Judgment Eve

Fingers crossed everyone. . .

Save the Date: Arguments for Justice

Friendly reminder that the oral arguments for Iowa's gay marriage case are tomorrow, December 9th.

It should be a really tough case to decide. On the one hand you have the kind of justice and equality that are consistent with the principles laid out in our state's constitution, and on the other you have arbitrary discrimination and backwardness driven (it would appear) only by contempt for our fellow man.

Oh wait. I guess it isn't that tough.

I haven't cheered this hard for Iowa since the Penn State game. Go Justice.

And for some further reading: here's the Chicago Tribune's write-up, and here's Iowa Independent's recap of how we got to where we are.

A Magical Paradise Awaits You!

In about 20 minutes I’m going to participate in a “present your school” event here at the Bucerius Law School in Germany. This gives the German students the opportunity to browse the different partner schools and see which one they would like to attend.

Sometimes coming to the Midwest from abroad is a tough sell, but being a big fan of Iowa City and a strong supporter of the Iowa College of Law, I can’t wait to make the case. Sure, you could go to NYC or San Francisco, I’ll say, but would that really be a “college town” experience? I don’t think so.

That’s going to be my angle. I figured I’d just bring my laptop, show everyone a few pictures of Iowa City, and open up a tab on some site like Wikipedia to give everyone the vital statistics of the city.

Which brings me to my point.

Has anyone ever looked at the Wikipedia entry for Iowa City? It’s hilarious.

Two of the first three categories are: “2006 Tornado” and “2008 Flood,” and the pictures at the top of this post are two of the first pictures that you encounter on scrolling down the page. If you didn’t know better, you’d think the entire town was composed exclusively of flotsam and refugee camps.

"Will we die in Iowa?" my classmates will ask, furrowing their brows with concern and confusion.

"Don't be silly," I'll say. "Tornado Season and Flood Season are usually broken up by Unbearable Winter Season, so you'll hardly even notice them."

I’m recruiting here. I can’t work with this kind of material. So, at least until someone edits the Wikipedia page (or Mother Nature stops picking on us), it looks like I’ll be sticking to shots of the ped mall and photos of tailgating.

Yes, rain or shine, we'll always have tailgating.

Go Hawks!

Nevada: Still Got It

In 1995 some guy named Norman Crampton published a book about the top 100 small towns in the United States. His criteria for rating the towns included things like: the quality of schools and hospitals, per capita income, downtown commerce, recreational facilities, education of the population, tax levels, and the cost of home ownership.

Extra points were awarded if you were a county seat (take THAT Ames!).

In 1995 Norman Crampton listed Nevada, IA as #26 on his comprehensive, definitive list. Predictably, the town went completely ape shit. Assemblies were held, tee shirts printed ("26 is #1!"), explanatory papers assigned, and the #26 basketball jersey, formerly ignored, was now hotly contested athletic apparel.

What's that? Incredulous parents would say, the 26th best small town in the state of Iowa?

No you idiots, the children would reply, offended and indignant. We are officially the 26th best small town in the NATION. All the data is in, all relevant factors have been weighed by impartial judges; the results have arrived and we are #26. This is practically scientific.

And until a few days ago, I had thought that it was all over. That all that remained of Nevada's storied heyday were my own dim memories, a few threadbare tee shirts, and around 300 copies of Mr. Crampton's book collecting dust in the Nevada Public Library.

Which is why I was relieved to find out that this isn't even remotely the case.

The other day my mother was going through old clippings and files and handed me an article about a war protest that she had organized in Nevada. My eyes immediately drifted to this headline in the column to the right: "Nevada: Still listed among best small towns" (pictured above). (For a more humorous reading, please note the delicious juxtaposition of the headline immediately to the left: "Residence searched for meth lab").

Apparently, 7 years later, Mr. Crampton released another book and, once again, Nevada made the list. It's kind of a downer because he just published a list of 120 towns, in no particular order, so we don't know if we've moved up or down on the Cramptometer. All we know is that, according to at least one person in the nation, we are among the 120 best small towns in America.

Also noteworthy are the four other Iowa towns that made the top 120: Decorah (one of the prettier towns in Iowa), Grinnell (happy home of the most liberal campus in the world), Spencer (always on these kinds of lists), and Washington (I hear it has a cool fountain).

Until the next book I'll just be keeping myself busy printing up some new tee shirts. I feel like "A figure between 1 and 120 is #1" has a kind of nice ring to it.

Call me if you'd like to place an order.

Why Diego Rivera is the Grant Wood of Mexico, or Vice Versa

As soon as I find someone who claims to have even passing knowledge of both Grant Wood and Diego Rivera, I’m going to make this bold statement: “You know, if you think about it, Grant Wood was really the Diego Rivera of the United States,” and see what comes out of it.

I will concede at the outset that this post will be written with the aid of hazily remembered facts and an imperfect understanding of the stylistic nuances of the visual arts (read: please don’t fact check this post). That being said, in quickly cobbling together the little that I know about the styles, eras, and politics of the two iconic painters, I think you’ll agree that the similarities are uncanny.

Where to start? Both were born in smallish, land-locked towns in the Western Hemisphere; Wood in Anamosa, IA and Rivera in Guanajuato, Guanajuato. Both began painting at a very early age and continued to study the arts through high school and college. Both went to Europe during the Impressionism craze and painted various impressionisty/cubistical looking pieces that hardly even resemble their more famous works. And for both Wood and Rivera, it was after being exposed to these colonial influences that both painters ended up finding their unique voices that, in many ways, were a reaction to and a rejection of these continental influences.

Rivera returned to Mexico and began to paint what he knew: the peasants, the indigenous peoples, farmers, laborers using bold, bright colors and simple figures. Wood returned, stepped out of his home near Iowa City, and began to paint scenes of farms and country folk performing everyday tasks using a similarly bright and bold color scheme on his canvasses, although usually with a tad more attention to detail.

And there’s more. They were also both ardent lefties. Rivera was an admirer of Emiliano Zapata, from whom the leftist Zapatista rebels (a group still active in the state of Chiapas) take their name, and a member of Mexico’s Communist party. Wood became close friend to Vice President and Iowan Henry A. Wallace, who ran unsuccessfully for President with the Progressive Party after being dropped by Roosevelt for being, get this, too liberal (and over-crazy). Wood even did Wallace’s portrait for a Time Magazine cover that appeared during his glory days. Both artists had successful academic careers teaching painting, Rivera at some University that I can’t remember, and Grant Wood at the University of Iowa.

Appropriate to their politics, both painters also played major roles in New Deal type policies. Rivera was chosen to lead various government funded mural projects when the government was looking to put people to work. Wood became the leader of several major public works art projects in the Midwest during the New Deal.

These appointments makes sense, as both men were proponents of murals as a more democratic form of art. Murals beautified cities and made art part of the landscape of one’s everyday world. They were also major projects and called for the work of many men to complete. Rivera has his murals at, among other places, the Palacio Nacional in Mexico City; Wood has his at, among other places, the Iowa State University Library.

Possibly the most striking similarities between the two mural-painting, revolutionary-loving, farmer-depicting lefties, was their philosophy about painting and art. Rivera revolted against all things colonial: customs, religion, class, cruelty, etc. Wood too revolted, but it was against a different kind of colonialism. He revolted against a blind acceptance of the artistic forms, subjects, and styles that had filtered from the cultural centers in Europe, through the East Coast of the States, eventually to be adopted by the heartland as not just fine art, but the finest art.

In his manifesto Revolution and the City, Wood called this kind of trickle down capacity for artistic creation or appreciation “Cultural Colonialism.” That’s right, the man wrote manifestos. And some critics refer to him and his work as quaint. Quaint people don’t spend sweaty nights pumping out manifestos. Wood took on the art establishment and he won. His victories might have been short lived, but they were on his terms. And at the time, this was revolutionary. To think, a painter in Iowa could step outside of his home, paint the land and his neighbors, and call it Art. The gall.

Of course, of the two, Rivera is viewed as the more revolutionary, probably because 1) he was a communist who participated in Communist revolutions; and 2) he was more overt in his critiques of religion, which always tends to get a rise out of the faithful. Case in point: one of the murals at the Palacio Nacional features a Priest with a bottle of liquor in one hand and a prostitute’s arse in the other. Then again, I still think there is a strong argument that American Gothic actually is a subtle critic on religion and conformity.

But let’s not stray to much from the thesis. When you get down to the heart of the matter, the two aren’t that different. They were both anti-colonialist skeptics who celebrated the simple beauty of the worlds that surrounded them. Revolutionaries both, through and through.

Viva Rivera! Viva Wood! Viva La Revolution!

Diego Rivera: 1886-1957
Grant Wood: 1892-1942

And Then There Were Two

I'm aware that this story is a little dated, but I thought that it was noteworthy that, after Bruce Braley (UI Law alum) endorsed Obama several days ago, there are now only two Iowa superdelegates left to make a decision.

According to Congresspedia, the score is currently 6-3. Here's the breakdown:

Obama: Congressman Dave Loebsack, Congressman Bruce Braley, Governor Chet Culver, Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, DNC Member Richard Machacek, Deputy Chair of the Iowa Democratic Party Sarah Swisher

Clinton: Congressman Leonard Boswell, Iowa Senate Majority Leader Michael Gronstal, DNC member Sandy Opstvedt

Undecided: Senator Tom Harkin, Iowa Democratic Party Chair Scott Brennan.

And Another Fun fact from Congresspedia I stumbled upon:

Obama has contributed $10,000 to Tom Harkin's campaign in an effort to woo him, while Clinton has donated a measly $25.

Twenty five dollars!? Is she Harkin's grandma?

"Hey Tom, here's 16 bucks I collected from some of my staff. A couple of the fives are soggy but if you lay them out to dry they should be all right. Anyway, hope everything's ok. Vote Hillary!"

This is getting embarrassing.

Go Hawks: Our Health Care System is Probably Less Bad Than Yours

I was pleased to read a couple of days ago in the Daily Iowan that Iowa ranks third in the nation for the percentage of its population with health insurance. All told, we manage to get around 91% of our population insured. Though I'm of the opinion that the system is flawed, and this ad hoc, for-profit system is just an ill-fitting band-aid until we get real comprehensive health care reform, it's nice to know that we have one of the best quality ill-fitting band-aids around.

Who's number one? A different study conducted last year by the Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on health care, came out with this ranking:

1. Hawaii

2. Iowa

3. New Hampshire

4. Vermont

5. Maine

The bottom five were Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma.

For more on the study, including what kind of indicators that were used (access, quality, cost, etc) check out this CBS news article.

Go Hawks.

Tack on a Few More Pulitzers Linked to the Writer's Workshop

Seems like every year there are a few more.

Here's a link to the DI story.

My Bracket Was Ruined When Iowa Got a #27 Seed

It seems Iowa just can't catch a break.

First Drake falls due to a last second shot from Western Kentucky.

Then Iowa falls due to an elaborate, yearly calculus using a number of arbitrary factors from the people at U.S. News and World Report.

Apparently, Iowa's ranking in the annual U.S. News publication is going to fall next year from #24 in the nation to #27.

A blogger from the University covers the implications of this rankings slide pretty comprehensively in a couple of posts at a blog called Obscure Minority.

For the record, I'd like to note that I consider myself at least partially responsible for this slide. Specifically, I can recall at least three times the first semester that I missed classes; my understanding of the many provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code was less than complete; and just today I spilled a piece of popcorn on the floor and failed to pick it up.

An institution is only as good as the people traverse its halls. And in this respect, I have failed the University miserably.

Iowa: Converts Welcome!

I've always considered myself somewhat of a spokesperson for the state of Iowa. When speaking to non-Iowans, I often tout our top-notch committment to education, or brag about our first in the nation caucus, or describe our beautiful countryside, or even boast about (what I consider to be) the above average civility and good-naturedness of Iowans.

I'll casually drop the fact that Iowa is one of the top producers of wind energy in the nation, or that our state is one of the few between New York and California that could send our 7 electoral votes to either a Democrat or Republican year in and year out. (Little known fact: Dukakis won bigger in Iowa in 1988 than in any other state except Rhode Island).

And so I'm always happy to see others, especially converts from afar, singing its praises.

I just read a blog post by one such convert (Thoughts on the Iowa caucuses from Black Iowan) which outlines a UI law professor's thoughts about the caucus process and people's misconceptions of the state of Iowa, with a special slant on issues of race and gender. The post is a little dated, but for those of you who already miss the caucus circus, it shoudl be a fun trip down memory lane.

And as a bonus, here's the quote of the week from Iowa Writer's Workshop alum and food author Ted Lee:

"Everyone said, 'Oh my God - you being a food guy, what are you going to do there?' That was simply because the people I was around were so provincial," Ted Lee, 36, said. "[Iowa] is a place where people live very close to the food - I felt like I was living in Europe."

For the full DI article about his award winning book, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, click here.

The World According to John Irving

I was able to see John Irving speak in Iowa City a couple of nights ago and was pleased to learn that his next book, Last Night in Twister River, will be taking place, at least partially, in Iowa City.

Seeing as Cider House Rules, The World According to Garp, Hotel New Hampshire, and A Widow for a Year were all made into movies (A Widow for a Year was released under the title the Door in the Floor), I think it's safe for people to start practicing for their dream roles.

So judging by the reading, if you're a female bodybuilder whose not afraid to parachute naked onto a pig farm and then beat beat up a bunch of sissy artists, I think there may be a role available for you.

Other than that, I don't think there's much I can add to Iowa Independent's great roundup of the reading, which includes, among other things, Iowa Writer's Workshop director Samantha Chang's funny comment on how great it was to see 500 people walking down Dubuque Street for something other than a football game.

Thank you for the reading Mr. Irving and good luck on your book. Go Hawks.

Iowans on Becoming the Next Gay Marriage State: A Statistical Dead Heat

There was a new poll today in the Quad City times concerning Iowans' views on civil unions/gay marriage that I found kind of interesting. Here's the gist:

"The Iowa Poll shows that 62 percent of Iowans believe marriage should be only between a man and a woman. Thirty-two percent support same-sex marriage, while 6 percent were unsure.

More than half of those surveyed say Iowa should allow civil unions for same-sex couples. About 40 percent oppose civil unions and 4 percent were unsure.

The poll shows that Iowans are divided on whether the state constitution should be changed to ban gay marriage — 48 percent support changing the constitution while 47 percent are opposed."

Two points worth considering. First, civil unions could probably be done tomorrow. The numbers are in the House and Senate, and the will of the people has arrived. This point might be moot though in a little while, because of the second point : gay marriage is starting to look like a very real possibility.

The headline of this article is Poll: Iowans against gay marriage, back civil unions. But in my opinion, that's not a great reading of these numbers. Though 62% of Iowans believe that marriage should be "only between a man and a woman," only 48% favor changing the constitution to require this. In the end, it's going to be the 48% number that matters the most.

This reinforces an idea from one of my previous posts that people find it troubling to actively discriminate against other people. Sure, when the pollster calls up and asks what John Doe thinks about marriage, he might say that it should "only be between a man and a woman," and this might have something to do with him being married to a woman. But when it comes to legislating other people's lifestyles, many people (especially libertarians I might add) don't really see it as necessary for their personal happiness.

In a way, I think when some people answer this kind of question, it's almost like a kind of weird, defensive assertion/affirmation of their own sexual preferences. (Yes I'm attracted to women, how dare you?!) The pollster doesn't necessarily ask John Doe if he would rather be married to a man or a woman, but to John Doe, it kind of feels that way. So questions of should marriage be this or that are inherently misleading because people have a preconceived mentality of what they would want in the situation being offered.

Since more people engage in heterosexual lifestyles than homosexual ones, that is the knee-jerk response.

Here's a quick analogy to illustrate what I mean. A small, busybody lobby is trying to pass a law making sure that people open doors for one another. It's called the "Pay It Forward Act of 2008." In order to see what kind of support they have for their Act, the Register does a poll and asks 800 people this question: "Should people always hold the door for one another if they have the opportunity?"

Each and every person hears this question and says "Well, what would I do in this situation?" And they say things like "I'd open the door!" (or, by comparison, "I'd marry a woman/man!."). Because that's exactly what he/she would do in that situation.

Let's say that 92% of people say "yes, people should open doors for each other"(this is Iowa after all). You can imagine what the headline would be: "Iowans in favor of required door opening." But in reality, that preference has very little bearing on what Iowans think the law should be. It's just what they think people should do.

Now, I don't know exactly how the questions of this particular poll were posed, but I feel like something like that must be at play. How else do you explain the sudden drop, to below %50 of people who are in favor of amending the constitution to ban gay marriage. True, people opposed gay marriage in a general sense (becuase of religion or something), just like they're opposed to swearing or premarital sex or not opening doors or being late for class or staying up past 11 o'clock or whatever. But they aren't necessarily opposed to gay marriage in a legal sense, as in willing to impose this view on other people through a change in our constitution.

As noted earlier in this blog: the path to gay marriage in Iowa entails two steps: 1) a decision by the Supreme Court affirming Justice Robert Hanson's decision last year and 2) a successful defense against any attempts by Steve King to amend the constitution. If a constitutional amendment is attempted, it will need to get a majority in the legislature for two years in a row and then a majority vote by the general public.

This is why the 48% figure is so much more important than the 62% figure. As of this poll, there is a 1% difference (48-47) between people who would want to change the constitution and those who would refrain from doing so. This is a statistically insignificant amount, and it very well could decide whether or not we will be the next gay marriage state.

Maybe a better headline would have been this: "Iowans on gay marriage: a statistical dead

heat."

Note to the Register, Quad City Times, DI, and the AP: you are free to use this headline.

Go Progress.

Iowa Connection to the Oscars

My girlfriend just informed that, Diablo Cody, the lovely woman who just won the Academy Award for screenwriting, is from Iowa. As Wikipedia points out, she received her media studies degree here in Iowa City and was a dj at KRUI 89.7 FM.

Cornucopia, The Horn of Plenty congratulates her on her success and wishes her well with her future endeavors.

Go Hawks.

Loebsack Breaks for Obama

It looks like the Iowa delegation in Washington is hedging its bets. Here's the story in the Register about Loebsack's Obama endorsement. Go Eastern Iowa.

Here's how the endorsements break down. In retrospect, it couldn't have happened any other way:

1. Centrist/conservative, experienced, uninspiring Leonard Boswell endorses centrist/conservative, "experienced," uninspiring Hillary Clinton

2. Fresh, inspiring, ballsy, trial lawyer from rural America Bruce Braley endorses fresh, inspiring, ballsy trial lawyer John Edwards from rural North Carolina.

3. Polite, soft-spoken, rookie U.S. Representative and former college professor from the midwest Dave Loebsack endorses polite, soft-spoken rookie U.S. Senator and former college professor from the midwest Barack Obama.

Cornell West is The Man. Old School.

In other news, I got a chance to see Dr. Cornell West speak on Senator Obama's behalf on Saturday morning.

I'd just like to say that, without qualification, this was the best endorsement speech I've ever attended. Cornell West was everything that most stump speakers are not: creative, off-the -cuff, honest, poetic, and even, at times, humorously scandalous. (He mentioned on several occasions how partisan politics make him want to go "runnin' to the crack house").

Throughout his talk, he touched upon critical race theory, Hillary, Edwards, Oprah, John Coltrane, Alicia Keyes, Aretha Franklin, the progressive Vanderbilt, our fear of mortality, courage, prayer, blackness, post-negroism, honesty, and the mainstream media, peppering his speech with quotes from Shakespeare and imitations of stuffy politicians.

A lot of times when you go to these events, you get the feeling that people are just going through the motions and regurgitating the same shit over and over again while trying not to say anything different or unpalatable. This was definitely different.

His basic thesis went something like this: right away he wasn't sold on Obama, but after having spoken to him for around 10 hours on two separate occasions, he's on board. While he concedes that he's an old-school brother, he recognizes that Obama is a new-school brother. Cornell West is Aretha Franklin. Obama is Alicia Keyes.

Here are two of Mr. West's opinions that I found to be funny and/or astute--

On Mike Huckabee's chances-- Cornell thinks that all the other candidates are trying to out-conservative each other and it's going to fail. Huckabee is running as a right-wing populist. He cares about black people and poor people. He's a Neanderthal on a whole host of other issues, but he could make a run. Cornucopia, the Horn of Plenty, shares these thoughts.

On me, telling him thanks for coming-- "Stay strong young man."

On Oprah's typical cowardice-- Cornell loves the sister, but he's also a big critic of her. He loves the charity that she does and the schools that she builds in South Africa, but that's charity. Charity is easy. She's never made a public stand on important domestic issues and never gotten involved politically. He recognizes the fact that she's a entrepreneurial genius. She can't alienate her right-leaning, white, suburban housewives by being overtly political or she'll lose viewership and money. But c'mon, after your first billion dollars you can't start taking a stand for things you believe in can't you?

In conclusion, this is why I love Obama. People who usually don't believe in things believe in him. Call it the Kennedy effect. Oprah Winfrey, long a non-partisan-own-back-watcher, is ready to go on the campaign trail. Cornell West, not known for his support of partisan politics (didn't even vote for Clinton in '96 because of the welfare reform and the banking consolidation bills) is sold.

Here is Dr. West, keeping it real and sharing some of his thoughts on Obama before his endorsement:





But now he's on board. And so am I . And so is Oprah. And so in these last 15 days or so until the caucus, I only have four words for Senator Obama, the youngest, freshest candidate in the field, "Stay strong young man."

Register Screws Up

Hillary? Really?

Yes, it's true. The Des Moines Register just endorsed Hillary Clinton (and John McCain) for the Iowa Caucus.

What a waste.

Four years ago at least they knew to go with a surging candidate in Edwards. This year they've just boarded a rapidly sinking ship.

Grassley Goes After Dodgy Prosperity Preachers

I missed this story when it first came out but was extremely pleased to find it while flipping through a Time magazine tonight. As faithful readers are aware, Cornucopia, The Horn of Plenty has long been both suspicious of and hostile to those unsavory characters known popularly as the "prosperity preachers." The idea that a shady, manipulative preacher can build gold houses, fly a private jet, and by some quirk of the system still qualify for a tax-exempt status strikes me as odd. Now I realize that there's actually a pretty good reason that it seems odd: it's probably illegal.

As of now, Republican Iowa Senator Charles Grassley, ranking member of the Senate Committee on Finance, has simply sent out some courteous little letters requesting tax and real estate records. But as the article in Time states, "the Senator has mused that the replies could lead to testimony under oath."

I have never been more proud of Senator Grassley than I am right now. Grassley explains himself below.

Iowa City Speaker Circuit News: Paul Krugman Endorses John Edwards Kind Of

When I was in Cameroon in my tiny, pink-walled bungalow, I was the lucky beneficiary of a library of books left behind by my volunteer predecessors. Among this treasure trove (you find it, you keep it!) of literature was the book “The Great Unraveling: Losing our Way in the New Century" by New York Times columnist and Princeton economist Paul Krugman. Paging through the book --a collection of his columns--was one of the more effective means I've ever discovered of generating a big, heady dose of political righteous indignation. This was particularly effective sometime around Nov. 3 of 2004, when, whenever necessary, I could select a column and be reminded of all of the fascinating ways in which our electorate had seriously fucked up.

Though I was supposed to be glow in the dark bowling tonight with book weary law students, when I learned Krugman was here in Iowa City I had to postpone it. Bowling with me is always pretty predictable anyway: 3 games with an average between 140-160, several strikes, variety of fist pumps, several ball changes, many celebratory dances, and several times where I’m so disgusted with my shot that I walk back to the scoring area without even watching the result. (Note: this is followed by a quick look over my shoulder, EVEN THOUGH I OBVIOUSLY DO NOT CARE, to make sure that the ball that I through down the middle of the lane did not miraculously pick up that 7/10 split).

Those of you who have ever bowled with me are familiar with this routine. I can recreate it any time I want.

What I can’t recreate anytime is a live Q and A at the Englert Theatre with Paul Krugman, one of my favorite columnists of all time. Julie Englander, the regular presenter for the Prarie Lights author sessions, introduced him tonight as the "most important political columnist in America." And then there's bowling.

Krugman was fantastic. He was funny and insightful, and, oddly, despite all of the dire predictions of "The Great Unraveling," extremely optimistic about the direction of the country. People are finally seeming sensible and fed-up, he noted. . .this seems to be the inadvertent gift of George W. Bush.

The talk was basically the distillation of the thesis of his book into about a 40 minute talk, with a special emphasis on the implications of the upcoming presidential race.

His thesis:

America is regressing. We had a gilded age with robber barons and enormous disparities in wealth and privilege and power, then we had the New Deal, then the 40’s, and 50’s gave us a strong middle class with strong labor, and then came movement conservatism that essentially is seeking to put us back into the late 19th century (the return of the barons!).

While countries like Canada, France, and the Scandanavian countries (those same countries that are on the top of every standard of living index in existence) have been tweaking capitalism in an effort to benefit a the common welfare and preserve a strong entrepreneurial spirit, the conservative movement has been attempting to roll back every New Deal program they can get their hands on.

Though NYT policy forbids him from making presidential endorsements, he did speak at length about the kind of president he wanted. He said to be aware of candidates beholden to special interests (read: Hillary Clinton) and beware of overly polite "cross-the-aislers" who are looking for bipartisanship (here's looking at Obama). Since substantive differences between the candidates are negligible, he basically wants someone with some fire in his/her belly who can, above all else, really push through universal health care. Process of elimination, plus the fire in the belly qualification leads me to believe that this was a thinly veiled endorsement of John Edwards.

Interesting. Lately John Edwards has been espousing the most populist message. The other night at Jefferson Jackson he claimed that if congress didn't let him push through a health care plan he would take away government health care for the house, senate, and president. You gotta like that kind of talk.

Krugman then took questions from the audience members, a few of whom were crazy people. He proved himself to be extremely likable and great with his off the cuff analysis.

Fortunately, no one was tased throughout the talk.

Here's a clip of him and Bill O'Reilly having a civil talk with Tim Russert. Sometimes watching Bill O'Reilly makes me sick to my stomach. As Stephen Colbert once noted (paraphrase) "you know Bill, a lot of people criticize you for what you say, but they never give you credit for how loud you say it."

Couldn't agree more. Apparently Bill O'Reilly missed out on that whole "jobless recovery" thing that everyone was talking about when this interview took place.

Wall Street Charmed by UI Dems President

Here's a pretty interesting story in the Wall Street Journal about how Atul Nakhasi has revived the UI Dems and turned them into a potent force during the campaign season. Go Hawks!

Gay Marriage and an AWESOME Defensive Line: Why the Hawkeye State is Getting Better Every Year

I found this past weekend in Iowa City to be especially inspiring for exactly two reasons:

Reason number one: The Hawkeye football team manhandled Syracuse.

Remember last year when it took a herculean goal line stand to defeat a bad Syracuse team? This year there was never any doubt. We didn’t dominate ANY team last year the way we dominated Syracuse yesterday. Christensen looked good and the d-line limited the Orangemen to 24 rushing yards on 30 attempts. Brian Mattison expressed disappointment when he learned that Syracuse had accumulated 1 total yard on offense in the first half, apparently finding it to be 1 yard too many.

I like his style.

Reason number two: Iowa might just be the next gay marriage state.

Readers of this blog will have noted that a few days ago, I posted to a link in the Daily Iowan about Judge Robert Hansen’s ruling on the unconstitutionality of the Iowa law banning gay marriages. The ruling was stayed and the case kicked up to the Iowa Supreme Court to dispose of.

A quick sidenote: Iowa actually has a kind of peculiar appellate process. Though an appeal in most states would go to an intermediate appellate court before eventually being appealed to the state’s Supreme Court, in Iowa a case is appealed directly to the Supreme Court. The Court then decides whether to hear the case or send it to the intermediate court of appeals. A slight twist, but noteworthy, and it means that in this case the Iowa Supreme Court gets the next crack at it.

Which got me to wondering: how is the Supreme Court going to handle this case? As of last week, I knew very little about the make-up of our court. Ironically, I was, like many casual followers of public policy, much more familiar with the characters and temperaments that make the U.S. Supreme Court than those that make up my home state’s highest court. Anyone who reads any daily newspaper is vaguely familiar with the narrative: uncompromising textualist Scalia, liberal stalwart Ginsburg, Anthony “the swingman” Kennedy, etc.

I did some quick research and learned that three of the justices—Chief Justice Marsha K. Ternus, Jerry Larson, an Mark Cady—are Republican appointees, and four—Michael Streit, David Wiggins, Daryl Hecht, and Brent Appel, are Democratic appointees.

What does this mean? I have no idea. Even in the Democratic party there is pretty large divide among those who support and those who don’t support gay marriage. This is highlighted by statements from a guy named Chet who runs this state making comments explicitly denouncing gay marriage. Sigh. Politicians will be politicians.

Then there’s the further complication of governors crossing party lines to make appointments. For example, former Chief Justice Luis Lavorato, my new hero, was a lifelong Democrat but was appointed by two Republican governors to get to the highest court. So analysis of this kind is inherently suspect.

We can also look at the kind of treatment that the court has given cases like this in the past. The only time that the court has dealt with anything like this, as far as I can tell, was when they dissolved a gay civil union for a couple who had been united in VT a couple years back. A bunch of right wingers led by the frothy mouthed Steve King appealed and said that the Iowa Supreme court didn’t have jurisdiction to make this kind of decision. At which point the Supreme Court quietly assured him that they did, gave him a pat on the rear, and sent him on his merry way with directions mind his own business.

So, I wanted to get a handle on this situation. I wanted to have at least some kind of thoughtful, informed speculation other than state 29’s brief and dismissive commentary of how these justices are going to handle this case.

Enter Supreme Court day at the University of Iowa. Last Friday 6 of the 7 justices made the two hour trip Iowa City to hear a fake case argued by some of our students. Marsha K. Ternus was unable to attend, but was replaced by the venerable former Chief Justice Luis Lavorato.

Following the arguments, students who were interested were invited to dinner at faculty homes to dine with a justice. The justice that we were assigned? None other than the aforementioned Louis Lavorato.

Who better to give me an idea of how the Supreme Court was going to treat this question than someone who not only had worked with the majority of the justices, but also someone who was no longer ON the court and thus, in theory at least, could speak freely.

Justice Lavorato’s response to my question was both candid and comforting. After a brief discussion of the kind of language used in the Iowa Constitution and the personnel currently sitting on the bench, he made his prediction: he thinks that the Supreme Court is going to uphold Justice Robert Hanson’s ruling.

Let the champagne flow.

Kind of.

Obviously it was just an educated guess, and he made it clear that the issue could revolve around one swing vote. But even assuming that his guess is right, there’s still the question of amending the constitution of Iowa. As far as I can tell, doing this actually isn’t that hard. At least not nearly as hard as amending our federal constitution. First the legislature needs to pass the amendment with a majority vote in two consecutive years. Then the amendment gets put on the ballot and submitted to the general public for another straight majority vote (if I’m wrong about this please feel free to correct me). If that was the case, that would still mean two years of unfettered gay marriage before the constitutional amendment would even be on the ballot.

Even then, I’m not so sure 50% of Iowans would vote for it. Maybe I just have too much faith in Iowans as reasonable humans (crazyman Steve King did get 59% last year), but the idea that 50% of the population would vote in favor of an amendment to restrict the rights of our citizens strikes me as improbable.

But I’m probably getting a bit ahead of myself. First, the Supreme Court needs to uphold the ruling, then we can worry about any kind of campaign to change the constitution. In the meantime, there should be plenty of time to sip on that champagne.

Cheers. . . to a world that, like a defensive line on a college football team, has the potential to get a little better every year. Go Hawks.