Tag Archives: Kathy Byrnes

MTG abandons Trump; more Republicans will follow

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It’s happening, folks. Trump’s once-loyal followers are seeing the man behind the curtain. He’s not a wizard. Not a leader. Certainly not a Christian. They’re seeing an insecure, narcissistic hypocrite who knows he’s failing but has no capacity to admit it or to change.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is the most recent Republican leader to jump ship. She’ll resign from the US House next week, but she’s not going out quietly.

Greene’s recent 60 Minutes interview (which Charles and I discuss on the first segment of this week’s; program) was followed by an interview with Robert Draper in the New York Times, in which she admits, “After Charlie [Kirk] died, I realized that I’m part of this toxic culture. I really started looking at my faith. I wanted to be more like Christ.” Continue Reading →

Day Eighteen: Save America March – I finally meet a guy who thinks everything’s fine

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It’s the last day of the March! I’ve managed to walk 220 miles in 18 days without meeting a single drop of rain. More important, the hospitality has been exceptional, which I’m happy to say is typical for Iowa.

More important still, though I’ve had fewer conversations than I’d hoped (harvest season), dozens of conversations have given me renewed hope for our democracy and our country.

My “worst” interaction of the March happened today on a swanky golf course in West Des Moines.

For much of today’s thirteen-mile trek, I follow the Great Western Trail. A short stretch runs through Willow Creek Golf Course.

I come to a stone bench where the trail crosses a golf-cart path. It’s an ideal spot for lunch, so I take off my shoes and pull a banana and some bread from my satchel.

After a while, two golf carts whiz past, passengers barely glancing in my direction. A third cart stops abruptly, and the driver looks at me disapprovingly. My thought is he takes me for a homeless person and is about to order me off the golf course (which he doesn’t have the authority to do). He carries a distinct air of privilege and wealth.

“What are you doing?,” he asks, with a tone of annoyance rather than curiosity. Continue Reading →

The journey of one thread of plastic from your washing machine to your dinner

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The Guardian is one of the few mainstream news sources I almost always appreciate. I was particularly impressed by The Guardian’s recent account of how a thread of microplastic finds its way from your washing machine to your dinner. The story is clever, informative, and deeply disturbing. Read the full story here, and/or check out these key quotes from the story:

The story starts with a single thread of polyester, dislodged from the weave of a cheap, pink acrylic jumper [i.e., sweater] as it spins around a washing machine. This load of washing will shed hundreds of thousands of tiny plastic fragments and threads.

Along with billions of other microscopic, synthetic fibres, our thread travels through household wastewater pipes. Often, it ends up as sewage sludge, being spread on a farmer’s field to help crops grow.

Spread on the fields as water or sludge, our tiny fibre weaves its way into the fabric of soil ecosystems. A worm living under a wheat field burrows its way through the soil, mistaking the thread for a bit of old leaf or root. Continue Reading →

Kathy’s favorite farm and food lady

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We wrap up this week’s podcast and radio show with Kathy paying tribute to her Aunt Marian, who died this month at the glorious age of 99.

Marian was Kathy’s mom’s older sister and the mother of twelve children. In addition to an old-school farming operation with hogs, corn, beans, alfalfa, and sorghum, Marian ruled over a huge garden and two full kitchens!

Between preserving food for the winter and serving three meals a day to 14 people, the kitchens pretty much ran full-time. Marian’s apple pies in particular were known far and wide.

It’s my contention that 21st century America has much to learn from Marian Smith and the farming practices of a bygone era. As supply chains are further disrupted from climate change and other calamities, large gardens and small-scale meat production will become necessities, not novelties.  Continue Reading →

Affirmative action, 14 foods for the apocalypse, and a holiday reflection

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I took a break from hosting the Fallon Forum this week. Charles and Kathy filled in, with a deep dive into the recent US Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action. Charles also interviewed “Patricia Longbottom,” an over-the-top parental rights advocate. (Spoiler alert: this segment is a parody.) Charles and Kathy also discuss the 14 foods you’ll need to get you through the apocalypse. (I wish I could tell you this was also a parody.)

In other news, it’s been a tragic Independence Day holiday for too many American families, with celebrations marred by gun violence. Between Friday and Wednesday, 20 people were killed and 126 injured at 22 mass shootings.

Twenty-two mass shootings in six days! Wrap your mind around that. Sorry, thoughts and prayers are not a rational response.

I could say a whole lot more about gun violence, but want to reflect on another critical aspect of American life that comes to mind during this holiday. Here’s an excerpt from my book, Marcher, Walker, Pilgrim. As always, I welcome your feedback: Continue Reading →

Marianne Williamson opposes eminent domain for CO2 pipelines

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Dear Friends, LISTEN TO THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM (and click here to share my blog) (01:44) An interview with Marianne Williamson (26:22) A new call to abolish nuclear weapons, with Kathleen McQuillen Continue Reading →

Remembering the Civil War veterans who continued the fight for equality after the War

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This week — our Memorial Day edition — we discuss Steve’s soon-to-be-released book, One More War to Fight: Union Veterans’ Battle for Equality through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Lost Cause.

In an era where misinformation and outright lies too often pass as facts, Steve’s book “looks at the contentious post-Civil War era from the perspective of that special breed, Union soldiers, who lived by the bayonet and survived to carry on the fight for equality in the decades to come.”

Edna Greene Medford (professor of History Emerita at Howard University) writes, “Goldman offers a compelling argument in this comprehensively researched volume that addresses ways in which certain groups of northern white Union veterans supported a ‘just’ Reconstruction that aimed to protect and extend the rights of African Americans. Of particular interest is Goldman’s discussion of the role of the members of the Veterans Reserve Corps (wounded warriors), whose political activism, especially in veterans’ organizations; Freedmen’s Bureau work; and opposition to Andrew Johnson’s Reconstruction plans, countered the prevailing prejudices and racism of post-Civil War America. This is a study that will enlighten both the serious student of history as well as the general reader.” Continue Reading →

America needs a new peace movement

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Other than a few persistent, isolated voices for peace, we mostly hear crickets. Thus the question I ask in this week’s program and have asked before: Where is the peace movement?

Forty years ago, the anti-nuclear-weapons movement was broad and vibrant. It embraced every conceivable strategy — from hammering missile silos to volunteering in campaigns of “pro-peace” candidates.

That movement accomplished a lot: The Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, START, The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, US-Soviet citizen-diplomacy, and much more. There are still 13,080 nuclear weapons in the world, but that’s down from over 60,000 in 1986.

Change happened, as it always does, because hundreds of thousands of people marched, spoke out, got arrested, campaigned, and made more noise than the lumbering colossus of the federal government could ignore. Continue Reading →

House Dems retract call for diplomacy in Ukraine

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On another light note, five of us witched the heck out of Sherman Hill’s seasonable bash, Halloween on the Hill, this week. If you’re a Des Moiniac and there’s any room in your schedule for fun, be sure to add this October 31 event to your calendar next year.

On to serious stuff, specifically the letter sent to President Biden by thirty House Democrats calling for diplomacy in Ukraine.

The letter was really quite moderate, yet its the authors retracted it almost immediately. I strongly disagree with that decision. Charles, on the other hand, thinks it was the right call. What ensues us is a spirited debate that Charles loses (in my opinion). Give it a listen starting at the four-minute mark and let me know what you think. If a majority of you agree with Charles, I’ll buy him lunch.

For me, what Ryan Grim wrote in The Intercept sums it up: “That the letter was met with fierce opposition is a measure of the space available for debate among congressional Democrats when it comes to support for the war and how it might be stopped before it turns nuclear: roughly zero.”
Continue Reading →