their annual replays. Putting up lights in winter is a deeply human instinct that predates the Christmas story, but in 2020, the pandemic year, I’ll take light and hope wherever I can get it.

So, Merry Christmas, however you celebrate. If, like me, you call yourself Christian, let the story of the Christ child inspire you with light in these dark times. If you have no faith or come from another faith tradition—well, I think the season of goodwill to men should include all genders and people. So Happy Holidays to you, too.

I think Imam Hassan M. Selim, who leads the Islamic Center of Cedar Rapids, summed it up well in a guest column in "The Gazette," which concludes: “For now, let us pause, let us take the time to appreciate our blessings and be grateful for them, let us be inspired and hopeful. For our Jewish neighbors, your Muslim neighbors, friends and family wish you a happy Hanukkah. For our Christian neighbors, family and friends, we wish you a blessed Christmas. We share faith. We share hope. We are grateful for you. May the lights of your menorahs and Christmas trees guide our way forward.”

I'll add a link to his column if I find a public URL for it, but I did not see one on The Gazette's web site today.

I guess I would say faith comes in many flavors, and may or may not require my idea of a deity, but other than that, I agree the Imam. All of the familiar media messages give me some solace, even in 2020. So I hope you enjoy some seasonal sights and sounds, whether your favorite Christmas movie is "Die Hard," "Miracle on 34th Street" or something else.

May our seasonal lights guide our way forward in shared humanity, hope and joy.

A seasonal message on my mantle.

Val Verde: A Fake Reality in a Tale of Fake Reality

Cover, image posted by Amazon.

In a way, Hank Green’s second book, “A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor,” is a bit like the making of the Matrix, years before the Matrix.

If you read “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” then you’ve met our cast: April May, who apparently may have died in a fire, although there is a strong hint at the end of the first book that she did not. Her Scooby gang, Andy, Miranda, Maya—and the alien who sometimes appears as a robot, Carl.

I really enjoyed Hank’s first book, which I thought was an interesting rumination on life in the internet age, in particular, how internet fame changes people. I’m a fan of the second book, too, although to be honest, I probably enjoyed the first one a bit more.

Cover of Hank Green's first book.

For one thing, the second book is told from multiple points of view, which is OK, but sometimes got in the way, for me. I found myself in particular resenting Carl a bit, who, while benevolent in intentions, was still busy manipulating people whose future he could predict.

But I did like the rumination on what it would mean if artificial reality became so compelling people were willing to give up reality for it. And that internet social media companies, even if run by good people, will find themselves doing whatever makes them money (a truth of most companies in general, I suppose, which is why we do need regulations on our economy).

So the “Dream” being coopted by an evil company called Altus, headed by our old nemesis, Peter Petrawicki. By the way, there is a software company called Altus, and I wonder what they think of this name? Peter doesn’t even run the company, which is really a tool of Carl 2.0, Carl’s more powerful sibling who secretly was sent to Earth in case Carl 1.0 failed. I did wonder a bit about the advanced alien intelligence that supposedly sent these two: Couldn’t there backup AI overlord have a few more lines of ethical coding along the lines of Carl 1.0?

Anyway, everything about Altus is a lie. It’s not even in Puerto Rico, but in Val Verde—a name I did not recognize and looked up, only to find it’s a fictional country. I liked that bit of trickery—the fake internet company that seems to be setting up the Matrix fake reality to keep humans safe in a weird alien zoo is located in a fake location.

So there was a lot to like about this second book. But beyond the switching narrators, I struggled with a few aspects. The resolution, involving a hostile leveraged buyout and the raising of billions of dollars, was clever on some level, but didn’t completely click for me. I also wish that Peter, the evil leader, was a bit more troubled by, and maybe manipulated by, the shenanigans that Carl 2.0 put him up to.

Still, I do recommend the book. Read the first before the second—I don’t know if the second would make much sense without having read the first. The second is a bit slow to start, but once April uses her robo arm to punch through a back door, the action never stops.

And maybe that’s what mostly bothers me. The pace of the book was a bit slow at first, and then became almost an endless chase scene, and I wanted to the characters to slow down and react a bit more. True, some of them spent some time holed up in a luxury apartment (plot point that bothered me—I would think Carl 2.0 could have figured that out, given that they were in contact with the old crowd), but the action was wham! wham! wham! and I wanted a little less grungy people on computers and a bit more, well, life.

Still, I think that was part of the point. Social media can take us away from life, and what does that do to us? Despite seeing some flaws in Hank Green’s second book, I rate it fairly high. It is imaginative and creative. The “Book of Good Times” was an interesting twist. I kind of liked Carl as a monkey, although a talking cat would have worked for me, too. Maybe he needed thumbs. Carl the raccoon? The idea that Andy would be seduced by the neo-Matrix and have trouble giving it up felt right, too.

In summary, get the book, read it, especially if you, like me, enjoyed the first one.

I also enjoyed Hank’s reading of his first chapter some month ago, and note that he edited the final line. I like the edited version better, and it’s interesting to see how a “done” book can still evolve as it nears completion. There’s some lesson there about editing in the real world.

A Time Capsule of 1970s Journalism

My first news story, and it was on the front page.

A briefcase found by a family member makes me think of how much has changed and how much has not changed in our media universe in four decades.

The 1979-1980 school year was an interesting one for me. I had graduated from Muscatine High School in 1976, and, at age 17, was an aimless youth with no resources to go to college.

I worked for a year, attended Iowa State University for a year as an engineering major, and then found myself needing a break from the cost and stress of a big state university. I think, although I was not willing to admit it to myself at the time, that the creative side of my personality was deeply unhappy with my life choices, and my decision to return home, get a job at a local factory and attend community college part-time was partly due to an internal struggle that I didn’t fully understand.

To make a long story short, instead of following in my father’s footsteps and attending a big university and becoming a chemical engineer, I ended up taking a journalism writing class during my second quarter at MCC, and then changed my life course.

Financial drama in the drama department! Well, it seems a bit newsier than "McDonalds to open."

I decided to become a journalism major, and ended up transferring to a small literal arts college, partly because my original journalism teacher at MCC (shoutout to you, Dennis Stouse) had gotten a job there and was willing to hire me as one of the editors of the weekly student newspaper there.

Recently, one of my younger sisters, Cate, found an old Samsonite brief case, loaded with Calumets, the student newspaper of MCC, from the 1979 and 1980 school years. After looking at its contents, she passed it on to me.

MCC has a new prez.

What a trippy experience it was seeing those yellowed old tabloids. There was my first story, written while I was in my intro to newswriting class—a front page news headline screaming about two new chain restaurants opening near campus.

Big news, in retrospect, was not always that big in Muscatine in December of 1978.

In the spring, both my sister and I applied to be on the editorial staff, and we became the editor and campus editor of the Calumet. In the meantime, one of our older sisters had finished her stint in the U.S. Army, and joined us as a student at MCC. The three of us worked hard that year on the paper staff—none harder than Cate, by the way, although the staff we worked with larger than the ones I work with at Mount Mercy University—the late 1970s were a time of greater popularity for studying journalism.

But we had some battles. There were ongoing conflicts with the student senate over something that I’m sure was important at the time, but that I don’t remember all that well. We received some angry letters to the editor from officers of student government.

They didn’t call us fake news, but my entry into journalism came at a time when my personal politics were shifting as the world was also changing. When I was young, Robert Ray was the Republican governor of Iowa, and there was a brand of middle-of-the-road, moderate GOP that I liked.

My column in 1979 remembering my active participation in the Republican Party in 1976. It was a different world. Do you appreciate the two-part joke that the headline is?

As a teen, I was a fan of President Gerald Ford, and in 1976, when I was 17, I supported Ford at the Iowa caucuses and as a delegate to the state Republican convention (I could join and be active in the party because I was going to turn 18 and be able to vote that year). It was a little weird reading my 1979 description of that 1976 experience, because the rise of Ronald Reagan and his moral majority brand of more conservative Republican identity was gradually easing me out of the GOP.

I don’t recall if I caucused in 1980, but I’m sure I did not vote for Reagan that fall.

Anyway, the conflict with the student senate and some protests against Iran in the late 1970s foreshadowed the divisive politics we are in today. And although the ties were not yet broken then, I think that the binds of trust between audience and journalist was starting to tear 40 years ago.

I don’t blame journalists for the braking of that trust. Since the Nixon administration, Republicans have discovered that bashing the “liberal” media is an effective strategy. It was not new even them, but as society changed, I think the intensity and level of distrust was on a steady upward trend, and Nixon made it a consistent, main strategy.

And I don’t hold journalists completely blameless, either. Sometimes, urban, college educated editors and reporters can seem out-of-touch and not empathic with those who don’t share all of their values.

This post is not going to offer any solutions. Not that I don’t think about the problem a lot, but I don’t think “lack of trust” is one single issue, nor is it one sided, nor does it negate the important and not always recognized role of morale witness that journalists still fulfill.

April of 1980. Looking at these old Calumets, I'm impressed at how hard we all worked, but shout out to sister Cate who had lots of big stories and did lots of art that helped decorate the paper. And here, sister Toni appears in one of my images of a twin cities science fiction convention--I'm sure we went there to visit my oldest sister Pat as well as go to the convention. I was surprised that I didn't really take lots of images--I became something of a photographer as well as a writer in my media career, but I was getting a start here.

And looking back, four decades later, it’s weird to see things seeming so familiar and yet so different. People don’t change as quickly as the world does, and even without smart phone or a world wide web, the passions and conflicts that challenged us in 1980 aren’t so alien today. I suppose that’s a more universal rule. History is worth studying because the world was so different in 1880 that people didn’t conceive of themselves or their reality in the way that we do. But they saw through eyes like ours, felt passions and attempted to be rational using brains that were wired differently by experience but structured the same with human DNA. A lot changed in 40 or 140 years. The species faces novel challenges and needs information about today—news—to manage its adjustment to shifting realities. Yet, we also remain fundamentally the same.

Forty years ago, partly moved by a positive experience with a news story about a steak joint and a McDonalds, I joined the journalism tribe. It was a time of hot wax and copy printed on photo paper that was literally stuck to a page. Any line, any border--well, be careful with those sharp little knives and learn to cut at a 45 degree angle to make neat corners. And corrections! Printing lines of copy. Cut and paste. Anybody seen the clear tape? Layout was more of a commitment back in the day when we weren't nudging text boxes around on computer screens.

Thank you, gods of technology, for InDesign. Some parts of the old days I don't miss so much. Anyway, thanks, Cate, for providing this time capsule of times past. And sisters Cate and Toni—wasn’t that weird time at The Calumet scary and frustrating and fun?

Ghost of Christmas past, but still, merry Christmas. Don't you love the 1970s typography?

Trump Golfs, Washington Burns

Joe Biden will be president next Jan. 20—that’s not opinion, but reality. But reporting reality seems to be something that gets the media into trouble, these days. The media are not believed by close to half of the voting public, the 70 million to whom Donald Trump is speaking truth as he denies reality.

Trump being delusional, immature and incompetent are nothing new, and helps explain why he has been fired. It’s always been about Trump to Trump—working hard to govern the country was never his thing. He lazily spends his days golfing and watching TV sending out crazy rage tweets. And his refusal to see the hand writing on the wall, to so gracelessly ignore the need for an orderly transition of power—it’s all totally normal for this flawed, abnormal man.

And yet. The Daily Show’s video of the MAGA march on Washington, calling for something or other, was a bit scary to me. So many so willing to attack the news media on baseless claims emanating from that famous source of unreliable nonsense, Donald Junk-for-brains Trump. Democracy dies in darkness and darkness seems to be closing in.

And the Donald has no incentives, now, nothing to preserve except perverse fame. Republican voices calling on him to do the right thing have been few. And I can’t help but think that it’s not only his hyper-active stupid gland at work, nor just the now reflexive craven GOP fear of the far-right base that keeps this sad charade going. I think the tweet storms and dark conspiracy claims keep the Trump base riled and up and are an attempt to excite them and fund raise. It may yet fuel Trump’s next move, which no doubt will involve some sort of awful fact-starved media.

He always was a reality TV star more than he was a business tycoon. He was never a successful captain of industry, but a spoiled rich kid who played one on TV. And as ex-president, the star power of this dim man shines brighter than ever.

Others have noted that Trumpism isn’t over with the defeat of Trump. The MAGA minions march in Washington signals the start of the next campaign. (Yes, yes, violence bad, don't hurt the MAGA minions, they get to march, too--but really, now we're concerned about people attacking protesters? At least the lawless lefty loons weren't acting under the order of a would-be dictator clearing a street for a photo op).

The campaign of 2016, after all, never ended. Having been elected president with no clear idea of what the job was, Trump occupied his time reveling in his imaginary landslide and reliving the glories of victory by continuing the only thing he liked--rallies to draw adoring crowds. They are so important to him that he continued that during a pandemic--reveling in mask-less cheers as he hopped across the country, cheefully ignoring the safety and health of his MAGA-nation.

And the pandemic rages on. Our Dear Leader rage tweets, encourages street marches and does absolutely zero to battle the deadly virus that has already robbed us of more than 250,000 souls. He is not only doing nothing, but he’s preventing the future president from even making contact with the government employees who will have to play catch up and cleanup on this raging mess once the Orange One is finally rolled out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the White House bleached from top to bottom.

Trump tweet, screen shot from my phone. I agree, get the straight jacket, but why do so many still believe him and still think it's the media that are lying to them?

I’m trying to see some light. I am happy Biden won. Yet I worry about my country when the right has continued to make the media the enemy. It seems like facts are the stranger in the this strange land.

And back in Iowa, a red-hot state of COVID-19 infections, our aw-shucks ol’ boy Senator, the Chuckster, tweets that he’s got the ’vid. He is not alone. My incoming representative in the House, “recovering” journalist Ashley Hinson, who left a career of reporting facts to joining a party that ignores them, also is isolated with the virus. Both report mild symptoms.

Get well, Chuck. Thoughts and prayers. But, can you also test positive for a backbone? Like maybe what the Dear Leader is doing (really, not doing) is not so OK?

Well, good, or goodish. Except a person with mild COVID-19 can breath out droplets that still may kill. And where, one wonders, did old Chuck and young Ashley encounter this virus? And why was it suddenly after the election that our governor, COVID-Kim, decided it was time to take sort of serious and mostly symbolic ineffective action?

Months too late, the gov says, Iowans are to wear masks, sort of. In big groups. Bars are closed—after 10 p.m. No sports. Except for the most popular ones at the high school and college levels. And before Nov. 3, we had all kinds of GOP campaign rallies, visits by un-wise men from the East, unmasked Republicans going together to cheer Trump and share infections, yet not a peep from COVID Kim Reynolds.

Chuck Grassley, above (official Senate portrait) and Ashley Hinson, below (image downloaded from her campaign web site and cropped) have tested positive for COVID19. Our elder senator and young congressperson-elect report their symptoms are mild. Would that it was the same for 250,000 Americans already lost and counting.

I don’t expect Chuck or Ashley to provide any leadership on the virus. They are too busy laying low when MAGA nonsense gets pushed via social media. And recovering from journalism.

And Trump? He’ll fire enemies, play golf and ignore the needs of the country. Because the needs of Trump have always weighed more with him than the needs of the country.

Meanwhile, the student staff at the newspaper I advise did some good work this week, including being direct with the powers-that-be that they are not doing enough to protect us. The students were writing about university administration—but the message they state holds true at the highest level of the land.

We must do more:

The young journalists get it. Why can't the recovering ones? You probably can't read this image of a newspaper page--here is a link to a PDF of the page. Their opinion columns are worth a read, too.