I try to ignore the bogus controversies and fake outrage that dominate cable television news coverage, but the big to-do over Hilary Rosen saying Ann Romney “never worked a day in her life” is on my mind this weekend.

I must be the last Iowa blogger to weigh in on Stephen Bloom’s “Observations From 20 Years of Iowa Life” for The Atlantic.

Election years provide many “teachable moments” for children. In 2006 my three-year-old loved coming with me to deliver yard signs. We talked about how some people like to tell everyone in the neighborhood who they are voting for, while other people like to keep that a secret. For weeks he would comment on yard signs as we drove around town. “Mommy, that person is also voting for Chet Culver!”

In 2008 both of our kids experienced the unbearable stuffiness of our precinct caucus, and while they didn’t know the campaign issues, they did understand that people standing in different corners were supporting different candidates. They also understood the goal of getting as many people as possible to stand in your group. Many of my neighbors also brought children to the caucus, and I vividly remember one family whose seven-year-old daughter wore a Hillary button and nine-year-old son wore an Obama sticker even as their mom and dad caucused for Biden and Dodd (then Edwards after realignment).

During the 2008 general election campaign, my five-year-old son got a real-world dose of pluralism when he asked his favorite baby-sitter who she was voting for, and she answered McCain. I still laugh when I remember his follow-up question: “But who are you voting for for president?” It didn’t take him long to understand that yes, Mommy and Daddy were still voting for Barack Obama, but his baby-sitter was voting for John McCain.

I’ve decided to start a diary series about the political lessons my kids learn during this year’s campaign. My first big teaching opportunity of the 2010 election happened a few weeks ago…  

A few weeks ago, a long-lost elementary school classmate scanned our entire sixth-grade yearbook from May 1981 and posted the contents on Facebook. In addition to the usual goofy photos, we all contributed brief notes for our “20th reunion,” describing our lives as we imagined they would be in 2001.

The reunion notes were good for a lot of laughs. Then, like the geek I always have been, I decided to take a closer look at how my sixth-grade classmates envisioned our futures. What I found is after the jump.

A note on demographics: this sample of 76 children is in no way representative of American eleven- and twelve-year-olds in 1981. The three classrooms of sixth-graders at my school included 73 Caucasians, 2 Asians and one African-American. We lived in middle-class or upper middle-class neighborhoods in the Des Moines suburbs. Almost everyone was Christian; mostly Protestant, I think, with more mainline Protestants than evangelicals. There were also quite a few Catholics and four Jews.

Miep Gies, the last surviving protector of Anne Frank’s family, died last week at the age of 100. During the Nazi occupation of Holland, Gies risked her life on a daily basis to keep the Franks and other Jews safe and fed. She also gave Anne books of blank paper to write on, and retrieved and preserved Anne’s diary after the Franks were arrested.

Reading accounts of Gies’ life, I was struck by the way she described her decision to help conceal Dutch Jews: “I simply had no choice.” “I was only willing to do what was asked of me and what seemed necessary at the time.” (continues after the jump)

That’s me trying to explain the Star Wars storyline to my first-grader, who’s never seen the movies but is curious about them.

He’s heard other kids talking about Star Wars at school, so he checked out a book from the library introducing the series to beginner readers. He’s mostly interested in light sabers and Yoda levitating objects, but he has a lot of questions, and I don’t always know how to answer them.

Pope John Paul II visited Iowa 30 years ago today. Iowa Public Television’s Iowa Journal broadcast a retrospective on the event last week, and you can read the transcripts here and here.

Mike Kilen’s feature for the Des Moines Register includes anecdotes from some of the estimated 340,000 people who came to see the Pope at Living History Farms in Urbandale. (Even if you believe the lower crowd estimates of 100,000 or so, that’s still the largest public gathering in Iowa history.)

The momentous event sprang from a handwritten request by Truro farmer Joe Hays.

He was watching television and learned of the pope’s visit to America. Pope John Paul II was only 59 then – a new, youthful voice, a robust hiker, a scholar with doctorates in theology and philosophy, a man at ease with children and one of the leaders of Catholic Church reform.

He urged nations to uphold rights of citizens, lectured on the horrors of war and challenged consumptive lifestyles, yet held to conservative Catholic doctrines, including a devotion to the Virgin Mary.

But he was, in his beginnings, a country boy from Poland.

A pope had never ventured to Iowa, Hays thought, so why not him, why not now? He sat down to write a letter, telling the pope that the strength of the church here in America is found in its rural people.

A month later, a response arrived, and Hays was called to an Aug. 29 news conference.

I recommend reading Kilen’s feature. The Pope’s visit was a life-altering experience for some people, like the farmer who began shifting to more sustainable methods after hearing Pope John Paul II urge Iowans to “conserve the land well, so that your children’s children and generations after them will inherit an even richer land than was entrusted to you.”

While you’re on that page of the Register’s site, you can watch a video clip from the Pope’s address that day and view a photo gallery from the visit. The second picture in the gallery shows masses of people walking down Hickman Road in Urbandale, which had been closed to traffic.

That image brought back a lot of memories for me.

As a young child, I knew virtually nothing about the Catholic Church. The first time I remember realizing the Pope was important was when Pope Paul VI died in 1978, and Pope John Paul I died shortly thereafter. I could tell that was a big deal for Christians. (I didn’t know the difference between Catholics and Protestants at that point.)

Our home in Windsor Heights was about three miles from Living History Farms, and when we learned about Pope John Paul II’s planned visit, my parents decided that our family would walk to the farms to hear him speak. I remember my mother joking ahead of time that she was a “fair-weather friend of the Pope,” because she was only going to make the journey if the weather was nice. October 4, 1979 was chilly but dry, so my family walked to Living History Farms with neighbors who were Jewish, like us.

I don’t recall anything Pope John Paul II said that day. I just remember being excited to be walking so far and seeing more people in one place than I’d ever seen before. I’ve never been part of a crowd that large since. Even at age 10, having no spiritual connection to Catholicism, I sensed that I was witnessing something historic.

If you were living in Iowa 30 years ago, please share your memories of the papal visit in this thread.

Like many of you, I’ve been thinking today about the terrorist attacks eight years ago. My husband and I were living in London. I had watched the uneventful 1 pm news while eating lunch. Around 2 pm, which would have been 9 am in New York, someone called and told me to turn the tv back on. I was glued to the BBC for the rest of the day and night.

I remember watching the people trapped on the roof of the World Trade Center and wondering why none of the helicopters could get close enough to rescue them. I remember watching the south tower and later the north tower collapse. I simply could not believe a plane was able to crash into the Pentagon.

I remember the tremendous grief for the victims of the attacks, including 67 UK citizens. 9/11 claimed the lives of more British people than any single terrorist act by the Irish Republican Army. My not-easily-riled husband still gets irritated when people refer to the 3,000 “Americans” killed on 9/11.

In the weeks after the attack, I lost count of how many British people told me how very sorry they were about what had happened. Some of those people were strangers who approached me after hearing my American accent in a shop or a train station. They felt compelled to speak to me. The outpouring of support for the U.S. was real.

I didn’t lose any friends on 9/11. I only had one acquaintance who lost a loved one that day (his father was on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center). Still, I felt incredibly angry about the attacks. I read many of the newspaper profiles of victims. During the Jewish high holidays in late September 2001, the last thing I felt like doing was reflecting on the past and forgiving wrongs from the past year. I remember listening to a BBC radio segment taped by the UK’s Chief Rabbi, David Sacks. He reminded listeners that the Bible (I assume he meant the Hebrew Scriptures or “Old Testament”) tells us once to love our neighbors, but tells us approximately 30 times to love the stranger. That’s because it is easier to love our neighbor, who is probably a lot like ourselves, than it is to love a stranger. It was an important message during a time of grief and sorrow.

Please share your own memories of 9/11, or anything else on your mind, in this thread.

UPDATE: If you haven’t seen it yet, read the diary Billy Parish cross-posted here yesterday, containing his memories of 9/11 and a call to action on global warming.

The UK Sunday paper The Observer published these statistics from 9/11 and the aftermath during the summer of 2002.

I’ve been taking my children to political rallies, receptions, and house parties since they were babies. Many Iowa Democrats have claimed not to recognize me without a small child riding on my front, hip or back.

At the same time, I’ve avoided exposing my kids to political scenes likely to turn confrontational, such as anti-war demonstrations. An article I read years ago in Mothering magazine persuasively argued that because young children cannot understand abstract political concepts, they are likely to be disturbed by the anger they encounter at a protest rally. (Sorry, no link–they don’t put most of their content online.)

I’ve also been influenced by my mother-in-law. In her 30 years as a preschool teacher, she learned that young children are easily confused by upsetting images. After 9/11, some of the kids in her class did not understand that television networks kept showing replays of the same scenes. They thought that another plane was crashing into another building every time they saw tragic footage from that day.

Living in the Des Moines suburbs, it’s usually no challenge to keep my little ones from volatile political scenes. They get that not everyone votes the same way, but politics to them means coming with Mommy or Daddy to hear a candidate speak, help deliver yard signs or vote on election day.

When Fred Phelps and his clan from the Westboro Baptist Church planned a trip to central Iowa this month, it occurred to me that sheltering my children from their hatred might not be an option.

I’m turning 40 today, and to mark the occasion I have compiled a list of 40 bloggers I like to read who have hit the same milestone. They are alphabetized by name or handle after the jump.

You’ll recognize many of the names, but probably not all of them. My goal was not to compile a list of 40 high-traffic bloggers.

I have a special appreciation for state bloggers because of all the time I spend writing at Bleeding Heartland. My birthday wish is that this diary will encourage you to get active on the progressive blogs in your city or state.

I apologize in advance to all the talented “older and wiser” bloggers I didn’t have room to mention.

One year ago today I was battling an ear infection that turned bad enough to put me in the hospital for a week.

What I went through then was among the worst experiences of my life. Yet looking back on the experience, I realize how lucky I was.

The rest of the story is after the jump.

adapted with minor changes from a diary I wrote last February

One day in February 2007, Steve Gilliard wrote his last post for the News Blog and went to the doctor to get a prescription for a cold he couldn’t shake. He was admitted to the hospital right away for treatment of an infection of unknown origin, and he never was able to get back on his computer. He died that June.

I know I’m not the only former News Blog addict who thinks of Steve every time Republican Party chairman Michael Steele says something ridiculous. Steve would have had a field day with the RNC leadership contest. Just imagine the post he might have written about this list of prominent conservatives who endorsed Ken Blackwell.

Further reflections on what Steve’s blogging meant to me are after the jump.

We’re halfway through January. This is a thread for discussing anything new you’ve been enjoying lately.

Favorite new habit: getting more cardio exercise. I’ve only stuck with it for three weeks so far, but I am motivated.

One of my favorite Chanukah presents was a pair of mittens my sister found at a craft fair, made out of recycled wool sweaters. They are perfect for walking the dog in sub-zero weather.

My family likes jigsaw puzzles, and my in-laws got us a 400-piece puzzle “featuring an extract from the US Geological Survey map base centered on your home.” The map covers an area six miles east to west and four miles north to south. It’s very challenging, because there’s no picture on the cover of the box to guide your way. It helps if you know most of the names of streets, parks, and schools in your area. My husband and I noticed the geological survey map was a few decades out of date; the puzzle shows lots of undeveloped space where the suburbs have sprawled, as well as some landmarks that no longer exist (such as Riley and Rice schools in Des Moines). I’m guessing the puzzle manufacturer pulled a map from the late 60s or maybe the very early 70s. West Des Moines is very small, but Valley High School is out on 35th St, rather than in the old Valley Junction location. If you want to order a puzzle of your home town or the place where you live now, here is the website.

If you have been enjoying any new (to you) books, magazines or blogs, tell us about them.

California-based blogger Ellinorianne has just launched a new blog called Chronic Share, “a welcoming community for those living with chronic disease.” (She suffers from fibromyalgia.) If you or a friend have a chronic illness, check it out. The format is very much like Bleeding Heartland; it only takes a minute to register, after which anyone can post comments or diaries.

The Daily Kos community is so huge, with more than a hundred thousand active users and hundreds of diaries posted every day, that many communities have formed within it. In those groups, diarists and commenters can get to know each other over time.

The “Edwards Evening News Roundup” was that kind of community for most of 2007. People came looking for those diaries so they could catch up on the news of the day and with other Edwards supporters they had “gotten to know” online. After John Edwards dropped out of the race, many of the active diarists in this group formed the EENR blog, which is now Progressive Blue.

Daily Kos has generated other communities that have nothing to do with politics. Frankenoid posts a Saturday morning garden thread every weekend, for instance.

On Monday nights a group of people take turns writing diaries about bereavement in “The Grieving Room” series. If you have ever experienced this kind of loss, I recommend that you read these posts.

Last night’s edition by Papachach, a widower with three young children, was quite moving.

On a related note, if you or anyone you care about has experienced depression for whatever reason, I recommend reading this piece, which made the top of the Daily Kos recommended list yesterday: I hope this message reaches the right person.

UPDATE: On the subject of bereavement, I recommend reading this interview with Elizabeth Edwards from last year, in which she shares how the sudden death of her son Wade changed her life and her faith.

With all due respect to Greg Brown and the Everly Brothers, I doubt that Iowa has ever produced a better songwriter than Justin Roberts.

The Des Moines native is coming back to town for a concert this weekend, and whether or not you can attend, I encourage all parents, grandparents and friends of parents to get to know his music.

This Associated Press feature named Roberts “a rising star in kids’ music”:

In less than a decade he’s gone from playing for a few people in a maternity shop to a few thousand in big-city pavilions and concert halls. And he’s done it in a way that’s increasingly popular: entertaining children without dressing like a purple dinosaur or singing songs that drive parents crazy.

“It’s not like a lot of kid music that’s almost unbearable for an adult to listen to,” said Lee Berger, sitting at a recent show in suburban Chicago with his wife and two small children. “It’s actually good music, and then they like it as well.”

How good? I sometimes listen to this music in the car even when my kids are not with me. It’s not dumbed down, and he writes songs in a variety of styles. On just one album, you can hear the 80s-style pop song “Meltdown” (“I’d stop the world and meltdown with you”), the Beatles-esque “Imaginary Rhino,” a country-ish tune about “Taking Off My Training Wheels” and echoes of Paul Simon in South Africa on “More Than Just a Minute.”

The AP writer notes that adults as well as kids can relate to Roberts’ lyrics, because they touch on universal joys, fears and family dynamics. Some songs put a twist on familiar tales; Humpty Dumpty isn’t a careless idiot, he’s a visionary who keeps climbing that wall to see the amazing view.

Instead of telling kids not to be scared of the monster under the bed because there is no such thing as a monster under a bed, Roberts empathizes with the monster. He might be hungry, missing his monster mom and dad, or scared of the child who seems like “a monster without fur.”

There are also some jokes just for the grown-ups, like phrases from classic Bob Dylan songs in the Dylan-like “Henrietta’s Hair.”

I am particularly fond of the lyrics on “Why Not Sea Monsters?”, an album of songs about the Hebrew Scriptures. Roberts has a funny way of conveying the essence of these stories, whether it’s Moses talking to the burning bush or the jealousy of Joseph’s brothers. (There is also a companion “Why Not Sea Monsters?” album with songs about the New Testament.)

I mentioned in my calendar of this week’s events that Roberts and his band (the Not Ready for Naptime Players) will play a free concert this Sunday, September 7, at 3:00 pm on the west lawn of the Botanical Center in Des Moines. Information about upcoming shows can be found here. You won’t be disappointed, whether Roberts brings along his full band or only the very talented Liam Davis (also his producer).

I wish I could find some footage from a concert on YouTube, because you haven’t lived until you’ve seen a bunch of kids go wild to “D-O-G,” “Day Camp” or “Cartwheels and Somersaults.”

Roberts keeps the audience engaged by encouraging kids to make a particular gesture repeatedly during each song. This is a classic trick of storytelling. Even a pre-verbal toddler who can’t sing along enjoys copying the motions.

For months before he was able to talk, my younger son would put his arm up in the air at the beginning of “I Chalk,” ready to make a big sidewalk chalk circle during the chorus. He tried so hard to point his fingers in the air during the “one by one by one by one” refrain of “Billy the Bully.”

Bring extra money if you do go to a Justin Roberts concert, because chances are you’ll want to buy a CD or two to take home. Depending on where you live, you may not find any of his music in stores, but his albums are available here. We like them all, but our favorites are probably “Meltdown,” “Pop Fly,” “Way Out” and “Not Naptime.”

Four videos can be found on the official Justin Roberts website. To brighten your weekend, I leave you with the title song of his latest album, “Pop Fly.” Not only do my boys love it, that track went all the way to number one on XMKIDS radio:

After John Edwards left the race, I always said I’d vote for our nominee but would never donate to either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.

All spring and summer, I vowed never to put an Obama sticker on my car and joked that Bleeding Heartland was last bastion of Obamaskepticism in the Iowa blogosphere.

I sent in my $15 tonight to get an Obama-Biden car magnet.

Daily Kos and MyDD user “Angry Mouse,” a dedicated Clinton supporter throughout the primaries, published this moving diary about her journey from being “just a Democrat who will vote for the party’s nominee” to a strong Obama supporter.

Consider this an open thread for discussing anything you’ve done that you thought you’d never do.

I wouldn’t say my four-year-old son was following the presidential race closely last year, but he was paying enough attention to understand that his parents were voting for John Edwards. Having been in the car a few times when I delivered yard signs, he also understood that an Edwards sign in front of someone’s house meant that person was also voting for Edwards.

In March of this year, my son (by then five years old) asked me whether we were still voting for John Edwards. I explained that not enough people had voted for Edwards, so he couldn’t be the president. We would vote for someone else, probably Barack Obama. He found that a little confusing, but over time it clicked with him that we were supporting Obama for president.

This evening we had a baby-sitter over for a couple of hours. While she was here, I was getting the kids a snack, and my older son asked her who she was voting for. She said, “McCain.”

He followed up with, “But who are you voting for for president?” She said, “McCain.”

Pause. He turns to me: “Mommy, are we voting for Obama?”

“Yes, we’re voting for Obama, but [baby-sitter] is voting for McCain.”

“Oh.” And he went back to eating pretzels.

Like many people who volunteered for John Edwards last year, I’ve been working through conflicting feelings this weekend.

Natasha Chart voiced some of my frustration in this piece about our ridiculous standards of public morality. Ethical lapses that affect the lives of thousands or millions of people are not career-enders for politicians, but marital infidelity is supposed to be–if you’re a Democrat. Once again, it’s ok if you’re a Republican.

Many Edwards supporters are angry about the publicity surrounding this story. It’s infuriating to see journalists more interested in Edwards now that he has admitted to an affair than they were when he was a presidential candidate talking about substantive issues.

David Mizner loathes the “American sickness” of needing to know about the sex lives of politicians, adding:

I supported Edwards not because I loved him and not because I thought he had sex with only his wife. I supported him because I believe in progressive populism.

Many bloggers I respect, from TomP to MontanaMaven and RDemocrat made similar comments on Friday. After all, we were backing Edwards for president, not husband of the year.

Ellinorianne put it well:

What John did in 2006 has no bearing on Universal Health Care.  What happened in 2006 does not make poverty in this County any less of an urgent issue.  The corporate media would love to believe that what John did in 2006 would mean one less powerful voice talking about the strangle hold that corporations have on every facet of our lives in this Country.

Nothing can take away from these issues unless we let it happen.

On one level, I relate to what Ellinorianne wrote, because Edwards undoubtedly put topics on the agenda that would barely have been discussed had he not run for president. While he was in the race, at least one candidate was talking about the excesses of corporate power. After he dropped out, that issue disappeared from political discourse.

For that reason, I never regretted the time I spent volunteering for Edwards. Of course, I was sorry that Iowans did not give him the boost he needed in the caucuses. I was disappointed that I failed to deliver a third delegate for him from my own precinct. But watching the campaign devolve into identity politics in February and March, I was more convinced than ever that helping this longshot candidate was worth the effort.

These past few weeks have caused me to question for the first time whether I would back Edwards if I had it to do over again. Edwards’ policies and rhetoric were a necessary condition for my support, but they would not have been sufficient had I not also believed that he was the strongest general election candidate. Otherwise I could have backed Dennis Kucinich, who was even closer to me ideologically than Edwards.

Here and at other blogs, I advocated for Edwards as the most electable candidate because of his communication skills, his appeal to small-town and rural voters, his way of evoking broad themes in his answers to specific questions, and so on.

Speaking to potential caucus-goers, I often noted that Edwards had faced intense national scrutiny for years, making it unlikely that the Republicans could spring any “October surprise” on us.

Now I realize that the whole time, Edwards was hiding a story that would have reinforced the most devastating narrative about him: he’s a phony who talks about one set of values but lives a different set of values.

How damaging was this narrative? Last year I used to joke that if I ever came into possession of a time machine, I would go back and persuade John Edwards to hire Sarah Susanka (the Not So Big House woman) to design his Chapel Hill home.

It appears that Edwards had no game plan other than to hope that Rielle Hunter wouldn’t tell anyone and/or that journalists wouldn’t pick up on the rumors as long as he lied.

I empathize with Elizabeth Edwards, who wrote on Friday:

This was our private matter, and I frankly wanted it to be private because as painful as it was I did not want to have to play it out on a public stage as well.

I agree with BruceMcF, who observed that our country would have lost a great leader if sexual immorality had ended Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s career.

But presidential candidates have to run in the world that is, not the world that used to be or the world that should be. I simply can’t imagine how this affair could have remained under wraps throughout a long campaign.

To my mind, Edwards owed it to all Democrats to either step aside or find some way to make this story old news. I understand the desire to avoid a media circus, but it wasn’t realistic to hope that journalists would cover for him or that Hunter would keep a secret.

Responding to a commenter at Daily Kos, Elizabeth Edwards wrote on Friday:

Each of us has a day we wish we could take back. We are all imperfect beings, Denny. Here’s what I know, looking back: poverty, a truly aggressive and progressive environmental platform, universal health care would not have been part of the discussion if someone of force and vision had not been there to make them part of the conversation.

An imperfect man with a truly progressive vision who spoke to and for those whom others ignored? Yes, that is who I supported.

An imperfect man who had come to face his own imperfections and was seeking to redeem himself to those closest to him? Yes, that is who I supported.

With the Supreme Court and so much more riding on the outcome of this election, helping someone redeem himself to his family is not high on my priority list. Ultimately, I have to agree with Ezra Klein:

No one forces you to devote your life to national advocacy of important issues. But if you decide to do follow that path, with all the plaudits and moments of roaring applause it entails, you have to make certain sacrifices, and shoulder certain realities. Among them is that if you falter, you can harm all that you’re advocating and deny help to all whom you claim to represent.

If Edwards wanted to face his imperfections, he should have found some vague way to disclose marital problems that he and Elizabeth had worked through. Let voters decide whether that should be a deal-breaker or whether his potential contribution to American life outweighs the mistake.

If he could not bear to get ahead of the story, the least he could have done was to tell the truth when first asked about rumors of his affair. DrFrankLives (who has devoted far more volunteer hours to Edwards than I have) hit the nail on the head in this diary:

I want to know two things.  How the hell could you, a man who ran everything through a careful filter, allow that to happen during a political campaign in which so many people had so much riding on you?  And what the hell were you thinking when you denied it when asked about it?  You’re a lawyer.  You know that questions keep coming.  And nothing delights a cross-examiner like a false answer.

Which candidate would I have supported knowing what I know now? Probably I would have held out for Al Gore for a few more months. Maybe I would have settled on Chris Dodd or Joe Biden. Neither of them were as strong on my key issues as Edwards, though. I suspect that I would have come around to Edwards eventually if the affair had been revealed early in the campaign. It wouldn’t be the first time I voted for someone who was unfaithful to his wife.

Had I known that Edwards was recklessly hiding a story with the potential to destroy his campaign, I would have found a different candidate for sure.

What makes me more angry than anything else is that this scandal appears to have derailed Elizabeth Edwards’ plans to speak at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. We need her voice on health care reform.

Feel free to share your own reflections in the comments.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, one of the most famous Russian novelists of the 20th century, died near Moscow on Sunday at age 89. Here is a link to his obituary in the New York Times.

I studied Russian literature in college, and Solzhenitsyn was never my favorite. His books didn’t affect me like the work of another famous dissident, Andrei Sinyavskii, who wrote under the pseudonym Abram Tertz. He wasn’t as inventive a writer as Vladimir Nabokov. I still prefer Yuri Trifonov as a chronicler of everyday Soviet life (especially the novellas “The Exchange” and “The House on the Embankment”).

But Solzhenitsyn’s novels about Soviet prison camps and other extraordinary features of Soviet society made an incalculable contribution to world culture. People will probably still be reading “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” centuries from now. “Cancer Ward” and “The First Circle” were also good novels, though not as famous as “The Gulag Archepelago.”

I didn’t care much for Solzhenitsyn’s politics, but I respect him for going back to live in post-Soviet Russia when he could have lived more comfortably in Vermont. He had great talent and worked hard to bring to light some very dark episodes in Soviet history. May he rest in peace.

I’ve been going through boxes of very old papers as well as messy closets, drawers and cabinets this summer. We’ve given away many boxes of books and household items, thrown away a lot of broken or damaged items, and recycled a huge amount of paper.

What is your philosophy on old clothes or other items cluttering up your home?

Do you give away anything you haven’t worn or used in a year or two years?

Do you keep things you forgot you had, because they may come in handy (or you may fit into them again) someday?

Do you keep things you know you’ll never use because they have sentimental value?

I found this report I wrote for a fifth grade class assignment in one of my old boxes. When I tried to read it out loud to Mr. desmoinesdem, I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe:

[desmoinesdem], ABC News?

When I get older I would like to be a journalist. I would know what was going on. I also would enjoy doing something useful, not just a housewife.

I know about journalism because every day I watch local and world news. I have decided that world news is more exciting. I can learn more about it by watching more news. And that’s what I’m doing.

I would probably choose a busy city, like Chicago or Detroit, but not too busy, like New York. I am not sure what car I would choose, but most likely one with good mileage. One thing for sure, though. I will enjoy my work.

The End

It’s funny because

1. Although I am not currently working outside the home, I have kept active with various non-profit groups and political causes since becoming an at-home mom.

2. For many years as an adult I did write professionally about the politics of another country, which I found more interesting than U.S. politics.

3. I wrote this during one of the big energy crises of the 1970s, but as it turned out, I do drive a car that gets good mileage (Prius).  

Steve Gilliard passed away last June (decades too soon), but those of us who were addicted to his blog had been missing his writing for months already. One day in February 2007, Steve went to the doctor to get a prescription for a cold he couldn’t shake. He was admitted to the hospital right away for treatment of an infection of unknown origin, and he never was able to get back on his computer.

I’d already been planning to write this diary before I had my own run-in with a scary infection last week. I don’t write many personal reflections, but I feel compelled to share how much I still miss Steve’s blogging.

cross-posted at Daily Kos and MyDD

I am a healthy woman in my late 30s who rarely sees a doctor outside of regularly scheduled checkups. I have had two uncomplicated pregnancies followed by easy, midwife-assisted births.

Most years we pay far more in premiums for our family’s health insurance than our medical care would cost if we paid for everything out of pocket.

Not this year. Yesterday I returned home after spending seven days and six nights in the hospital. It might have been a lot worse if I were uninsured.

Apologies for the sudden break from blogging. On February 15 I came down with an ear infection that got out of control and put me in the hospital with cellulitis in my leg from last Tuesday until this afternoon. I have about 50 diaries in my head and will start writing them again tomorrow.

LATE UPDATE: I posted more about my background here and here. A better e-mail for contacting me: desmoinesdem AT bleedingheartland.com

Desmoinesdem is the pseudonym of a woman who has been interested in politics since she took on the role of John Anderson for a 5th-grade class debate. She wonders whether there are any other Bleeding Heartland registered users old enough to remember John Anderson.

She first participated in an Iowa caucus as a Paul Simon supporter in 1988. She wonders whether there are any other Bleeding Heartland registered users old enough to remember Paul Simon.

Now she is a mother of two in the Des Moines suburbs. She was a precinct captain for Kerry in 2003/2004 and for Edwards in 2007-2008. Aside from electoral politics, her interests include a wide range of environmental issues and attachment parenting.

The best way to contact her is to comment in one of her diaries, but she can also be reached at desmoinesdem at yahoo.com.