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The Practical Guide to Building a Better World
I can’t believe I wrote a book. What was only an idea at the end of 2023 is this giant beautiful thing becoming more real every day. The milestones have come so thick I have not been able to celebrate each one. Today I want to acknowledge the ISBN #
The Library of Congress is under attack. The President fired the Head Librarian without cause and claims to have appointed the Deputy Director of Commerce, I think, as its head. The staff there point to the name and the fact that the president has no power over the Library of Congress and had two folks escorted from the property. The alleged new acting chief librarian has not yet tried to enter.
Having a book enter the Library of Congress has been something I’ve looked forward to as I moved my manuscript from rough draft to a perfected piece of physical media. I am not surprised that every good thing is under attack. A would-be authoritarian’s desire to control the Library of Congress is understandable. Preventing that misuse of power is baked into the system. We shall see what prevails.
Today, I still celebrate and proudly share my ISBN # 978-1-939899-86-6
You can preorder at Bread & Roses Publishing
https://breadandrosespress.com/products/the-practical-guide-to-building-a-better-world
Community Outreach for Mass Mobilization
With all that is going on nationally being engaged in a national political organizing project is a real blessing. I don’t feel powerless and alone in front of the giant forces threatening democracy and the rule of law. Taking action and talking to other organizers is heartening and I highly recommend it.
The New American Community is moving into the next phase of our County Party Outreach Project. I have called all of the state parties and had some great conversations and several active collaborations. Delaware and New Mexico are helping our outreach efforts and have agreed to work together. Several other states are reviewing information or have made a commitment to work together in the future. As a political unknown outside of my region though it has felt a little like cold call sales.
We also have received almost 150 survey responses from county party organizations. Reviewing the responses help with Messaging is the largest unmet need. We created our survey as good community organizers both to have feedback to inform our work and to identify collaboration opportunities.
This week I’ve contacted county party leaders who completed the survey for follow up conversations. I’ve begun providing technical assistance to some party organizations and also discussed what people are doing.
What I found inspiring was the three conversations I had all said the same thing. We are focusing on community outreach because we need to know who is out there in case we have to do a mass mobilization to fight for democracy. From rural South Carolina, to a small city in Missouri, to the New Mexico suburbs the answer was the same.
We have found our Message. Democracy and the rule of law are under assault and we need to take action with our neighbors right now. The pro-Democracy Alliance is forming at the grassroots level everywhere. There is new energy to fight back and defend and folks aren’t waiting for non-existent national leadership but are leading themselves. Finding like minded souls in organizations or online and taking action.
Last days of democracy?
What makes a good leader?
A good leader promotes democracy. Democracy is our commitment to each other that we respect each other and we respect fairness.
The pro-Democracy Alliance Pledge
We, the undersigned, pledge our unwavering commitment to the principles of democracy, justice, and equality. In an era of profound challenges to the foundations of our republic, we affirm that:
1. Democracy is Worth Defending
We stand resolute in protecting free and fair elections and political activism in all its forms, ensuring every American can participate in their democracy without obstruction or fear of reprisal.
2. Truth and Accountability Matter
We commit to fostering transparency, combating misinformation, and holding leaders accountable to the people they serve.
3. Unity is Our Strength
We reject divisive politics of cynicism and seek to build bridges across communities, celebrating diversity as a cornerstone of our democracy.
4. Justice and Equality are Essential
We champion policies and actions that promote fairness, safeguard rights, and empower all citizens to have a voice in the political discourse.
5. Action is Required
We will not remain idle in the face of threats to democracy. We commit our resources, energy, and voices to advancing democratic ideals and combating anti-democratic forces.
By joining the pro-Democracy Alliance, we vow to work towards our common goal to uphold these values, protect our shared future, and leave a stronger democracy for generations to come.
If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
The pro-Democracy Alliance won’t form itself. Being born into a democracy won’t ensure you get to stay one. Democracy is under threat and dies in the darkness. All of us need to take action, speak out, and participate.
Towards the end of another busy day my fiance said, “boy it’s been a season, hasn’t it?” That led to some reflection on all that we’ve done: Moving, holiday travel, recovery from surgery and other medical stuff, her busy season at work, shepherding my book through the publishing process, and launching the New American Community’s County Outreach Project.
If you’re a regular reader you know I’ve sworn off jamming all the time to the puttering my way to happy destiny phase of life. Nonetheless, I have started early and jammed all day pretty much all winter. Managing the blizzard and follow up cold snap has complicated the final part of the move and clean out of the old apartment.
Yesterday we strapped a couch and dresser to the rack of the Toyota Yaris to haul them to the dump. Large item collection was suspended. I wish I would have taken a picture, we got more than a few points and laughs as we drove across town. You gotta do what you gotta do.
I also forgot to mention we got the 18 yo off to the dorms. Seeing this young man take a big step towards independence has been a thrill but also a series of one more thing we have to do.
Through it all though we’ve kept our good humor. I was grimly focused on packing and the day of the move but after that period of hard work and focus I dialed it back a bit. My dad hauled furniture and doing that work brings him up in me. I appreciate the technical expertise but the curt authoritative communication style creates problems as useful as it is.
Spraining my foot did slow things down and probably was overall a good thing. It’s also fun and meaningful to be organizing again. Getting my office and desk stop set up was a great feeling as I have been working out of a messenger bag for a year and a half.
To launch our County Party Outreach Project we created a database of all the County Democratic Party organizations. We sent out a survey and I have been following up with state party leadership.
We have been well received and the survey is getting a good response. Early results show Messaging is the biggest need area. We are starting on a technical assistance manual on the topic. It validates the book as messaging is a consistent theme in a lot of chapters. Now it’s off to clean the old apartment and hopefully get it done today and have that behind us.
A long day and a nice meal
Hello constant reader. It’s been a long day so I’m going to go concrete. I baked the New Year’s ham a day late and with a bit of a rush job. I was pinched for time on New Year day so sliced off some steaks and pan fried them to speed along dinner.
I had a honey glazed ham which was half the price per pound as ham hocks. The invisible hand is pretty funny sometimes. I did the package directions but had already eaten most of the slices so it wasn’t as sugary which is a good thing. A little goes a long way.
I note the glaze is sugar, brown sugar, and dried honey so I’ll use the rest next time we run out of sugar at least.
For a side I took some pinto beans I’d made for chili and mashed them up with a red pepper and a sweet onion with cumin, ranch seasoning, crushed red pepper, a few drips ghost pepper sauce and after I added the beans I added a pack of taco sauce. I mashed them some and they were pretty good.
I had made cranberry salad yesterday out of a can of the jelled and some smashed blackberries and was pleased the 15 y/o smashed them who always mocks canned cranberries.
I finished it with a simple salad of mixed greens and yellow pepper. For a dressing I did a red wine vinaigrette with red wine, a nice olive oil, apple cider vinegar, apple butter, a shit ton of basil and cilantro, white pepper, and garlic powder. It was excellent.
Mostly though it felt good to be loved and all of us are still giddy about the wonderful new home. Shae said it’s like being in love again where you have to stop and just be in awe about how great life is.
To work hard and come home to someone who loves you and is excited to show you what she arranged during her kick back time it’s pretty special.
Blessed New Years
I was blessed to ring in the new year with my fiance in our new home. We closed Thanksgiving week but it’s her busy time at work and we traveled to Michigan/Ohio for the holidays so we didn’t get to move in in earnest until December 30th.
It was a lot of work with us and the two teenagers but we pulled together nicely and got it done in time to kick back a little and enjoy the new year coming in. It was nice to only have to get out of bed two minutes before the new year for my sparkling juice toast and sweet kiss and I was back in bed before 12:02 when I got a Happy New Year text.
Moving and setting up house in a new relationship brings a lot of changes. One of the things that brought my partner and I together was a commitment to sustainability as part of our values.
Shae was a single mom but still really on it as far as recycling. Her oldest is into cooking and has done a lot of research on nutrition and learning to make healthy food versus ultra processed stuff. Being able to support and build on all that has complemented my long interests in what I would call right living, using moral reasoning to choose the best course of life considering sustainability, justice, and neighborliness.
Writing The Practical Guide this year has sharpened my interests in areas I’ve lagged in like personal health. Having a chapter on lifestyle as an instrument of change means you have to eat and exercise to optimize for health and avoid medical intervention. So I’ve done that to good effect.
With helping my partner through a difficulty, house hunting and then moving, starting a political action committee and completing a manuscript and seeing it through publishing has been a lot. Through it I’ve recycled, minimized my food waste, made real food at home for the family, and all the other right living tasks I could reasonably pull off.
When I’ve had to I’ve grabbed the fast food, skipped the gym, or made some other compromise with my overall values to have a smooth flow of life. You don’t have to mail it every time to get a comparable impact but not stressing over that last 10% that would take effort beyond my abilities.
I elevated for a couple days to get the move done and worked harder than I should. I cut a few corners though to make it a bit easier. My brother John says “Most moral choices are between the right thing and the easy thing.”
I want to work hard for a better world and for my family but I also want to take the time for self care, companionship, kindness, and especially whimsy when it can be found.
What are you doing to be happier, healthier, or more sustainable in 2025? I’ll be blogging everyday through Bloguary. Look for an update on #freeKevinBromwell and as January 6th approaches I’ll be talking about the County Party Initiative for the New American Community. Stay warm constant reader.
Resolutions ABCs
Hello readers. As 2024 comes to a close it seems like a good time to talk about New Year’s Resolutions. I have been a student of the change process for nearly 40 years and when I decided to write the The Practical Guide to Building a Better World I started the outline on January 1. The timeframe worked out and I liked the symbolism.
I laid out my schedule for the year and got it to the publisher a month early. My success this past year was built in many failed resolutions in the past. The resolution articles I have seen this year have been based on SMART goal planning, mostly recommending being realistic and measurable.
This sound advice is easily found and self explanatory so I am taking a different tack. Most folks fail at resolutions because behavior change is hard. We are driven by historical inertia, habit, and static social structures that ensure that today looks a lot like yesterday and tomorrow won’t be much different.
As a student of the change process I recommend developing a plan that involves, small steps, data tracking, and rewards for progress. I also believe the most meaningful change is through developing moral character. Most moral choices are between the easy thing and the right thing.
Being a good person is a great life aspiration but an inadequate goal because it lacks specificity. It would be better to work on what a good person would do or say. I was called out for taking a sharp time with a young person when I was just frustrated in general.
As I look to address this an old school behaviorism technique immediately came to mind – ABC Sheets. Antecedent, Behavior, and Consequence tracking are a great way to generate data to fuel a behavior change agenda.
First, just tracking negative behavior reduces its occurrence. Knowing you are going to be accountable brings instant improvement.
Antecedents are the factors that come before the target behavior. Knowing the circumstances can help point to patterns and consequently levers where work can be applied to make change.
For me some reflections identified the fact that we were moving houses, we had just returned from holiday travel, and there was a lot of work to be done to be ready. This underlying situational stress definitely played a role as did some personal dynamics that I’m not going into in this format.
More concretely I was also shouting from another room which means I started out yelling. I also realized I was nursing some resentment. The fact I was also bustling around, thinking about tasks, and drinking coffee which are possible factors that could be significant if I tracked the behavior over time.
Reflecting on the specifics of the behavior I would like at my sharp tone and unkind words out of proportion for what I was yelling about. More details can help understand the behavior and ways to shape it into more helpful and friendly communication.
The Consequence is what comes after. Understanding negative consequences can help us remember not to do certain things. We can also identify hidden rewards from the behavior. If I take a sharp tone and people do what I yell about I get rewarded. It’s hard to stop negative behaviors we use to get what we want.
In this case the consequence was I got checked, I apologized and noted my behavior. I tried, not with total success, to be mindful of my tone through the stressful move. I also was able to give a little advance warning of where I was at emotionally, which some found helpful.
Understanding the costs of our behavior or how it is rewarded by getting our needs met can be helpful to identify ways to change those reward systems to better live out our values and be the best version of ourselves.
The biggest issue with behavior change is folks think they can make a big choice and lots of things will be different. Really our life is made up of many many choices we make everyday. Real change is making more and more of those choices that improve our lives and those we share a life with.
Holiday Letter 2024
What a year it’s been. The New Year found me in San Diego celebrating with my friend Steve from grad school. I always feel like, if I haven’t seen you for a long time when I do we’ll pick up where we left off and we did.
The La Brea Tar Pits have been on my list of things to do since I was a kid and they did not disappoint. I traveled on to the Bay Area where I stayed on another friend’s boat in the Berkeley Marina and also visited friends in Concord.
I was traveling in a Dodge Grand Caravan that had been given to me to support my homelessness work. During this phase of travel I started to work on my book The Practical Guide to Building a Better World. I began with an outline of each chapter and finished that in the first two weeks of the year.
After visiting friends I went back to travel, dispersed camping, hiking, seeing the sights and finding time to write. I had memorable visits to Death Valley and the surrounding area before heading East.
Chapter 1 was written as I more or less drive across highway 40 across Arizona and New Mexico. I stopped at a lot of ancient sites and took a deep dive into Petroglyph National Monument. I stayed a few days in Gallup which I’ve always liked and spent a day in Canyon de Celle which had also been on my list for a long time.
I stayed in more motels then usually because it was fairly cold for van sleeping. Between completing 28 days of stoic philosophical exercises and building in a routine of exercise and writing I accomplished what I wanted to on the trip.
Coming back through Kansas I visited Shae who I’d been talking to during my trip after starting dating before I left Leavenworth for an epic road trip last November. It went well and I returned for a Valentine’s Day date and she and the kids visited me in Columbia as well.
I had left my job to travel and write but I did some homeless outreach work and related case management in Columbia in the Spring for a couple of months with 4-A-Change. My brother John has taken over the business since I left Columbia but as he was between case managers I helped out until he could hire someone and I helped train them.
It was timely as I wrote my chapter on social service delivery doing the work. I had some modest successes and showed I could still do it. I also did training on case management for volunteers with CoMo Mobile Aid and Loaves and Fishes and later for the Flourish Initiative while I was steeped in the local resources.
Mostly though I was struck by the increase in homelessness and the difficulties at finding housing. I also noted a lot more seniors out there. It’s getting tougher and meaner every day with services increasingly strained.
My romance with Shae continued to blossom and we took a romantic weekend to Excelsior Springs. Our spending time together led me to staying over more until in retrospect we were living together.
Adjusting to family life was a nice transition and being a writer is a good lifestyle to relocate for your relationship. I kept on pace with the book and over the summer I found my voice for the book and began telling more stories versus technical details on building positive change.
We started to look for a property to buy but we struck out on finding the right live/work space for her photography studio. We did find a great historic home and we closed on it just before Thanksgiving.
I finished my manuscript and began to edit. A month or more of that and it was off to the publisher. We’re through the copy edit and initial cover design. We should be having presales together shortly after the holidays and should have books in the spring.
We’ve been packing and getting ready to move early in the next year. It’s very exciting.
I also reconnected with some old campaign staff and organizers who were excited about the book. Together we launched a political action committee called the New American Community to support my organizing and to promote localism. We’re claiming July 4th, 2024 as our born on date.
We supported some house candidates with fundraising assistance and built a digital fundraising operation. We have been preparing materials as well as doing some election advertising around the overall disappointing national election. Mostly though we’re building for the long haul.
Our goal is to identify, train, and support an organizer in every county in America, all 3,153 of them. We’re starting with the hard ones first. Our big campaign for 2025 will be to outreach and organize with county parties.
We believe that especially in very Republican areas organizing to win an election every 2 years is not the best strategy. We would like to see county parties organized as community benefit organizations working to meet the needs of their residents whatever that may be.
Think Nationally, Act Locally is our motto so we’re starting in Kansas where we received a promising welcome from the state party. We’re also talking to Missouri leadership and have been well received where we’ve been able to make contact.
Tomorrow Shae and I fly into Detroit to spend the holidays with my family and friends. New Years will find us in our new home celebrating a late Christmas with the boys.
On a personal note I’m down 62 pounds since my 2023 high. After returning to Leavenworth I joined a gym and hired a trainer to work on my posture and gait. I have been discharged from treatment for my liver and my sports medicine doctor who was addressing my knees.
Life is good and I’m excited to see what adventures 2025 brings. The move, the PAC organizing and book tour promise another year of consequence and travel. I hope this year your holidays are safe and bright. I will close with an important message from Batman.
Its not been a great year for blogging…so far
Hello faithful reader,
It’s been a long time since my last post. Sorry to leave you hanging. A lot has happened since my last post and I’ll use my time to try to get you up to speed. I was pretty new on the book writing project when I was still blogging in January. Today the book is being copy edited through my publisher Bread and Roses Press. Its a great feeling of accomplishment to have faced the blank page and been able to bring a concept to completion.
It’s taken a toll on my blogging for sure though, but for everything there is a season. As I turn from writing to editing and then on to marketing and promotion the blog is going to grow in importance. Every long absence from posting brings a commitment to post on the regular moving forward, but I am confident I mean it this time.
When I fell off on blogging I had turned Cookie Monster, the faithful minivan and short term housing vehicle towards point east. I ducked up behind the Sierras to get out of the way of another atmospheric river and ended up heading back to Death Valley. I had planned on camping just outside of the entrance after learning there is no more free campground camping there. I ended up just camping at a roadside park and then making my way into Nevada. After checking out the sites near Beatty I think I realized all the passes east were snow covered did I accept I had go back into Death Valley to get back home.
Once I got back on my journey to the east in a way that I could actually go I made a decision and found myself on 40. The blue highway stuff was too much at this point. I ended up traveling across 40 and mostly staying in hotels. There was a lot to see and I needed to make miles so that’s where I fell off on the blog.
Through my travels I had been talking to someone I was sweet on and dropped in for a visit on my way back through. Visits, turned to romantic weekends away, turned into living together and last week we closed on a house in Leavenworth.
In addition to writing The Practical Guide to Building a Better World I also formed a Federal political action committee called the New American Community to support my national organizing. The NAC’s mission is to identify, support, and train an organizer in every County in America, all 3,153 of them.
We believe in localism, pragmatism, pluralism, and the empowerment of every citizen to understand and improve their community. We believe that County parties can be multi-focal organizing hubs improving the lives of citizens everyday and not just knocking on a few doors every couple of years.
We have been raising money and building infrastructure as well as our work to impact the November elections. You can follow along at https://newamericancommunity.org
My goal for the blog is to be more substantive and idea focused but continue to be fresh and unfiltered. I plan to blog twice a week focusing on change strategies identified in the Practical Guide. These include lifestyle, organizing, politics, policy, the arts, mutual aid, social entrepreneurship, social services, and more.
Thank you faithful readers and new folks to the blog. Please comment, follow, and share when I put up something that grabs you.
Holiday Letter 2022
It’s a great building, a conversion of an old Jewish temple. One of the coolest buildings in town in a town with a lot of cool buildings. It’s the first time I’ve lived alone for more than a few months. I like it more than I thought I would. Gives me a lot of time to reflect which I was short on for the nine years I served on the Columbia City Council which I wrapped up last year leading to the big changes. In general, it was nice to rip the band aid off and be done with Columbia. Between the brutality of political life and the toll of working with homeless folks it had started to get to me. Getting away and being in a new place doing new things was just what the doctor ordered. If I had stayed in Columbia I would have been pulled into more drama and been put upon do more hard stuff for free, then I feel like doing at this point in my life.
It’s been a little while since I’ve done a holiday letter, but I want to get back in the swing of blogging in 2023 and this seems like a good start. The beginning of the year found me starting a new life in Leavenworth Kansas. I had moved here in November to take a job as the Executive Director of a domestic violence and sexual assault service center. I kept my house in Columbia, Missouri which is about three hours away and I make it back to visit about once a month or so. I got a nice two-bedroom apartment a short walk from work.
So, asides from work my life is pretty quiet. I walk a lot. One of the first things I did is get a list of the Leavenworth Parks and walk to them all. There are some nice ones. Haven Park has mountain bike trails that are fun to hike on, even though the woods are pretty scrubby. Veterans Park has some good trails but it’s on the other side of town, so I don’t get over there much. Three Mile Trail and the River Walk are my go-to walks I do several times a week. I like hikes that start at my front door and a walk through town and down the River Walk to Three Mile Creek and then take the trail to the end and circle back home or walk it backwards if I need more steps is my go-to walk.
It’s a beautiful day for December so I walked down 7th Street to Three Mile Creek to the River Walk and then down Esplanade to 2nd and back was a nice walk and a little longer and may become my new one. I had some back pain so I took the day off and thought a long walk might help me stretch out. I’ve put on a lot of weight this year and am looking to get a lot more active and do some portion control and drop a few pounds.
My job has been fairly stressful until recently. The nonprofit was a bit of a fixer-upper to put it mildly. It had closed down for about a year and never really got straightened back out after reopening four years ago. It took a lot of work to get the accounting straightened our, fix the grant reporting system and bring in solid management staff. We still have a lot of turnover but we are stable if still a bit fragile. I have repaired our relationship with our funders and been out in the community a lot, so donations are up. We’ve improved the data collection but that still needs some work. We are close to getting certified which will be a big accomplishment. We have a few things left to do from our site visit as far as rewriting our rulers to be more trauma informed and paring down our fairly onerous intake procedures. I’m kind of excited about having the space to improve programming.
There has been so much catch up and back-office repair I haven’t been able to focus as much on process improvements. I was finally able to fill our contract counselor position so it’s nice to have another clinical heavy hitter on the team. I hope to start doing some motivational interviewing training for my staff next month. I wrote myself into a COVID grant to do that but haven’t had the time to make it happen. I am also looking forward to doing an annual report. We’ve not done one in many years, and I didn’t have the data or accounting nailed down to do one last year.
Mostly I’ve been pushed at work. Have had very little time to choose my own adventure kind of activities and have been keeping the wolves at bay. I actually have some discretionary time and some ability to slow things up a little and focus more on selfcare. I want to go to Italy in June so I need to get in much better shape to properly enjoy it. Walking more and getting back on the ebike are my big plans and adding some inside workouts when the weather isn’t cooperating.
Besides work I am active in the Chamber of Commerce. I’ve been on the Board of Directors since January which is pretty good for being a new resident. This January I’ll start on the Executive Committee as the Vice Chair. I’m also plugging in on their strategic plan. I’ve also gotten active with the Leavenworth County Human Services Committee and am spearheading their strategic planning efforts. I hope to do it in pieces over the next year working in small groups with rotating members. We rewrote the mission statement, so vision is next.
I’ve also been a Chamber Ambassador, so I go to all the ribbon cuttings. It’s a good way to meet people and find out what is happening in the community. I’ve read research that having lots of weak ties is one of the components of a happy life so I’m doing good on that front for a newbie.
I’ve done a bit of regional travel. I’m planning on wrapping things up here in a little less than a year after I fulfill my two-year commitment. I’m not really cut out to be an executive director. I was a reluctant administrator much preferring direct service and clinical work and clinical management and training but once you’ve been an executive director it’s really hard to get a job doing anything else. It’s been satisfying fixing a broken keystone nonprofit but it’s not how I want to spend my days and the small “p” politics of small-town organizing is a lot to put up with for not having a particular passion for the work or the community. I like them both, but I have a lot of interests and I like a lot of places.
So, I’ve spent some time checking out Lawrence, Topeka and Wichita as well as Atchison which is a bit closer. I’ve done all the hikes within a half hour drive and am working on the hour drive hikes. I’ve also checked out the Flint Hills and Osawatomie. I have concert tickets in Hayes Kansas to see an alt country band, 49 Winchester, in May and my grants manager is getting married in Wichita so I’ll be back down there. The Capitol with the famous John Brown mural is a must see. The John Brown Museum in Osawatomie also has some cool artifacts.
My friend Harry came out and we went to Lawrence to see mewithoutyou on their farewell tour. It was an awesome show and I saw some shows with John. Most notably the Firewater Festival with Blackberry Smoke, the Old 97’s, and 49 Winchester giving memorable performances. I did a float trip down the Missouri from Leavenworth to the next river town. I also did Hartsburg to Jeff City later in the year which was pretty fun. For my vacation I flew into Detroit over Labor Day and caught the Detroit Jazz Festival. I came early and stayed late to see my friends in the homeland.
And that friends has pretty much been my year. Mostly I’ve tried to live a humble and quiet life. I’ve given up big ambitions and focused on what’s in front of me. Overall, I’m pleased with the results. The ego gets going a bit, but I’ve gotten better about keeping it in check and will keep working on it. I’m going to stay on much the same path in the coming year but take better care of myself while doing it. By the end of the year, I should be wrapping things up and packing my things back to my house in Columbia. From there its epic road trip and finding a quiet place to hole up and write a book. I hope to blog more to keep me in the writing mode.
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