#12 – Claude Buettner: Atoms for Peace Needs Rethinking

A very conservative acquaintance once asserted to me that the primary purpose of a national government is to establish security. Our global governance system (UN, WTO, IMF…) is failing by this primal measure to guard against potential global conflicts that could be precipitated by the ever-increasing water/food/energy insecurity.
There is an inherent loophole built into the “Atoms for Peace” regime (http://www.iaea.org/About/index.html) which allows all nations the right of owning the entire production cycle of nuclear material. As Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and the presenter in our past September Forum [MN Citizens for Global Solutions “Third Thursday”], pointed out in his recent book, Target Iran (http://www.amazon.com for details), all nations including Iran have the right to process nuclear fuel for civilian use. Unfortunately, the exact same process used for enrichment of nuclear material for civilian energy use is also used for further enrichment for use in nuclear bombs for military use (merely cycle the material through the cascading centrifuges until the desired concentration is reached).
How could international law be changed to block countries from developing this technology or at least requiring all nations to submit to full supervision of the concentration phase of production? Can we imagine the US and Russia (who own 96% of all nuclear weapons according to the reputable Union of Concerned Scientists) going along with these new requirements? Can we imagine other countries agreeing to such supervision if these rules don’t apply to the US and Russia? The relationship between the US and Russia, especially on the nuclear issue, will remain pivotal if the world is to move forward on the security front.
Allen Greenspan recently said it was human nature that caused the global financial meltdown and because human nature doesn’t change a similar meltdown could occur again in the future. Hmmm…if that’s true then by the same reasoning we remain vulnerable to all-out nuclear war and the 96% of the nuclear weapons must also be seen as a greater long-term threat to civilization than the new ones coming on line. It may seem that the cycle of mass violence the past shows us is the skeleton of human history upon which the details are fleshed out. But it is social, industrial and governmental structures that make up the framework of civilization and it is war, and especially global war, that is the cancer that threatens that structure. What we need now are effective structures for peace, to use a favorite term of our late MN Citizens for Global Solutions local chapter inspiration, Stanley Platt.
It’s time to get on with the work of civilization to establish and maintain peace at the international level, even if peace is imperfect at the local level. In the same way peace among adjacent US states doesn’t completely eliminate local crimes or brawls. The higher authority of our federal courts allows even serious disputes between states to be resolved without resorting to action from the militia. This is the tradition that needs to be established at the international level.
Claude Buettner is a life member of Citizens for Global Solutions (CGS, formerly World Federalists) and the current President of the Minnesota Chapter of CGS. He’s also active in other internationally related organizations such as United Nations Association, Committee on Foreign Relations, and Minnesota International Center. He’s a salesperson for MTS Systems Corporation. He can be reached at claude101ATcomcastDOTnet.

#11 – Dick Bernard: Swine Flu, Fear, Hype and Hysteria

During 1918, my mother almost died in the WW I flu epidemic. I know because she wrote about it in her memories, thusly:
I think one of the most traumatic experiences I had happened when I was about nine years old and got the World War I flu. Many people were very sick and some died. I had a very rough siege with that flu and remember when Dr. Salvage came out in some very cold winter weather, in the middle of the night, to keep me from bleeding to death. I don’t remember what he did but I had a very high fever and was bleeding from the nose and I spit out chunks of blood. I think they thought I was gone for sure. I recovered though and it took a long while for me to regain my strength. I can remember having some wild dreams and nightmares and must have been out of my head at least part of the time. .”
Esther Bernard, Jan. 1981, page 116 of Pioneers: The Busch and Berning families of LaMoure County North Dakota.
I was seven years old when I got hepatitis and had a very rough time with that. There was no simple way to handle yellow jaundice and it had to work out of the system. I think they give blood transfusions now. I had an upset stomach for several years after that which is probably why I had such a rough time with the 1918 flu
I thought of Mom’s recollection this morning with the breaking news about the Mexican Swine Flu fears. It became big news yesterday; today’s paper had much front page coverage, including a map of the United States which showed 8 cases in Ohio, 7 in California, 2 each in Texas, , Kansas and Ohio. “It’s not a time to panic,” the White House said”, while suggestions were about that we were at a time of possible epidemic, or global pandemic. 1918 came up, as did 1957 and 1968. I wasn’t around in 1918, but I don’t remember anything about 1957 or 1968 so the grim reaper must’ve passed us by. (By the winter of 1918 Mom’s family included her parents and six children. As best as I can tell, she is the only one who got sick with the flu. The 1918 pandemic apparently mainly impacted on young adults – people 20-40. My grandparents would have been in that general age range; neither got sick.)
I don’t know all the details about 1918 and the flu epidemic. I know my grandparents had telephone then; that Dr. Salvage was in a town 10 miles away, that roads were good enough for a car to get through to most farms IF they weren’t blocked with snow, or impassable due to mud.
I don’t know what Dr. Salvage had in his medical bag when he visited Mom; I don’t know if something in that bag helped her turn the corner, or if Mom just got lucky and slowly got better. It does appear, though, from the history she and her siblings recited that at her farm the grim reaper had picked her, and only her, for attention during that awful time period. And I know, too, that in that long ago time the odds of medicine making any difference at all were much lower than today: if you got sick, you either got better or you didn’t. Other than the phone and the newspapers and word of mouth, there were no other media to really fan up the fear, such as there is today.
So, today, lots of newsprint and air time is expended to emphasize the possibility of a dire threat from a flu that has so far affected 21 people in the entire United States. (As I write, the MSN home page has updated the number to 40). People are assessing who they know who’s been to Mexico recently. I took a couple across the driveway to the airport a month or so ago, as they were enroute to a two week vacation in Mexico. A good friend recently came back from a vacation in Mexico. Should I steer clear of them till the threat passes? Will I start to see people wearing masks in grocery stores? Should I buy a mask, or get in line for Tamiflu?
What I do know is that fear sells, and sells well; and fear can rapidly turn into hysteria. And there are many who benefit from the hype, selling fear and hysteria. Of course, fear and hysteria solve nothing, but are certain realities.
Is it useful to exercise prudence in these times? Absolutely. But making it into front page news at this stage?

#10 – Marion Brady: An affirmative response to Corporate America's big "RIGOR!" push

Note from Moderator: I’ve known Marion Brady since the mid-1990s when I joined a national Quality Education listserv. For many years, Marion has been a consistent and articulate spokesperson for substantive change in how young people are educated. He was a regular columnist for a major newspaper in his home state of Florida. Recently he sent to his mailing list a most interesting power point summarizing his case. It is about 12 minutes, and the link is below. Even more recently, the same power point has been posted on YouTube. That link is also noted. Following the Power Point and YouTube links is a letter he recently sent to the new U.S. Commissioner of Education, Arne Duncan. In that letter, shared with his permission, he well defines himself.
Marion Brady’s is a voice worth listening to, and worth sharing with the public education community in the United States.
http://www.marionbrady.com/Powerpoint/WhatIsMissing.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIi_EQsQFJI
Marion Brady:
To: Dr. Arne Duncan, Secretary, U.S. Department of Education
Sir:
Respectful of your busy schedule, I’ve pulled together in summary form and am enclosing a very broad-stroke “big picture” of where I believe the social institution [public education] that’s now your responsibility has been, is now, and appears to be heading.
I’m hoping my 77 years in education as, at various times, a student, middle school teacher, high school teacher, college professor, teacher educator, textbook author, county level administrator, professional book author, publisher consultant, contributor to academic journals, paid education columnist for Knight-Ridder/Tribune, visitor to schools across America and abroad, and partner in conversations with respected educators on every continent, will prompt you to bring to the enclosed a mind open to ideas lying outside Washington’s conventional wisdom on educational matters.
What prompts me to write is the current drive to nationalize standards and tests for school subjects. For reasons I believe the enclosures [see above power point for summary presentation] make clear, if that effort is successful, among its unintended consequences will be a gutting of the ability of schools, including charter schools, to innovate sufficiently to adapt to social change and prepare the young for what will surely be a complex, challenging, and dangerous future.
I’m copying the material to others outside the field of formal education. I’ve chosen these individuals because I respect their work and their obvious commitment to the public good, and because they have what working, experienced educators no longer have-a public voice.
I can be more specific about the reasons for my choices. For me (an author of three textbooks), Jon Stewart’s “history textbook,” America (Warner Books, 2004), did for American education what his confrontation with Jim
Cramer did for CNBC, albeit with considerably more subtlety. In President Clinton’s case, he and I share an admiration for the work of the late Carroll Quigley, a professor at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, whose explanation of the dynamics and dangers of the process he called “institutionalization” is currently being ignored in education policy, a fact America will come to regret. I “knew” Quigley through a student we shared in the early 1960s. One of the enclosures, taken from the introduction to a forthcoming book I was asked to write, summarizes that institutionalization process and its applicability to the last century of education in America.
I’ve no idea whether or not these people might be willing or able to help, but I’m hoping their appreciation of the centrality of public education to societal survival, combined with perhaps a better understanding of the current educational situation, will prompt them to give serious thought to the issue and act in ways that move us closer to the goal I’m sure we all share of improving public education.
Thank you for your attention.

#9 – Tom Bernard: Columbine 10 years ago, and 10 years after

Note from Dick Bernard:
On April 20, 1999 – it was a Tuesday – I was at a meeting in suburban Minneapolis. Driving back to my office after the meeting, on the car radio, I heard about some shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton CO. I didn’t know anything about Columbine, but I knew my son, his spouse, Jennifer, and my 12 year old granddaughter Lindsay, lived in Littleton. I tried to get a map location of Columbine on the then-primitive on-line maps, and the location which came up on computer turned out to be a few miles away from what turned out to be the actual location. I was soon to learn that Columbine High School was one mile due east of their home, separated only by a park and a few streets of homes in their subdivision. That afternoon, Jennifer called to say that Lindsay was okay. Later that week, I went ahead with previous plans to take a hiking vacation in Utah the next week, with a scheduled return stopover in Littleton on May 1 and 2. During the time in Littleton the four of us spend several somber hours in a rain-soaked line going up what had been dubbed as “Cross Hill” to view the crosses erected at the top of a dirt hill dedicated to each of the victims of the shootings. It was a powerful time. We reached the crosses at the same time as the celebrated TV preacher, Dr. Robert Schuller. I had huge respect for Dr. Schuller. Sixteen years earlier his sermon, Tough Times Don’t Last, Tough People Do, had saved my emotional life, literally.
The day after the shootings, my son Tom Bernard, wrote his immediate impressions of April 20, 1999. They appear below, with his permission, preceded by a short commentary written by him on April 19, 2009.
Here are his comments, the most recent, first:
Tom Bernard
Littleton, April 19, 2009

GAZING INTO THE MIRROR
Ten years ago, our family walked with hundreds of neighbors to the hills surrounding Columbine High School. It was surreal and intense. Everyone that was touched by the event, so close to home, carries the hurt from it to this day. The shared tragedy brought everyone together for a short time, as we all wrestled with the magnitude of the days events. We needed each other, not to discuss, not to blame, just to see in a strangers eyes the same confusion and fear that we were feeling. We needed to know that we were not alone. Columbine was a shared tragedy like many before it, unique to the human experience. We can look back to grainy black and white photos of Lincoln’s funeral procession and see in the eyes of the mourners a very real and profound connection with ourselves. The deaths of Kennedy, King, Kennedy again, Lennon, The crew of Challenger, all the way to September 11, 2001, were common in their effect on society. For a moment, we all stopped yelling and rushing, ignoring and patronizing, judging and blaming. For a time far too short, we stood together quietly and accepted our shared loss. The lessons ignored in these tragedies is not contained in the event itself. The lessons reside in everyone around them. The quiet of the shared pain is quickly and inevitably replaced with yelling and rushing, ignoring and patronizing, judging and blaming. The community splinters into its preferred cliques, all smug and self assured that they are not the problem, its obviously the other guys. As time speeds by, the time of quiet community grows shorter with every passing shock. Columbine was story of youthful alienation, rejection, and social separation. It was the end for the casualties that day. And for the rest of us, it could be a new beginning, or it could be the beginning of the end.
Tom Bernard
Littleton, April 21, 1999

Today was anything but usual. The sun rose and was bright as ever, the sky was a brilliant blue, and the foothills to the west were coming to life in subtle greens. Puddles, our new puppy, woke me as usual, warm snout on my cheek. I rose slowly and went downstairs. The television was still on the same story, 8 hours later. Katie Couric was welcoming the new day from Clement Park, a short 5 minute walk from my front door. The long night had given the television crews plenty of time to sift thru interviews, footage and facts. The whole country (and most of the world) needed to know. I hoped to myself they were ready to listen.
Yesterday was April 20, Tuesday, senior skip day. I was locked into a 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. shift at Piccolos [the restaurant Tom managed]. Lunch was uneventful, very slow…Around 1:30 I noticed a group of employees standing under the television near the bar. I looked up. The trailer at the bottom of the screen stopped me in my tracks…”GUNFIRE AT LITTLETON HIGH SCHOOL…POSSIBLE HOSTAGES.”
My jaw dropped. I was not worried so much about Lindsay, she is still in Middle School. It was the area. I didn’t know which school it was at first…but my fears were realized. This was less than 1 mile from my front door. For the next two hours I paced, sat, tried to keep occupied as the story grew worse and worse. I tried to equate the situation with some past experience to make it easier to take. I found nothing to hide behind. This was new. This was bizarre. This was….
The next few hours were a blur. We had a busy dinner, the casual attitude of the diners upset me. Few people showed any interest in the news reports. I heard some reports and said almost nothing to anyone. A young hostess was laughing and joking around. She told me to smile and it will all be fine. I snapped a bit and said “I have too much on my mind…I will smile later, I promise!” She huffed a bit and walked away. The night finished and I went to pick up Lindsay at [sister-in-law] Julie’s house. I drove in dead silence. I could not bear the sound of another voice, and music was out of the question [Tom loves music and is a musician]. Lindsay was fine. She didn’t have much to say about the shooting. I doubt at 12 she really understands the magnitude of the event. We talked a bit and Lindsay went to bed. I sat up awhile and went to an AOL chatroom to talk, and listen, and maybe make some sense of it all. I met a couple of nice people in the room, and stayed up till 2.
As I said, today [Wednesday] was anything but usual. The stories, one after another, left me in tears. I knew these people. I did not know their names, but they live in my subdivision, shop in my stores, eat at my McDonalds. On a side note, last week I went for lunch at McDonalds and sat in a booth next to who I believe were the two killers and a friend.
The television was on nonstop coverage all day. President Clinton considered a trip here, but declined because it would be disruptive. Gov. Owens announced that all weapons bills before the legislature had been shelved indefinitely. The blood bank turned away 200+_ people and asked that they return another day. Makeshift memorials appeared everywhere anyone had been seen in pain. Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and at least 2- remote news feeds from various cities were broadcasting from Clement Park. I was still not convinced that anything would change.
About 6 o’clock, we decided to go lay some flowers at the memorial at Clement Park. The storm was moving in fast, wind and rain kicking up, and I had never felt so cold. The traffic was backed up, so we parked at a nearby restaurant and walked the ½ mile to the memorial. The lake was cold and angry, the sky dark and colourless. The people walked together, old, hippies, yuppies, trench coats, and jocks to the site of the memorials. Closer to the memorial there were news trucks from at least 15 cities, wires taped everywhere. I counted at least a dozen cameramen going about their business, and an equal number of well coifed anchors preparing to do their gig. I was not prepared to be there.
I read some of the messages on the paper chain surrounding the memorial. There was no anger, no hate, no blame, only hope and love. I saw a young girl, no more than 16, emotionally broken and crying on the shoulder of her friend. I saw a teachers car, covered with flowers, surround by students huddled and praying together. I saw students from 20 different schools, together in the knowledge that it could have been any of them. I saw, for the first time, hope.
[A writing apparently read by Denver Mayor Wellington Webb]
“No one can make sense of a thing like this.
No one can make the pain go away
All we can do is this:
Pray for those who have lost their loved ones
Hug your own child a little tighter
Hug another child who may not get enough love
Hug someone who is different from you
Teach your children to do the same.”

The storm is rolling in, pray for those who will never share the warmth of home with family again.”
Postscript from Dick Bernard, April 20, 2009:
The same day Tom wrote his account, April 21, 1999, I was at an all-day training session in a Minneapolis suburb with perhaps fifteen school public relations professionals. As I recall, the topic of Littleton did not come up until the end of the day when someone remarked that they were relieved that their assignment did not include the public relations nightmare that was Littleton (Jefferson County School District). There was agreement round about, until I mentioned that my son and family lived only a mile from the high school. It was at that moment that one of many learnings took root with each of us: there are no boundaries in this world of ours. The crisis at Littleton did not stop at school district, town, state or country lines. We were all in this together.
Shortly after the tragedy, someone from another state constructed simple large wooden crosses to remember the dead from April 20. The crosses were planted atop a pile of dirt just to the west of the school building, between Clement Park and the schools athletic fields, and became “Cross Hill”. The crosses themselves became controversial in that the builder planted crosses not only for the victims of the shootings, but for the two killers as well. By the time I walked up Cross Hill more than a week later, the two crosses for the killers had been cut down and removed. A message remains from that happening as well….

#8 – Dick Bernard: Susan Boyle, and "Cynical", "Tiger" and "I dreamed a dream"….

Susan Boyle, Britains Got Talent, April 11, 09. A great gift… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY.
To be as clear as I can be: Susan Boyle’s performance on Britains Got Talent on April 11 was stunning and real. She was so good, but the lead-up made her sound so unlikely to be as outstanding as she was, that I struggled a bit. But it didn’t take long to accept that what I was hearing was true: Susan Boyle was very, very real real.
Here is how the feelings evolved for me, and how I see them as applying to all of us in our very cynical and untrusting society.
ABC Evening News with Charlie Gibson on Tuesday afternoon, April 14, was my first contact with Susan Boyle. The last item was the piece on her appearance on the popular British show. From the first note, hers was a stunning and moving performance by a common country girl, her skeptical audience “turned on a dime” and was cheering unceasingly. I’m “country” to the core, and I felt huge pride in her performance.
I sought out the clip and found it on YouTube. At the time I seem to recall there had been something over 2 million views (as I write this, it’s over 12 million). I had noticed, even on the ABC clip, a slight difference between Susan’s mouth movement and the music, but I noticed the same difference in the other speakers, so I simply interpreted it as a synchronization problem, which I know is common in early edits of video. Still, the performance was so wonderful as to be hard to believe.
Overnight Monday night came an e-mail from a friend urging me to look at the video, from a different source than the one I had found.
Within a few hours everything mitigated toward the reality of Susan, her background, her outstanding voice, her dream. I sent the link on in the morning. At that time there had been 5 million views. Later, on Wednesday, I found Susan to be on the cover of my MSN page on the internet.
I received a few e-mail comments, which follow this piece. I had no doubts.
I’m still awestruck. Some observations:
1) Susan Boyle is, in my view, a shero of the first order. She did what very few of us would ever consider doing. She knew that she was good, but she also knew that she would be subject to the withering and “cynical” view of the panel and audience on the program. She went out there anyway, and represented all of us “commoners” in a most remarkable and real way. I share the feelings of one of those who commented (below): I hope that in the process of marketing her talent, her handlers will not try to remake her from what she is, a Scottish village lady who loves to sing.
2) Susan also represents to me our society’s tendency to dismiss reality in favor of fantasy. The expression “don’t judge a book by its cover” comes to mind. But we are always looking for the cover, first: the resume, the reputation…. Ironically, had Susan come out on stage with a fancy “cover”, sophisticated-looking, made-up and all, in the latest fashions, then we would have seen an image, and, even if she sang exactly the same, the judges and the audience would have probably looked for flaws in her vocal performance.
3) My guess is that most of us are prone to fantasy. It’s how we’ve been “made-up” by our life experience, especially in the age of television and beyond. We’re taught “slick”. Or, even more, we’re taught to stay in our place, our “class”.
4) Susan Boyle and Britains Got Talent, and ABC and MSN and all the rest, demonstrate another truth: both the sophisticated media and we unwashed masses need each other, and provide benefits to each other. There needs to be some kind of a “truce”. Without the opportunity presented by Britains Got Talent, Susan would never have had the opportunity to be seen by what is already tens of millions of people. Without big media – ABC and MSN and many others – I never would have seen her performance. She would have been hidden in her Scottish village.
5) It is the Susan’s of the world who make life worth living. Her success is something we can and should celebrate. In our own ways, we can all be Susan in our own places!
Congratulations to a true diva cut from common cloth!
*
Some early comments received:
Apr 15 09 12:11 a.m. “Check out the above site to hear the American idol lady from England…a real treat and inspiration to late bloomers everywhere.”
*
Apr 15 8:14 a.m. “Wow. When did this happen? I just hope they don’t remake her. I like her as she is. Half the happiness is the surprise.
*
Apr 15 6:04 a.m. “ I’m not the ultimate cynic, I loved this video, but I frankly wonder if it isn’t lip-synched. In the first two lines, I saw disparity between the timing of sound and lips. And a couple other times going through.
*
Apr 16 7:37 a.m. “The Susan Boyle thing is quite a phenomenon. (I will admit that when I
first viewed it and I didn’t watch the whole thing, when I saw the guy off stage say something like “you didn’t expect that did you?”…. my internet skepticism was raised and I started surmising it was some type of scam with lip synching involved…. goes to show you how easily one can become skeptical in the modern world)….

This came just at the right moment…I watched “Tootsie” last night (25th anniversary edition) and there was a special feature afterwards on the making of the film in which Dustin Hoffman talks about how he felt to learn what it was like to be an unattractive woman in a society that doesn’t tolerate it. He cried while talking about it (maybe he was acting) but it was very moving to see; he said he had never realized how callous men are to homely women and how many doors shut in their faces without giving them a chance. He said for some reason the world forgives ugly men, but not women.
This singer must have never tried wholeheartedly, knowing that. Good for her, giving it one last go.”
We’ll see if anything comes out on this. I hope not, but if it does…
I’ve thought of another possibility, i.e. it may well be Boyle’s voice. But she would have sung this song many times to the same taped accompaniment, and they could have used a singing of it which was not the one in front of the crowd. I don’t know.”
My first take on this is that it is symptomatic of the recession, instead of high flying rich and famous types being idolized, people are seeing the quintessential “everywoman” who is something special. Is this hyper populism? On a psycho-social note the other thing is the interesting expose of human disposition toward expectations based on visual inspection. Can a middle aged, overweight, non hip person possibly be talented? Very interesting comment on human nature in my opinion.”
Update – May 24, 2009
The performance which led to this post on April 16, 2009, has now been viewed by 60,000,000.  Last night Susan Boyle won the highest number of votes in the next round.
Update June 1, 2009
Susan came in second in the final round, May 30, 2009.  As of this date, her video has been seen 65,000,000 times, the fifth largest viewership ever on YouTube. 
 
 

#7 – Dick Bernard: Thoughts on Taxation and Taxes

Since this is about taxes, the bottom line is at the end of this writing.
Today is Tax Day, April 15, 2009, the annual celebration of the loathing of taxes. This day there will be a new spin on an old theme: “Tea Parties”, apparently well organized and heavily publicized by certain media (thus, not spontaneous “breaking news”), and supposedly grassroots protests against the tyranny of “taxation [with] representation”, in the model of the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1773.
It will make no difference to the angry orators and sign carriers today that U.S. taxes have always been enacted by representatives we imperfectly select. Those who dislike certain of their taxes will be doing a bit of street theatre today, and some probably even believe that some king from some foreign land is confiscating their goods.
(I have watched demonstrations for years, and been in some, and I’ll see how those in our area today compare with others I can remember). Almost without doubt, they will garner far more publicity than they warrant.
“Taxes” is a complicated issue, certainly not to be covered in a short essay.
In the end analysis, taxes are necessary and most everyone knows it. The pushing and shoving politically is around whether or not we should be asked to pay a little more, or a little less, and what our taxes will be used for. In my thinking, taxes are the dues we pay for living in a reasonably civilized society.
Every year I file taxes. This year was no different. This year was particularly interesting.
Monday, March 30, was our appointment with our tax man. I went in anticipating that we might owe as much as $4000 on federal and state. When we left, we were told we’d get a net refund of $21.
Odd how it is: We owed as much taxes walking in the door, as we did walking out, but not owing the $4000 made it seem like a refund. No, we haven’t rushed out and spent it – yet!
Earlier that same day, March 30, 2009, a guy had his mug shot on the front page of the Minneapolis paper. The headline was “Path from non-conformist cop to anti-tax adviser led to prison”. The guy hated taxes and will go to prison “for filing false tax returns and showing others illegal ways to avoid paying their taxes.”
The headline and story reminded me of the video someone gave me purporting to prove that the Internal Revenue Service is illegal, and that there thus can be no consequences for not paying taxes – they are, after all, “voluntary”. There’s even a “gotcha” sequence where a “reporter” makes a prominent politician squirm by demanding that he show the law where it says we have to pay taxes. The politician – a Republican if that makes any difference – looks like the deer in the headlights. It’s one of those “can’t win for losing” moments. The paraphrase: “Yes, you can go to jail for not paying taxes, , but I won’t show you where it says that taxation is legal.”
As previously stated, in my view, taxes are the dues we pay for living in a reasonably orderly society. There are lots of taxes I don’t like – I could get along without paying a substantial part of that one-third of my total tax bill that goes to “Defense”, for instance. But a society where each person could pick and choose what to pay for, and how much, would be a society in anarchy and chaos, and I’m not sure we’d relish that day. So, we choose to complain about what is, in effect, one of the essentials that makes our lives and the lives of others manageable. We have the best of all worlds: we can complain about it, without the accompanying responsibility to fix it.
So, how much taxes does the Bernard household pay? I’ve been interested in this bottom line for a number of years.
We are reasonably ordinary members of that massive class called “Middle”. We live pretty moderately.
When all the “pushing and shoving” of numbers was finished on March 30, about 7 ½% of our income went to Uncle Sam; and about 3 ½ % to our state. Our Federal and State tax burden was 11% of our gross income.
All things considered, I don’t consider that a terribly big dues.
Of course, there are all sorts of assorted tariffs and fees and even taxes that aren’t reflected in the federal and state numbers, including some purported taxes that are not taxes at all, like withholding for social security insurance and medicare premiums (that I paid for years, and now benefit from). On this tax day they’ll all be lumped in to one big crate, and by some magic by the end of the day it will seem that most of our money goes to taxes. That’s just how the game is played.
Bottom line: A whole lot of perfectly good tea bags will be wasted today. Some would want to decrease our tax burden from, say, 11% to 10%; others think our society (and ourselves) would benefit more if the tax bite was 12%. Great amounts of pious rhetoric will continue to be expended on all sides. Me? I wouldn’t miss the extra 1% – it could do a lot of good. My life wouldn’t be better with 1% extra in my pocket.

#6 – Anne M. Dunn: SUGAR BUSH VOICES 2009

UPDATE SEP 5, 2013: Other posts by Anne Dunn: May 3, 2009; Dec 13, 2012, July 18, 2013. Anne is also featured in this post about a concert at La Farm Aug. 31, 2013
Those who gather maple sap can name the signs that tell them when it’s time to tap the trees. Many will say the sap begins to rise when warm days are followed by freezing nights. This is true and this we know.
But I prefer the sign my mother waited for. She used to tell me, “When the box elders begin to weep, it’s time to tap the maples.”
So I spent some time looking up into the branches of the tall box elders that surrounded our old house (on tract 33, Cass Lake, MN). Sometimes I would listen for their weeping in the night but Mom said they wept in the warmth of the afternoon. Then one day it happened that a box elder tear fell upon my upturned face and I knew that what she said was true. The box elders were weeping.
So this year when we drove out to the sugar bush camp and parked the car at the end of the tar I was keenly aware of the privilege I had of entering this small but rich domain. Once again I was greeted by sugar bush voices.
The great white pines reach high into the April sky, poised and waiting for the wind. One after another they join their voices as the song moves from tree to tree. I raise my hands and touch the sighing breath around me before stepping off toward the camp. As my boots crush the snow beneath each step, new and unique voices rise around my feet. It’s many steps to the camp and the icy songs enrich my journey.
Everyone is out emptying catch cans so I am alone at the fire. I put a sprig of cedar on the coals for symbolic cleansing and wash my hands in the smoke. The excited voices of the flaming tongues offer their fiery poems.
Later I take a bucket and go out among the trees. I put down a bit of tobacco and than Creator for the generous gift of nourishing sap. Then I empty a can into the bucket, re-hang the can and listen as the sap drops sing against the metal. After emptying and re-hanging several cans I listen to this sweet song of life. When all the cans are emptied we return to camp and our varied voices join the chorus.
The crackling fire must be fed. So someone begins splitting wood. The boiling sap sizzles, bubbles and hisses. Of course, these lyrical voices are also blended into the sugar bush symphony.
The shouts and laughter of playful children punctuate the great song. Then a weary child is lifted into the blanket swing and the rope squeaks against the bark of the supporting trees. A grandmother sings a soft lullaby and leans into the swing to kiss the little one. The child smiles once, the eyelids flutter and close.
When the sap is boiled down to syrup it’s poured into a clean bucket, covered with a dishtowel and carried back to the road. It’s been a warm day and the snow has melted. Now the boots make sucking sounds as we follow one another through the mud. A nation of small birds flyover us and their thin raspy songs trail behind them.
I listen carefully for the voices of the ancestors whispering around us as we leave with our precious gift. They are saying that even in the midst of great and widespread change the sugar bush voices remain the same.
Postscript April 12, 2009: We pulled the taps today and called an end to the gathering of sap. We usually do that when the buds are as big as squirrel ears. But it has been an abundant flow and we have all we need. Tomorrow we return for a final boil and I will use the last bucket to make sugar.
Anne
Anne M. Dunn is an Anishinabe-Ojibwe grandmother storyteller and published author. She makes her home in rural Deer River, MN, on the Leech Lake Reservation. She can be reached at twigfigsATyahooDOTcom

#5 – Dick Bernard: What will be left for our Grandchildren and their descendants? Do we think long or short-term, or not at all?

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Today our Congresswoman is holding a town hall meeting quite certainly aimed at stopping something called “Cap and Trade” which, she says in a recent op ed, is a “tax [that] would require energy producers and businesses to pay to emit carbon emissions in the hope of reducing greenhouse gases.”
I plan to attend the meeting. [See postscript, which follows below, written April 10.]
The Congresswomans focus seems completely on the present: taxes, jobs, cost of gasoline, government regulation. There is nothing apparent in her remarks that exhibit concern for the future generations, those who will pay big time for our countries short-sightedness now and, indeed, in the past. We continue to live as if there is no tomorrow, and we seem to have forgotten that our kids, grandkids, their cohort worldwide, and their descendants after them, will have to live (and die) with what we have left them.
Below is my small contribution to the “cap and trade” conversation that I will, at minimum, leave with the Congresswoman.
My feelings of concern are elevated by the fact that earlier today I spent a couple of hours with a third grade grandson at his school. (Today they were having an international day, and my class hour was spent learning about China from a young woman who grew up in Beijing. It was very interesting.)
Here is my very brief summary of the history of energy in our country (and by extension the world.)
“Peaks”
? – Peak use of trees as source of fuel and light.
1847 – Peak Whale Oil* (for lamps and such).
1859 – Oil business begins in western Pennsylvania
U.S. population then was 10% of today
Early 1900s – Commercial production of horseless carriages
U.S. population was about one-fourth of today
Five present states were not yet in the Union
1927 – U.S. wells pump 75% of world’s oil supply**
No activity in Arabian peninsula.
2000s – Peak Oil passes – now its all “down hill”***
U.S. population exceeds 300,000,000
with about 250,000,000 motorized vehicles
Do we pay now, or do we pay later? In my mind, there is no doubt which should be chosen, unless we truly don’t care about those descendants springing from our generation.
Notes:
* – Penn State Professor Richard Alley of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change www.ipcc.ch  (from his talk to school kids at Augsburg Nobel Peace Prize Festival Minneapolis March 5, 2009. His informative talk is on YouTube.  See http://www.peacesites.org/educators/nobelfestival for a link to the talk.)
** – recollection after looking at a 1927 Encyclopedia Britannica in London late October, 2001.
*** – Major editorial in Minneapolis Star Tribune August 27, 2005.
Postscript after the Congresswoman’s session:
I attended the entire session which appeared to attract about 300 people. The main presenter was a representative of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an oil-company backed think tank. It was hard to ascertain the makeup of the crowd since proceedings were tightly controlled, including police presence. No signs were permitted, and only written questions were accepted – and only a few of those made the cut. The presentation was predictable, almost impossible to take notes, full of sarcasm and a good sized enemies list. It was devoid of proposed solutions. It was against, not for.
I left the session with some dominant thoughts:
1) I wouldn’t (and didn’t) change any of what I wrote prior to the meeting (see above).
2) “Global warming” and its impact may be impossible to tie down with precision, but the accumulation of evidence through science is not wise to ignore or dismiss or ridicule. Humankind may well be courting disaster through its own actions (and inactions) and, worse, these errors in judgment are not reversible by man. We had one chance to do it right. I think the advocates sounding the alarm about global climate change have a stronger argument, and the public is listening. People are not at all sure we are in routine times. Industry knows this. Big business is far more culpable than ordinary people for the problem since it has and had greater research capacity, but simple culpability (blaming) will not solve the problem. That’s for all of us.
3) Scarcity of elements essential to contemporary society like fossil fuels are easier to quantify and, thus, to use as warnings to the public.
4) As I was leaving the parking lot I got to thinking about desperately poor Haiti (which got a couple of sarcastic mentions from the speaker – and chuckles from some in the audience). Haiti was one of Christopher Columbus’ early stops about 1492. After its discovery, it was a treasure trove of natural resource, ripe for the picking. It was a source of great wealth for France. The Spanish first, then the French and finally we Americans, “raped, looted and pillaged” the Caribbean island into a corpse of its former self. A too-cold-to-live-in Haiti is where our developed countries are ultimately heading, in my opinion. Once our resources are gone, or too expensive to recover or purchase, we end. And this could happen sooner than later.
5) We are well advised to listen to, take seriously, and prepare for the worst case scenarios, especially as they relate to resource scarcity, especially fossil fuels.
6) We are also well advised to work hard and sacrifice now for a better than expected future. This is no time to give up.
A recommendation:
I would also urge readers to check http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/  and take the time to watch the entire “crash course” which requires 2-3 hours, in very manageable time segments of from a couple of minutes, to 15 or so. It comes highly recommended by a friend who is analytical, not partisan and not prone to overreaction. Check out the about page for the credentials of the author of the seminar then make your own decision.
Chris Martenson ultimately talks about 20 years out from now; the grandson I visited in school yesterday (one of many in my constellation) will be 29 then. It makes one think.

#4 – Dick Bernard: The 2009 Red River Flood as Messenger

Just 250 miles northwest of where I type, a local crisis, a threatened flood in the Red River Valley, is occurring which pleads for a dialogue dealing with long term and global implications. The news focus will be on the immediate and the local (saving someone’s home, etc.). Once the crisis passes, and the damage assessed, most will return to business as usual…until the next local crisis, wherever that happens to occur.
As I write, Fargo-Moorhead and the Red River Valley are between crests of threatened devastating floods. It would appear, because of two separate crests, that the Valley may dodge a disastrous flood in 2009, only a dozen years after the huge floods of late April 1997 which came a month later in the spring. Heavy snow, plus an early thaw this year, and a very close call with high waters in late March, may have helped avert a greater disaster in coming days. Time will tell.
Some would say that this flood and other catastrophes are random acts of nature; others would say there is evidence of the consequence of global warming. Other culprits can be claimed to be urban development, farmers draining their fields, people living in places they shouldn’t live, dikes interfering with the normal course of high water, just plain bad weather – the previous record flood, after all, was in 1897…. Of course, someone wrote a letter to the editor of the Fargo paper that God was punishing a certain clinic in Fargo….
As instant events go, any individuals speculation is as good as anyone else’s. Most of us simply don’t have the needed “data”, or we simply pick and choose what it is we wish to believe. Fantasy works, for a while, anyway.
*
The 2009 flooding, which began about March 25, caused me to think back to three past events which are – in my mind at least – related to the news about Fargo-Moorhead and the Red River Valley.
1. In mid-August 2005, I completed a major revision of a family history of my mother’s side of the family. Included in the text was a new chapter on a treasure-trove of letters from 1905-06 found in the attic of the old North Dakota farm house where my mother grew up. The letters had come from my Grandparents kin and others in rural Wisconsin, mostly from Grandma’s six sisters. There were over 100 of them.
The letters were very interesting. One of the letters dated July 13, 1905, said “Sunday, Maggie and Ida had a horse for themselves to church and they met an automobile and she tied the horse to a rail fence but the horse dident move and Ann Miller was in with them and she was hollering let me out.” (p. 20)
The automobile they met was a curiosity, including to the horse. The comment reminds that even in our short history, cars are a new-fangled thing.
By 2005, the automobile had long been ubiquitous in our society; the weather has seemed to be changing markedly. Significant changes? Your choice.
I was printing the book, literally, when the August 27, 2005, Minneapolis Star Tribune had a long editorial entitled “Oil’s peak: The end may be nearer, it seems.” I decided to include the editorial as an insert with the book. I put a hand-written note on the margin of the editorial: “…and we can’t ignore Hurricane Katrina & possibilities that hurricanes and such might connect to Global warming.”
The day after I mailed the book, Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.
“As we speak”, in 2009, stuff is still whirring around the internet about how dumb and shiftless those people in New Orleans were for living there in the first place, for not saving themselves when the hurricane was bearing down on them, and for not relying on their own resources for their recovery.
A similar narrative is unlikely about Fargo and the flood-prone Red River Valley. Indeed, the North Dakota and Minnesota officials have already asked for massive federal aid to repair and prepare for the next flood…. There is no serious thought about relocating Fargo-Moorhead to the east or to the west to mitigate against future flood problems.
*
2. On March 5, 2009, I attended the annual Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Speaking to over 500 school kids that morning, Professor Richard Alley of Pennsylvania State University packed a huge amount of content into eight entertaining and enlightening minutes. (His complete talk to the youngsters and a summary video of the Festival will be on YouTube soon.).
Professor Alley is one of a team of thousands of scientists who form the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change http://www.ipcc.ch/, and who co-won, with Al Gore, the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on climate change.
Professor Alley’s message to the kids on the issue was succinct: he came, he said, from Pennsylvania, whose name means “Penn’s Woods”. He gave a little history lesson starting with a chart of the Mesa Verde settlement in southwest Colorado: human activity and population there were controlled entirely by available water. If there was water, there were people; no water, no people.
In early Pennsylvania, wood was the first reliable fuel; then it became Whale Oil for lamps. “Peak Whale Oil” came in 1847, he said.
The oil age really began when the first oil well was drilled in western Pennsylvania in 1859, only 150 years ago this year. Someone 75 years old has lived a “half-life” of this Fossil Fuel era. And we’ve passed the Peak, and the demand for energy guarantees a more rapid and uncertain downhill slope.
*
3. In October, 2001, we were staying at a bed and breakfast in London. In the hallway was a 1927 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. One day I looked at the section on petroleum. My recollection is that the Britannica said, that in that era the U.S. produced 75% of the worlds petroleum, and even though oil had been discovered and recovered in many places by then, the only major producer elsewhere was an oil field in Persia (now Iran). The Middle East countries? None of them appeared on the chart.
*
Times have changed, and circumstances as well. In 1859, the U.S. population was roughly one-tenth of today’s, and motor vehicles not even a dream. In 1905, there were only 45 states and roughly one-fourth of today’s population. Cars were a curiosity. Today we have over 300,000,000 people in our country alone, and there are over 800 motorized vehicles per 1000 population (2004 data).
We don’t have 150 years to get our act together. We may not even have ten. Our addiction is killing us.
Is climate change a myth, or an ominous trend? Are we running out of affordable fossil fuel? What do we do about our insatiable appetite for “fossil algae” (Oil)? What cause in the matter of climate change are we as humans? What are the consequences for those who follow us? It should matter to us.
How we answer those questions is our choice. Our descendants will experience the consequences.
To dismiss the Fargo-Moorhead floods, and other facts as being simply local events is to be short-sighted. We have to pay attention and act.

#3 – Dick Bernard: Binghamton NY April 3, 2009

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It wasn’t until late afternoon on Friday that I learned any details of the latest gun-related tragedy, this time in Binghamton NY. Thirteen dead, plus the shooter; four critically injured; possibly some cause and effect of the shooter having recently lost his job for some unknown reason; an apparent pre-meditated intention to kill as many as possible by blocking the door through which people might escape. It was all horrific.
As I write, Saturday morning, April 4, the facts are beginning to emerge: the shooter had two pistols on him, both registered firearms; he’s Vietnamese, apparently a U.S. citizen for decades; apparently knew well the place where he killed the thirteen people, most of them studying for citizenship…. The stories and analysis are just beginning.
Full disclosure: small arms were around me when I was growing up. Shooting gophers when they were pests on the North Dakota prairies was something I was accustomed to: their tails were worth a nickel, a lot of money to a kid, then. A bunch of us kids were playing with my Dad’s 22 calibre rifle when I was perhaps nine. It was hanging in the garage, and it was off-limits…. There was a bullet in the chamber; it went off; luckily nobody was killed (we were lucky). Dad and Mom never knew of that close call.
In the Army, I qualified as Expert with the M-1 Rifle. Thankfully I never had to use my skills. I have never owned a gun, or had an interest in purchasing one, and to the best of my recollection haven’t shot one since the Army days. There’s never been a gun in a home of mine. I have no issue against hunters and hunting in the traditional sense of that word: shotguns, regular rifles, licenses….
The national debate for years has gone far beyond the lines I describe above. We are an armed and very dangerous nation of far too many people armed to the teeth, wallowing in fear and resentment of this, that or the other.
Binghamton, April 3, 2009, could well be the tip of a very large iceberg.
I decided, last night, to check in on the two “poles” of our nation’s fascination/obsession with guns and other weapons to see how they were spinning Binghamton: the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign. www.nra.org and www.bradycampaign.org. As of 8 a.m. this morning, NRA does not have a word on what happened in Binghamton; as of last night, the Brady Campaign had commented. You can visit their website, and they can speak for themselves.
Even before the reports on Binghamton, I’ve seen scraps of information. One of the news reports I heard mentioned that in this country of 300,000,000, there are 250,000,000 firearms. The ban on assault weapons has apparently sun-setted; till yesterday afternoon there was no real interest in gun legislation…there are other bigger problems to deal with. Gun and ammunition sales are sky-rocketing in this country. We are awash in dangerous arms. The “Gun Lobby” is feared by politicians.
April 2, 2009 – a day before Binghamton – a New York Times editorial commented on a last minute federal regulation issued in December 2008 making concealed loaded guns legal in our national parks and wildlife refuges. “In December, ignoring proper procedure and the risk to public safety, the Bush administration rushed through regulations allowing people to carry concealed, loaded guns in national parks and wildlife refuges.” (The NRA website posted a commentary on that issue from a Joshua Tree, California, newspaper.) A Judge just threw out the rule, calling it “astoundingly flawed”. It remains to be seen if the court ruling will be appealed by the new administration.
And the top headline in yesterday’s Minneapolis paper, hours before Binghamton, was simple and stark: “Was this gun in the hand of Fong Lee when he was fatally shot by a Minneapolis police officer? Or was the weapon planted at the scene? One shooting. Two stories.”
Guns do make excellent partners for crime: A week or so ago Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking in Mexico, made news north of Mexico’s border when she observed that most of the weaponry in the current drug wars in Mexico came from U.S. sources; as did most of the demand for the illegal drugs which has precipitated the violence over drug territories in Mexico.
Those who revere gun rights will begin again reciting the mantra: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people”, and the like. Of course, concealed hand guns make killing easier.
We love our guns, and other unhealthy things.