A TIF Discussion

June 9, 2013, 10:15 a.m.

Evolution of A Family's TIF Policy Position

A TIF, or "Tax Incremental Financing," is a technique utilized by local governmental units to, among many other things, provide taxpayer money to for-profit, private businesses, such as high-rise, multi-use buildings containing condo housing, office space, and shops.

There is a good deal of debate among and between economists, public officials, anti-tax groups, editorial writers, and the for-profit beneficiaries regarding the wisdom and equity of this approach, as well as other systems of taxpayer funding for private projects.

Sometimes the different approaches pop up in family discussions. So it has been with my son, Gregory Johnson, ResourcesForLife.com, and myself.

A recent exchange, involving an article he wrote and posted on his Web site that triggered an ongoing exchange on Facebook, I thought worth preserving on this blog for what it might contribute to the evolving thinking of others who are trying to formulate their own opinions on this significant public policy issue.

From my perspective, although Gregory challenges this, as you'll see below, he began his approach to TIF policy some months ago with an effort to justify the use of TIFs from Iowa City taxpayers for the downtown, highrise projects of Marc Moen, an innovative developer and friend of Gregory's. (In his article, below, some of this continues, as he notes, following his listing of standards for awarding TIFs, "The Moen Group would be one example of a developer that would pass the above requirements." And again, "Interestingly, the developer being awarded the experimental TIF money (MoenGroup.com) would actually pass the above 7-question qualification assessment test.")

I also like Marc Moen, though I'm relatively confident given my positions he would not consider me a "friend," and I have a similar (though not identical) approach to his with regard to what Iowa City's downtown (laid out in 1839), needs in the 21st Century. My objections, such as they are, primarily address the propriety of using taxpayers' money to fund his projects -- not him, or the design of his buildings.

Whether that was in fact Gregory's starting point or not, Gregory is now making a real effort to come up with a sensible, balanced approach to cities' use of TIFs, recognizing both their inherent disadvantages and the likelihood they are going to continue to be used whether we like it or not. As he puts it (in the very last lines reproduced in this blog essay): "The reasons for not using TIFs to fund private enterprise are well founded and seem to outweigh the benefits. However, it seems that municipalities across the nation don't care (including ours). That being the case, if we are going to have inappropriate uses of TIFs, should there be a decision process? That's what I'm exploring."

Here, then, are yesterday's exchanges, starting with the major portion of his opening article, and then progressing to the exchanges within a Facebook discussion.

Guidelines for Selecting TIF-Based Funding of Urban Development Projects
Gregory Johnson
http://www.resourcesforlife.com/docs/item6947

Traditional TIF Use. The use of TIF-Based funding is traditionally limited to restoring areas of urban blight. The rationale for this is that poverty is too expensive. That is to say that illiteracy, homelessness, unemployment, substance abuse, crime, incarceration, and other social problems caused by poverty cost society much more than simply eradicating poverty. Some would call this socialism. Others would describe it as simply being fiscally responsible with capital by seeking the maximum return on investment. This, of course, isn’t a practice that all people condone, but it’s embraced by a majority of people, so municipalities are not required to have a vote for using tax revenue in this way. Wikipedia describes the founding principles of TIF usage:

“TIF was designed to channel funding toward improvements in distressed, underdeveloped, or underutilized parts of a jurisdiction where development might otherwise not occur. ” [Source: Wikipedia]

Experimental TIF Use. In recent years, municipalities have implemented experimental uses of TIF-Based funding to include urban development projects that are private business ventures. Without taxpayer consent, city council members are taking tax revenue and giving it to private business owners. This has resulted in public protests from groups that, given the chance, would otherwise vote down such initiatives were they bonds to raise funds for public projects. In theory, the rationale for giving tax revenue to private enterprise is that the initial loan will be repaid in substantially higher property taxes. Once repaid, the ongoing tax revenue will be a benefit to the city.

The goal of experimental TIFs is a long-term increase in property tax income that should recuperate the original investment. Additional financial support allows developers to build beyond what they might have otherwise been able to. This may include aspects of sustainability, urban beautification, and mixed use space that might typically not be considered. Developers seeking maximum profits may create single-use ugly buildings with little consideration of sustainability. Developers given additional financial support may create multi-use attractive buildings with a greater investment in architectural design and sustainable practices.

Usually the only developers who get selected for such experimental projects are those who have a past record of success in the community, and a base of community support for their projects. Communities should be leery of special financial incentives extended to unknown out-of-town developers who have not demonstrated any commitment to the local community and may skip town when the going gets tough.

For communities considering experimental uses of TIFs as an investment, it is advisable to use a dollar cost averaging approach to their implementation, particularly when their use involves giving tax payer money to private enterprise. Because this use may be a risky investment, and because they typically involve tax-free contracts that extend decades, a city can quickly get overextended if the city government becomes “TIF-happy” and erodes the public tax base.

TIF Qualification Assessment Checklist. In general, people are either in favor of experimental TIF use or against it. I would propose that people should be neither “For” or “Against” the use of TIF-Based funding. Instead, communities should utilize a checklist to determine when a TIF should or shouldn’t be used. Below are some questions that should be asked which should rule out about 99.9% of all requests for TIF-Based funding of private projects.

(1) Previous Interest. Has the developer previously shown an interest in the community, or is the TIF a bribe to get an otherwise uninterested and uncommitted developer to build in your community? If the developer has previously shown an interest in the community, without any special favors, then continue to question #2, otherwise TIF should not be used.

(2) Mixed Use. For the other projects the developer has in the community, are those utilizing best practices of mixed use spaces that will enrich an area by having retail space, office space, and residential living? If YES, then continue to question #3, otherwise TIF should not be used.

(3) Past Success. Have the other projects of the developer been successful? If yes, continue to question #4, otherwise TIF should not be used because that would not be a TIF it would be simply TF (tax funding) without a guarantee of an ‘increment’ in tax revenue if the project fails.

(4) Architecture Evaluation. Certainly there are many genres of architecture, and just as many opinions about what is attractive. For the style of architecture being proposed, is the building considered to be attractive by those who appreciate that style of architecture? For example, if the proposed development uses modern design, do people find it to be an innovative and attractive example of modern architecture? If yes, continue to question #5, otherwise TIF should not be used.

(5) Beautification. Businesses and investors generally look at the bottom line and profits when planning a project. An ugly poured cement building or unimaginative brick facade would be popular choices. Similar to question #4, does the proposed development project place value on the aesthetic appearance of the building in a way that demonstrates the developer’s passion to look beyond profits to envision ways that architecture can be a form of habitable art and community beautification? If yes, continue to question #6, otherwise TIF should not be used.

(6) Property Management. Is the developer simply looking to turn a quick profit by constructing a cheaply-made building and then selling it without making any long-term commitment to ensure the property is cared for and the businesses within it are profitable, or, instead, is the developer taking a personal interest in the long-term management and oversight of the property? If the developer is taking an interest in the long-term care of the property, then continue to question #7, otherwise TIF should not be used.

(7) Commitment. If the developer thinks their project is so wonderful, ask them this simple final question: “Would you be willing to actually live in the buildings you are constructing and reside in the neighborhood where you develop?” Most developers will say no, and you can tell them to seek private funding. However, if you have a developer who has answered yes to all of the above questions, then such a developer should probably be retained and well supported by the city because developers like this would be very hard to come by and can be a huge asset to any community.

The above list of requirements may seem like an impossible set of requirements for any developer to meet. However, there are developers that meet such requirements. The Moen Group would be one example of a developer that would pass the above requirements.

There is a commentary and response to the above found at the bottom of this page. In summary, those opposed to giving public tax revenue to private developers would conclude that no decision tree will change the fact that taxes aren’t meant to support private business.

Case Study – Iowa City. In Iowa City, we’ve had several experimental uses of TIF-funded development projects that fall outside their traditional use and best practices. This has raised a significant amount of public outcry, partly because tax payers did not vote on or approve this private enterprise business use of their tax dollars. Interestingly, the developer being awarded the experimental TIF money (MoenGroup.com) would actually pass the above 7-question qualification assessment test.

Dollar Cost Averaging. Because TIF funded private projects represent some risk, the principle of dollar cost averaging should be used. By waiting 7 to 10 years between TIF funded projects, there is enough time to reassess their success, and spread out risk, and spread out the depletion of the municipal tax base revenue.

TIF Concerns. The remainder of this document will explore TIF concerns and potential problems with TIFs. As mentioned above, in recent years, TIFs have been used as a mechanism for taking tax payer money and handing it over to wealthy developers and private business. These are some additional concerns about TIFs that makes their use for private enterprise prohibitive in any circumstances. I believe these are valid concerns that may take precedence over any possible benefit of experimental TIF use.

Infrastructure Needs Come First. Roads, schools, libraries and other shared community infrastructure are traditional government undertakings. Funding private enterprise with tax payer dollars is not.

Public Input is Essential. Although voter approval is not required, citizen participation is essential and any city government that does not seek citizen input does so to the detriment of the entire community. TIF funding is similar to public bonds and should be treated the same way.

Enhancing or Expanding Wealthy Developments Isn’t Essential. When TIFs are used to make posh and upscale living even more decadent, they run the risk of broadening the gap between the working poor and wealthy in a community. Initially TIFs were intended for urban renewal and low-income housing. The intention was to give the underprivileged a leg up. Giving the wealthy a financial boost at the expense and sacrifice of the poor seems backwards.

Free Marketplace. Most of us believe in the power and effectiveness of the free marketplace to produce equitable and responsible outcomes. Businesses answer to consumer needs and wishes, or they feel the results in their bottom line. Providing tax payer funding reduces or eliminates these marketplace checks and balances. Additionally, TIFs create an imbalance in the marketplace giving some businesses an immense advantage over others.

Disparity of Profits and Losses. A TIF funded project distributes risks of loss and opportunities for profit inequitably because profits are guaranteed to be received by the developer, but if there are losses (if a business folds) the taxpayers will bear the brunt of that outcome.

Business and State Partnership. TIFs intertwine government and business in something that’s neither socialism or capitalism. TIFs represent an erosion of the democratic process whereby the tax payers are stripped of their autonomy, self governance, and money for the benefit of private enterprise. When officials give millions in taxpayers’ money to private, for-profit businesses, the temptations for good-old-boy corruption are great — and virtually impossible to uncover.

Business Incentives and Accommodations. It’s not necessary to give handouts to businesses to gain their approval. Changes in zoning regulations and building codes (for example) can help give businesses a boost without using taxpayer money. Municipalities compelled to bribe business as a means for pleading to win developers is a losing downward spiral that only ends after the last parcel of land is TIFed away. TIFs can devastate a government’s credit rating, thereby increasing the cost of future legitimate projects. Instead, municipalities should be firm and financially conservative when approving what businesses they allow to develop in a given area. Rather than asking, “What can we pay to convince you to develop in our community?” municipalities should be posing the question, “What will you give our community for the privilege of having a business here?”

Impact on Public Funds. Money shifted over to TIF use is pulled from the same collective pot that would otherwise fund schools, programs, and other government units. In the short-term, this creates a deficiency, and in the long-term, if profits are not as expected, there may be a permanent negative impact on other community funding needs.

Difficult to Determine Needs. In some situations, a city will be told by a potential developer that they can’t proceed with a project unless they receive a certain amount of funding from the city. It is difficult for a city to determine the actual needs of that developer, so the city will end up trusting the foxes to guard the henhouse as the money is trustingly handed over.

Higher Risk. Much of the ‘risk’ in business outcome success has to do with those governing and guiding a business. In a traditional business model, all those involved are equally committed to ensuring success. With TIF funded projects, public officials may lack the business experience required to ensure success, and having no personal financial money tied up in a project, there is little incentive to oversee and ensure the success of a project.

Payoffs to Win Business. Sometimes municipalities get into a bidding war trying to win over a certain business or developer. If a developer isn’t adequately committed to your community, and requires that you bribe them to come to your community, that’s not a good place to start a relationship. Choose only businesses and developers who are sufficiently ‘invested’ in your community that you need not bribe them to come. Businesses pick cities for reasons other than TIFs: workforce, local economy, schools, transportation, communication, quality of life. Focus on investing in those assets instead. Otherwise, the money you give to business will be diverted away from the infrastructure that would otherwise attract more business. Indeed, it’s in the best interest of many businesses to depress the local economy and reduce the quality of life in order to attract people who might fill low-wage jobs. So, businesses aren’t always the best friend of a local community or economy.

Risk of Corruption. When officials give millions in taxpayers’ money to private, for-profit businesses, the temptations for good-old-boy corruption are great — and virtually impossible to uncover.

More information about TIFs can be found online on the FromDC2Iowa blog where the inspiration for much of the above content is available.

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And now, the Facebook exchanges:

Nicholas Johnson "Tough TIF Talk," http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/02/tough-tif-talk.html

In his latest effort to justify the use of taxpayer money (TIFs) for Marc Moen's buildings, Gregory Johnson offers, "Guidelines for Selecting TIF-Based Funding of Urban Development Projects," http://www.resourcesforlife.com/docs/item6947.

His "Guidelines" are a constructive step forward; I especially like the decision-tree approach.

However, with respect, I think they still fail to address the elephant in the living room.

So far as I know, none of the economists who oppose crony capitalism argue that there are NO benefits to taxpayer-funded pro football stadiums, for example, or TIFs -- such as short term jobs for construction workers, and a somewhat useful new facility.

But by that standard, there are also benefits from a teenage gang drug distribution organization -- jobs for otherwise unemployed teens, business training, a development of their math skills, sense of responsibility, and ability to work with others.

In short, the issue is NOT whether there are ANY benefits from a Moen project; of course there are, and he lists some of them. The issue is whether those benefits are enough to warrant taking money from the county and schools, subsidizing one housing/office building owner while forcing all others to compete with him without the benefit of taxpayer financing, undercutting banks and other potential investors with cheap taxpayer money when private funding might have been available for the same or a slightly modified project, the risk of corruption when officials are picking winners and losers, and on and on with the list of 20 problems with TIFs I have repeatedly referred to. See "Tough TIF Talk," http://fromdc2iowa.blogspot.com/2013/02/tough-tif-talk.html

In short, the issue is NOT whether Moen does, or does not, make any contribution to downtown Iowa City with his buildings.

The issues are: (1) Does he really NEED this taxpayer money to do what he does (perhaps in a slightly scaled down version)? And (2) Even if there ARE benefits to his projects, zero risks to taxpayers, and he is sufficiently impoverished that he could do nothing at all without taxpayer funding, do those benefits warrant the TIFs, given all the (a) other-than-financial adverse consequences as well as (b) taxpayer costs, and (c) opportunity costs (things the City doesn't/can't fund as a result of what it's given him)?

THAT'S the question that has still not been addressed by anyone to my knowledge, let alone answered to my satisfaction.

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Gregory Paul Johnson These are all very good points and useful suggestions for expanding on the decision tree, if there is to be one. I recognize that some people feel any use of taxpayer money for private business is an inappropriate use.

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Nicholas Johnson Permit me to offer an alternative response/argument you could make that I think would be more to the point and effective.

To say that "some people feel any use of taxpayer money for private business is an inappropriate use" is like saying (to use my example of the teenage drug gang) "some people oppose all teenage gangs."

It's true that some conservative capitalists would oppose TIFs as a form of corporatism or crony capitalism, a bastardization of pure capitalism, on ideological grounds. Capitalism includes the possibility of devastating financial losses as well as the possibility of enormous profits; they are offended by a "heads (i.e., profits) I win (i.e., keep the profits" and "tails (i.e., losses) you lose (i.e., taxpayers cover them)" system.

There are others who believe the only legitimate, constitutional use of taxpayers' money is for military expenditures.

Neither is what's involved here.

There are actual, very real harms (not to mention risks), produced by TIFs, some of which I've itemized in the Facebook entry, and linked blog essay. These are not observations derived from a belief that "any use of taxpayer money for private business is inappropriate," or some other ideological or political philosophy.

As such, they are analogous to the observations that drug dealing often leads to addiction, other health problems (and in the case of drive-by shootings, death), and is associated with other criminal behavior -- which are also not based on an ideological, or political, opposition to all teenage gangs.

It seems to me, therefore, that you have three possible arguments [with regard to any of the 20 categories of objections to TIFs]: (1) denial (e.g., "there is no data or other reason to believe that when the government underwrites a for-profit venture with taxpayers' money it creates an unfair advantage, tips an otherwise level playing field, or otherwise harms the non-publicly-funded competitors"), (2) trivialization (e.g., "yeah, there are a number of taxpayer-funded private profit efforts that are never completed or go belly up, but not many of them, and those that are successful can be very successful"), or (3) to borrow from Lilly Tomlin, "we don't care, we don't have to, we're the telephone company," or, as in this case, the City Council (e.g., "corruption is part of government; always has been, always will be; there are a thousand ways a beneficiary can reward a public official, you can't possibly track, let alone prevent, all of them; so there's some possibility with TIFs, too; so what?").

But I don't think you are persuasive in disposing of the real and serious adverse effects of TIFs when you fail to address them, and rely on the dismissive "some people" don't like any TIFs.

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Gregory Paul Johnson Just to clarify, you mentioned that my article is my "latest effort to justify the use of taxpayer money (TIFs) for Marc Moen's buildings." It's not written with that myopic intent, but genuinely an effort to think broadly about whether TIFs should be used at all beyond their original intent. If so, then how would one make a decision. At present, there seems to be no rational decision tree being applied.

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Gregory Paul Johnson I think any balanced presentation about TIF use should include mention of the 'very real harms and risks' associated with their use for funding private enterprise. That's why I included a summary of those dangers/concerns in my original article and also linked to your comprehensive article on the topic. There's a serious problem of tax payers not being included in the decision process of how their money is spent. I mentioned this in my article as well.

I've now revised my article to reflect the points/comments you made above. In case it wasn't clear, I changed the wording to state, "I believe these are valid concerns that may take precedence over any possible benefit of experimental TIF use." I plan to make further modifications as more comments come in.

I don't think that there are three possible arguments (1) denial, (2) trivialization, (3) not caring.

The reasons for not using TIFs to fund private enterprise are well founded and seem to outweigh the benefits. However, it seems that municipalities across the nation don't care (including ours). That being the case, if we are going to have inappropriate uses of TIFs, should there be a decision process? That's what I'm exploring.

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Law's Losing Race With Technology

June 7, 2013, 5:25 p.m.

This series includes: "Lavabit Confronts 'Complicit or Close?' Levison Closes," August 9, 2013; "A Simple Matter to Drag People Along," August 6, 2013; "The Future of Surveillance and How to Stop It," August 4, 2013; "Surveillance: Differences of Degree and of Kind," July 3, 2013; "Shooting the Messenger; Should Government Be Able to Keep Its Abuses Secret?," June 11, 2013; "From Zazi to Stasi; Trusting a Government That Doesn't Trust You," June 9, 2013; "Law's Losing Race With Technology," June 7, 2013.

Redefining 'Privacy'
Our decades-long suspicions that our government has been spying on us have recently been confirmed. Once again, public opinion -- not to mention our policy analysis and law -- are lagging far behind leaping technological advances.

The London Guardian broke the story that the U.S. super-secret FISA Court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) has given the NSA (National Security Agency) the legal right to gather all of our phone records indiscriminately -- even if there is no reason for the NSA to suspect we've done anything wrong -- in this specific case, the records of every Verizon customer (with legitimate reason to suspect similar authorizations have been granted for all other major phone companies). Glenn Greenwald, "NSA Collecting Phone Records of Millions of Verizon Customers Daily; Exclusive: Top Secret Court Order Requiring Verizon to Hand Over All Call Data Shows Scale of Domestic Surveillance Under Obama," The Guardian (London), June 5, 2013 (with link to text of FISA Court order). [Photo credit: multiple sources.]

Ultimately, of course, the story was picked up and repeated by mainstream U.S. media, as U.S. officials scrambled to reassure Americans that they (members of the U.S. House and Senate) had known of this all along and always considered it a dandy way to protect us from terrorists -- carefully noting that at least this order did not include the government’s right to listen to the content of our calls. "All they were doing" was gathering the date and times our calls begin and end, the locations of the parties to the calls, and the phone numbers involved. Charlie Savage and Edward Wyatt, "U.S. Is Secretly Collecting Records of Verizon Calls," New York Times, June 6, 2013, p. A16; Editorial, "President Obama’s Dragnet," New York Times, June 7, 2013, p. A26 ("The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it. That is one reason we have long argued that the Patriot Act, enacted in the heat of fear after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, by members of Congress who mostly had not even read it, was reckless in its assignment of unnecessary and overbroad surveillance powers.") [Photo credit: www.loohan.com]

Not to be outdone by The Guardian, the Washington Post soon had a story of its own to break:

The National Security Agency and the FBI are tapping directly into the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, extracting audio and video chats, photographs, e-mails, documents, and connection logs that enable analysts to track one target or trace a whole network of associates, according to a top-secret document obtained by The Washington Post.

The program, code-named PRISM, has not been made public until now. It may be the first of its kind. The NSA prides itself on stealing secrets and breaking codes, and it is accustomed to corporate partnerships that help it divert data traffic or sidestep barriers. But there has never been a Google or Facebook before, and it is unlikely that there are richer troves of valuable intelligence than the ones in Silicon Valley.

Barton Gellman and Laura Poitras, "Documents: U.S. Mining Data From 9 Leading Internet Firms; Companies Deny Knowledge,” Washington Post, June 6, 2013.

As I sometimes say, "The major problem is not so much that big corporations violate the law, it's that they write the law." The same thing's true of government. The White House, Justice Department, and the Intelligence Committees of the House and Senate tell us that all their spying on us is perfectly legal. They may well be right. Only problem is that the court that can tell us is so secret we aren't even supposed to know it exists; and unless the Guardian gets another leaked copy of an opinion we can't ever know what those judges decide, let alone their reasoning.

Legal or not, once again the technology is so far ahead of the ethicists, policy analysts, legislators and lawyers that we really need to "take it from the top," and totally rethink what we mean by "privacy" and what aspects of it are so important to us that we want legal protection.

Let's begin with a very brief review of the law.

The Fourth Amendment asserts a "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" -- seemingly a kind of place-based security, a protection from trespassers -- albeit a protection that only extends to the exclusion of evidence so obtained. In 1928 the Supreme Court was still reading those words literally. Olmstead v. United States was a case in which the defendant had violated the prohibition laws. The prosecutor wanted to use evidence obtained by federal officers who had put wire taps on the defendant's phone lines a short distance from his property. The Supreme Court ruled that a phone tap, off the defendant's property, did not violate the language of the Fourth Amendment -- although it noted that Congress could pass a law prohibiting wiretaps (as it ultimately did).

By 1967, in Katz v. United States, Justice Stewart wrote for the Court, "the Fourth Amendment protects people, not places," even people who, as in that case, use public phones far from their homes. Justice Harlan, concurring, thought that was not enough: "The question, however, is what protection it affords to those people." Then, answering his own question, he posed the standard that has become the primary legacy of Katz: "there is a twofold requirement, first that a person have exhibited an actual (subjective) expectation of privacy and, second, that the expectation be one that society is prepared to recognize as 'reasonable'" -- generally truncated into the shorter expression, "a reasonable expectation of privacy."

So far so good. But in the 1976 U.S. v. Miller case the Court explained that once you've shared information with another, even though you did so in confidence and for very limited purposes, you no longer have an expectation of privacy in that information, let alone an expectation that courts will consider "reasonable." In Miller the defendant, Miller, attempted to claim a Fourth Amendment right of privacy in the cancelled checks and other records and documents maintained by his bank.

Few people find it possible to function without a bank account; a relationship with a bank is more of a necessity than an option. A necessary feature of a bank account is that the bank maintain some records of your financial transactions. You may consider those records private, and that you have an implied understanding of confidentiality with the bank. However, the Miller court concluded that by giving those records to the bank Miller could no longer claim a reasonable expectation that they would remain private. Because he had no "reasonable expectation of privacy" law enforcement could get access to those records from the bank, without providing Miller the protections he would have received under the Fourth Amendment if Miller had no bank account and law enforcement had come to his home for his copies of those "papers."

That standard may or may not have made sense during the last decades of our pre-cyber life. Most of our "papers and effects" were kept in our homes, protected by the Fourth Amendment. Not all; the phone company had records of our long distance calls, the gas and electric company would have records of our consumption, and there were probably other exceptions. But for the most part we weren't giving information to third parties that we considered private and confidential.

Today the combination of electronics, digitization, the Internet, computers and telecommunication result in your sharing a large portion of your "papers" with others. Neither librarians nor store owners used to keep records of what books or other merchandise you examined. Today you share a record of every search with Google, a record of every product you examine on a company's Web site, your Kindle book library with Amazon, your music choices with iTunes. You've shared your email and text messages with some company, your photos with Picasa and Facebook, your videos with YouTube, your documents with Dropbox or some other firm that offers you real estate in their "cloud." In addition to your bank, "your" financial records are held by your credit card companies, airlines, rental car companies, hotels, and many local merchants.

As Chief Justice Taft noted in Olmstead, we still have some legislative protections from invasions of our privacy by corporations and government, and the opportunity for more. But there is very little left of the Fourth Amendment protections Americans once enjoyed -- at least with regard to the records maintained by corporations, and often handed over by them to agencies such as the NSA, CIA and FBI.

As yesterday's stories regarding the government's massive, sweeping collections of phone records and Internet traffic make clear, technology has left the Fourth Amendment in the dust as it speeds past. When law enforcement had to get a search warrant to tap one individual's phone, the Fourth Amendment's requirements were administratively feasible. When the government wants to tap everyone's phones, and collect everyone's Internet traffic, that system collapses.

Remember the song with the line, "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all"? Well, if it weren't for the FISA court we'd have no court at all; indeed, we didn't, not that many years ago. The government contended it didn't need any judicial approval to spy on Americans. But a "Top Secret" (that is the classification on the FISA court's Verizon order) court that reportedly grants virtually every request, and never releases its cases, their resolution, or its reasons, is a pretty thin reed on which to rest the public's confidence in their government.

The Supreme Court needs to rethink the Fourth Amendment's protection of our privacy in a post-cyber world. The mere fact that today's technology means that no American can have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" anywhere, at any time, requires that standard -- and its deadly presumption regarding records shared with third parties -- be discarded.

There's much, much more to be said on this subject. And I'm told there are more revelations coming from the Guardian's Glenn Greenwald. But that's all for now.

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Finding Your Different Drummer

June 5, 2013, 2:15 p.m.

An Alternative to the Corporate, Televised Test Pattern

Test Pattern for Living is back.

Originally published as an original Bantam paperback in 1972, the book was reissued in a Lulu paperback edition last week. It should be available through Amazon sometime in mid- to late July. Meanwhile, the publisher is the only source. (There may be a book signing in a couple weeks at Uptown Bill's, at which 20% of the heavily discounted price will be a contribution to Uptown Bill's.)

Meanwhile, the book celebrated its Iowa City debut last evening at "Slices: Performance and Pie" (an event presented the first Tuesday of every month at 7:00 p.m. at Uptown Bill's in Iowa City, Iowa, in cooperation with Combined Efforts Theatre).

"Slices" offers participants an opportunity to present brief (10-minute maximum) readings from favorite or original literature. One of Slices' unique features is that participants must use a total of no less than two persons for the presentation.

I was fortunate enough to have the assistance of two professional actors for this event -- Rachael Lindhart and Jason Grubbe (both Actors Equity members) -- and my son, Gregory Johnson. Any additional background on what we did and why is contained in the script used on that occasion.

An Excerpt from Nicholas Johnson’s Test Pattern for Living
Uptown Bill’s
Iowa City, Iowa, June 4, 2013
Nicholas Johnson (NJ): Test Pattern for Living. 1972.

The women’s movement was just getting started. Women as well as men were still referred to as “he.” But it was also a time of great creativity in everything from politics to the arts. So the Foreword to Test Pattern for Living was sheet music by Mason Williams, the composer of “Classical Gas” and the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” head writer. And instead of text throughout, the text I wrote was on the right hand pages, and the left hand pages had quotes from others that were supportive of that text.

I was still an FCC commissioner, and was trying to bring attention to the impact of television, and its corporate sponsors, on Americans’ lives. The phrase “test pattern” was a reference to the test patterns on the television screens at that time. The book was designed to offer readers a path to thinking through their own individual standards, a way to break out of the corporate interlock.

The pressures on individuals today are similar to those 40 years ago. America is again at war. A collapsing economy is now the reason individuals are rethinking their own set of values. That’s why the book was reissued just last week.

For our excerpt at this evening's "Slices," I’ll be reading my text from the right-hand pages of Test Pattern for Living. My "Greek chorus," Rachael Lindhart and Jason Grubbe,will speak the quotes from others from the left-hand pages. The book also reproduces the text of actual TV commercials. One of them, plus Mason Williams' all-purpose commercial, will be read by my son, Gregory Johnson, who starts us off.

# # #

Gregory Johnson (GJ):

Mason Williams.
At last
New from us
This amazing dramatic proof
There.
See?
You can.
It's easy!
You mean America's favorite modern families?
Yes! . . .
Because they used that other stuff in tests
But without the special ingredient of a magic formula
Now available in two sizes
Fresh and moist
And especially made so effectively light and lovely
That the leading new word for all you ladies
Combined with their report
Is a timely message of less than a minute
And quick to fix from now on . . . .
So why not try big, tough, super
Flakes of special interest for all you guys
With twice the power and vitamins necessary
For a high rate of saturated “duh”
That is free for an unlimited time only
with every Hey!

NJ: The difficulty in America today is that we have turned it all over to the big corporations. Time owns Life. Our colleges, churches, foundations, and public broadcasting stations tend to be presided over by the same guys who decide what automobiles we'll buy and breakfast cereals we'll eat. They publish our children's school books; they own most of the nation's artistic talent—and they have little hesitation in censoring the copy of both.

Jason Grubbe (JG): Mason Williams.
The censor sits
Somewhere between
The scenes to be seen
And the television sets
With his scissor purpose poised
Watching the human stuff
That will sizzle through
The magic wires
And light up
Like welding shops
The ho—hum rooms of America
And with a kindergarten
Arts and crafts concept
Of moral responsibility
Snips out
The rough talk
The unpopular opinion
Or anything with teeth
And renders
A pattern of ideas
Full of holes
A doily
For your mind

NJ: Understanding this concept of "corporate interlock" is really essential to an understanding of this book. In general, people either understand the concept right away or not at all—in which case spelling it out is a waste of time. But I'm going to try.

Rachael Lindhart (RL): Philip Slater. “One cannot successfully alter one facet of a social system if everything else is left the same, for the patterns are interdependent and reinforce one another.”

NJ: Let me begin with an anecdote. One evening Mason Williams and I were debating whether to go out for dinner or cook something at his house. We finally decided we'd stay home—principally because we didn't want to bother to change clothes. This prompted Mason to start speculating—as do a great many of life's quirks. "Nick, I've finally figured out why you have to dress up to go out to dinner."

"Why's that, Mason?" I asked.

"Because the same people who own the restaurants own the clothing stores."

His years of working for television have forced Mason to think in one-liners. (That's all you ever have time for.) And, like many of his one-liners, this one is both inaccurate in its particulars (so far as I know clothing stores are not owned by restaurateurs) and profound in its more general wisdom. "Living" ought to be individual, spontaneous, extemporaneous; a personal quest, evolution, and growth; an experience in uniqueness. But living your life according to the corporate plan involves no more of a creative "centering," or flowering soul, than painting in numbered spaces with the indicated colors is "art." It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. You are living out somebody's else's plan—not yours—paying them handsomely for the privilege of doing their work for them.

JG: Timothy J. Cooney and James Haughton write, “In America one of the basic rules many people live by is that one must keep up with the Joneses. By your own example you must turn this rule upside down. If you absolutely need a car, let it be the oldest on the block. . . .

At first, such "odd ball" behavior will cause some embarrassment and you will hardly be popular with your neighbors. . . .

Half the worry of . . . people in this country is how to pay for all the brand-new and superfluous junk they have signed up for, at just "pennies a day." By your example you will be offering an escape from this endless worry . . ..”

NJ: The psychology of acquisitiveness is to know, at every stage, what pieces you must next acquire, and in what order—house, car, sailboat.

GJ: Once upon a time there was a girl who dreamed of a doll that had everything. And then came Dawn, the doll that comes with these beautiful things. Like a car with Dawn actually at the wheel! Just look at Dawn go! There's a Music Box with Dawn on top, and the fabulous Dawn Fashion Show—the only one in the world with a revolving stage like this. Dawn comes with it—watch her walk and model, all by herself. And start collecting all these accessories: a handbag, elegant furniture with a phone that really works, a beauty parlor set. You can display Dawn, her friends, her fabulous clothes, right in your own home. Make your dream come true with Dawn, the doll that has so many beautiful things. Dawn's clothes are so beautiful, so stunning, so elegant, you'll want to collect more than one doll just to show them off! And it's so much fun to put two Dawns here, three Dawns there, call it "Midnight Magic." Then change their clothes, set them up, and call it "Sweet Dreams." Use your imagination! Dawn. Fun to play with, fun to collect.

NJ: "House" takes on an externally imposed meaning: suburbs, air conditioning, grass, wall-to-wall carpeting—just as surely as "Dawn" would be incomplete without her "car," "fabulous clothes," "elegant furniture,” and "beauty parlor." Sound familiar? Could it be you are now living in the doll house you used to play in? Is that an accident? Is it really what you want?

The corporate interlock of jobs, products, and life style means that once you come into the circle at any point you find yourself surrounded by all of it. And once you're in it's very difficult to get a little bit out.

The choices remaining to you are relatively meaningless—such as which color and extras you want with your Chevrolet, whether you'll drink scotch or bourbon, how "mod" your ties will be, and which toothpaste you'll use.

JG: William F. Fore. “Free selection of a wide range of goods and services does not signify genuine freedom, particularly if the desire for these goods and services tends merely to foster more frantic work, more compulsive buying, more fear and self-doubt. In this context, free selection tends to create and sustain alienation.”

NJ: It all fits: corporate white-collar job, suburban home, commuting by automobile, eating in restaurants, and the clothes. There is the canned entertainment of radio and television for the boredom, the bottled alcohol and aspirin for the pain, and the aerosol cans of deodorant and room freshener to maintain the antiseptic cleanliness of it all.

JG: Mason Williams. “We're like a race horse shot full of speed to make us run harder than is good for us, to win for the owners and lose for ourselves, to win the race for only the price of the chance to run.”

NJ: You wear your office, your home, and your car as much as your clothes and deodorant. And from the corporate layers of externals comes your very identity—and the smothering of your soul.

RL: Suzannah Lessard. “A young person gets a big bang out of taking a well-paying white-collar job with a large and important company, thinks to himself "I'm making it," and sees . . . himself in the saddle. It's only later, much later, when the exits have all been quietly sealed off, that it becomes apparent that the saddle is really a harness . . ..”

NJ: Let me try another example. Once you have accepted a job in a professional or managerial capacity with one of the nation's top two hundred corporations, you will be led inevitably to the purchase of a special automatic dish-washing detergent. Here's how it happens:

You are probably working in a large, fairly new office building in a major city, and living in the suburbs. You not only feel under pressure to get a house about the same size and cost as your neighbors, but such a house is, in fact, the only kind available.

JG: Paul Swatek. “Social custom teaches us to strive for a privately owned, single-family home in the suburbs, possessing a garage of at least two-car capacity, and filled with "conveniences" that assure us of more "leisure" time. Advertising urges us to consume and dispose. Is this really what you want? The decision is yours and you are free to say no.”

NJ: The kitchen is really quite large. It has lots of cupboard space. You may have moved a lot of kitchen stuff with you; or maybe you bought it because you never envisioned any other way to live, or because you're expected to entertain in a particular style.

In any event, even though you find a camp cook set more than enough in the way of kitchenware when you're camping, you don't want all those empty kitchen cupboard shelves.

Once they are filled, you feel a compulsion to use the stuff. Instead of washing a pot after it has been used, you put it aside and dirty another one. Silverware, glasses and cups, bowls and plates are likewise dirtied in great number, even during the course of a family meal, let alone when you are entertaining.

Having dirtied so many pots and dishes, it really is a drag to have to wash them all by hand. So you get an automatic dishwasher. Maybe it was already in the house. Maybe you were partly influenced to buy it because the neighbors have dishwashers. But mostly you get it because you have all those dirty dishes.

And once you get it, you find it's designed so that you have to use the special dishwasher detergent or the soap will suds out all over the floor.

And that's why, once you accept the job, you have to buy the special dish washing detergent.

# # #

Let's Keep What Works in Schools

June 1, 2013, 3:00 p.m.

Seldom do I reproduce others' writing in this blog. This morning I make an exception for my wife, Mary Vasey's, column in The Gazette regarding changes in Cedar Rapids' formerly nationally prominent alternative school, Metro High School -- along with examples and analysis of what made it successful during the 1980s and 1990s.

Some of our greatest technological innovations had their beginning in someone's garage (think Apple). Educational innovations are also more likely to come from two or three creative, caring teachers than from school boards or superintendents. So it was with Metro. Metro's first innovative efforts were carried out in two nearby structures, pictured here: an old abandoned fire station and grocery store. The effort was so successful at what was originally called Metro East that a Metro West was begun. Eventually they were all brought together in the former Tyler Elementary School building, which is the current Metro home. [Photo credit: Wikimedia.org.]

Three years after Metro began in the firehouse, Mary joined in helping build what Metro ultimately became, taught there for 21 years, and was one of the first teachers asked to join the national faculty of the Coalition of Essential Schools. She was a part of the group that helped plan what is now Iowa City's alternative school, Tate High School. Both are (or were) examples of one sub-set of the kinds of creative thinking that is needed today throughout K-12 (and higher) education -- and what can be accomplished when administrators are willing to stop insisting round students be squeezed into square holes, trust the teachers, and support and encourage their creativity rather than snuffing it out.

-- Nicholas Johnson

Know What You Had Before It's Gone
Mary Vasey
The Gazette, June 1, 2013, p. A6
Echoing Joni Mitchell’s warning, “Don’t it always seem to go/That you don’t know what you’ve got/Till it’s gone” (Big Yellow Taxi), former Metro High School teacher Bonnie Sovern warns us: “Metro changes in wrong direction,” May 27 letter.

As a former Metro teacher myself, from 1979 to 2000, I couldn’t agree more.

Why is it institutional administrators so often seem to find more comfort with the common than the truly creative? Why are successful innovations, recognized nationally, ignored or worse locally?

Metro’s national recognition included a number considered “presidential awards” during the administrations of Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Metro has been recognized as one of the nation’s top 212 schools (1985), First in the Nation in Education (1991), Redbook top 140 (1992), and National Blue Ribbon Award (1993).

Presidential recognition is nice. But the greatest reward for teachers, and taxpayers, is watching these potential dropouts go on to successful careers.

What was unique? Metro’s innovative programs and activities were the result of teachers, staff and students living in a culture that rewarded, rather than punished, creative responses to needs.

Half-day sessions meant students with job or family responsibilities could attend morning or afternoon. Small classes made possible needed individual attention. Each teacher had 15 to 20 advisees throughout those students’ time at Metro. Teachers made regular home visits.

Teachers could innovate with “team teaching” and “block scheduling,” like combining literature and American history.

In addition to job training, students learned the attitudes and social skills necessary to keep a job. Those in Metro Farm planned, planted, cared for, harvested and sold the produce. The Daycare Center enabled young parents to attend Metro, while teaching them parenting skills. The Bake-a-Teria taught marketing as well as baking skills, with an on-site restaurant for group meetings. There were Metro businesses doing bike repair, laundry and clock making.

Local businesses and Kirkwood Community College partnered with Metro and its students — internships in real jobs, classes at Kirkwood.

Arts were no “frill.” Some students feel conventional high schools have failed them, rather than the other way around. They drop out. By contrast, Metro was a place they wanted to be. For many, arts programs were their primary magnet.

Their visual art was displayed wherever an opportunity arose. The Metro Theater Group performed two plays every year, often at CSPS. Some were original; all enthusiastically attended. The Dance Troupe performed with the Theater Group.

There was experiential learning: a class taking samples of river water, contacting other science classes, lobbying for conservation policies. Researching and then lobbying the Iowa Legislature regarding rent-to-own schemes. Groups went on weeklong camping and bicycling trips. Students kept journals. Metro produced a literary magazine from student writing. Students had enthusiasm about such a variety of learning opportunities. [The water project, pictured, continues (although no longer as an integrated, multiple-disciplines, major curriculum); many other programs and activities have been cut entirely, contributing to Metro's student population decline from 600 (as reported in an abandoned 2009 blog) to less than half that.] [Photo credit: Metro High School (active blog).]

Perhaps, given the times and attitudes about education, we shouldn’t be shocked that the school district’s administration would want to squeeze the life out of what was once recognized as one of the best high schools in the nation.

Hopefully, in not too many years, the spirit of Metro will rise again. Three or four teachers will decide to start an alternative school in an old house or deserted building. Maybe a future administration will have the courage and wisdom to let them have their way, as administrators once supported Bonnie Sovern, me and our colleagues.

Meanwhile, I guess we’ll just continue to frustrate ourselves and our students by trying to fit those sometimes difficult, often creative and bright, sometimes confused and alienated kids into an assembly line mold.
_______________
Mary Vasey, a retired Metro teacher, lives in Iowa City and is board president of Combined Efforts Theatre. Comments: MaryVasey@yahoo.com.

The old Tyler Elementary School that serves as the Metro High School buiilding today. [Photo credit: Metro High School (active blog).] # # #

How to Totally Eliminate Flood Damage

May 30, 2013, 10:45 a.m.

Water Will Have Its Way

If we continue to build on flood plains, we can expect continued destruction. To stop this, we need to remove structures from flood plains or we need to better tend the uplands so that they can limit flooding. Today, we instead work on the theory that we can use both flood plains and uplands intensively, as we wish, for maximum profit. We are paying the price.

-- Connie Mutel

My brother has a grass-based dairy farm in southeast Minnesota. . . . [A] rainfall simulator put 4 inches of rain on his hilly pastures in one hour. No water ran off. They waited four hours and applied 4 more inches in an hour, and still no water ran off. Last fall, when floods raged in southeast Minnesota, my brother's farm got 15 inches of rain overnight. Area corn and soybean fields were destroyed by erosion, and whole towns got washed out. On his farm, there was virtually no sign of erosion.

-- Francis Thicke

Note: Since this blog essay was posted May 30, 2013, there have been a number of opinion pieces by others coming to similar conclusions (as there have been over the years). Rather than embed them here, they have been made available as a "page."

There are three simple rules that, if followed, would totally eliminate property damage from floods:

1. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.

2. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.

3. Don't locate homes and other structures in flood plains.

Actually, it's a little more complicated than that -- but not by much. Water will have its way. We can dam it, we can channel it, we can sandbag and barricade our buildings, but we can't (at least not yet) control how much or where the rain falls, and how much property damage overflowing rivers (and overflowing reservoir spillways) can do to structures in a flood plain.

We can (and do) argue about what is causing "climate change," but few still argue about whether we're experiencing it. Someone reported this morning that this spring has been the wettest ever. Climate change means more unpredictable and extreme weather, more often -- droughts and floods, hotter summers and colder winters, more severe tornadoes more often, "500-year" and "100-year" floods coming every decade instead of every century.

We know the value of preventive maintenance for machinery and structures -- although we've failed to apply what we know to our nation's 600,000 bridges. We know that billions of dollars are needlessly spent on our healthcare for totally preventable conditions we've brought on ourselves, by ignoring the near-universal advice regarding dozens of diseases and conditions: weight control, diet and exercise.

I wrote about all of this the last time the Iowa River went out of its banks in 2008. It's worth repeating.

"Flooding: 'We've Found the Enemy' -- And the Answers,"
July 17, 2008
Note: Undoubtedly, although the links, below, worked in 2008, many (possibly all) of them are no longer correct. (I have made no effort to check and correct them.) A Google search may reveal that some of these documents now have other URL addresses on the Internet. If not, a library search for hard copy versions, or contacting the authors or publishers, may be your only options.

As the flood waters slowly recede, the dramatic damage emerges from the muddy water and remaining muck, and the long cleanup continues, our thoughts turn to the future.

"What did we do to deserve this?" "What's the best way to keep it from happening again?"

Thankfully, the answers to both -- coming from a diverse group of scientists and evangelicals, civil engineers and creative writers, farmers and journalists -- are coming to be more and more consistent.

Last evening my wife and I watched a DVD of Arthur Miller's adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 1882 play, "An Enemy of the People." ["Enemy of the People (Broadway Theatre Archive)," 1966; DVD available for purchase from amazon.com or by subscription from Netflix.] We'd both read Ibsen's play as college students, but had forgotten much of it (I always forgetting more than Mary). As occasionally occurs in life, Ibsen's insights and lessons from 120 years ago are as spot on as if the play had been written yesterday. Even more to the point, the setting involves a conflict between science and profit/politics regarding a community's toxic water. More I won't say, to avoid the risk of spoiling it for you. Watch it. The message is applicable to so many of the problems we confront today.

Many (including myself) wrote -- prior to our invasion of Iraq -- of what would likely happen. They were subsequently proven right. Ditto for what's wrong with our K-12 educational system. Ditto for how to deal with oil prices and our energy needs. Ditto for banks' practices regarding mortgages. Ditto for universal, single-payer health care. Ditto for campaign finance reform. And on and on.

In general, as Ralph Nader (and many others) have observed, "This country has more problems than it deserves and more solutions than it uses."

In short, as Walt Kelly famously put it in his "Pogo" comic strip, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Again relevant to our concern with flooding, though Kelly alluded to the idea in the early 1950s, the phrase was first used by him on an Earth Day poster in 1970.

The proposition is nowhere more true than with regard to flooding.

At the outset, let me acknowledge that I have no professional credentials or expertise in the flood-related areas of science. I'm simply trying to absorb what I can of the views of those who do, and pass it along, by way of this blog and in other ways, into the public marketplace of ideas.

Apparently, the one certainty is that rivers will flood. It may be every year, every 100 years, 500 years -- or even every 10,000 years -- but it will flood. We can and should reduce the severity of those floods -- and there are a number of things we can do to accomplish that. But it is folly to believe we're never going to get another flood along the Iowa River, or any other river -- especially given all the things we're now doing that tend to increase both the recurrence and the severity of flooding. [Photo credit: www.theepochtimes.com.]

Where will it flood? In the area along any river that geologists, geographers, or engineers can identify as its "floodplain."

When we build roads, parking lots, large buildings, homes, and shopping malls in flood plains a number of undesirable consequences flow with the water. More rain water runs off, and runs off faster, and runs off with more pollutants in it, than if it fell on forests, grassland, pasture, prairies, parks, wetlands, wildlife habitats, and recreation areas -- and then worked its way through "filters" of trees and tall grasses close to the river. [Photo credit: stock footage from www.picturesoforegon.net.]

And when, up and down a river, more water is running off, and faster, and with more pollutants, the result is more floods, more often, that are more costly, and of greater severity -- as we continue to experience.

As is so often the case, retrofitting anything is ever so much more expensive than doing it right in the first place. Had we left the Iowa River's floodplain as we found it 170 years ago there would have been zero cost to this natural and virtually maintenance-free flood prevention (or minimization) program. As it is, cleaning up after this last one will cost well over $1 billion for Johnson and Linn Counties alone. And with the number of University buildings, businesses and homes involved there are very powerful political forces to deal with as well -- as Ibsen/Miller have dramatized for us.

Based on the science, what we need to do is rather obvious -- whether we take 2-5 years to get it done, or follow a longer-range (and perhaps more politically feasible) 20-50-year plan. Do we have the political leadership in place? (Yes? And just who do you have in mind?) And even if we did, does the public have the will to follow?

At a minimum, can we at least hold to a policy -- to the extent taxpayers' money is going to be provided to businesses and home owners who knowingly built in floodplains -- that such money will only be provided to those who will use it by rebuilding in a location that is not in a floodplain?

Take a look at a map of Iowa City even as late as 1930. [Click on "Remove Overlays" (to get rid of the street names), focus on the area along the Iowa River between the Burlington Street and Iowa Avenue bridges, work your way up/down to the "2m pixels" level, and then move the map north and south along the river.] Notice the open, and often forested, flood plain along the River.

Now take a look at the current "City of Iowa City, Iowa, Flood Map," showing the floodplains for "100-year floods" and "500-year-floods," and recall (or go visit to see) what we have deliberately constructed in those areas, knowing that they would inevitably flood, and knowing that, by building there, we would be increasing the likelihood, and severity, of that flooding and the dollar value of the damage those floods would cause.

From the creation of the University until well into the 20th Century our predecessors either knew enough not to put costly buildings in a floodplain or through dumb luck built on the bluffs along the River (e.g., the Old Capitol and Pentacrest, and in the 1920s the hospital and athletic facilities on the West side).

Now, as a result of decisions since, with University administrators and Regents choosing building locations that flew in the face of the science of the time (which I can't believe wasn't made available to them by knowledgeable professors), we're left with nearly a quarter-billion-dollar loss for the University's buildings alone. Erin Jordan, "U of I flood-loss estimate balloons to $232 mil," Des Moines Register, July 9, 2008 ("University of Iowa officials predict it will cost nearly $232 million to repair damage to the campus from June floods, an amount that's triple an estimate from last week.").

For a map of the forests along Iowa's rivers in the 1850s, see "1850s Landcover Map of Iowa" ("Early surveyors' notes suggested that trees covered about 6.7 million acres or 19 percent of Iowa around the time of statehood in 1846. Settlers steadily cleared the forests, however, as they grubbed out trees for cropfields, rail fences, log buildings, and lumber. By 1857, the Iowa State Agricultural Society had issued a plea calling for more careful use of timber resources."), from Iowa Department of Natural Resources, "Iowa: Portrait of the Land" (2000), entire book available as a pdf file. And see, especially, Chapter 9: "A Vision for Iowa's Land."

Would this flood have happened if we were back in the tall-grass prairie days with no tile drainage, no tillage compaction and all those wetlands diked by beaver? It is our human economics that changed the natural tall-grass ecosystem to the tilled, fertilized, pesticided, compacted and simplified condition we found in June 2008.

Would any USDA-funded riparian buffer program, or mandatory no-till planting, or even just more crop rotation with hay and pasture make any difference at the rate runoff left the land? I realize we had some heavy rains falling on saturated soils, but I also believe rain fell on a tighter, less spongy watershed upstream from Iowa City and Cedar Rapids.

The rate that water drains off tilled upland fields determines the water’s momentum energy. More momentum on tilled soil scours more soil particles along with the solubles like the fertilizer and pesticides. Though the runoff goes away, we can find it redistributed where we don’t want it — in the reservoir pools, on flooded neighborhoods and further down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico.

We Eastern Iowa locals are all touched by this flood and a bit changed — but our first desire seems to be “put it back as it was” and hope that never happens again for another 500 years.

For those who are now our leaders, a new part of the job description is to protect us from the next flood, which now has a bigger dimension than imagined back in mid-June. It’s rapidly getting down to money, politics and business. Now what to do? . . .

Iowans appreciate wisdom — especially when presented in a humble, honest and “nice” way. We now need a fact-finding watershed SWAT team beyond a committee that seeks only to put it back and protect their interests. This is the time for getting the facts to understand the science underlying the root causes beyond the rain of this disaster.

Many Iowans won’t like what they hear because it means a lifestyle change — but in our guts we know that changes are needed for how we live and farm on our beloved Iowa land.

This record wet spring and resulting flood disaster provides our educable moment to “Listen to the land.”

"Louis Licht of North Liberty is president/founder of Ecolotree Inc., a company that uses poplar trees to clean up soil contamination. He’s also an adjunct associate professor in the University of Iowa Civil-Environmental Engineering Department." Louis Licht, "Flood's Message: Listen to Land," The Gazette, July 17, 2008, p. A5.

The Press-Citizen's editorial is consistent:

[P]olicymakers now need to:

o Rely more on rivers' natural floodplains rather than on levee and pump systems.

o Provide homeowners with better information about the risks of living in floodplains; and

o Provide more flood buffers by returning at-risk land to forests and wetlands.

Editorial, "Seeking Advice for Floodplain Management," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 17, 2008, p. A11.

In the same issue, Tom Pickering says of the 2008 flood, "Mother Nature reclaimed some of the land that we altered over the years." Tom Pickering, "Restore the Wilds of City Park," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 17, 2008, p. A11.

The paper's editorial also notes -- consistent with my earlier observations about "An Enemy of the People" and ignored advice and solutions -- that hydraulics engineering Professor Joseph Howe (father of one of my best friends and classmates at U-High) and the Iowa City Planning and Zoning Commission, warned the City Council 50 years ago not to permit home building in the Parkview Terrace area. As is so often the case, politics and profits trumped science -- and led to the predictable disasters that followed.

For more details about this political disgrace and ecological disaster, see Marc Linder, "Give land back to the Iowa River; Before the Iowa River takes back Parkview Terrace -- yet again," Iowa City Press-Citizen, July 12, 2008.

Last Sunday's Des Moines Register had two pieces also hitting consistent themes. Francis Thicke provided some pretty dramatic data regarding the impact of planting on the runoff that creates flooding:

Studies have shown that native prairie soils can absorb 5 to 7 inches of rainfall per hour. When corn and soybeans are grown on those same soils, the water absorption rate is reduced to just 0.5 to 1.5 inches of rainfall per hour. Sixty-five percent of Iowa's land area is planted to corn and soybeans. The manyfold reduction in the soil's ability to absorb rain on so many acres - in combination with extensive tile drainage to remove water from crop fields as fast as possible - makes corn and soybean cropland clearly the major contributor of flood waters to Iowa rivers during heavy rainfall.

Obviously, we are not going to return all of Iowa to pristine prairie. However, we could make some key changes in agriculture that would make a big difference in how much water soaks into the soil instead of going down the river to create flooding during heavy rainfalls.

A perennial grass and legume pasture that is rotationally grazed mimics the prairie/buffalo system that built Iowa's productive soils, and it absorbs water about as well as native prairie. My brother has such a grass-based dairy farm in southeast Minnesota. At a field day on his farm, the Natural Resources Conservation Service used a rainfall simulator to put 4 inches of rain on his hilly pastures in one hour. No water ran off. They waited four hours and applied 4 more inches in an hour, and still no water ran off.

Last fall, when floods raged in southeast Minnesota, my brother's farm got 15 inches of rain overnight. Area corn and soybean fields were destroyed by erosion, and whole towns got washed out. On his farm, there was virtually no sign of erosion. The pond at the bottom of his steep, hilly pastures did not even overflow. The soil absorbed the rain. . . .

If we could convert Iowa ethanol feedstocks from corn to prairie grass, we would make an enormous gain in reducing flooding potential. Ethanol production uses 20 percent of Iowa's corn acreage - nearly 3 million acres. Converted to prairie grass for ethanol, this large acreage would absorb five to 10 times more water during heavy rainfalls. . . .

Some will say it is too expensive to change Iowa agriculture. However, estimates of flood damage in Iowa are in the billions of dollars. If we factor in costs of soil erosion, the Gulf dead zone and other externalized costs, we might conclude it is too expensive to not change Iowa agriculture.

Francis Thicke, "To cut runoff, switch from crops to grass," Des Moines Register, July 13, 2008.

There was also an interview with Connie Mutel in that issue of the paper which I cannot now find online. Don't know why the Register wouldn't have uploaded it, but it doesn't seem to be there. Anyhow, here are some excerpts from my hard copy version:

[U]ntil the 1830s, Iowa had no soil erosion, no water pollution, and was covered by some of the most diverse and resilient communities [of plant and animal life] on our continent. . . .

[Today we] are discarding the soils upon which our agricultural economy is based. Our waters are among the most polluted in the nation . . .. Is Iowa being "used up" in our effort to produce food (and energy) for the world? . . .

If we continue to build on flood plains, we can expect continued destruction. To stop this, we need to remove structures from flood plains or we need to better tend the uplands so that they can limit flooding. Today, we instead work on the theory that we can use both flood plains and uplands intensively, as we wish, for maximum profit. We are paying the price.

Mike Kilen, "Author Maps Her Vision to Restore Iowa Ecology," Des Moines Register, July 13, 2008, p. OP5 (an interview with Connie Mutel).

And, of course, don't miss Connie Mutel's The Emerald Horizon: The History of Nature in Iowa (2008); and the Web site of vast resources on this and related subjects at http://resourcesforlife.com/goiowa, and Nicholas Johnson, "Greenbelts, Greenways and Flood Prevention," June 16, 2008; Nicholas Johnson, "Gazette's Flood Plan, Floodplains & Greenbelts," June 21, 2008.

And note:

Code of Iowa, Chapter 161A: Soil and Water Conservation

Division I – Division of Soil Conservation
(Sections 161A.1–4)This chapter is also known as “Soil Conservation Districts Law.” The policy of the legislature is described in Section 161A.2:

“It is hereby declared to be the policy of the legislature to integrate the conservation of soil and water resources into the production of agricultural commodities to insure the long-term protection of the soil and water resources of the state of Iowa, and to encourage the development of farm management and agricultural practices that are consistent with the capability of the land to sustain agriculture, and thereby to preserve natural resources, control floods, prevent impairment of dams and reservoirs, assist and maintain the navigability of rivers and harbors, preserve wildlife, protect the tax base, protect public lands and promote the health, safety, and public welfare of the people of this state.” (emphasis supplied) Code of Iowa, Section 161A.2.

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These basic truths haven't changed during the five years since I put them on this blog.

(1) The only sure-fire way to prevent property damage from floods is not to have property in flood plains -- at a minimum, just don't build or rebuild there, especially with the incentive of taxpayers' money.

(2) Instead of putting parks on the highlands, and homes and other buildings near the rivers, do the reverse -- as we have with the the Iowa City Park and Scott Park. Trying to beat back Mother Nature in order to maintain a dry flood plain just makes the flooding worse for others -- and often for ourselves as well.

By contrast, this photo shows the Iowa City Park from Park Road this afternoon. That's what a flood plain looks like. Note that not a single home or business has been flooded, just a park. Consider that, with a levee or other wall, all that water would be going downstream to cause flood damage to homes and businesses in other Iowa towns. The Park may need a little cleanup when the waters recede and evaporate, but not much, if any. [Photo credit: Nicholas Johnson.]

(3) Runoff is a major source of flood waters. Roads and parking lots don't absorb water. Trees, bushes, and grasses do. Remember Francis Thicke's story, above, about the brother's farm? Proper planting around farm fields, and in wide swaths along streams and river banks could make an enormous difference. There's a small example of this along the River bank near the old Hancher Auditorium.

Who is the enemy in our "War on Flooding"?

As Walt Kelly reminded us, linked above, "We have met the enemy and he is us."



This 45-second video shows where the "Iowa River" begins for folks living in Coralville and Iowa City: the controlled outflow from the Coralville Reservoir. The quotes are there because, since the Coralville Dam and Reservoir were built in the 1950s, it has been the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that determines how much water will flow along the riverbed of what was once Mother Nature's river. What the photo shows is what I've often taken Iowa City's visitors to see: the most excitement Johnson County has to offer; our equivalent of the deck of a cargo ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the winter. This afternoon it was passing 14,000 cubic feet of water per second. That's what it looks like.

Want to know how much 14,500 cubic feet of water per second is? One cubic foot of water is about 7.48 gallons. You may use about 100 gallons each day around your house. By contrast, 14,500 cubic feet a second would be over 9 billion gallons a day (9,370,944,000 gallons). That doesn't help? OK, imagine a one gallon plastic milk bottle. Imagine stacking enough of them to hold this much water; your stack of milk bottles would reach nearly 15,000 miles into the sky (14,796) -- and would be very unstable, my assistant, Kelley Winebold, reminds me. Still doesn't help? Ever driven across the United States, from one coast to the other? The height of this stack of milk bottles is roughly the equivalent of five cross country drives. Oh, well. Never mind. Just go watch the tail water these days. You'll see.

Some 200 years ago we didn't have the Coralville Reservoir to control flooding. We had trees and sturdy prairie grasses to absorb the water and prevent it from running off into streams and rivers. It was we who cut down those trees and plowed under that prairie, we who paved roads and parking lots, we who built homes and other buildings in our rivers' flood plains -- and we who are now paying the price, in numerous ways.

We know what to do to prevent those losses; just as we know what to do to prevent obesity, wars of choice, banking abuses, under-performing K-12 schools, growing national debt, and the ever-accelerating rates of incarceration of Americans.

What we are lacking in each of these cases is the will, the courage, to substitute long-term benefits for ourselves and future generations for the short-term benefits of greed, convenience and complacency. As Connie Mutel says, for this "We are paying the price." And what a heavy price it is.

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Targeting the IRS

May 28, 2013, n:nn a.m.

Playing Politics or Just Doing Their Job?

"Tax Exempt"
David Fitzsimmons
Arizona Star, May 23, 2013

If you're having trouble reading what the Section 501(c)(4) applicant is saying, it goes like this:

"I'd like to apply for 501c4 tax exempt status as a "social welfare' group."
"No politics, here, Hawkeye. I'm Mother Theresa with tea bags. Don't tread on my fat cat backers."
"Government is not the solution. (Unless you're a corporation.)"
"Never thought I'd be using the words 'social' or 'welfare' in the same sentence." Giggle, snicker.

[And I should note, if either the Arizona Star or the brilliant and insightful David Fitzsimmons, would prefer that I take down my recommendation that you subscribe to the Star and follow David Fitzsimmons' site -- along with this particular editorial cartoon -- all they have to do is ask.]

If you guessed I'm about to say something about the recent IRS flap, you're right. If you went on to guess I'm about to suggest that IRS employees be prosecuted, or exonerated, you're wrong. ("The more information that comes out about the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service, the harder it is to say employees there erred completely in putting more scrutiny on particular groups seeking tax-exempt status. According to the New York Times, for example, several of the tea party groups targeted by the IRS were engaged in overt political activity. One group — the Wetumpka Tea Party in Alabama — sponsored get-out-the-vote training 'dedicated to "the defeat of President Barack Obama."'” Jamelle Boiule, "Some tea-party groups examined by the IRS indeed crossed the line," Washington Post, May 27, 2013.)

Why am I not yet taking sides? Because I don't think anyone -- and certainly not I -- has a clue as to what was going on in their minds when they began investigating Tea Party organizations that were seeking tax exempt Section 501(c)(4) status. And that is the information, and essentially the only information, that is needed before coming to conclusions about what went on.

If it was the case that a small cabal of partisan, rogue IRS employees decided to strike a political blow for their President during a re-election year, and focused on making life as difficult as possible for anything that smelled of right wing Obama haters, then yes, we have a problem here.

That may yet turn out to have been the case. And I haven't been following every twist and turn of this saga. But as of today I am unaware of any evidence that was the case. If it was, possibly criminal prosecutions are in order, and President Obama deserves his lumps.

But if that is not what happened, the best that can be said of the tsunami of contempt and pre-judgment that has wafted over IRS employees is that it has been grossly unfair -- and fully as much a political act as serious as what they have been falsely accused of. The worst that can be said is that these attacks do serious harm to our democracy.

Whether you think it is the role of government to care for what Jesus called "the least of these," or whether you think the only proper role of government is fighting our continuous wars and paying down our debt, the federal government needs tax revenue. And the way it gets that revenue is by way of what comes very close to being a voluntary system. There are far too few IRS employees to insure that everyone pays his or her fair share. Tearing down Americans' confidence in the integrity of their IRS comes close to being a treasonous act -- regardless of whether it comes about as a result of what IRS employees have done, or as a result of what they have been falsely accused of having done.

For starters, the use of the word "targeting" is as unfortunate as it has been deliberate. Whether we are targeting a dart board, an archery target with a bow and arrow, or a fellow human with a gun, "targeting" suggest at a minimum an intention to use force against something, sometimes out of hostility.

As I have often said, "The problem is not that corporations violate the laws; the problem is that they write the laws." There is a difference between "tax avoidance" (using the tax laws, whether you or others have written them, to legally minimize your taxes -- as Apple argues was all it was doing), and "tax evasion" (lying, or otherwise violating the tax laws).

To paraphrase former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, "You don't collect taxes with the law you wish you had, you collect taxes with the law Congress hands you." If you and your tax lawyer think the Internal Revenue Code is more complex than it either should or needs to be, at least you only deal with it once a year. IRS employees have to deal with it many times every day.

I used to have to deal with the requirements of sections 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) when chair of the National Citizens Committee for Broadcasting. Both are made up of pretty fluffy stuff for even the most honorable among us. For those who wouldn't qualify for membership in that tiny group, the Code offers a great many temptations.

If the IRS doesn't have enough employees to thoroughly investigate every tax return, or request for special status, how can they decide where to put their limited resources?

The same way every other institution does. Doctors on the battlefield, or in an overcrowded hospital emergency room, use something called triage, separating the sick and injured into three groups: those who will die no matter what treatment they receive, those who will live regardless of how long their treatment is postponed, and those who will live if treated promptly and die if they are not. They are not "targeting" the last group; they are simply engaged in rational prioritizing. The management guru Peter Drucker would point out to some businesses that they were spending 90 percent of their sales force's efforts generating 10 percent of their gross sales, and 10 percent of their effort on the customers producing 90 percent. He didn't suggest they "target" those producing 90 percent, just give them a little more tender loving care. If a company is concerned that its sales force's travel expenses have been increasing too rapidly, it may chose to first focus on those employees who are the 5 percent top outliers. As we've recently learned, roughly one-quarter of the nation's 607,000 bridges need attention -- 66,749 are structurally deficient, 84,748 are functionally obsolete. We've been putting this off for at least a half-century. Now that we're going to do something about it, and we can't fix or replace all of them in a year or two, wouldn't a similar kind of prioritizing and focus be a good idea?

That's what IRS employees have to do every day. That's what I think, based on what I've read, they did here. If an increasing number of taxpayers are claiming that they are entitled to a business deduction for the portion of their living quarters in which they are "working on their business," that might call for a little more attention being devoted to taxpayers making that claim. Given the way Congress wrote the law, "more attention" might require a lot of questions the taxpayers consider unduly intrusive. The same would be true of businesses claiming expenses as non-taxable "business expenses" when the items look more like monkey business.

Whether an organization wants to offer its donors a tax deduction for contributions (501(c)(3)) or simply not have to pay taxes on its income or disclose the names of donors (501(c)(4)) each is a request to the IRS for special treatment resulting in less tax revenue for the government. And the answers, under the law, may well turn on who is doing what, and how much of it, and what can fairly be called "political" activity. The only way to find out what is necessary to make such judgments is to ask a lot of questions. That's not the IRS employees' fault. They are just doing their job. It's Congress' fault for not making more precisely clear what their standards are. And it seems to me that, like a doctor doing triage, with all the changes in corporations becoming people, the restraints off on anonymous million-dollar donations, and the new grassroots organizations on the left and right, it was a perfectly sensible thing for the IRS to do to give some attention to possible abuses.

It will be awhile before at least I have any confidence in answering the question of whether these IRS employees were "Playing Politics or Just Doing Their Job." And until we do know the answer it seems to me the less tearing down of Americans' confidence in their IRS, the better.

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Bike to Work, Bike for Life

May 17, 2013, 10:15 Bicycles as Problem Solvers
Every year about this time, Iowa City devotes a week to reflecting upon, and riding upon, bicycles as a preferred system of small town transportation. See, e.g., Alesha L. Crews, "Leave the car, take the bike; Events this week celebrate two-wheeled travel," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 15, 2013, p. A1 ("Many locals are leaving their cars at home this week to take part in the annual Bike to Work Week challenge, a change organizers hope will continue throughout the rest of year."); "Iowa City's Bicycle Friendly Community rating upgraded to silver," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 13, 2013 ("Iowa City received a silver status upgrade by the League of American Bicyclists May 13" for its additional bike racks and bike lanes).

One of the annual features of the week is the "race" that compares the speed of traveling around the Iowa City-Coralville area by car, bus, and bicycle. Lee Hermiston, "Neuzil, Bike Make for Winning Team; Officials Enjoy Competing in Annual Race," Iowa City Press-Citizen, May 14, 2013, p. A3. As usually happens, the bicycle won. As Hermiston reported, "[Johnson County Board of Supervisors member Terrence]Neuzil squared off against Iowa City Councilor Jim Throgmorton who, reluctantly, drove his car and University Heights City Councilor Mike Haverkamp, who hitched his bike to a Coralville Transit bus. The race took the men from the Coralville Public Library to the Iowa City Public Library. Neuzil won the race ahead of Throgmorton by about three minutes. Haverkamp was several minutes behind Throgmorton."

That pretty well puts away one of the oft-proffered excuses for not biking: "I just don't have the time." What you don't have the time for is driving. It's like I say to folks standing at a bus stop as I pass by on my one-mile walk to town (when the roads are too icy to bike). They ask, "How can you walk in the winter? It's so cold." "No," I reply. "What's cold is standing at a bus stop for longer than it takes me to walk. Walking's comfortable."

But there are more false excuses for not biking than time -- almost all of which have equally persuasive answers and solutions. And many more benefits of biking than speed. Here are some of them:

Costs. Even without $4 or $5 gas, operating a car is extraordinarily expensive -- and even more in time than in money. Years ago, when the average mileage was 7500 miles a year, I calculated (a) the total costs of car ownership: amortization of the purchase price, gas and oil, repairs, insurance and license fees, parking fees, tolls, and so forth. (b) The amount of time it would take the average car owner to earn the money to pay these costs -- plus the time it takes to drive the car, take the car to the mechanic and pick it up, pump the gas, look for parking, and similar non-transportation, car-related time consumption. (c) The total time totaled 1500 hours a year. (d) To take 1500 hours to go 7500 miles is an average of 5 miles an hour -- something you can do without an automobile with a very brisk walk -- not to mention with a bicycle. (e) Can't get from Iowa City to Des Moines that way? Think again. You start working, I'll start walking. I'll be there before you. And that's walking! A biker who's in shape ought to be able to average 15-20 miles an hour and get there days before you do. (Bike racers go 30-40 mph.) This may not be a reason to never own, rent, or otherwise operate an automobile. But unless you are so wealthy that "money is no object," it is certainly something to think about for trips around town when a bike would do as well, or better than, a car. You can acquire, operate, maintain and insure a bicycle for roughly 1% of the cost of a car. [Photo credit: Google/multiple sources.]

Time Saving, Convenience. Parking in an urban area can be a real hassle, as well as an added cost, whether navigating a parking garage or looking for street parking. My rule of thumb when looking for street parking in the Georgetown area of Washington years ago was to pick the first parking space I could find within one mile of my destination. The 15-minute walk would take less time than driving around and around looking for a closer place to park. Iowa City's not that bad, but you can no longer pull up in front of your downtown destination (and not have to deal with parking meters!), as was the case when I was a boy. And don't talk to me about parking garages! The ticket often turns into nothing more than a hunting license, as you drive around and around, ever upward, until you end up parking on the roof. And allow plenty of time to exit, especially if you're coming from an event where numerous other attendees are in line ahead of you trying to get out.

You don't have to warm up your bike in the winter. You don't have to search for your car keys (if you have a combination lock for the bike). The odds are good there will be either a bike rack, or something else to lock your bike to, right outside the front door of your destination. And you will be taking up about 1/30th the space required for a car when you do so.

War for Oil. We send our brave soldiers off to war around the world in search of an answer to the perplexing question: "How did our oil get under their sand?" It costs taxpayers trillions of dollars to provide this military protection for our oil companies -- not to mention tens of thousands of lives, and hundreds of thousands of wounded, Americans and others, military and civilian. Bicycles do require a little lubricant for the chain from time to time, but aside from that their only demands for energy involve peddling with your leg muscles.

And Speaking of Muscles -- and Obesity. You can bike outdoors all over town for a month for far less than what your favorite fitness center will charge you to bike in one place indoors. And if you're interested in firming up, and losing a little weight (whether for yourself or your kids) -- and who isn't -- biking just may be your answer. It's cheaper than Lipitor and better for your heart -- as well as a positive for prevention of diabetes and cancer. In fact, virtually every bit of advice about our health, regardless of the disease or injury in question, ends up coming back to "diet and exercise."

Multitasking. "Don't move your thumbs while I'm talking." Students sit in class with their laptops, managing their Facebook pages. Couples sit in restaurants, each on their cell phone. Kids think they can do their homework while watching TV, talking on the phone to one person, while texting another. Whatever you think about those kids of electronic multitasking, bicycling offers another that is in no way socially offensive.

You have to go to work, or shop for groceries. If you drive, maybe you'll listen to the radio, music, or engage in the risky behavior of talking on a cell phone or texting. But if you hop on your bike, instead of hopping into the car, for those trips (or even portions of them; drive to cheap parking, with a bike rack and your bike; bike the rest of the way) you're multitasking: building exercise into your day in a way that takes no additional time (or money!) whatsoever. Bike baskets can carry many of the items you formerly drove to the store to get; and if you want to do more, the relatively cheap bike trailers will enable you to carry almost anything -- up to and including your small child.

Stress Reduction. Driving can be noisy, aggravating and stressful. Biking makes virtually no noise and is more calming and peaceful; the additional oxygen to the brain makes you more creative. You are closer to nature and know you're doing something that uses no fuel, is non-polluting, and healthier for both you and the Planet. And that's just for the commuting and shopping trips. With 80 miles of bike trails locally, there's also safe recreational riding -- such as the Clear Creek trail from Iowa City to the Coral Ridge Mall, or the Iowa River Corridor Trail from the City Park to the new Terry Trueblood Recreation Area and lake along Sand Road. That will really clear your mind.

This listing of bicycling's benefits could go on and on, but as a concession to the necessary shortness of a blog essay, and life itself, it will stop here.

Finally, for old time's sake, a republication of a column I wrote on the subject for the New York Times 40 years ago. A little background: I was then working as an FCC Commissioner in downtown Washington, D.C., living in Maryland, and commuting by bicycle each day along the C & O Canal towpath. The facts it contains are from 1973, and the theme of the column is as much an anti-automobile-petroleum-based transportation system tirade as pro-bicycle -- as befits the early '70s. But many of the points are still valid. Chapter 7 ["Antidote for Automobiles"] in Test Pattern for Living, published by Bantam Books at about that time, and scheduled for reissue sometime this summer, strikes a similar theme.

"Bicycles are Model Citizens"
The Bicycle -- It's Like Giving Up Smoking
New York Times
August 2, 1973, p. 35, col. 2
I ride a bicycle. Not because I hate General Motors but haven't the courage to bomb an auto plant. I don't do it as a gesture of great stoicism and personal sacrifice.

I am not even engaged, necessarily, in an act of political protest over that company's responsibility for most of the air pollution tonnage in the United States.

It's like finally giving up cigarettes. You just wake up one morning and realize you don't want to start the day with another automobile.

Cigarette smoking is not a pleasure, it's a business. In the same way, you finally come to realize that you don't need General Motors, they need you. They need you to drive their cars for them. You are working for Detroit and paying them to do it. Automobiles are just a part of your life that's over, that's all.

No hard feelings. You've just moved on to something else. From now on, you just use their buses, taxis, and rental cars when they suit your convenience. You don't keep one for them that you have to house, feed and water, insure and care for.

You ride a bicycle because it feels good. The air feels good on your body; even the rain feels good. The blood starts moving around your body, and pretty soon it gets to your head, and, glory be, your head feels good.

You start noticing things. You look until you really see. You hear things, and smell smells you never knew were there. You start whistling nice little original tunes to suit the moment. Words start getting caught in the web of poetry in your mind.

And there's a nice feeling, too, in knowing you're doing a fundamental life thing for yourself: transportation. You got a little bit of your life back! And the thing you use is simple, functional, and relatively cheap.

You want one that fits you and rides smoothly, but with proper care and a few parts, it should last almost forever.

Your satisfaction comes from within you, and not from the envy or jealousy of others. (Although you are entitled to feel a little smug during rush hours, knowing you are also making better time than most of the people in cars.)

On those occasions when I am not able to cycle through the parks or along the [C&O] canal -- because the paths are rough with ice or muddy from rain or melting snow -- bicycling enables me to keep closer to the street people, folks waiting for buses or to cross streets, street sweepers, policemen, school "patrol," men unloading trucks.

Needless to say, you cannot claim any depth of understanding as a result of such momentary and chance encounters but by the time I get to the office I do somehow have the sense that I have a much better feeling for the mood of the city that day than if I had come to my office in a chauffeur-driven government limousine.

Although I am willing to brave the traffic and exhaust, I am aware it is dangerous. I think bicycles ought to be accorded a preferred position in the city's transportation system. At the very least, they deserve an even break.

Notice that bicycle riding also has some significant social advantages over the automobile. Cars unnecessarily kill sixty thousand people every year, permanently maim another one hundred and seventy thousand, and injure three and a half million more.

The automobile accounts for at least 66 percent of the total air pollution in the United States by tonnage -- as high as 85 percent in some urban areas -- and 91 percent of all-carbon monoxide pollution; it creates about nine hundred pounds of pollution for every person every year.

One million acres of land are paved each years, there is now a mile of road for each square mile of land. The concrete used in our Interstate Highway System would build six sidewalks to the moon.

Even so, everyone is familiar with the clogged streets and parking problems -- not to mention the unconscionable rates charged by the parking garages.

Automobile transportation is the largest single consumer of the resources used in our nation's total annual output of energy. It is an economic drain on consumers -- in no way aided by auto companies that deliberately build bumpers weaker than they were fifty years ago in order to contribute to an unnecessary bumper repair bill in excess of one billion dollars annually.

The bicycle is a model citizen, by comparison.
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Happy biking -- not just for "Bike to Work Week," but the other 51 weeks as well.

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