Alienation, autonomy, and ideology
What are people looking for when they’re thinking about ‘summer reads’? How about you? It seems like most people take it to mean adventure stories or books to take with them on vacation.
I guess there’s some of that in my July list. But I can’t say I have anything too specific in mind when I’m talking about the summer. I suspect my summer reading isn’t that much different from other parts of the year.
Without further ado…
Recent Iowa City mayor Jim Throgmorton wrote a book about his time on the city council in Iowa City. He calls it Co-Crafting the Just City. I’ll get to why he called it that in just a bit. But for now, I’ll say it’s a rare kind of book. People don’t often write about the politics of a small U.S. city. And certainly not in the kind of detail one finds here.
As some readers know, I moved to Iowa City in 2007. And I served on the city’s Housing and Community Development Commission from 2019 to 2022 (the final year as chair). So, I know about many of the political debates Thorgmorton mentions. I followed most of them closely – some very closely.
Overall, Throgmorton does a fine job listing the basic issues at play. He does so, of course, from his own (in some ways limited) perspective. That’s to be expected. I’ll sketch out some of the book’s goals and insights into Iowa City politics.
Almost 3 years ago, I wrote a post about a baseball prospect named Manny Bañuelos. The story of Bañuelos illustrates a lot about what happens with young baseball players. He started as a very promising young prospect. But then he went through various cycles of injuries, trades, and so on.
By the end of the story, Bañuelos was in his late 20s and no longer a major prospect. It illustrated one of the many ways a baseball career can go the wrong way.
But I’m pleased to note that the Bañuelos story has taken a more positive turn in the last 3 years. Since 2019, he seems to have rebuilt his pitching skills and prospects. He played in both Chinese and Mexican baseball leagues, and he even worked himself all the way back to another stint with the New York Yankees.
As I write these words, Bañuelos just recorded his first major league save with the Yankees. Congrats! And then, after I wrote these words, the Yankees traded him to the Pirates. Thus is the life of a baseball player.
Edward Linsmier, The New York Times
The Fourth of July is, of course, the holiday most closely associated with the U.S. But most Americans use it as a specifically patriotic holiday. As leftists, what is our association with the Fourth of the July?
More broadly, we have complicated associations with other U.S. traditions, like ‘free speech‘ and the broader ‘rights of man.’ How about the Fourth? How do you think about it?
So, I’ve taken part in a ton of activist groups in Iowa City over the last 15 years. A couple of months ago, I wrote some reflections on the good and bad of Iowa City activism. I kept most of that rather local to Iowa City. In this post, I’d like to extend this to broader lessons.
With that in mind, here are 4 lessons from local activism!
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