#224 – Dick Bernard: "God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy"

/in , /by

Minnesota’s 2010 Primary Election is now history. Let the analysis…and the wars…begin! And there will be wars.
The August 10 election had meaning; of course, everyone has the right…and tendency…to attach their own meaning to the results, and will. This includes me. For me, there are essentially three kinds of voters in political elections: those who vote FOR somebody; those whose vote is AGAINST someone they badly want defeated; and the third category: those who don’t vote at all. The third category has a whole smorgasbord of reasons for not voting, and is always the largest single bloc – an odd fact in this country that supposedly reveres its devotion to the practice of Democracy.
On Tuesday, a huge portion of the Minnesota electorate did not bother to vote, even with a long absentee voting “window” easily accessible. For whatever reason, they just didn’t care.
Here are some small contributions to this conversation:
First, the most recent 2010 Primary Election Results can be found here.
When I last looked at this site, about 10:30 a.m., August 11, here were the totals for Governor only, with virtually all votes counted and reported:
Independent:
Tom Horner received 11,315 votes, or 64% of the total cast for Independent candidates for Governor.
Republican:
Tom Emmer received 106,110 votes, or 82% of the total.
Democrat (DFL):
Margaret Anderson Kelliher received 174, 378 votes or 39.83% of the total.
Mark Dayton received 180,558 votes or 41.24% of the total.
Matt Entenza received 80,092 votes or 18.2% of the total.
These totals are, of course, meaningless without some context.
In the last high profile election in Minnesota, for United States Senator in 2008, the final vote total, after every conceivable vote was analyzed and recounted, showed this:
Al Franken received 1,212,629 votes
Norm Coleman received 1,212,317 votes
(Coleman-Franken final election results 2008 election can be found here.)
The only relevant “apples to apples” comparison I choose to note from the above data is the number of persons who actually voted in the 2010 Primary and voted for a DFL candidate, compared to the number who actually voted for the Democrat (DFL) candidate Al Franken in 2008.
Now will come the “spin” from all sides, the liars poker which passes for elections in the United States.
We will get what we deserve: a barrage of thinly disguised propaganda, presenting carefully crafted lies designed to pass as the truth.
We know what we’re getting from these “promises” and misleading messages.
It works.
In fact we demand it.
Which leads back to the title of this piece, “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy“. As the singer probably said to the old man, “Ain’t that the truth.”
Caveat Emptor.

#223 – Going to Afghanistan

/in , /by

Saturday we went to a surprise party for a close relative who’s going to Afghanistan for a one-year Army assignment. The relative, a very fine man, is an engineer in civilian life, and has 23 years in the military, including active duty in the Gulf War, and for a majority of his career, primarily in the Army Reserves. He joined the Army out of high school; the Army gave him a positive direction in life.
Even he does not know exactly where he will be posted, or exactly when he will leave. Or at least he is not free to say so. This is how security works.
His wife and two kids remain behind, and he will be on leave from his job as director of engineering for a city.
Saturday was a family and community day. I’m guessing there were 50 or more who dropped in during the day. It was a low key gathering.
Afghanistan.
It was the bombing of Afghanistan which began October 7, 2001, which brought me out into the peace movement. Nine years ago. I couldn’t see any good coming out of that action, even though the target was the mystery-to-soon-be-named-al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, the terrorists who arguably unleashed 9-11; as well as the Taliban, who had harbored them.
I went to a small anti-bombing protest at the State Capitol at the end of that first week, not knowing anyone. My dominant memory of that event was and remains the angry people across the street who were brandishing U.S. flags almost like weapons and were trying to shout down the speakers for peace. That is where it began for me.
I didn’t know much about Afghanistan except it was a huge country, and it had outlasted numerous encroachments by outsiders, most recently the Russians, and earlier the English.
It was one thing to bomb Afghanistan; quite another thing to control it.
Back then, there was overwhelming support of the action to bomb Afghanistan. It was a public relations bonanza for the warriors in the then-administration. I have kept the newspaper clip Bombing of Afghanistan Oct 7 2001 which described the mood in the country at the time. It is a short article, worth re-reading, particularly in context with today.
Fast forward: after a relatively short engagement in Afghanistan, and with Osama bin Laden still at large, the U.S. focus went towards Iraq, a country not involved in 9-11, and not possessing the purported weapons of mass destruction. Millions of Iraqis were at minimum displaced from their homes; immense numbers killed simply for being Iraqis in Iraq. Iraq was declared a victory (it is easy to make such declarations), and in much more recent times the focus has turned back to Afghanistan.
There was virtually no talk about Afghanistan in that nice home last Saturday afternoon. People know that the military going there are at risk. Most likely also know that the conflict is militarily unwinnable but, at the same time, politically impossible to disengage from. It is a bit like being caught in a live trap. You are alive, but you aren’t free.
The “no talk” rule was in full force and effect on Saturday. It didn’t need to be posted at the door.
We wished our soldier well. He will do a great job at whatever he does. I suspect his parents are very worried, but they aren’t about to show that.
Best we can hope for is that the GI will come home safely.
And that some honorable way can be found out of what will most certainly be a quagmire for our country, long term.

#222 – A.J. goes to Teach

/in , , /by

In the next few days A.J., a young woman I’ve gotten to know at my local coffee shop, leaves town for a new assignment and career as a 5th grade teacher in a Montana town. Today there was a farewell party, a going away sendoff, for this young woman. The kids she’s been assigned will be lucky. She joins the millions of other young people over the years who have nervously taken their first full-time teaching assignment. (As I know, from having been a junior high school teacher myself, and knowing from conversations with many others, it is the rare teacher who is not nervous on that first day of the school year. After all, for the most part they have new students, and the certainty that this year will be different than last.)
So, A.J.’s heading west, and I went to the gathering today to wish her well.
My parents were both public school teachers, beginning their respective careers in North Dakota country schools in the 1920s. I was a teachers kid. I have some idea how the business works.
I’ve been thinking of a send-off message for A.J. and mostly I’m drawn back to a memory of my Dad, long after he retired from classroom work.
In the late 1970s Mom and Dad bought a small home in San Benito TX, a Rio Grande Valley town. Their home at 557 N. Dowling was directly across the street from Berta Cabaza Junior High School. They had retired from teaching in the very early 1970s.
Nothing is certain in life, and in 1981, about this time of year, my mother died of cancer, leaving Dad alone, far away and very lonely.
He had a life decision to make, literally, and at some early point he went across the street to the school and offered to volunteer.
San Benito is basically a border town, and many of the kids had a first language of Spanish. It was the language they spoke at home and with each other. The teaching was in English, and the kids just couldn’t keep up.
Dad’s volunteer job was to tutor some of these students in English. It was not a glamorous job, but it was an essential one. The below photo, taken when Dad was 77 years old, shows some of the students he worked with in one school year. Other photos from 1983-86 H Bernard & Stu 4-22-85002:

Henry Bernard with Berta Cabaza students he helped tutor April 22, 1985


Dad and Mom liked to travel, most often by bus, and in their trips they would usually bring home a few postcards, usually non-descript ones, like a free one of a little motel they had stayed in somewhere. Dad kept these “postals” as he called them. One would never know when they’d come in handy.
Dad hit on an idea: he decided to ask his kids if they wanted to hear from him when he went someplace, and a number of them were interested and gave him their home address.
So, out on the road somewhere, say Salt Lake City, Dad might take out a random postcard from his cache, say, California, and write a little note to his correspondent in San Benito.
As it was described at the time, these simple little postal messages were a hit. For many of the kids, it was the first time they had ever received a letter from anyone, much less someone traveling elsewhere in the United States.
A.J., what my Dad did was the essence of teaching. It doesn’t need to be grandiose, or expensive, or time consuming.
Knowing you, I’m sure you’ll ‘catch the wave’ and do a great job! Have a great year.
A.J. has set up a blog to chronicle her first year. Check in once in awhile.

A good card, methinks, for a 5th grade teacher. The card is from Kate Harper Designs, Box 2112 Berkeley 94701. She solicits designs kateharp@aol.com.

#221 – Dick Bernard: Flogging the "Truth"

/in , /by

Yesterday’s news brought three bits that seem very much related and pertinent. Then, today, came a John Stewart piece that is an appropriate summary.
1. A St. Paul man, Koua Fong Lee, was released from jail halfway through an eight year sentence for criminal vehicular homicide. The judge said he was entitled to a new trial, and the County attorney said they wouldn’t be asking for a new trial. In other words, he was innocent of the charges for which he was jailed. In our system, the injustice of four years in jail is now called justice. The entire story is in today’s papers. The Minneapolis paper front page headline says “A FREE MAN“. If Mr. Lee is lucky, most people will believe that he got a raw deal in being sentenced in the first place; if he’s unlucky, some will say he got away with murder.
2. Last night a news clip featured Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, U.S. Senate Minority leader, talking in politician-speak. What he was saying, without saying it directly, was that “compromise” is not in the vocabulary of today’s right-wing politicians. “Just say No” is what passes for bargaining…and it has worked, if the only definition of success is making sure there is as little progress as possible towards a moderate centrist country, and in the process re-taking control. McConnell was lying, in a politically acceptable way.
3. Yesterday afternoon came an e-mail commentary from a friend, speaking about another piece of recent national news, and commenting in effect on both of the above: “If people – millions and millions of people – still think that Obama is not even a US citizen, then any other facts are really beside the point to them. how do we navigate in a political waterway where facts are void? I have not figured this out.
But I am very much understanding now what the head of LaPrensa told me in Managua, Nicaragua, when I visited there during the Contra war of the mid-80s. La Prensa was their newspaper and one of [then-President Ronald] Reagan’s big beefs with Nicaragua was censorship of the press. So, we asked the editor of the newspaper if he censored the press. He said yes. We asked why. And he said something like this, “Here’s what we censor. There are people who create images of the Virgin Mary crying, and they say that she’s crying because the Sandinistas are in power. We say we’re not going to print that because it’s not true. They say we are censoring.” I really get that now – does free press mean we have to continue to let “news” stations like Fox report falsely – tell true lies? Is/Should lying really be protected as “free speech”?
My friend makes an important point.
In #1, above, Koua Fong Lee was let down, apparently, by a less than effective attorney, and in addition didn’t have the benefit of knowing that other vehicles similar to his would later have similar spontaneous acceleration problems, causing a tragedy 2006.
In #2, Sen. McConnell was politically lying with a straight face…his lie wouldn’t even be considered a lie in today’s America. It would be talked about in different kinds of words, like “spin”. But its intent is no different than any bald lie told by a kid to mislead or deceive.
Between the politician and the public stands (supposedly) the media, who we have come to trust to convey accurate information.
That trust has been more and more violated – witness the Breitbart-Sherrod video fiasco recently (the intentionally false editing of a video to make it appear the speaker, Sherrod, was saying something essentially opposite to what she was saying).
One is taking a big risk believing anything at face value from any medium.
We can choose to be trusting and naive when it comes to picking our source of news. It is dangerous to ourselves and our society.
Post-script, pre-publish: as I completed the above draft, in came another e-mail with this 10 minute segment from John Stewart’s Daily Show about Congress’ failure to act to pass a bill to give medical care aid to 9-11 First Responders. In the end, in my opinion, Stewart is talking not as much about Congress itself, as he is about we who are manipulated by sound-bites and political ads.
Caveat Emptor.

#220 – Dick Bernard: Target, MN Forward, and the other side of "Branding"

/in , , /by

Breaking news on this issue. The remainder of this post was written before this news bulletin was received.
In recent weeks Target Corporation has found itself in the national Bulls eye for corporate sponsorship of a “business as citizen” political action committee called MN Forward.
Pipsqueaks, common citizens like myself, can’t impact on such a behemoth…or can we?
I keep thinking back to a surprise snowstorm around Thanksgiving, 1983. I was enroute to Duluth, and at tiny Canyon MN, the snow on four-lane highway 53 became so heavy that I and other motorists were literally stopped in our tracks, and had to be rescued by snowmobiles.
Salvation for me was being able to stay overnight in the tiny store/gas station/home which is pictured below. The proprietors harbored myself and an over the road trucker who was, like me, stalled on the freeway. We had beds to sleep in, and a simple macaroni hotdish – under the circumstances a gourmet meal.

Canyon Standard Oil Station Spring 1984


The Canyon store had been, and continued to be a good way stop for me as I traveled from Minnesota’s Iron Range to Duluth. I’d get gas, maybe a candy bar, and engage in some conversation.
The first credit card I ever had was a Standard Oil card, and it was used exclusively for gas and oil – this was in the days before full service convenience stations. Standard Oil had my loyalty – a positive brand image. Not only did I have their card, but one of their stations had gone the extra mile to give me exceptional service.
But all was to change, probably less than a year after the Thanksgiving good deed.
I stopped by the station as I always did, and the owners told me they were no longer going to be carrying gasoline. Standard Oil higher-ups had decided they were too small, and they were taken off the distribution list for fuel products. Their only sin, best as I could tell, was their small volume. They weren’t worth the trouble. Ultimately the store closed.
When the Canyon Store stopped selling Standard Oil products, I stopped going to Standard Oil, and I never went back, even as the brand changed names as the company was bought and sold. If the sign said “Standard Oil”, wherever I was, I went to the next station down the road….
Twenty years after Standard Oil had issued me one of their credit cards, I stopped patronizing Standard Oil. Their branding had become a negative for me.
I’m not naive.
My petty amount of business would not bring Standard Oil to its knees.
Similarly, my not shopping at Target will not seem to have an impact.
But image is critical to a company like Target, or like Standard Oil in an earlier day.
You cannot rebuild a reputation simply by hoping people will forget.
I never did….

#219 – Dick Bernard: The Practice of Politics

/in , /by

July 22 I took the four hour training required to be an Election Judge in Minnesota. A half dozen instructors from the County Elections Department led the 30 or so of us in attendance in the mind-numbing process of at least seeing, one time, the kinds of things a judge needs to be aware of on election day. Judges are required to reveal their party designation, Republican, Democrat or Independent. On election day you will see lots of pairs of judges: one of one party, one of another. It is important, and in my experience the judges take their duty of non-partisanship seriously.
Yesterday I voted absentee for the Primary Election which is next Tuesday, August 10. That process, too, went easily and orderly. The person who gave me the ballot took her job seriously. While there is much heat about a minute number of scoundrels playing fast and loose with the rules (criminals voting, and the like), the odds of such happening are infinitesimally small compared, even, with the even worse scoundrels suggesting foul play in elections. While the odds are certain there will be mistakes made by citizens like me who are judges in any elections we are trying to do our best and the process works extremely well.
In between July 22, and August 2 was an interesting time period for me, a time of getting involved in my parties activities.
Here’s a small photo gallery and commentary on the hard – sometimes agreeable but not always – work that candidates have to do to get noticed by an electorate.

Tarryl Clark, candidate for Congress in Minnesota's 6th CD, marches in the Lumberjack Days Parade in Stillwater, Sunday July 25. She had just returned from a speaking engagement at a Convention in Las Vegas.


Tarryl Clark was in Las Vegas for the Convention of a group called Netroots Nation, and introduced U.S. Sen. Al Franken there. She said that they had knocked on 4,000 Nevada doors during her time at the Convention – door knocking is a staple of local politics. A California friend of mine, Jane Stillwater, was at the Convention and said this: “I had the honor of meeting Clark at her event…Sadly…not all that many people showed up. But I did! She was in competition with people getting ready for the big Kos party, plus the main speaker ran late that evening. But Clark served dessert!…Wish I could do more to help. I gave her ten dollars. And a hug.”
I thought about that $10…if every voting age American gave an average of $10 – and only $10 – to help their choice for representative get elected, that would mount up to about $2 billion. You cannot get elected for peanuts in this country. Most don’t contribute at all.

U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (WI) at a lawn party fundraiser in Minneapolis, July 25, 2010.


My spouse, Cathy, is a big fan of Russ Feingold, and she is talking with him at this lawn party. As with Tarryl Clark and all candidates for major office regardless of party, fundraising has to go across state lines. It would be good to have public financing and strict limits on campaigning but until that happens, candidates need to meet and greet wherever they can. The public exposure is essential.

Garrison Keillor introduces Congressional candidate Tarryl Clark at a fundraiser at his home on July 28.


I would suppose most of us really came to see the Keillors home on Summit Avenue in St. Paul (nice place). But here too, celebrity fundraisers are critical assets in a campaign. Keillor put on a mini-Prairie Home Companion in his living room. We were packed in like sardines…and loving it. On leaving, I noticed a very large pile of fund-raising envelopes.

Peter Woitock, an organizer for a non-partisan organization, Working Famillies Win, meets with a group of interested citizens on July 29.


People like Peter are unsung heroes, young folks doing the scratch organizing that is so difficult in these polarized times. His group wants to get grassroots and non-partisan progressive oriented conversation groups off the ground around the country. I really admire people like him and support them however I can. Check out Working Families Win.
Politics is a grind, but a most important one. Every one of us is Politics.
Get involved. It’s productive and important work for our democracy.
Minnesotans: get out and vote on August 10.

#218 – Dick Bernard: Infrastructure

/in , , /by

This morning is a hot and sticky one here in the Twin Cities.
An hour or so ago, I was about a mile into my usual 2 1/2 mile walk when I met another walker who seemed to be in some distress. I said “good morning“, and he said “I don’t think I’m going to make it back“, and sat down with a nearby garbage can as his backrest. Sweat was pouring off of him.
We were a ways out in the woods, so to speak, though not that far. “Do you have a cellphone?“, I asked. “No“. Neither did I. Lesson #1.
Where do you live? He gave me his address. Neither of us had a pencil or paper. Lesson #2.
There was nothing I could do for him just staying there, I had no idea when or if there would be other walkers coming by, so I told him I’d go to get help, and I backtracked my route reciting over and over his name and address: “2531 __ Unit __, J__K___”
Back at the road and closest neighborhood – perhaps a half mile – I walked to the nearest house and rang the doorbell. No answer. People were at work. Should I go to the next house, or the one across the street, or “catty-corner”?
I was walking across the street when I saw a mini-van driving towards me and I waved it down. Thankfully, it stopped. A young woman, Jenny, with a small child in the back seat rolled down her window and I described the situation and said it looked like a 911 call was needed. She immediately dialed her cell phone. “I’m in Nursing School“, she said, willing to help, and she proceeded to drive down the walking path to the man, who was still sitting beside the garbage can. She talked to the man, all the while on the phone.
An ambulance was on the way. The man’s condition was such that he could get into the car, and she drove back with him to the nearest road. All seemed under control, and I went on…but shortly changed my mind and backtracked to make sure all was okay.
I arrived at the road, and along with Jenny there was a State Highway Patrol and a City Police vehicle, and an ambulance was just pulling up. JK was being assisted from the car to the ambulance, and as I write I have no idea how he is doing: whether it was a heart episode, or dehydration, or something else that he was experiencing when I met him at that garbage can. But I know the situation was extremely well covered by the responders.
All the walk home I kept thinking of lessons learned from this episode, and the primary one was how lucky we are to have an “infrastructure” which includes, especially, people who care about each other, including the ones they do not know; and how important it is to have well trained and available municipal services.
I also was reminded, this morning, that I am part of this infrastructure, and if I am lucky enough to have a cell phone, a pencil and a piece of paper, they will, along with my hat and personal ID, be essential parts of my preparation for my daily walk.
Our infrastructure is also a very fragile thing…easy to imagine that it is really not all that necessary, and a drain on our finances: a good topic for political bashing. But this morning on a local walking path, was evidence to the contrary.

#217 – Dick Bernard: "Way Out Here"

/in , , , /by

Every year or two I get re-hooked on Country-Western (CW), and in recent months I’ve had the radio set on the local radio station that plays only CW.
It is interesting to listen to CW music, now and then. There is a particular dark side to the often simple down home laments. Like the guy whose preacher told him to pray for his ex-girl friend, and so he prays that’ll she’ll have a blow-out while goin’ 110 – themes like that.
Probably the anthem that grabs me most right now is Way Out Here by Josh Thompson. It speaks for itself. Listen, but also look at the video and the comments.
In my hearing, at least, there ain’t much hope in many of those country anthems. The one who sings about “rain is a good thang” cuz it makes corn and corn makes whiskey which makes his “baby” a little frisky…. As with Way Out Here, listen and look at the video and the comments.
Basically, it seems, if you ain’t got much, and not much hope of getting more, enjoy what little you’ve got. Quit complaining. I guess there’s some merit in that. But the next logical step is to give up, and accept a bad status quo.
All this plays right into the hands of the really Fat Cats who are quite content to have poor people be happy being poor and downtrodden.
“Way Out Here” seems to be set in coal mining country. The relatively recent tragedy in coal country, where 13 miners were killed, likely due to coal company negligence and flagrant ignoring of many safety regulations, doesn’t seem to have strong “legs” of outrage against the company among the local population. The mine, after all, is their livelihood, dangerous as it is. The multi-millionaire boss of the mining company can go around and publicly blame the government regulations for his problems, and get away with it. He knows how to get the choir to sing against the very (and only) entity that can help them out – government. Even “the good Lord” comes in second to their “gun” in protecting them from the outsiders “way out here”.
Does the Red-Neck CW represent a part of the Tea Party base? Mebbe so. Though it seems the true Tea-Partiers are more to the establishment Fat Cat side of society.
But not necessarily totally so. The difference between feeling hopeless and hopeful is only a few letters.
And CW ain’t bad. Even putting the links into this post is fun. Here’s Dierks Bentley. Dierks is a guy I actually saw in person at the North Dakota State Fair in 2007, and liked, a lot. I’d never heard of him before. You only get a sample here. Here’s the total song. And while you’re there listen to “What Was I Thinkin'”