The event was originally scheduled to take place in the Van Allen Lecture Hall on the UI campus, but due to the overflow crowd and potential fire hazard, the event was moved to another venue a minute before the 8:15 p.m. start time.

The announcement prompted Irving aficionados to take to the streets of Iowa City and head toward the Pappajohn Business Building with the hope of commandeering a seat for the legendary, alumni writer. The mass exodus of people momentarily shut down traffic on Dubuque Street as the literary mob, undeterred by the threat of jaywalking charges, blindly marched across one of the main downtown arteries.

Irving was introduced by Samantha Chang, director of the Writers’ Workshop, who started with a quip about the last-minute venue change. “It’s great to see 500 people walking in Iowa City who aren’t going to a football game,” Chang told yet another overflow crowd at Buchanan Auditorium, although apparently not enough of an overflow to merit a fire hazard.

Chang began by telling a story about her induction into Irving’s fictitious world, when she read “The World According to Garp” in the eighth grade. First published in 1978, Irving’s fourth novel became an international bestseller and cultural phenomenon, catapulting Irving’s writing career by guaranteeing him bestseller status for all of his subsequent books. “Garp” won the National Book Foundation’s award for paperback fiction and was later adapted into a film starring Robin Williams and Glenn Close. The film garnered several Academy Award nominations and features a cameo by Irving, who plays an official at a high school wrestling match.

Chang said her debut experience with “Garp” served as a blueprint for a novelist’s life and she always knew she wanted to be a writer, but she didn’t know what that really meant. “T.S. Garp, the book’s protagonist, is a writer, and his life is not always glamorous. He spends some mornings at home reading the phone book. He was committed; he had that driving necessity that pushes so many other pursuits out of a writer’s life,” Chang said. “Garp also gave me an artistic truth that I pass on to my students: Writers only learn by coming to the end of one thing and coming to another thing.”

Since the publication of “Garp,” Irving has penned several novels, including “A Prayer for Owen Meany,” “The Hotel New Hampshire,” “Trying to Save Piggy Sneed,” “A Son of the Circus,” “A Widow for One Year,” “The Fourth Hand,” “A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound” and, most recently, “Until I Find You.” Irving also tried his hand with screenwriting by adapted his novel “Cider House Rules” to the big screen. The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and earned Irving an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

Picking up the narrative strand where Chang left off, Irving joked about the venue change as well. “This building is unsuitable, and we’re moving to another building on the other side of campus,” Irving said sarcastically to the audience, some of whom were packed in the stairwell and the auditorium floor. “I’m sorry that some of you are uncomfortable. Just wait.”

In lieu of reading the first chapter of the novel as a means of hooking his audience, Irving chose to skip forward to the 10th chapter, promising that the chapter stands alone and needs little explanation. He described the book as a fugitive novel about a boy and his father, ages 40 and 61, who are on the run, but Irving didn’t tell the audience why or who they are on the run from. Chapter 10, titled “Lady Sky,” is a flashback to 1967, when the father, Danny, is in his final year of the Writers’ Workshop at UI, and his boy, Joe, is a loquacious 2-year-old. The scene takes place in Iowa City at a pig farm rented by UI art students just outside of the city limits.

Before he began reading the chapter, Irving issued an autobiographical disclaimer. Because he uses a number of elements from his life in his novels, readers and critics have wondered which parts are fictitious and which ones are autobiographical. Those familiar with Irving know this irks him to no end, thus prompting the disclaimer.

Danny drinks excessively, whereas Irving he says he never drank in excess while at UI, nor did he do anything as excessive as Danny. “Although it is true that I was a life-drawing model as an undergraduate student, but it is not true that I met my first wife in this context, or that she and I were both models for the life-drawing class,” Irving confided to the audience.

Moreover, Irving told the audience that, like the main character Danny, he was a “Kennedy Father” during the Vietnam War era. “For those of you who don’t know what a Kennedy father is, it is not one who has fathered more children than the Kennedys,” Irving joked. “Relatively early in the Vietnam War, President Kennedy issued an executive order that granted deferments to fathers.”

Irving joined the officer-training program in Pittsburgh in 1961 and would have, more than likely, been sent to Vietnam after graduating from Pittsburgh University in 1965. But after graduation, Irving married his first wife and had a son. “I didn’t feel lucky at the time, but disappointed,” Irving said. “I wanted to be a writer, so I wanted to see what the war was like.”

“I didn’t go the war, and years later I discovered just how lucky I was,” Irving admitted.

His son is now in his 40s and has children of his own. “Every once in a while, when we get into an argument, my son will say, `Don’t forget who kept you out of Vietnam.’”

Finally, before Irving began reading the chapter, he informed the audience about an element of his writing craft, while simultaneously giving them instructions on how to listen to the piece. “I always write the last line to a novel before I begin the first chapter of a novel,” Irving said. “Similarly, in a set piece like this one, or in a very specific scene which this is, I always have an end phrase in mind that I am writing toward. I know what it is before I begin, and I am going to tell you what it is before we begin this episode.”

“I want you to keep it in your minds as this scene unfolds, remembering the end phrase in my mind when I wrote this. That way, we’ll both know when the reading is over,” Irving joked.

“The phrase is `Dead in the road.’”

For the next 30 minutes, Irving hypnotized the audience with his northeastern accent and master storytelling skills, weaving a narrative only he can tell — the scene ending with the aforementioned phrase at the end of Iowa Avenue in Iowa City.

Fortunately, Irving’s end phrase, “Dead in the road,” did not foreshadow one of his fans getting run over on Dubuque Street during the mass exodus. (Note: This was the first line written for this article.)

The FDA report is the result of years of study and analysis by the federal agency on cloned animals, finding that the meat and milk from those cloned animals is no different from meat and milk from animals conceived through traditional breeding practices. It also found that the meat and milk of the offspring of those cloned animals are also safe to eat.

Those three species of livestock — cattle, goats and hogs — are the only species of livestock approved in the decision. The FDA reported that there was insufficient information to make a ruling on other livestock species.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, was asked about the ruling Tuesday on a conference call with agriculture reporters. "I'm not sure I appreciate cloning as much as maybe I ought to," said Grassley. He said that as long as it's a "sound science decision" that is within the rules of the World Trade Organization, he isn't opposed to it. "Assuming the science has not been compromised, then I accept it."
The U.S. Department of Agriculture has reported that there are approximately 600 livestock animal clones in the United States. There is currently a voluntary moratorium among cloning technology providers from sending meat and milk from these clones into the food supply. The USDA issued a statement Tuesday noting that it will be working to ensure a "smooth and seamless transition into the marketplace for these products."

Foes of animal cloning have pushed against the products being allowed into the marketplace. About one year ago, Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski introduced legislation that would require all foods containing products from cloned animals be labeled "This product is from a cloned animal or its progeny."

National Farmers Union President Tom Buis issued a press release Tuesday stating his organization's opposition to the introduction of food products from cloned animals into the marketplace. "In the face of ever-increasing food safety concerns, it is troubling to see the FDA approval of products from cloned animals to be sold to the public, when questions surrounding the health risks, legal implications and ethical concerns remain unanswered. Furthermore, there is no data to suggest any consumer demand for such products," said Buis in the press release. "The economic implications of introducing products from cloned animals into the marketplace could be potentially devastating for family farmers and consumers."

Rep. Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa, who chairs the House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry, recently introduced legislation calling for further study of the issue by the USDA to examine the economic and trade impact of food products from cloned animals.

The House-passed version of the new Farm Bill does not address the issue, but the Senate's version contains an amendment calling for further study. The House and Senate will soon convene a conference committee to iron out differences between the two versions of the Farm Bill.

Beginning Jan. 2, Iowa has established a new class of minor political party called a “political organization.”  The change is part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by the Green and Libertarian Parties.  Political organizations are required to have run a statewide candidate within the last decade and to complete a petition process.

The news, and the handful of new Green and Libertarian registrations, have been buried by the caucuses and the massive waves of caucus-night party changes to the major parties, but that wasn’t on the mind of Ron Kinum of Iowa City the morning of Jan. 2.  “I really was hoping to be the first if it was possible, without being egocentric about it,” said Kinum.  He went to the Johnson County Auditor’s office just before 8 a.m. on Jan. 2, after attending the Hamburg Inn’s Coffee Bean Caucus results announcement.“I filled in the form and requested they enter my registration in the computer so I would be among the first registrants,” said Kinum.  “I really did expect someone somewhere in the state would want to register before they went to work or something.  As it turned out, the clerk said I was the very first to register!”

“I was more elated over just being able to sign up as a Green after three years of complaining to the Auditor’s office and to the state ID office where I got my ID back in 2006,” Kinum said.

Kinum is still not happy about the way the process treats the Greens.  “They still discriminate about us as being a `political organization,’” he said.  Full party status still requires two percent of the vote for governor or president.  The Greens had full party status from 2000 to 2002, and the Reform Party had party status from 1996 to 1998.

As political organizations, the Greens and Libertarians will not hold primaries.  Soma activists, like Holly Hart of the Greens, are just as happy not to have a primary, since a low turnout primary leaves a small party vulnerable to takeover by candidates who do not support the party’s values.  That happened to the Reform Party in 2000, when Pat Buchanan took over the remnants of Ross Perot’s organization and drove the party’s only elected official, Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, to quit the party.

Kinum was also displeased with the Coffee Bean Caucus results, noting that Green candidate Cynthia McKinney’s coffee bean jar was not added until December, shortly before her announcement.  “Many of (her) 36 (votes) were from me,” he said.  “I figure I put in at least a third of them.  I am a somewhat regular customer.”  (The Coffee Bean Caucus slogan is “One bean, one vote,” not “One person, one vote.”)

Kinum attended the Democratic caucus for his precinct, wearing green clothing and a Green Party hat.  He did not participate because he refused to re-register as a Democrat as required under party rules. 

Kinum is well known in Iowa City for attending political events in Iowa City and carrying large hand-made signs, and he made a special sign for the caucus:

GROW UP
CITIZENS OFANTI-DEMOCRACY! 

ONLY THE PRIMARY GIVES YOU A

VOTE!