Herb Strentz was dean of the Drake School of Journalism from 1975 to 1988 and professor there until retirement in 2004. He was executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council from its founding in 1976 to 2000.

The Iowa Department of Education may be first in the nation in commemorating a centennial to be ashamed of.

I’m talking about the 100^th anniversary of the Scopes trial in Dayton, Tennessee, which took place from July 10 to July 21, 1925. John Scopes, a high school biology teacher, was convicted of violating a state law, the Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach human evolution in public schools. He was fined $100 (about $1,800 in today’s dollars), but never had to serve jail time.

Among other spinoffs, the trial inspired the 1955 play “Inherit the Wind” and a 1960 movie with the same title. (“Inherit the wind” is taken from Proverbs 11:29, King James Version, “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind.”)

So far, the Iowa Department of Education is not displaying Scopes or “Inherit the Wind” banners. However, it is advancing a proposal to minimize, if not eliminate, how evolution is covered in the state’s science education standards.

For good measure, in teaching science, the department proposes replacing the phrase “climate change” with “climate trends”—in effect saying, ho hum, no crisis here, just everyday weather. Also—not done yet—reference to the earth being 4.6 billion years old would be dropped (perhaps in deference to those who still believe Archbishop James Ussher’s 17^th century calculation that the first day of creation was Oct. 23, 4000 BC).

The Department of Education’s proposed revisions are in response to a review of Iowa’s educational standards, which Governor Kim Reynolds ordered last year. The department appointed a 37-member Science Standards Revision Team to assist in the process. As Vanessa Miller reported for the Cedar Rapids Gazette earlier this month, the team’s report to the department did not recommend changes such as eliminating the phrases “climate change” or “biological evolution.” Miller’s article, which is well worth your time, indicates that members of the revisions team were not mollified by how the department responded to their concerns.

The department has already held public hearings on the changes, but is still accepting written comments until February 3. You can submit those online. The full draft of proposed academic standards for science is available here; it’s about 220 pages long.

“Inherit the Wind” is not the only literary work that is relevant to today’s politics and troubling divisiveness.

George Orwell (1903-1950) should come to mind, for his essay “Politics and the English Language” (1946)  and his book 1984 (1949), among other works.

In the essay, Orwell warns that political language “is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Think of today’s social media, or go back several years to the first Trump administration when lies were sanctified as “alternative facts.”

Orwell wrote some 80 years ago:

A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier to have foolish thoughts.

The debasement of language poses just as big a threat to democracy in our own times.

Compounding our woes, Orwell thought debasement of language can be contagious and spread to those who do not really intend to lie to us.

As for the novel 1984, the main character (Winston Smith) works in Big Brother’s Ministry of Truth. Smith’s duties are to rewrite history so it comports with Big Brother’s propaganda, and to delete records and information that do not.

Welcome to President Donald Trump calling the insurrection of January 6, 2021, a “day of love” and praising those who attacked the U.S. Capitol as “patriots.” He has expressed support for almost all involved except for the law enforcement officers, four of whom took their own lives, perhaps out of despair in the aftermath of the riot.

Perhaps, after Trump has again been in office for a few years, the wintry day of January 6 will be celebrated as an appropriate calendar balance to summer’s July 4.

The Scopes trial and Orwell make some sense in discussing Iowa/MAGA politics today. But why did I bring up the luxury steamship that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912 and sank at the cost of 1,500 lives? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Titanic

I thought of the Titanic while trying to develop an acronym for today’s Iowa/MAGA politics —maybe something to do with Senator Chuck Grassley, Governor Kim Reynolds, Senator Joni Ernst, and Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird. Using the last-name initials of each, BERG, led to iceberg and to the Titanic’s tragic fate, voila: Iowa’s Confounding Ensemble: Bird, Ernst, Reynolds, Grassley. BERG might also call to mind reason for Iowa’s continuing decline on many political fronts — recognizing the Bird Ernst Reynolds Grassley obstacle.

For a brief look at how confounding iceBERG has been, consider:

Bird: In her efforts to put Trump above the law and her other political—not legal—motivations, Bird has built the best case against herself as AG in her two years in office.

Ernst: Many held out hope that Ernst would be among Republicans who would not wrap themselves in the MAGA mantle. But she soon succumbed to MAGA pressure and endorsed Peter Hegseth, an awful choice to be secretary of defense.

Reynolds: Her Condition of the State address on January 14 seemed shorter than the time consumed by the applause from her legislative lemmings. In the speech, Reynolds failed to address important problems in public education and environmental concerns she created and/or condones.

Grassley: In a recent Bleeding Heartland post, Laura Belin pointed out Grassley’s hypocrisy in smearing President Joe Biden with lies invented by a former FBI informant. It’s right up there with Grassley claiming in 2009 that health care reform proposals in what became the Affordable Care Act would have given federal government panels the power to “pull the plug on grandma.” Or his baseless fearmongering in 2022 about a plan to fund an additional 87,000 IRS employees over the next decade: “Are they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s (sic) already loaded ready to shoot some small business person in Iowa with these?”

Perhaps the chances are slim, but Iowans can hope that voters, the primary cause of the woes listed above, will provide some cure come election day in November 2026.