Prairie Dog's Honor Roll 2005

 

Rosa Parks’ greatness, said Congressman John Lewis, was that 'she got in the way.'

Gary Sanders, peripatetic gadfly from Iowa City, got in the way of the City Council and Board of Adjustment when they bent over backwards to make Wal-Mart feel welcome. Sanders and his intrepid attorney Wally Taylor filed a lawsuit to prevent the city from re-zoning 54 acres of land to accommodate a 22-acre <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />Wal-Mart Super Center, and won a judge’s approval to depose city council members on what information – if any –they received outside of city council meetings. Send donations for legal expenses to Iowa City Stop Wal-Mart, 831 Maggard, Iowa City  52240

F. John Herbert also got in the way.  The proprietor of Legion Arts drew attention to Cedar Rapids Mayor Paul Pate’s attendance at a prayer breakfast featuring Ken Hutcherson, a notorious opponent of equal rights for gay and lesbian Americans (“God does not condone homosexuality and neither will we”). Herbert publicly chastised the mayor for appearing with someone whose view directly contradicts the Cedar Rapids Municipal Code, which makes it illegal to discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation.

“Philosophically, I’m pro-union. I just can’t see myself in one,” said a University of Iowa librarian. Thus an effort by UI professional and scientific staff to form a union went down swinging, despite widespread concern about hiring and classification inequalities, wages falling behind inflation, and job security in an environment increasingly hostile to public education, public health, and public employees. But dozens of P & S staff members found their voice, challenged UI administrators and colleagues to face difficult issues, and built considerable support in their first attempt to win the right to bargain collectively.

So maybe Gov. Vilsack, in preparation for a run at the Presidency, wanted to revamp his ‘English Only’ image as a small-town thinker from a nearly all-white state. Regardless of motive, Vilsack’s executive order restoring voting rights to felons who have served their time ended one of the most restrictive disenfranchisement laws in the country. 19 percent of those denied the vote in Iowa are black, even though the state’s population is only 2 percent black.

Dean Wright, professor emeritus of sociology at Drake University, said of legislation to prevent sex offenders from living within 2000 feet of just about everything: “Residency requirements are generally there to placate. These kinds of things make people feel like they’ve done something. Programs that make people feel good usually don’t work.” The Iowa Civil Liberties Union was equally outspoken, long before the Des Moines Register and legislators realized the unintended consequences of residency restrictions and their failure to make children safer.

Erin Buzuvis, the adjunct lecturer at the UI College of Law who received death threats for questioning the tradition of pink bathrooms in the visiting teams’ locker room at Kinnick Stadium, proved beyond a doubt that the only thing worse than perpetuating a stereotype is pointing it out.

Progressive Action for the Common Good exploded on the eastern Iowa scene, taking less than a year to enlist 1000 members actively engaged in a dozen social justice issues,  from predatory lending to the Iraq occupation to workers’ rights. Two of them, Cathy Bolkcom and Karl Rhomberg, take to the airwaves (1270 AM) every Saturday morning to announce events and to banter about Quad Cities politics.

Eddie Moore, Jr., finally packed his bags for Seattle, but not before establishing the annual White Privilege conference at Central College as a major national event on race, gender, and class issues. Iowa will miss the Black Tulip of Pella.

The Prairie Progressive Iowan of the Year award goes to UI professor of pediatrics Jeff Murray for changing his mind after accepting a high-dollar job at Harvard: “I didn’t think the fun quotient was going to be as high there.”

 —Prairie Dog

From the January 2006 issue of the Prairie Progressive, Iowa's oldest progressive newsletter, available only in hard copy for $12/yr. to PP, Box 1945, Iowa City 52244.  Co-editors of The Prairie Progressive are Jeff Cox and Dave Leshtz.