Gubernatorial hopeful Bob Vander Plaats shakes hands will state Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, shortly before speaking at a rally opposing gay marriage (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

The Iowa Family Policy Center’s political action committee, which organized the event, used it as an opportunity to formally endorse Vander Plaats in the GOP primary. But in doing so, the group’s chairman, former state lawmaker Danny Carroll, explicitly ruled out endorsing or assisting the man favored to win the party’s nomination, former Gov. Terry Branstad.

“[Gov. Branstad] has failed to boldly address the values that we embrace,” he said. “And even if he were to win the nomination, the Iowa Family PAC would not support him.”

Branstad has had trouble winning over a suspicious social conservative community since entering the race several months ago. But in recent weeks numerous conservative leaders have made statements that they will not support Branstad if he defeats Vander Plaats.

In a primary that’s already had its ugly moments, a sharp divide is forming in the Republican ranks that could hurt the eventual nominee in the general election. In 2002, GOP candidate Doug Gross squeaked out a victory in a three-way primary, but the nearly two-thirds of Republican voters who didn’t support him never truly came home, and Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack was able to easily win a second term in office.

Carroll said he spent 25 years supporting the Republican machine, “but where has it gotten us?”

“You are not answering to a party,” said Carroll, who nearly became the party’s state chair after the 2008 elections. “You are not answering to a political machine. You are not answering to people who sit in high buildings downtown and tell you what you ought to think and how you ought to vote. You are answering to God almighty.”

Opponents of same-sex marriage rallied outside the state Capitol Tuesday (photo by Jason Hancock/Iowa Independent).

State Rep. Kent Sorenson, R-Indianola, also spoke at the event. Last week he followed down a similar path as IFPC, using his endorsement of Vander Plaats to pledge that he wouldn’t support Branstad if he is nominated by the GOP.

Tuesday, his focus was on same-sex marriage, specifically demanding lawmakers pass a marriage amendment. If Iowa allows the courts to decide what it means to be married, he said, they will next turn to issues like gun laws, taxes, free speech and property rights.

“Gov. Culver and the legislature will either listen to us now or listen to us in November,” he said.

When it was his turn to speak, Vander Plaats once again promised that on day one of his administration he will sign an executive order stopping same-sex marriage until the public gets to vote on it. It’s a pledge that’s become the centerpiece of his campaign and something he said he expects to be impeached over. And despite constitutional scholars and each of his Republican primary opponents agreeing that such an executive order is not possible, Vander Plaats has stuck to his guns.

“The Supreme Court does not get to amend the Constitution,” he said, to rousing applause.

IFPC President Chuck Hurley vowed that opponents of same-sex marriage will not rest until a constitutional amendment is passed. And even thought most conservatives concede a ban will not be possible in 2010, Hurley said Christians must keep pushing.

“The homosexual activists have been more diligent than the church of Jesus Christ,” Hurley said, later adding: “If we want Godly laws, we need a diligent church.”

Carlos Tzirin-Rodriguez, who was not originally detained in the May 12 immigration raid at the plant, was convicted of possessing a resident alien card that was not issued to him and knowingly possessing the identification of another person. The documents, according to court records, were used to gain employment at Agriprocessors, a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville and the site of the nation’s largest single-site immigration raid.

Tim Counts, midwest spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that Tzirin-Rodriguez was detained on April 15. Because Tzirin-Rodriquez remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshal pending sentencing, Counts declined further comment in relation to the case.

In a plea agreement, Tzirin-Rodriguez admitted that he possessed a falsified resident alien card and used the identification of another person without consent. He also admitted to entering the United States on about April 1, 2006, at or near San Ysidro, Calif., with the aid of a smuggler.

Sentencing before U.S. District Court Chief Judge Linda R. Reade will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Tzirin-Rodriguez faces up to 10 years in prison and a mandatory consecutive penalty of two years in prison for the charge of using the identification of another person. He also faces $200 in special assessments, and up to three years of supervised release following any prison term.

Roughly one month after Tzirin-Rodriguez was detained, federal agents stormed the Agriprocessors plant in Postville. A total of 389 workers were detained as a part of the immigration raid on May 12. Of those detained, 300 have made plea agreements on criminal charges and most are serving prison time before their ultimate deportation.

Two members of Agriprocessors middle management have been charged with aiding and abetting illegal workers, and have entered a “not guilty” plea. A third indictment for another plant supervisor remains sealed, pending that person’s arrest.

It is an imagined adults-only world. Or is it?

A few nights ago, sitting in a local watering hole after a community event we covered, I listened to stories from young parents about what it is like to be young parents. OK, some of the people were in their early 40s. Not young nationally. But young by Iowa standards.

One set of parents talked about the challenges of keeping early teenagers away from sexually explicit Web sites. It seems you can move the home desktop computer to a place parents can monitor, but that teens, often a step ahead of mom and dad, have figured out that using a laptop and Wi-fi works wonders.

The generation that laughed at the easily fooled principal in “The Breakfast Club” has now itself become that principal as far as the uber tech-savvy millenials are concerned.

We’re walking around with toilet paper on our shoes while they’re downloading porn – or perhaps even crafting their own material for the Net.

Another parent talked about how a seemingly innocent Web search for a Barbie led one of her family members into a portal to pornography.

Then someone told me about the safety precautions the pizza-and-kids games franchise Chuck E. Cheese takes with young people who go there for birthday parties and other events. The Chuck E. Cheese staff stamps all members of a group with the same letter or number and then cross-checks them on the way out the door. While a little creepy, this is wise and clearly intended to prevent a number of scenarios from unfolding, many of which involve predators.

Upon hearing these anecdotes, I reached the only logical conclusion, one I’d been tossing around for some time anyway: Those of us in Generation X were among the last people to have a childhood.

True or perceived, virtual or reality, the world is a far more dangerous place for kids than it was back in the late 1970s when I was running around Indianola and Carroll, doing paper routes and schlepping unchaperoned, out of the sight of parental eyes, for Mr Pibbs and baseball cards.

Didn’t we beat the Russians? Shouldn’t we feel safer?

During a recent “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” book controversy at Carroll High School I observed to one of the bright seniors that their connectedness on the Internet, the speed with which they could mobilize friends and allies for a cause, is a stunning thing to behold.

“We live in a much smaller world today than you did, Mr. Burns,” observed this CHS student, correctly and matter-of-factly.

Splayed over a recliner with a bad back earlier this week, and with the shooting pain preventing me from grabbing a television remote frustratingly inches outside my grasp, I did something I never thought I would do again in life: I watched the entire first “Star Wars” movie from beginning to end. It was on the first channel that came on the screen when I turned on the TV and then absent-mindedly tossed the remote out of reach.

“Star Wars” was an important part of my childhood, as it was for so many of us in Generation X. I had dozens of action figures, and to this day, I can recall the names of obscure characters that appear for only minutes in the movie, like the bounty hunter Greedo, lasered-down by Han Solo at the end of the famous “Star Wars” bar scene.

Only minutes into “Star Wars,” the 38-year-old in me saw something that he was glad the 10-year-old didn’t have to deal with in 1977 when the movie was released: One of the robots, C3PO, is clearly based on a British homosexual. With his foppish accent, fastidiousness, drama-queening and light-loafered movements, there is no doubting that 3CPO is gay.

In fact, he’s flaming.

He makes Tinky Winky, that “outed” purple Teletubby those folks were worried about a few years ago, seem like a NASCAR dad by comparison.

But when I was a kid, no one told me C3PO was gay.

We didn’t have evangelicals on the right boycotting “Star Wars” because of subtle messages. Similarly, I don’t recall gay-rights groups on the left seeking to have portions of the script light-sabered for some perceived offense. And if people were doing those things no one was paying attention. In the three-television channel world of the late 1970s there wasn’t enough time to televise NBA championship games live, much less worry about sideshow politics.

I’m sure many adults in 1977 recognized that C3PO was gayer than Harry Bentley on “The Jeffersons” but they were decent enough to know that kids were more interested in how the Millennium Falcon could jump to light speed than C3PO’s bathhouse banter in the oils of planet Tatooine.

Moreover, there wasn’t an Internet were some blogger could parse all of C3PO’s “Star Wars” dialogue and movements for overt and subtle gayness.

The kind of people who do that sort of thing today just rolled their eyes and went for more popcorn in the `70s.

And the world was a much better place.

Burns finds it odd that nobody has expressed concerns about the level of violence in the film. “Nobody has complained to him about the beheadings in ‘The War’ or the dead bodies stacked up like cordwood,” Burns said in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Two of the four expletives in question are f-bombs in acronyms used by military personnel to describe a situation that has suddenly gone awry as either FUBAR (F**k*d Up Beyond All Repair), or SNAFU (Situation Normal: All F**k*d Up). The latter acronym inspired the cartoon character, Private Snafu (see pic), who starred in a series of black-and-white instructional cartoon shorts, which were designed to show soldiers what not to do and the consequences of irresponsible behavior.

The FCC hasn’t revealed its position as to whether or not it will fine public television stations for airing “The War,” which has left many broadcasters wondering what to do, thus spurring the Public Broadcasting System to supply its 350-member stations with a “clean” version of “The War” scrubbed of the four words.Iowa Public Television (IPTV) has decided to air “The War” in its original format during the prime-time hours while airing the edited version during the daytime.”We felt like it was essential to telling the story,” IPTV Communications Manager Jennifer Konfrst told the Iowa Independent Tuesday. “It’s hard to talk about an episode that talks about FUBAR without using the language that the soldiers used. We don’t find it to be gratuitous or inappropriate. It’s used in context depicting first-hand accounts of people who were there.”

Regarding any concerns about the FCC, Konfrst cited the 2005 opinion in the “Saving Private Case,” in which the FCC looks at three factors in determining whether or not something is obscene:

1. The explicitness or graphic nature of the description or depiction of sexual or excretory organs or activities.
2. Whether the material dwells on or repeats at length descriptions of sexual or excretory organs or activities.
3. Whether the material appears to pander or is used to titillate or whether the material appears to have been presented for its shock value.

“Since `Saving Private Ryan’ is a fictionalized account of World War II, we presumed that airing a non-fictionalized account of actual people talking about their experiences in the war would be alright,” Konfrst said. “Besides, we wanted to stay true to the story.”

The documentary, produced by Burns and Lynn Novick, was six years in the making and focuses on the stories of citizens from four geographically distributed American towns — Waterbury, Conn.; Mobile, Ala.; Sacramento, Calif., and the tiny farming town of Luverne, Minn. The four communities stand in for — and could represent — any town in the United States that went through the war’s four devastating years. Individuals from each community take the viewer through their own personal and quite-often-harrowing journeys into war, painting vivid portraits of how the war dramatically altered their lives and those of their neighbors, as well as the country they helped to save for generations to come.

Feeding off Burns’ documented war stories, IPTV has made an attempt to further engage Iowans and WW II veterans by interviewing and recording 50 WW II veterans around Iowa, capturing their stories to preserve on film. These stories have been sent off to the “Veterans History Project” at the Library of Congress and can be viewed on the IPTV website. “These veterans’ stories will be archived forever and Iowa will be well represented in the Library of Congress,” Konfrst said. “In addition, IPTV has been hosting “In Honor” dinners for Iowa veterans around the state, recognizing WW II veterans for their service and sacrifices for their efforts during the war.”

The Library of Congress launched the comprehensive community awareness campaign, “Veterans History Project,” with PBS and Ken Burns. “We stand at the ready to continue our tradition of honoring America’s war veterans by preserving their stories for future generations,” said Librarian of Congress James H. Billington in a press release. “The Veterans History Project” collects and archives the one-of-a-kind stories that represent the diversity of the veterans who served our country-veterans from all conflicts, all branches of the military, all ranks, all races and ethnicities.”

“There have been countless books and films about the Second World War,” Burns said in a press release. “In `The War,’ we try to allow a small group of individuals to tell their bottom-up story. This film is as much about storytelling, about sharing unique experiences, as it is about World War II, and as such we hope that it touches on the universal human experience of battle. Of course, the film only provides a small window into the much larger experience of the hundreds of thousands who have served during times of war. We hope that by providing the tools to people around the country, especially young people, we can work together to capture many more of these stories before the generation that fought in World War II has passed.”

The Obama crew marches to the Harkin Steak Fry, led by the drum corps the Isiserettes.

Iowa Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge welcomes the crowd early in the program at the steak fry.

The catering crew worked over hot grills preparing the meals for over 12,000.

Iowa vocal talent Effie Burt passionately sings the Star Spangled Banner.

Ruth and Tom Harkin say hello to the record crowd at the Harkin Steak Fry.

Barack Obama takes to the mic to deliver the first speech of the six special guests.

Hillary Clinton and Ruth Harkin have a chat up on the stage.

Bill Richardson gives the second presidential candidate speech at the steak fry.

CHICAGO – In a fusing of its rich history with a contemporary ambition to break out of a niche as something of an Iowa novelty, Templeton Rye Spirits – the legal incarnation of the Prohibition-era booze – launched its product into the Chicago market with a classy, nostalgic affair this week.

Dozens of Carroll-area residents, many of them costumed in period clothing from the 1920s, the heyday of the rye trade and its storied connection to Al Capone’s Mafia, mingled with Windy City bartenders, restaurateurs, liquor distributors and others at the Chicago History Museum.

“It’s special,” said TR Spirits president Scott Bush. “I’ll tell you, a lot of my family and a lot of folks from the Templeton area are here.”

The goal: Hype the rye.

“The story as everyone knows is a unique story,” said Templeton Mayor Ken Behrens, attired as 1920s man about town (a look that cost him just $40 in a costume shop). Behrens and about 40 people took a bus from Templeton (and other Carroll-area towns) to Chicago for a slate of events to promote the Templeton, Iowa-based company.

He said the Chicago event “brings it all together” in bridging the connection between the small southern Carroll County city with a big reputation in Chicago.

Bush said the selection of the Chicago History Museum had a strong link to its 1929 founding.

“This is not the first time that a lot of socialites have been in here drinking Templeton Rye,” he joked. “That’s fitting. It feels right.”

Instead of whispers and rumors and surreptitious transactions, commerce between these two unlikely booze-buddy cities is now the stuff that PR firms and distributors are hired to hawk and market.

One of more skilled at that was Carl Carlson, president of California-based Infinium Spirits.

“This is an American story,” Carlson said. “This town (Templeton) is a very special place. Big companies spend millions of dollars to find a story that has a semblance of this. This town is too good to be true. Our owner felt that the industry is based on great stories.”

Infinium, Templeton Rye’s distributor, also markets Seagrams vodka.

In remarks to the crowd and in an interview Carlson talked about “enterprising residents” making it through the Great Depression on the strength of their hooch – which came to be known in surprisingly far-flung places as “the good stuff.”

They poured it in Chicago and Denver and San Francisco. TR lore has it that a bottle or two (or more) of the rye made its way onto Alcatraz island, the infamous federal penitentiary that once housed mobsters and is now a major tourist attraction.

As for the product itself Carlson sees it standing on two strong legs: smooth taste and a delicious backstory.

He hopes rye can gain a foothold in Chicago and then march south down Interstate 55 into St. Louis – and reach into other cities. Carlson recently had conversation with a state liquor official who wants to sell rye because this bureaucrat spots potential for boosted revenues in the state-run distribution.

Carlson sees TR being a “high-image, ultra-luxury product” along the lines of Woodford Reserve, a Kentucky distilled bourbon that has found a nice home among connoisseurs. “That’s a good analogy,” he said.

While the event drew at least three members of the media, much of Templeton Rye’s success will be based on word of mouth, Carlson said.

“I love telling the story to bartenders,” he said.
Several bartenders said they think Templeton Rye will move in their haunts.

Carissa Palaszynski, a bartender at Hackneys in Palos Park, said she had a favorable impression – and she’s not normally a whiskey fan.

Syndee Diloi, another Hackneys bartender, enjoyed her TR as well.

“This is good,” she said. “It should sell here.”

Carter Boe, a bartender at the Kinzie Chop House, slowly slipped the whiskey straight and reviewed it.
“It’s very interesting,” Boe said. “It’s unique in the world of whiskey that I’ve run across.”

Boe said TR has a “nice spicey profile.”

And it is the taste that will sell the product, he said.

Sure, the story and the 1920s Al Capone business will get people’s attention, Boe said.

“But mystique isn’t going to get people to buy something they don’t like,” he said.

Boe thinks many people will like TR.

Bruce Garfield, who owns two Cardinal Liquor stores in Chicago plans to stock Templeton Rye.

“Yes, it’s smooth,” he said.

And Tom Buax of Des Moines, who attended the Chicago launch, is a believer in the future of TR at his Central City Liquor in Des Moines.
Has it sold there?
“Since day one, like hotcakes,” Buax said.
He’s operated the liquor store since 1987.
“This is the fastest-selling product I’ve had in 20 years,” said Buax who got into the spirit of the event by wearing ’20s garb.
“This is what we’ve always been waiting for – the Al Capone tie,” said TR co-founder Keith Kerkhoff.

Along with its blockbuster Chicago launch Templeton Rye Spirits is expanding its distillery in Carroll County.

Plans call for an approximate $500,000 expansion of the Templeton facility, from 1,500 to 9,000 square feet.
“Practically, it’s going to be very nice for us,” Bush said.
Besides providing more storage and production capability, the expansion will allow for merchandising of clothing and other memorabilia.

Bush said Rye Spirits would be moving to five full-time people and about 16 part time. The Templeton Rye recipe is derived from an original developed by one of the families in the early production of the whiskey and handed down through the generations.

With its initial batch, 4,000 cases, Rye Spirits has seen more demand than expected.

“I would say it’s successful on a very small scale,” Bush said. “A lot of what we’re doing is based on where we see the company going.”

In the coming months there are plans for a full-fledged Nadas concert in the Carroll area and a Templeton Rye Iowa State-Iowa football game tailgate party in Ames.

In recent interviews Scott Bush has said Templeton Rye Spirits is considering expansion opportunities in Templeton.

With the Year 2 production coming out in October, in time for another holiday season, TR plans to market more aggressively outside of Iowa. Bush is bullish on Rye’s prospects in other states, and even internationally.

“Someday you will go to a cool bar in New York City and see Templeton Rye,” Bush said. “I guarantee it.”

Besides boosting the local economy, Bush sees a benefit for Iowa as Templeton Rye gains popularity.
“Iowa doesn’t get the respect it deserves for being a cool place

to grow up,” Bush said.

For more information on Templeton Rye or to share a story for the archive visit the company’s Web site at www.templetonrye.com.

The seminars opened on Thursday with a presentation by Purdue University professor Brian Richerts on environmental issues facing hog producers. Ten other environmental sessions were held throughout the course of the expo, including a talk by Dick Nicolai of South Dakota State University called "Odor Science and Techniques Producers Can Use to Reduce Odor." Sessions on environmental topics were also held with staff members of Iowa State University, University of Minnesota, as well as other university researchers and pork industry specialists.

On Friday Morning, a conference for agriculture reporters was held with Michael Formica, environmental policy counsel for the National Pork Producers Council.

Formica shared details of some of the federal legislation affecting pork producers and environmental policy. He stressed the need for an increase of funding for the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, and the need for pork producers to receive an increase in their share of that funding. He also talked about some of the changes that he is in favor of seeing in the program.

"We hope to streamline the application process," said Formica. "Make it easier for a producer to go to the local Natural Resources Conservation Service office and apply for EQIP." He said that a lot of the paperwork that pork producers have needed to fill out for the program was very redundant. He said that these hurdles have been hindering producers in making improvements in their operations.

Under the 2002 farm bill, pork producers have received less than 3 percent of the total EQIP funding. "We like to say that's less than emus, goats and ostriches," he said.

Formica went on to discuss several of the priorities of the NPPC in the upcoming farm bill, and said that they are happy with the process so far.

"We've been fairly successful with Mr. Peterson's conservation title," he said, referring to U.S. House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson's initial drafts of legislation for the new farm bill. "In the House, we've gotten nearly everything we've asked for. We've sort of rallied the agricultural community together and created a coalition and a plan of action that all sections of agriculture can get together on."

Formica went on to discuss the farm bill legislation in the Senate, and talked about the status of an EPA ruling on Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.

New technologies on display at the expo

There are many new technologies for pork producers on display at the expo that could help reduce the environmental impact of raising hogs.

One of these new innovations is from Odor Cell Technologies, a company based in Solon and operated by Roger Treloar and his brother Robert, who is a research and development biologist.

Roger Treloar said his technology works to capture the particulates in the air at a swine facility and reduce the foul smells emitted. "We combine the particulates and activate that with water, and then add bacteria to it," he explained. "What we're doing is creating a self-sustaining compost pile that dramatically reduces the odor, the ammonia, the hydrogen sulfide, and it captures the dust particulates."

The company has been in operation just a few years, but has seen some positive results.

"We started with our own swine facility about five years ago, and as we did research on it initially the community around us gave us a lot of positive feedback," he said. "And so then we did a few more years of research and studies on it. My brother is a biologist, so we did scientific analysis, and then over the last three years we've been a commercial operation."

Treloar said that the process can reduce odors to approximately 60 percent of the level of a similar facility without the system. Dust particulates, which can travel significant distances, can be reduced by 98 percent, he said.