#183 – Dick Bernard: The Politics of Energy, and Everything else

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“The perfect is the enemy of the good.”
Voltaire
Earlier today, my spouse asked me what I thought of President Obamas just-announced approach to energy policy. His administration is apparently open to new, but limited, off-shore drilling for oil, including it in a package of other (in my reading) more important initiatives. This is a strategy I’ve already heard being vigorously criticized: his proposal, it is said, will only represent a drop in the bucket solution for the huge energy problem our society faces; it’s the wrong approach; etc. Once again, it is suggested, he is deserting his base.
I see his strategy, coupled with other far more important proposals for things like increasing energy efficiency, etc., to be a very wise one. Rather than exposing weakness, he is, I feel, demonstrating strength. Rather than looking only at the short term, he is looking much further down the road. His position is the opposite of what many perceive it to be. He is pursuing a goal along the route of the possible, rather than the ideal.
He knows he is facing an opposition in the Congress which voted unanimously in opposition to a health care reform which included many elements they supported. Their unified “no” vote had only one principle behind it: to defeat (and hopefully weaken) the President. Now with passage of the initiative the truth is coming out, including the need of the opposition to re-calibrate its strategy, including trying to figure out how to refashion their unanimous opposition to the health care reform initiative into, somehow, making health care reform, including the bill which passed, seem like their own idea.
This is how the extremely hard ball game of national politics is played.
A while back I was commenting to someone about the reality I see in todays Washington, and Obama’s approach to it. President Obama comes from an organizing background, I observed. “People don’t understand Organizers; Organizers understand people.”
Changing the rules of engagement in the rough and tumble and very nasty game of contemporary politics in this country is a very tall order. Most everybody who cares is accustomed to a certain way of doing the business of politics, and has difficulty understanding that there might be another way to approach solving problems that threaten our very societies long term existence.
Perhaps it would be nice to just throw out what has been in place for years, and take a totally principled position for a truly alternative national policy. Politically, that just won’t work. Too many of us really do crave a “drill, baby, drill” approach to energy (and most everything else). We want rights without responsibilities or consequences. The present is all that matters; the future is somebody elses problem. About the only strategy that will work with a majority of our citizenry is an incremental approach, and that is, I believe, what the Obama administration is about.
I’m among those who think that our U.S. society is like a present day Titanic, racing full speed ahead into an iceberg and disaster, intentionally oblivious of the danger ahead.
Most of us don’t want to see that iceberg coming. At least there’s now someone in the pilot house working to change our course.
I’m glad for that.

#182 – Dick Bernard: The Honourable Alan King-Hamilton

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Alan King-Hamilton died in suburban London on March 23. He was 105. I learned of his death in a phone call from his daughter, Mary. She suggested that the Telegraph had a good obituary of her Dad. The obit catches him well.
It was, to greatly overstate the case, unlikely that I would ever have known, much less met in person, Mr. King-Hamilton. His career included many years as a Judge in London’s famed criminal court, the Old Bailey.
Nonetheless, back in early November, 2001, at the Royal Air Force Officers Club in London, we met Judge Hamilton for tea, and there ensued a continuing friendship until recent years when he became more frail.
That a North Dakota country kid would ever meet a London Judge was at best unlikely. The unexpected journey began in June, 1982, when my Dad and I and four others travelled to Quebec and took dorm rooms at Laval University. At our first meal there we met a lady with a British accent who was travelling solo, and we invited her to join us for a couple of days as we explored my Dad’s ancestral haunts in and around Quebec City.
It wasn’t until sometime later that I found out that the lady, Mary King-Hamilton, was the daughter of a retired English Judge, and it wasn’t until later still, on a trip to England in early November, 2001, that we learned that King-Hamilton was not just another judge, but one who had presided over some of the best known criminal trials during his time on the bench. Some years earlier, we learned that her grandfather, Alan’s father, was member #11 of the British Motor Club, the granddaddy of all Auto Associations.
Mary showed us around her world, including getting us a pass to view an Old Bailey trial in progress.
We went to Middle Temple, the hundreds of years old enclave reserved to members of the English Bar, thanks to the Judge.
In the library at Middle Temple, I saw a book which King-Hamilton had authored, and riffing through it saw two words, “North Dakota”, something which immediately drew my interest.
In 1927, he was President of the Cambridge Union Debating Society, and he and two fellow debaters came to the U.S. under the auspices of a program later to be known as Fulbright Scholarships, and during the Fall of 1927 they debated at about 30 different colleges and universities in the Midwest and Western U.S., and in Canada. Their second stop was at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, where my father was then living. In fact, Dad would have been a freshman there at the time, but lacked the funds to enroll.
I learned that the Judge had a diary of his travels through the U.S. and asked permission to see it. A copy was sent to me. This caused several months of very interesting activity on my part, collecting information from all of the colleges and universities that King-Hamilton and his fellow debaters had visited. It was very interesting to note how the Englishmen perceived the Americans and vice-versa.
Were I to sum up his many pages of observations, I would pick this quote, where he sums up the America he’d visited for several months: “It is a curious thing that all down through the Middle West, from North Dakota to Texas, we have encountered religious curiosity which develops into something like intolerance upon the information being given to them. In the East they want to know who your father is, in the Middle West who your God is, and in the far West how much money you’ve got!” (In his 1982 book, “And Nothing But the Truth”, Judge King-Hamilton recalls this same question, and asks “I wonder if it is still the same now, more than fifty years later” (p. 14).
I’m richer for having known The Honourable Alan-King Hamilton.
I think of him every time I see or hear reference to Arianna Huffington, who many years later became the President of the same Debating Society at Cambridge.

Alan King-Hamilton, front and center, 1927 at Cambridge University

#181 – Bob Barkley: The Role of Our Elected Leaders

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Much of the problem we face today in the US is the lack of understanding of a necessary and proper role for government, and, in particular, of our Congress. They appear incompetent in almost every area they tackle. Put succinctly, they appear incompetent because they are! And no one should expect otherwise.
All successful enterprises – including governments – understand the difference between a strategic function and an operational function. Leadership’s function (in this case, our executive and representational branches) is strategic. In that role our nation’s leadership must first of all determine the aspirations, expectations, and requirements of the people. In other words, when someone in that position states, “I don’t listen to the polls,” they have just admitted to NOT doing their job.
The fact is that polling is essential for them to do their jobs, albeit non-partisan and objective polling. We should have a “Congressional Polling Office” not unlike the “Congressional Budget Office.”
After determining the needs, feelings, and opinions of the people, our elected leaders next strategic function is to translate what they gather into a statement of purpose for each office of government. For example, in education they should develop an overall purpose statement accompanied by not more than five general corollary objectives.
They must then determine how they will measure progress towards that purpose and those objectives. Failing to do this makes the purpose and objectives somewhat undefined since if they cannot be measured they simply add to the confusion rather than guide the institution towards greater focus.
And all of this must be done before anyone begins to lay out the operational methods of achieving said purpose and objectives. Any leadership person or group that fails to do this is incompetent from the start.
And when those in leadership begin to dicker with the operational functions, incompetence and general failure, or at least gross mediocrity is inevitable. The operational functions should be left to the professionals. For example, in education it should be left to the educators to design and implement the best approaches to be applied to achieving the adopted purpose/objectives. It is interesting that those schools getting recognized for success have almost always operated that way, and yet leaders seem unwilling or unable to accept their own proper role or perform it.
Were we to apply this to the current health care/insurance fiasco, I believe it would be surprising to see how much agreement there is across the traditional political spectrum. Now we have politicians and pundits saying, ad infinitum, “The American people think….” without citing any credible and unbiased information gathering mechanism. It is the height of incompetence and arrogance, and it serves our nation poorly.
All that said, it assumes that Congress is a purposeful institution. Is it? I doubt it. Members of Congress serve different constituencies. Consequently, the only chance that Congress will operate purposefully – and competently – is the presence of strong and capable leadership. That might come from both within Congressional ranks and/or from the White House – most likely the latter. It might also be provided by an independent sector, although this would rely extremely heavily on a responsible journalistic entity which we are also sorely lacking.
Nevertheless, such leadership must arise or we will continue to muddle along randomly and ineffectively. Perhaps it is time to redesign and re-establish our national elected leadership so it is more attuned to the nation as a whole rather than to its disparate parts.
Bob Barkley, counselor in systemic education reform, author, and retired Executive Director of the Ohio Education Association. Worthington, Ohio.
Email: rbarkle@columbus.rr.com

#180 – Dick Bernard: Visiting a Convention of Democrats

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State Senator Tarryl Clark received the endorsement of the Minnesota 6th Congressional District Delegates today, besting Dr. Maureen Reed for DFL Party support to compete against incumbent Congresswoman Michele Bachmann in November. Normally, this would be end of story. It is only the end of Chapter One.
I attended todays DFL (Democratic Party) Convention in suburban Blaine. I live in CD 6, and am a relatively active Democrat here, but I had not run for delegate, nor alternate, and attended largely to publicize the DFL Senior Caucus of which I am an active member.
The Teamster Union Hall was literally packed like sardines: several hundred in attendance. I signed in as a media representative, a blogger, right below the local affiliate of Fox News, and no questions were asked. Blogging is becoming accepted as a form of media.
U.S. Senators Klobuchar and Franken showed up, and both talked at some length about issues in Washington. The entry area to the hall was filled with candidates vying for the upcoming endorsement for Governor, and other offices. Other media signed in after me. What actually happened today will be well publicized.
This was no “yawner” of a Convention.
Two Democrats, both women, State Senator Tarryll Clark, and Dr. Maureen Reed, both very highly qualified, and worthy opponents for Bachmann, vied for the DFL party endorsement. (A campaign issue was whether or not the unsuccessful candidate would abide by the Convention endorsement, and not go to primary in August.)

Maureen Reed signs in the CD6 Convention Hall


State Senator Tarryll Clark with U.S. Senator Al Franken


Two-term incumbent Congresswoman Michele Bachmann is an occasional visitor to this district which elected her, and seems to represent only a small “tea party” base; and is usually busy elsewhere in her highly visible world. She is vulnerable in this district, but nonetheless formidable. She seems to have lost sight of her real base – the majority of people who will have to return her to office. But she’ll have plenty of money and star-power support this election.
Politics and, particularly, Politicians, are easy to kick around, but attending events such as this Convention can be pretty inspiring for me. Today’s was such a case.
Politics is, more than anything else, about relationships. Sen. Franken said he was wearing a Tarryll Clark button because she had stood by him at a particularly low point in his campaign for the 2008 U.S. Senate endorsement. My own state representative, Marsha Swails, moved the nomination of Sen. Clark. She recalled her days in junior high school in Independence MO when her school bus passed by Harry Truman’s home, and he could always be seen sitting at the kitchen table reading his newspaper or writing. I have heard her share that vignette a number of times since she first ran for the state legislature here four years ago. President Truman inspired her.
Maureen Reed, an outsider in the DFL political party sense whose previous run for office was as an Independent, is nonetheless a formidable potential candidate in this essentially conservative and “populist” district. She had her own very strong supporters, including the young woman who nominated her, still in high school, who will vote for the first time in November, and was impressive in her nominating speech.
There are many months and lots of rhetoric (and work) ahead for the candidates. Tarryl Clark won Round One today: the DFL endorsement. Maureen Reed will go to Primary election. I can truly say I wish both Reed and Clark well.
But there are more than candidates and their supporters in Politics. Politics is, first and foremost, about issues. And I simply want to recognize the “special interests” I saw who took time to come out today, and lobby their causes to the delegates: The Campaign for the Minnesota Health Plan was there today; so was FairVoteMN, an advocate for instant runoff voting, and Take Action MN. Also there was the Minnesota C.A.F.E. Coalition whose representative is pictured below. They and many others make politics.
Whatever your cause or your party, get involved.
An advocate at the CD 6 Convention March 26, 2010

#179 – Dick Bernard: A year blogging

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One year ago today, March 25, 2009, I clicked on “publish”, and blog entry #1 on this blog was officially posted.
What a year it has been. I have averaged a post every other day on diverse topics. I’m glad I started the project, and I don’t have any plans to discontinue it. There have been and are frustrations. But it has been very well worth the effort.
I know my blog has at least one serious reader: me. I know there are a few more who check in. The Twin Cities Daily Planet has quite often used some piece or other that I wrote for the blog on its internet newspaper. I feel privileged to occasionally “get ink” in the Planet! The Editor of the Planet visited at some point during the post-Haiti earthquake, and apparently liked what she saw, and stops in now and again.
The pluses of preparing and maintaining this blog have outweighed the minuses.
Writing about diverse topics to a completely unknown potential audience has given me both an opportunity to express an opinion, and a responsibility to think through what I put on screen. Unlike the anonymous on-line comments to newspaper columns which appear on-line, I am both a name and a face, and I need to keep that in mind as I write.
Unlike something like Facebook (about which I know little, but am part of); and Twitter (which I know almost nothing about), a blog gives me an opportunity to at least partially flesh out an opinion about some topic of interest. It has also given me an opportunity to practice writing, which is, in my opinion, really the only way one becomes a better writer.
I started the blog with no clear notion of what a blog really was. There are probably millions of blogs out there in the e-universe, so finding a niche is difficult. But blogs are an accepted form of communication these days, and the diversity of opinion expressed on blogs is a welcome relief from the newspaper and magazine and visual media pundits who get paid a lot for essentially repeating their same general message over and over. They have their place in the scheme of things. So do I, and people like me who have their own blogs.
I no longer accept comments, and there is a simple reason for this: I was overwhelmed with spam. There are nuisance manipulators and pirates on the internet, and I finally gave up on deleting spam, and just closed the blog to comments. If anyone wants to write me, my e-address is on the About page of the blog. I’ll enter comments if anyone wishes. DICKunderscoreBERNARDatMSNdotCOM is where I can be reached. I’ll enter the comments as an update to the blog if you wish.
When I initiated the blog 365 days ago, my hope was that there would be frequent outside contributors. This has not happened. Ten or so writers have put their own opinions up, but this is not nearly as many as I would like to see. I’d like to see more people expressing their opinions here. This would make this site a much richer place, than simply looking at what I have to say.
So, I renew my invitation to writers who want to have access to a potentially larger audience. Do a blog post, and then publicize it to whomever you wish. Just submit it to me.

#178 – Dick Bernard: America, the civilized?

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Today, in the wake of the Health Care Reform legislation, came reports of rocks through windows, telephoned death threats. The most vicious seemed directed towards Cong. Bart Stupak of Michigan. And we call ourselves a civilized society?
Unfortunately, out of this encouraged incitement of the anger in the body politic may well come some deranged individual(s) somewhere who will do very serious damage, like Tim McVeigh in Oklahoma City in 1995. It is only a matter of time when domestic terror strikes. All we don’t know is where or when or specifically who will be perpetrator(s) and victim(s). Most likely it will be one of we Americans….
For the rest of us, we’re well advised to learn as much as we can about what we’re for, or against; and to dialogue with others about it. For many, this won’t be easy, but it’s essential.
I don’t pretend to be very smart on politics, but I do listen, and I have observed political behavior over the years.
To begin, it is generally presumed, that perhaps a quarter of the electorate is a fairly reliable ‘base’, whether left or right. These folks are the believers, not much inclined to change their mind, reliable. Neither is a monolith – they range from radical to fairly moderate, but their mind is basically made up. The quiet center – most of the population – is more “in play”. (Me? I’d call myself basically moderate left.)
A good example of misleading opinion: in recent days, polling showed that over half of the American people had issues with the bill which was passed and signed on Health Care Reform. It was not emphasized, generally, that this so-called majority was split into two totally diametrically opposed camps: those who thought Reform went too far, and those who thought it didn’t go far enough. By no means were these groups allies, but they were clumped together nonetheless, and used by some to create an illusion that Americans were against Health Care Reform.
Even by this flawed poll, a majority of Americans think that the Health Care Reform bill is a positive step in the right direction. That’ll be my spin, and I think it is more honest than claiming the American people don’t want Health Care Reform as enacted.
For the people who are looking for simple answers; those who make their judgements based on belief, or on the pronouncements of somebody they trust, or on a narrow interpretation of a specific single issue, there is little mileage in attempting to change their mind. About all that one can do, if the opportunity arises, is to offer to help explain another side of the issue.
Two good sources for assessing accuracy of pronouncements of the Health Care Reform bill (which is a very complicated piece of legislation) are politifact.com and factcheck.org. There are others as well. A simple google or similar search can be very helpful.
A useful primer on whether or not the bill is constitutional appeared in this article by a career, now retired, political correspondent for a major newspaper.
Not a good source of data is someone who has a vested interest in the debate: a congressman, a trade group, someone who can afford the expensive advertising. Their responses will be polished and smooth, but they are carefully crafted to advance only their point of view. There are more reliable sources than the partisans. It is certain that the bill is neither perfect, nor is it horrible.
Several years ago I did a very rough sketch of how I viewed the American body politic. Here is the illustration.

American Political Spectrum: A Personal View

Right or wrong, this general illustration more or less helps direct my own thinking of the “body politic”.
The schematic is very simple: the vertical axis represents intensity of feeling (bias) of people in a segment of the population; the horizontal axis divides 100% of the population into general groups.
In my view, the people with the most intense feelings, left and right, tend to dominate the public media conversation. Their interest is in out-shouting the other point of view.
In between are people of all sorts of varying levels of interest, engagement and bias. Many, if not most, are not much into arguing politics.
There is not much gained by trying to convince (or revile) the far left or the far right. It is the massive middle where progress can and will be made….
I think the Health Care Reform bill passed on Sunday was a great step forward for all of us in America.
Away we go.

#177 – Dick Bernard: Health Care Reform and Taxes

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Strictly by coincidence, our appointment with the tax preparer today was at the same time President Obama was signing the Health Care Reform Act passed by Congress on Sunday evening. Preparing for the tax preparer the last few days gave me the annual up close and personal look at my own economic facts, as opposed to the abundant written, spoken and visual rhetoric surrounding tax season and health care reform. I keep records, and it is always interesting (not always fun) to review the events of the previous year. The financial documents box is my annual financial diary….
Every person and family is different, so I don’t pretend to offer us as a “typical” example.
But I would guesstimate that we are not at all unusual compared with the vast majority of ordinary middle class Americans. We are probably a little above average, but I’m not at all sure about that. Both of us worked full careers, and were fortunate to qualify for pensions.
After filing out taxes, today, we know that about 10% of our income in 2009 went to Federal taxes; another 5% to the State. It would be a real stretch to claim that this is confiscatory or unreasonable. Another percent or two paid on top of both Federal and State, or even more, would not kill us financially, and would do a whole lot of good for things like repairing potholes, and taking care of more vulnerable citizens than ourselves. It’s our dues for living in society.
Sure, I know: every time we buy something we pay additional taxes. When I had my daily cup of coffee at the local coffee house early this morning (my daily luxury) about 7% over and above the cost of that cup went to taxes on the sale. The business didn’t pay those taxes; I did.
Of course, there were taxes hidden in the remaining 93% of the cost of that cup as well – assorted taxes along the line. I can’t work myself into a tizzy about that, either. Taxes are easy to kick around, but they are what makes our society into a society that works. If a penny or two of that cup helped fund public schools, more power to….
On the health care front, we are reasonably healthy for our age, both of us on Medicare. Nonetheless, we paid out roughly $1000 a month in 2009 for assorted health expenses, from Medicare insurance itself, to long term care insurance, to out of pocket for non-reimbursed expenses. The insurance is there for the inevitable time that it will be needed, big time (most of us don’t die instantly, many need lots of help). No one likes to predict personal medical catastrophe for themselves, and hope they won’t be among the unlucky. But that’s what insurance is for, and no one should have to worry about being uncovered, particularly not in a wealthy country like our own (and compared with the rest of the world, most of us, even middle class, are wealthy – no question.)
(A few days ago, we took a friend out to dinner. She was laid off three months ago from a relatively low paying job. She gets unemployment, but she said she’s uninsured, as she can’t afford the premium for the insurance available to her. There is a cheaper alternative, apparently, but it is not accessible to her until she’s been unemployed for four months. So she’s playing the lottery, hoping she won’t have some kind of serious problem. She’s not alone. Some would say, “it’s her problem”. I’m not among them.)
In a couple hours we go to a grandson’s birthday party at a local pizza restaurant. Somebody will pay the bill there. There will be taxes, as there was with my coffee this morning.
I have no beef with taxes.
I’ll be wishing the new 10-year old a good future in this country of ours.
The Health Care Reform package just signed is not perfect, but it is a whole lot better than the alternative of keeping the status quo.

#176- Dick Bernard: The next seven months

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I think, this morning, of the one time I did a major construction project.
Back in the very early 1970s, we bought a package including a concrete slab and the framework and materials for a two-car garage, and I spent the better part of a summer doing the vast majority of the work to complete the structure. I’m not a carpenter, and it was a great deal of work, but each time I’ve been by that house in subsequent years, that garage is still standing, a testimony to a very good job.
The Health Care Reform Bill passed last night and now nearly ready to begin life is a similar piece of construction: it’s new, it’s not perfect, and it’s not done. But it’s a start.
The big difference between the Reform bill and that garage of mine, is that there’s a gang down the street whose cause in life, now, will be to tear down that frame, and if it can’t be torn down, to make it look like a rotten piece of construction. “Who could possibly make such a stupid decision? Call us in and let us start over, and make a good building.” Of course, these are the same folks fought against the building in the first place, but no matter. “Let us start over and do it right.”
The narrative for the opposition is very simple. I haven’t seen their script, but it is obvious in the rhetoric: suddenly it will be suggested that the evil ones, called “socialism”, have taken over. The research on opposing has been well done. The icky words which resonate with the people who have been taught to fear Health Care Reform will be dragged out constantly. That is how the game is played.
I’ve been through the training, years ago: stay on message; make sure that message is never more than three parts. Don’t allow anyone to divert you from your message.
There is an antidote to the nay-sayers, and that is to go, and stay, on the offense.
It is not enough for us to be spectators in a TV drama. We need to learn about what is going on, and participate.
We can start by keeping in mind that every single Republican – every single one – voted against the Reform initiative, this over a year from the inception of the debate. We are not a country that is that polarized. The Democrats who voted against the initiative for their own reasons probably better reflect the diverse views of the country than the Republicans who simply represent a monolith of NO.
Health Care Reform is not an ideological hate phrase. Rather it is an absolutely essential (and long overdue) move in a better direction. It won’t be perfect, and its every imperfection will be pointed out ad nauseum.
In my opinion, there are two constituencies who will be most courted to be against Health Care Reform, and they are a very odd couple:
1) They will be the senior citizens, like me, who will be made to feel that their Social Security and Medicare is at risk (it is not.)
2) And they will be the young, healthier people who cannot conceive of ever needing insurance, and don’t want to pay insurance premiums. In a sad sense, I was once in their shoes. “Been there, done that” 1963-65 (note Story #1).
Both groups will be courted on the premise of individual rights as opposed to responsibility to the greater good – to the society of which they are a part. Little things will be left out of the story: like the absolute requirement for people who own cars to have insurance; or the massive positive benefit of Medicare to senior citizens in this country – a benefit which should be shared with everyone.
There will be other segments as well, but these are the two I’d watch.

#175 – Dick Bernard: The Nuns, the Bishops and Rome

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Teaching Nuns at Sykeston ND ca 1960


In the weeks just past the Catholic Hospital Association and a coalition of Catholic Nuns, leaders of their orders, basically changed the conversation on the Health Care Reform legislation by coming out in support of the Health Care Reform proposal which passed tonight.
On the other hand, the Catholic Bishops and Rome didn’t have a particularly good week last week.
I’m a lifelong Catholic, and an active one. Personal circumstances years ago have made me a pro-choice Catholic. I spent my first six school years in Catholic grade schools, and in the years since I’ve had some great friends who are, and who were, Sisters. I offer my own thoughts, from my own experience.
Statistics indicate that perhaps one-fourth of the population of the United States might be Catholic. I’m always intrigued by this statistic: I wonder how they arrive at these numbers.
But, assuming that it’s true, three-fourths of the population has no reason to care or understand how the Catholic Church works. Most Catholics don’t either. I’ve had an interest in the topic for years, and even after years of seeking, I have only an imperfect understanding of the topic of “the Church”.
Nuns – also called Sisters, and Religious – were a huge influence during my growing up years. They were our parents during the school day, if we were attending Catholic Schools. We lived with them, in small towns and large. They are the stuff of legend.
I never had a bad experience with Nuns (nor with Priests, but that’s a different story). Nuns were our every day teachers, counselors, disciplinarians. They were powerful people, in our eyes. So we remember them. They never had easy conditions. They had large classes, often more than one grade, and I don’t recall one of them being sick – at least no calling in sick!
Priests were not nearly as visible or as truly influential (they don’t appear in my title for a reason). Altar Boys (one of which I was in my youth) had a closer connection. The mysterious Bishop was the real “father”, who came by once a year for confirmation, and one time in one’s adolescence a kid might have a personal moment with the Bishop, when the Bishop asked some softball question about the Catholic Catechism. The Pope and Rome were a picture on the wall: in my day, it was Pope Pius XII.
In Catholic Hospitals, it was the Nuns who were the “boots on the ground” folks. In most cases they established and staffed the hospitals, and helped them grow into pillars of thousands of communities in this country and others. Hospitals and Catholic Nuns are virtually synonymous everywhere.
Without Catholic Nuns, there would not have been Catholic Hospitals; nor would there have been Catholic Schools. Nuns are largely elderly now, and they’re not being replaced. There are good reasons for this; when they are no longer around, they will be missed. Four of my great Nun friends have died in recent years; a fifth, near 90 now, no longer knows who I am. It is sad.
I’ve had extended conversations with Nuns from time to time over the years, and what is apparent is that the assorted orders of Nuns, while generally obedient to the Bishop and thus to Rome, are not necessarily subservient to the dictates of their local Bishop.
In the case at issue, health care reform, I think the tipping point for the Nuns was finally reached where the leaders of numerous orders of Catholic Nuns, as well as Catholic Hospitals, could no longer stay below the radar, and felt a need to speak out in favor of what was plainly needed by our society.
The Bishops took a strident and rigid position on a single aspect of the reform question, and allied themselves with others taking a strident position.
This led to a significant parting of the ways. For most of history, the orders of Nuns have stayed in the background, silent, doing their jobs. There could be an illusion that they were completely obedient.
(At times during the civil rights movement, they also violated the rules by participating in civil rights marches in the south, while the local Bishop specifically prohibited their participation. But this is one of the few times they’ve taken an overt stand.)
No one questions the respect for life these Nuns have.
For that matter, those of us who are pro-choice equally respect life.

#174 – Dick Bernard: Revisiting a column on a teacher's career

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UPDATE Sat. March 20, 2010: At the end of this post I mention a long-ago note from a student to my Dad. Yesterday afternoon I located him. He lives in Oregon, and has severe MS. He’s probably about 65 now. His sister, who lives in California and gave me his address, thinks he’ll really appreciate hearing from me. So it goes.
A week ago, March 11, 2010, the Minneapolis Star Tribune published my op ed on my Dad’s teaching career. The column finally resulted in at least 50 comments, 37 of which are on the Star Tribune website, the rest to me, personally. [content of the column is included at the end of this post.]

I wrote the column “from the heart”, as I admitted in a comment to a blog which picked up and published the op ed. I began to question myself: “did I overstate my case”. After all, Dad’s leaving all of those jobs was never dramatic. There was no Donald Trumps “you’re fired”; no being run out of town on a rail. The separation was quiet, the contract simply not renewed with no indication it was coming. There were no reasons, there didn’t have to be. As my youngest brother commented during the days following the column, Dad never bad-mouthed anyone. We just moved on.
Dad did leave behind a summary he wrote of each teaching experience he and Mom had together. I pulled it out of the file, and read it. He never said he was fired, in any instance.
But as I pieced together the reality of the 26 years when one or another of we kids was alive and living at home, he indeed was “fired” at least three times, and probably two or three others as well. The others they left under their own power. Often those voluntary quits from the next towns were because those positions were very inadequate, for sundry reasons.
I can say with a lot of confidence that poor performance, morals, ethics were never an issue. In point of fact, Dad was more likely to have gotten in trouble because his standards were higher than for some specific power actor(s) who controlled whether he stayed in or left the community. Properly disciplining the wrong kid was a job security issue for my Dad.
In his last assignment, when my youngest brother graduated from high school, the high school baseball team won the State High School Baseball Championship. The baseball coach became the new Superintendent, replacing Dad. That’s how it went.
A week after the op ed, I am very, very comfortable that I did not overstate the case.
The words I used in the op ed that I choose to highlight now are Public Servant, and Due Process. Public School employees were and in many ways are still considered to be like a Hired Man or Housekeeper; to keep some stability in the relationships, the due process rights enshrined in teacher contracts need to be kept in force.
My parents were great teachers, and they deserved better than they got.
As it goes in the profession of teaching, there were small victories on occasion.
In Dad’s files I came across a high school graduation announcement including a male students photo and name. The card was dated for a specific year, so I knew in what town they had been living. “These Keepsakes are presented with My Deepest Appreciation and Gratitude for the Educational Opportunities that you have given me” said the printed text, and below was a handwritten note to “Mr. Bernard, I would like to express to you my deepest appreciation for the help you have given me the past two years. I know we have had our disagreements, but I guess everyone has them. Anyway, I can see now that everything was for my own good. Thank you. Sincerely, _____”
I didn’t know the student or the surname, so I asked my siblings who had lived in this particular town, if they knew this boy. One wrote back, noting, to be polite, that the kid was not a prize.
I noted back that teachers tend to keep these kinds of notes – they’re validation for the impossible task they try to perform under sometimes very difficult circumstances.
That student from almost 50 years ago will get his announcement back, if I can locate him. I wonder how he turned out. Stay tuned.
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Addenda: In the Star Tribune comments noted above, I filed three of my own. Here they are:
Here’s a comment I made to “the cuckingstool” blog: it sort of sums it up for me. In addition I am including two comments I posted on the STrib website on the issue.
To Cuckingstood: I didn’t realize I’d become famous (or infamous) when I submitted this op ed earlier this week. I was writing from the heart. I was primarily reacting to the Newsweek cover story on getting rid of “bad teachers”, in conjunction with an earlier, accidental, discovery in December ’09 that there was some kind of organized covert attempted assault on teacher seniority in Minneapolis. I had read an earlier opinion in the STrib in December, along the lines of and probably closely related to the Samuels column, but can’t honestly say I’ve read the most recent Samuels et al post in its entirety.
Again, I wasn’t responding to Samuels.
Last I looked, there are nearly 40 comments on my STrib op ed, two of the final ones written by me. I make a couple of recommendations there, particularly about the need for true dialogue on the issues (which will be extremely difficult due to the obvious and quite certainly orchestrated attack mode against basic teacher protections like seniority and due process, and the unions which work to protect their members.) Nonetheless, true DIALOGUE amongst the warring parties is needed.
I have absolutely no beef against innovations like Teach for America, but there has to be a process in place to not have it end-around (and destroy) the basic rights of those already in the system.
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Personal additions by myself to the submissions at the Minneapolis Star Tribune
After a day on-line
I wrote the commentary and have read all of the over 30 comments thus far, plus a dozen more received at home from persons who knew my parents and/or myself. Both Dad and Mom were professionals in every sense of the word and had high expectations for their children and their students. They were pretty typical of teachers in those small towns then, and now. At times Dad’s high expectations collided with some lower individual or community expectation, Power intervened, and lesser standards prevailed and Dad was gone. I can give examples. Being teacher or chief administrator in even a small district had its risks. Unions enhance public education and quality of society generally, but they represent a threat to some for assorted reasons, none truly related to quality. Are unions perfect? Or all school employees? By no means. They are human, like every other profession or institution. But they very significantly help rather than hinder the progress of society. Dad and Mom are long gone, but by no means forgotten. It would be my hope that this column leads to some true community dialogue on the topic at issue. I’m glad I had an opportunity to represent teachers. I hope I contributed a little. I think I did. Dick Bernard Woodbury
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Probably my final comment, at the Star Tribune website:
To: “Thanks for the article and comment, Dick” (and others as well)
At the end of my second comment (above, “After a day on-line”) I say I “hope that this column leads to some true community dialogue on the topic at issue.” This will be difficult, as “dialogue” does not presume a conclusion before or even following the conversation, but perhaps some understanding might flow from the conversation. Dialogue is not some comment like, “get rid of seniority”, or “fire bad teachers”. My understanding, after a lifetime (literally) in and around public education is that, for example, pay scales were unilateral creations of school boards to deal with a problem: they were initially attempts to differentiate and reward people in their employ who had more training and experience, probably more responsibilities, and thus of greater value to the system. Teacher Unions were late into the process of developing salary schedules. As one octogenarian friend wrote to me, yesterday, when he began teaching in southern Ohio, teachers were regularly let go because younger, less expensive teachers were available and saving money (not quality) entered in. I don’t think pay was a factor in my Dad’s case, at least during the years that he was called Superintendent, and I was alive. He and I talked often about his experiences. My plea is, to all parties, dialogue, to at least attempt to understand. For a moment, leave Power at the door (very, very hard to do, especially for those with the Power.) I appreciate the Star Tribune’s printing my column. Due to editorial limits on number of words, I could not write at as great a length as I would have liked. Dick Bernard, Woodbury MN
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On dialogue, taken from a column I wrote on “Truth” December 25, 2008. accessible here.
I have long been taken with a quotation I saw in Joseph Jaworsky’s book, “Synchronicity, the Inner Path of Leadership” (1996). Preceding the chapter on “Dialogue: The Power of Collective Thinking”, Jaworsky included the following quote from David Bohms “On Dialogue”. It speaks to this business of talking with, rather than talking to or at others:
“From time to time, (the) tribe (gathered) in a circle.
They just talked and talked and talked, apparently to no purpose. They made no decisions. There was no leader. And everybody could participate.
There may have been wise men or wise women who were listened to a bit more – the older ones – but everybody could talk. The meeting went on, until it finally seemed to stop for no reason at all and the group dispersed. Yet after that, everybody seemed to know what to do, because they understood each other so well. Then they could get together in smaller groups and do something or decide things.”
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Minneapolis Star Tribune March 11, 2011:
Dick Bernard: Don’t forget those good old days for educators
DICK BERNARD
It seems, from a flurry of commentaries and letters in recent months, that it is again open season on public school teachers, and particularly their unions.
The mantra is always the same: the union is protecting bad teachers and it’s against doing good things, like getting rid of supposedly lifetime no-cut contracts.
Hardly ever is there real evidence of these failings. To make the charge is sufficient evidence.
I plead guilty to having worked full time for 27 years as a teachers union representative (MEA/Education Minnesota). I am further guilty of having taught public school for nine years before that. Long retired, I now have seven grandkids in public schools and a daughter who’s a principal of a large middle school.
I guess I know a bit about the subject at hand.
There is another credential I possess as well. I grew up (born in 1940) in the good old days when teachers had virtually no rights. Both of my parents were career public school teachers from 1929 through 1971. (Mom stayed at home raising her preschool kids for 13 of those years.)
We lived in small towns in a neighboring state. During my growing-up years (I’m the eldest sibling), we moved to eight communities. In each, Dad was called superintendent, but actually was a teaching principal, the administrator who was accountable to the local school board. Later, younger siblings followed my parents to two more towns, until the youngest graduated from high school in 1966.
My parents were outstanding teachers and outstanding citizens of their communities. I know. One or the other was my teacher for my last five years of public school. All five of their kids achieved at least a bachelor’s degree and all have had long productive careers.
But we moved often, and very often that move was necessitated by Dad being fired, in one or another odd and sometimes innovative way.
These were the good old days of “at will” contracts. All it took was some disgruntled citizen who knew the right people to dispatch these outsiders at the annual contract renewal time. (In my files I have nearly every one of those single sheet “contracts” signed by my parents in their careers.)
Dad always took a philosophical view of the firings, but down deep, I think they hurt him deeply. Recently I came across an essay he wrote about the various ways he was fired during his long career. It was funny, in a very sad way.
Protections that are revolting to some — things like due process, seniority, continuing contract — came about because of abundant abuses in those good old days when the teacher was, literally, a “public servant.”
It’s much nicer to just label some generic teacher as “bad,” and then to blame the evil union for protecting his or her right to due process.
I’d suggest that those who wish to eliminate teacher rights and defang teacher unions had best be very careful lest they get what they pray for. They would not like the results.
Are there “bad teachers”? Of course. Just as there are bad parents, bad executives, bad politicians, bad journalists. We know them when we see them.
Or do we?
Those seeking to get rid of seniority and the like can find more constructive ways to help public education.
Sadly, I’m not holding my breath.
Dick Bernard, Woodbury, is a retired teacher and union representative.