Tag Archives: Pascha Morgan

We ate the butter cow

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I have a confession to make: I ate the Iowa State Fair Butter Cow. Then a second butter cow came along, and Kathy ate that one. Ok, I’m being a little silly. While neither Kathy nor I would ever devour or desecrate our State Fair’s most iconic feature, we calculate that, during our combined 122 years on this fine planet, we’ve each consumed the equivalent of a butter cow. That’s 600 pounds of butter. Each. Continue Reading →

“What you guys are doing is inspiring.” — Danny Lyon

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Danny’s a distinguished photographer, journalist, and film maker with award-winning work dating back to the 1960s civil rights struggle. He picks me up at camp in a battered old Volvo and we drive to the adobe house where he and his wife, Nancy, have lived for 38 years. “Most of this house was built by a single illegal Mexican worker named Eddie,” Danny says proudly. “And I like that it’s biodegradable. Someday, it’ll just be a big heap of mud.” Continue Reading →

Biden must honor his commitment to shut down DAPL

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The Obama administration — including then-Vice President Joe Biden and then-Secretary of State John Kerry — sent the message that new oil pipelines are dragging the US and our planet in the wrong direction. The clear, consistent, and scientific next step for President-elect Biden’s administration is to again cancel both pipelines, once and for all. Given Biden’s strong statements in opposition to DAPL while in Iowa in 2019, cancelation of the pipeline is his only consistent choice. Continue Reading →

52 Conversations With Iowa Trump Voters

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In 2021, a key collaboration between the Fallon Forum and Bold Iowa will be “Fifty-two Conversations With Trump Voters.” Each week, I’ll have an hour-long conversation with someone who voted for Donald Trump. I’ll publish a summary of that conversation in my weekly blog and also interview that voter during my talk show.

This will, no doubt, anger some of you. “Ed, how dare you give any more coverage to those people!”

A key element of our way out of the current divide is through dialogue. I reject the rhetoric that most Trump voters are racists, misogynists, and “deplorable” — as Hillary Clinton so memorably referred to half of Trump’s supporters in 2016. Continue Reading →

Learning from Cuba

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There is no doubt that industrial agriculture will fail as we move deeper into the New Climate Era. On the mind of every person who eats for a living should be one gnawing question: What must individuals, neighborhoods, cities, states, regions, and nations do to shift toward local, organic systems of food production that will allow us to survive in the difficult years ahead? Continue Reading →

Bold Iowa straw poll

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The biggest surprise is that Jay Inslee finished fifth, not first. Climate voters seem unwilling to reward Inslee for his singular prioritization of the climate crisis. They’re drawn to other candidates who appear solid on climate, yet who also resonate on levels where Inslee fails to connect. Continue Reading →

March Against Detaining Asylum-seeking Families

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We’ve seen widespread public outrage as more and more light is shed on conditions at US detention centers. Over 53,000 men, women and children are currently “housed” (i.e., imprisoned) at one of 230 centers. Meanwhile this past week, President Trump threatened the biggest-ever sweep of ICE raids, disrupting millions of lives and even forcing the cancellation of a major concert in Idaho. The raids didn’t transpire, but could ICE simply be biding its time? … Pascha Morgan joins us for the third segment of the program to learn about his plans for a 1,200-mile march to “put words like compassion, empathy, and human dignity into action” with regards to the official treatment of and common perceptions about immigrant families. Pascha calls it the March Against Detaining Asylum-seeking Families — or MAD AF. “Love of others can make you MAD AF,” says Pascha. Continue Reading →