#399 – Dick Bernard: A Family Reunion of the Berning Bunch

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The McFadden family of Dubuque IA hosted a Berning family reunion this past weekend and I attended. There were about 130 of us in attendance. It was a perfect demonstration of the old adage about effective gatherings of any kind: “Food, Fun and Family”. (An uncaptioned photo gallery is included with this post. Family members in the know, will know!)
As years pass, such reunions are more and more difficult to organize. My common roots with the McFadden’s are great-grandparents August Berning and Christine Vosberg Berning of rural Louisburg, WI, perhaps ten miles northeast of Dubuque. In their “day” – they were born in the 1840s, in Germany and Wisconsin respectively – family reunions happened at least weekly, if not more often. Everybody lived in the same community, were the same religion, were the same nationality (in this case, German), had the same traditions, etc. And getting places away from ‘home’ was unusual.
Today such gatherings bring together people who meld many places, beliefs, traditions, etc., etc. What is normal today would have been unthinkable 100 years ago.
But we came together, and there was certainly FAMILY, and far more than enough FOOD, and a great plenty of FUN on a hot, sunshiny, Iowa day. At this gathering ages ranged from the really young, to 94.
We gathered at Swiss Valley Park near Peosta IA, an excellent venue. The entrance I used has cars drive through the Catfish Creek. It is designed that way. Signs remind people not to drive through in high water, but I’m sure there have been mistakes. The crossing is a focus for families – a variation on the ole swimmin hole. (Click on photos to enlarge them.)

Catfish Creek crossing at Swiss Valley Park July 9, 2011


There was a serendipity element to finding we were at Catfish Creek, since I have a very old postcard from the family files of another setting of that same Catfish Creek where it enters the Mississippi River.

Catfish Creek on postcard mailed November 8, 1908


Catfish Creek has an interesting history in and of itself. One description is here; a photo at the road crossing at the Park is below.

Catfish Creek marker at Swiss Valley Park, July 9, 2011


Formal reunion over I retraced some historical steps, including one with sentimental value for me: at the last reunion, in 1994, my Dad and we siblings went up to the Julien Dubuque monument overlooking the Mississippi. It is after Julien that Dubuque is named. Like Dad, Dubuque was pure French-Canadian.

Julien Dubuque monument and gravesite, south side of Dubuqe IA July 9, 2011


This time, at the monument, I read the descriptors, and found that Peosta, that town with the odd name, was the Indian Chief whose daughter Dubuque had probably married ‘back in the day’ in the late 1700 or early 1800s (Dubuque died in 1810).
Sunday Mass at St. Joseph’s at Sinsinawa and breakfast at Marion Placke’s, then a tour of the old McFadden place in once rural Asbury (now Dubuque) ended a great weekend. Those with an interest, the old home place can be seen at Mapquest at the southwest corner of Radford and Pennsylvania(Middle) Road. The acreage to the south and west remains open and is still in the family. To the east, what appears as open acreage has now been built up.
Family history is harder and harder to maintain. As the old tightly knit communities disappear, as they already have, it is ever more important to built and maintain a family identity, one that reaches far beyond the traditional bounds our ancestors knew.
Thanks, McFadden’s, for a great gathering.

#398 – Dick Bernard: Day 8 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 25 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. Going to a Family Reunion

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At 7 a.m. I leave home in my trusty 2003 Toyota Corolla, enroute to a family reunion in the Dubuque Iowa area. I’ve decided to do the trip on the slower but much more scenic and interesting Mississippi River Road. Weather is supposed to be good, and this is always a beautiful trip. I’ll be traveling alone, which gives lots of thought time. I never travel with computer, so there will be a hiatus at this space. I return Sunday night.
I’ve done this route before, several times in fact. The Mississippi was rolling long before there were humans around this place, and its done its work carving and molding the beautiful countryside for eons before there were towns and roads and such.
Human encroachment, in the way the history of our planet is mentioned, hardly merits a nanosecond, if that. But in that nanosecond we’ve unalterably changed the landscape and the resources which feed our voracious appetite for things like the gasoline that will make it possible for me to make this trip in relative comfort.
My people have been in the Mississippi Valley since, most likely, the 1700s (the French-Canadian side); and the 1840s (the southwest Wisconsin German side). Some of them were already there, farming, when the Grand Excursion of 1854 gave well to do tourists their first view of the upper Mississippi Valley, ending at later to be St. Paul and Minneapolis and the settlement floodgates began to open. It was not until the late 1860s that railroad would actually reach the new twin cities of, then, St. Paul and St. Anthony/Minneapolis.
As I drive, I’ll likely be shielded from the current hubbub and insanity in Washington and St. Paul. I have a few favorite CDs along to keep me company, from Mozart to folks songs. Life is too short to seek out the local radio stations which too often feature national talk radio.
In Viroqua, if I’m lucky, I’ll have coffee with a good friend who went to prison during the white hot times of Vietnam War protesting in 1970, but that may be the only contact with politics as such. Family reunions are no place to get into arguments about national policy. In fact, I won’t invite these encroachments. Just me. Life is a bit too short. There are other times to do that.
Most likely, typical for me, I’ll catch up on the news through the local newspapers in places like LaCrosse, Prairie du Chien, Dubuque…. It is always interesting to get the local perspective, at least such as it is printed in the local journals. Also, typically, I won’t watch much television. I don’t do that at home, either, but even less on the road.
(Click on photos to enlarge them. The entire set, from early 1900s postcards, can be seen here.)

The bridge at Dubuque in the early 1900s - a postcard rendition


Julien Hotel, Dubuque, 1908 - postcard


1933 on the Mississippi at Davenport IA - a postcard


I’ll deliver a couple volumes of my family history to the Dubuque Public Library later today. The most recent one I just had printed a few days ago: 475 pages largely of letters and postcards written from Wisconsin farm to North Dakota farm between 1905-13 or so. A story and pictures introducing the postcard section of the book is here. The longer, and in my view more fascinating, section of the book is over 100 handwritten letters found in a container at the old deserted farm house in 2000, Mostly they were sister-to-sister, talking about ordinary rural life near Dubuque from April, 1905, to June, 1906. They are literate and they are fascinating, from a time when people actually put pencil to paper.

Dubuque Carnegie Library in 1910 - from a postcard


In the course of these letters came the first telephone to the rural folk of Grant County Wisconsin. A description of an encounter of a horse carriage with an unexpected automobile is hilarious. The letters were oft-written by candlelight in the farmhouses of that day and occasionally brought news of tragedies too, such as the distraught young housewife in rural Kieler WI who in 1905 killed her four young children, ages 1 to 4, with a butcher knife, and then used the same instrument to kill herself. I’ll see if I can find their common grave – the name is Klaas – which is supposed to be in the churchyard at Kieler, near where a relative of mine lives. Oh, the stories.
Back at this space on Monday.
Have a great weekend.
NOTE: This is part of a continuing series of commentaries on the political problems we’re now facing in this state and nation. The first was published on June 23. Each hi-lited date on the calendar at upper right has a column behind it. By placing the cursor on the date, you can read the title of the particular column.

#397 – Dick Bernard: Day 7 of the Minnesota Shutdown; 26 days to D-Day in Washington D.C. "Compromise?"

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NOTE: This is part of a continuing series which began June 23. Point your cursor at any hi-lited date on the calendar and you will see the title of that days post.

I am a creature of habit. And much of my ‘habit’ involves gathering information, much of that political information.
It was said that Harry Truman, even in retirement, religiously read five newspapers every day. Most of his life was pre-television. I probably don’t come near to matching him in the information end, but I strive to keep up on the various ‘sides’ of issues of the day. It is an exhausting and very confusing task.
That being said, we are in insane times. I hope we survive.
From my personal perspective, two apparently wildly disparate views of the universe jumped out within the last day:
Yesterday, on the internet came a report on the cost of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan released by the Eisenhower Study Groups at Brown University. The Executive Summary is here. The headline says it all: “225,000 Killed, $3.2 – 4 Trillion”.
On the other pole is one letter in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune which the writer obviously wanted to be public information:
“I don’t care if my government is Democrat or Republican. I don’t care if it’s run by the Independence, Green, Patriot or Freedom parties. I want a government that will serve me with the things that will protect me and my freedom:
1. I want them to govern with as little of my money as they can.
2. I want my government workers to work hard at keeping their jobs, not rely on a union that will keep them no matter how bad a worker they are. They should earn the job.
3. I want the teachers to be the best teachers they can be, without relying on a union boss to keep their jobs for them. They should earn the right to keep the job.
4. I want my government to mind its own business around the world. Let those people be. Let them figure out how to govern themselves. You know — just like we did.

5. Don’t force policy on me that I don’t need. Health care? Ha. Fifty-five million U.S. citizens will not have health coverage. Boo-hoo. They don’t have it now and they get care for free. Nothing will change that.
And, finally: Stand for the flag, salute the flag. Know the national anthem; it won’t hurt you. And, America … do it in English.”
JUDITH SCHNARR, MINNEAPOLIS
I don’t know said Judith Schnarr, but it is pretty obvious that in her view of the world, it’s all about ME, including no Union to protect her interests, which apparently she doesn’t feel need protecting. She’s got her act all together, thank you very much.
The Eisenhower Study Group report, on the other hand, has much more of a WE vision. It matters to us, and to others, what we do….
There’s something else revealed in Ms Schnarr’s commentary: in essence, what’s mine is mine, and I can tell you what you deserve as well. Don’t tell me what to do, but I’ll certainly tell you. She reminds me of that guy in the Red Corvette in the Afton Parade on July 4. The guy with the angry look, and the “Don’t Tread on Me” banners. No kiddies looked for candy from his car, that’s for certain.
There’s just a single letter difference between those two very little words: ME versus WE.
I get the strong impression that this is the battleground between the parties in this state, and in Washington D.C.
How a balance will be found between the two poles is unknown. “Compromise” does not happen when one party or both are stuck firmly in cement.
If the road ahead is “my way or the highway” there’s a long very rough trip ahead, and we spectators are sitting in the bus that will sooner than later break down. By then, it will be too late….

#396 – Dick Bernard: Day Six of the Minnesota Shutdown; 27 days to August 2 in Washington. Messing with our minds?

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Related commentaries begin with #387 and #389, thence continuing through this post. This series will likely continue, almost daily, through August 2, 2011.
Down deep, most of us really want to believe that “they” (the politicians or parties we habitually vote for, or the religious or other powerful leaders we truly respect or resonate with) are really honest good people. It’s those other ones who aren’t…or so we convince ourselves.
What if our generalization isn’t true?
A quote I have always remembered – well enough to easily google it successfully last evening – was from the New York Times Magazine October 17, 2004.
The article was Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush by Ron Suskind.
Well down in the article, in the paragraph which begins “The aide said…“, is this quote: “…”We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality…we’ll act again, creating other new realities….” What the aide was really saying was “we’re creating our own truth”.
Six years later, in the late summer of 2008, this new reality came home to roost, and America itself virtually collapsed. We’re still paying the price.
While the “aide” is nowhere revealed by name (it is common to have such anonymous ‘background’ interviews), what is said bears the paw prints of none other than Karl Rove, a high-level White House aide to Bush who for many years has been expert in the trade of diversion, disrupt and confuse tactics in contemporary politics. As this “aide” says, Rove specializes, still, in “creating new realities”. It has worked spectacularly well. But it is a false reality.
Rove no longer has a White House office, but he is in a far more central and dangerous (in my opinion) position in the contemporary game of playing politics with peoples lives, and indeed the life of our very society. While likely supposedly independent of the Republican political operation he is backed by very big money and will be extraordinarily central to the entire Republican campaign in 2012, which has begun already with the pending chaos in Washington DC, the government shutdown in my own state, and the problems in neighboring Wisconsin and other states.
While such can never be proven, if there’s a dirty trick out there, odds are it will come from within Rove’s playbook for manipulating opinion.
I don’t underestimate Rove’s capacity for deviousness. Since I first started having an active interest in how Rove operates – it was July, 1999, when he co-starred with George W. Bush, Joe Albaugh and Karen Hughes in long profiles in the Washington Post long preceding the official 2000 political season – I’ve watched for evidence of his almost trade-marked dirty tricks, performed by he and his abundant disciples.
His has always been an amoral world. Politics is considered psychological warfare. I would suppose Rove goes to church somewhere, sometime – certainly a Christian one – and I am quite sure he can disconnect his “professional” life from his personal. After all, if a carnie huckster can flim flam a rube out of a few dollars, why not a larger scale flim flam with a much larger number of rubes who can be made to believe almost anything.
There is a big problem with mythical realities as opposed to more genuine ones: mythical realities don’t exist other than in the minds of those who believe in them, and when the dream turns out to be bogus, its too late to do anything about it.
We are so awash in political lies that it is prudent to take at face value nothing which emanates in the political sphere that purports to be true. The false reality is slowly built, insinuation by insinuation; dirty trick by dirty trick. If your official source of political information is television ads, or talk radio, there is little chance of getting some kind of objective truth.
I don’t possess a magic wand for dealing with this problem, except to recommend being very skeptical. The coming year and a half we will be awash in huge amounts of money expended by shadowy PACs on convincingly put together lies about those they favor, and those they wish to destroy.
In the end, we’ll be the beneficiary, or the victim, of decisions we make.
It’s in our court.

#395 – Dick Bernard: Day Five of the Minnesota Shutdown. Compromise; Reason vs Belief

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My 1979 Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (p. 374) says this about the word “Compromise …compromised…compromising:
1) to adjust and settle (a difference) by mutual agreement, with concessions on both sides.
2. to agree: to accord [Obs].
3. to lay open to danger, suspicion, or disrepute: to endanger the interests of.
4. to surrender or give up (one’s interests, principles, etc.)”
An alternative second definition is “1. to make a compromise or compromises. 2. to agree.” Then comes a third: “Compromiser. one who compromises or believes in compromise.”
Oh how easy. Oh how impossible.
The word “compromise” will become the word of the day, week and month as people weigh in on how to settle the dangerous disagreement that has shut down the State Capitol.
In our current political society, when it comes to the most committed on each side, “compromise” has come to mean weakness (“4. to surrender…”) rather than mutual strength “to adjust and settle (a difference) by mutual agreement…”. I have watched this evolve for many years, particularly given my career work environment which required parties who were sure of the rightness of their position to finally come to some agreement about their differences. Yes, one side could bludgeon the other side into an undesired agreement, but that was a short term solution that often bit back, hard.
In our obsession with winning, we have become a society of losers. The endless parade of words over the last days, wherever I have looked, all have essentially the same direction: “if only the others would agree to my interpretation of what is best for this state (and we could substitute “country” as easily) all would be good.”
Only if I win, will I be satisfied. Only if the other party comes more than half the way, first, and admits defeat, will I come to an agreement.
It doesn’t work that way, folks.
We learn the real strength of “compromise” and we learn it very soon, or we’re in trouble.
At this moment in history, there is a “winning” side, and it is identified by the general term “radical right wing”. Its cover is the name “Republican”, but it is not Republican in any traditional context. It knows how to “win”, by use of words, by absolute refusal to compromise except on its own narrow terms, by substitution of basics like facts and reason with things like belief.
We see its calculation of its strength, and then its application of brute force in the use of that strength, to obstruct or deny the legitimacy of any other point of view.
Very carefully it has carved out its winning strategy, and it has worked…so far.
But as we are beginning to find out, through the government shutdown in Minnesota, and the rapidly approaching latest crisis in Washington D.C., we are living on the brink of disaster.
We learn to compromise, or we slowly die the death of a thousand cuts.
I tend to be an optimistic sort.
My optimism is being sorely tested.

#394 – Dick Bernard: Day Four of the Minnesota Shutdown. A Parade. In a time of orchestrated hate, I'm Liberal, and proud of it.

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July 4 UPDATE at end
Directly related: June 27, here.
The hate mail about President Obama is starting to come more frequently into my e-mail in box. Predictably (and falsely) Governor Dayton is already being blamed for the Minnesota budget stalemate. It is reported that some Republican legislators jeered him when he announced the shutdown last Thursday night at the Capitol.
No class.
It must be the 4th of July.
We’ll likely do, today, what we most always do: go to the town parade in Afton a few miles east of here. It’s a quaint parade you can watch twice if you wish, since the units double back down the same main street.
There will be a color guard, and we’ll stand, and I’ll doff my Vets for Peace hat, then will come the usual. This is an off-year politically, so I don’t expect a lot of politicians. There will probably be even fewer than usual since they’d probably rather not be too out in the open, this soon after the shutdown. We’re nice people here, and there’ll likely be no hissing or such, but I still don’t think the usual complement of politicos will be on the main street. If we go, I’ll report back on what I observe.
I am interested in the hate mail (that’s exactly what it is). Usually it comes via people who I know, who are generally in my age range. Rarely does any personal message come with these “forwards”, so I don’t know why they are being forwarded to me. Sometimes, I think, they are interested in what I might think of this or that. But I don’t know that, usually.
My policy has become to respond, each and every time. The most recent one was an insulting parody of the oldie “Casey at the Bat”. There was no message whatsoever other than an insult of Obama.
I happen to be proud of the President, and I say so. He’s doing a great job under far less than good conditions.
I can make the same comments about Governor Dayton in my state.
We are a country filled with seething bitterness, most of it taught. It is not healthy…for us.
Last evening we watched a special about the complexities of Abraham Lincoln’s early political career and the relationship of he and his wife. In the 1860 election he won the presidency with 40% of the vote, and after he was elected 7 states seceded from the Union. And he’s the most revered President in our history…I believe the first Republican President. It could be argued that he opened the door for President Obama through the Emancipation Proclamation.
Succinctly, Lincolns political career has a lot of similarities to Barack Obama’s.
A friend’s letter to the editor in the June 30, 2011, Minneapolis Star Tribune says it as well as anything I’ve seen:
“A June 29 letter writer claims that Barack Obama “was the most inexperienced president the United States has ever elected.
Actually, Obama’s eight years in the Illinois Legislature, during which he sponsored more than 800 bills, and his two years in the U.S. Senate are similar to Abraham Lincoln’s eight years in the Illinois legislature and two years in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rather than looking at years in office, I prefer to look at a candidate’s understanding of public policy and his or her positions on what those policies should be.”
Joyce Denn, Woodbury
I probably can’t change the angry e-mailer attitudes. It’s a free country and they can vent all they want, whether through cartoons, parodies or out and out lies.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to cower in a corner and pretend I’m something I’m not.
Liberals are demonized too. And I’m one of them, and I’m proud of what I am. We’re good, solid, upstanding people.
Do I know people on the left who are prone to sending insults and engaging in ugly behavior too? Of course I do. Probably roughly in the same proportion as on the right. But they don’t have the financial backing to spread their insults as broadly.
Money does talk, very, very loudly.
Have a good 4th, and work towards a renewal of respectful political discourse.
Politics was tough in Lincoln’s day, too. But they did debate respectfully, or so I hear.
Other recent and related posts can be accessed here.
UPDATE
Just back from the Afton Parade. From all appearances, more spectators than previous years. There was not a single unit that featured political leaders. Normally there’d be up to a half dozen. One very angry looking guy drove a red Corvette on which he’d draped two “Don’t Tread on Me” flags, without any explanation. If he had a message no one could figure out what it was.
A guy about my age struck up a conversation. He mentioned that one of their daughters works in a program for fetal alcohol syndrome that is dependent on state funds, and she is on furlough. Enroute home we noticed that the ubiquitous signs for the Minnesota Lottery were lights out: the Lottery has been suspended.
Everybody was very polite to everybody else. I think we all know we’re in a rotten kettle.
Tomorrow the holiday is over, and we all need to get to work.

Afton MN July 4 Parade. Color Guard.

#393 – Dick Bernard: Day Three of the Shutdown. The Republicans take the state of Minnesota out on strike.

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We’re in day three on the picket lines; most of us just don’t realize it. (Previous posts at June 30 and July 2, 2011. Recent related posts here and here.)
The “just say ‘no’ ” bunch leading the Republican party may come to learn a lesson that they’ve probably not had to encounter before.
When midnight passed and July 1, 2011, began, a shift occurred and the Republicans are no longer in control of anything. And I personally hope that Governor Dayton gets the support from people like me to truly negotiate, yes, but hang tough for the principles he articulated on our behalf.
I don’t have a fact file on the issues, though I follow political developments more carefully than most. Essentially, I think the Minnesota shut-down boils down to this (United States take note): since he began his campaign for Governor, Mark Dayton, ironically from the wealthy class, has said that the wealthy can afford to, and must, pay more#, to help get us out of the hole religiously dug by veto after veto in the Pawlenty years, as well as by pledges to say “no” to taxes to fund the services the less wealthy need and/or large blocs of Minnesota citizens, including the wealthy, have come to expect as a service of their ‘government’#.
The wealthy, on the other hand, while small in numbers have become an immensely powerful – and protected – special interest. Already awash in money, they apparently need more. At the end of the pre-shut down bargaining Gov. Dayton apparently was willing to make his proposal apply to only 7,000 (of over 5,000,000) of Minnesota’s wealthiest citizens – the true millionaires.
Succinctly, the Grover Norquist playbook has worked in Minnesota – for now.
What’s ahead?
Each of us have our own experiences – our own ‘expertise’ – and this is one of those times when I can share something from my own bank of ‘life’ experience.

More by circumstance than design I spent the vast majority of my professional career representing employees in collective bargaining which culminated in the right to strike. I wasn’t a ‘rock star’ in the trade (frankly, I don’t know any, on either side of the bargaining table), but I was a journeyman, with a big variety of experiences up to and including strikes.
There is a danger in making generalizations, but an observation I have always made is this: up until the moment the strike began, the employees had the leverage of the threat of the strike.

As the strike began, the dynamic shifted. Once out the door and on the street, the problem now became – for both sides – to figure out a way to get the employees back in to work.
Invariably, in the first few days, there was lots of rhetoric, and on the picket lines lots of esprit d’corps – “there, we’ve showed ’em”. But before too long reality settled in: we’ve got a problem here. The ranks on both sides knew they had a big problem on their hands: “what do we do now?”.
Ultimately, every dispute settled. Rarely was the face of the losing side rubbed in its defeat. After all, the parties needed to work together. Sometimes relationships bounced back quickly; in others, bitterness lasted for years.
Now we have an entire state on strike – a strike called, ironically, by the same party that abhors unions and employee right to strike.
At 12:01 a.m. on July 1, 2011, the Republicans are, ironically, “labor” in this shutdown scenario. Actually, this began the moment they adjourned back in May. Now, they cannot force anything.
Governor Dayton is speaking for the people of Minnesota when he says the rich have an obligation to do more, and a policy of ‘slash and burn’ of government is not in the peoples best interests.
I applaud him for his stand.
He deserves support.
And I hope that both a reasonable settlement, and a chastened Republican party, will help lead us back from the precipice that is called “winners” and “losers”.
Unfortunately, at this moment, I’m not very confident. We aren’t hurting, yet.
Day Four (July 4th) at this space: A liberal views the problem.
# – There never was a plan to ‘soak the rich’. One of the last items I saw yesterday was this schematic of Gov. Dayton’s vs the Republican legislatures stand on the issue. There was no intention to make the wealthy folks paupers in rags on the street. Source: Heather Mertens, Executive Director Protect Minnesota
Read about the impact of the different budget versions:
Legislature’s proposed income and property tax increases for:
A single parent making $27,000: $677 per year
Couple making $50,000: $887 per year
Couple making $335,000: $716 per year
Couple making $500,000: $716 per year
Governor’s proposed income and property tax increases for:
A single parent making $27,000: $0 per year
Couple making $50,000: $0 per year
Couple making $335,000: $775 per year ($2 per day)
Couple making $500,000: $5,270 per year ($14 per day)
(Source: MN State Rep. Rena Moran’s office, based on Dept. of Revenue Projections)

#392 – Dick Bernard: Day Two of the Minnesota Government Shutdown

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I expect to regularly comment on the Minnesota Shutdown at this space. Check in once in awhile. Related post for June 30 here.
In the evening of Day One of the Shutdown, we took our Grandson Ryan to a Minnesota Twins vs Milwaukee Brewers game at Target Field.
It started very nastily, with a two hour weather delay, and ended well after midnight with a Twins win: 6-2. Very tired, but all good.
The weather (photos below, click to enlarge) give evidence of an opportunity I had for two hours to see lots of Minnesotans in action less than a day after the government shutdown.

Target Field, Minneapolis MN, shortly after 7 p.m. July 1, 2011.


Torrents of rain on Target Field July 1, 2011


After the deluge, and before 'batter up'


Minnesota nice prevailed on the filled concourses during the two hour delay. Beer sales were apparently very brisk, as evidenced by long lines at the men’s restrooms. Even though the storm seemed potentially ominous (it ended relatively benign), there was no sense of panic. The Stadium is very well constructed for this kind of contingency, it appears, and the facility personnel were well prepared. Whatever one might feel about the Stadium itself, it was built in the present with an eye towards future possibilities, including unpleasant ones, like bad storms. That’s what infrastructure is all about.
But you couldn’t tell, Friday night, that Minnesota Government was essentially shut down. That non-response is to be expected. It takes days, weeks, sometimes months to come to grips with a hugely unpleasant reality: when Future becomes Present, and you can only wish you did things different back then in the Past. I thought back to an extremely difficult time in my own life, when burnout caused me to leave a secure job and become unemployed without access to unemployment insurance. It was initially rewarding. I desperately needed the break. But as time went on, and the grim realities of no money and no job set in, there was more a sense of panic. This began about 29 years ago, and it is a time I will never forget. Present indeed becomes Future, and if you don’t look beyond today, you’re living in a fools paradise.
Back home after the game a flooded e-mail box with assorted comments about the shutdown.
One particularly caught my eye. I am close enough to the sources of credible political commentary to on occasion get material like what I saw later in the day here, which is most likely genuine. The Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial this morning seemed to verify the reality of the e-mail.
I have been around collective bargaining of all sorts for many, many years, including death’s door negotiations to avoid strikes.
One of the rules, which does not even have to be written, is that you don’t bring to the table at the end of the process items that you know will not be negotiated by the other, unless that is your intended purpose: to find an excuse to walk out…and then blame the other side for what was, in fact, your own intended purpose.
This apparent proposal is full of these items. Add an apparent refusal to even consider Gov. Dayton’s priority of additional taxes on the very wealthy (at the end, those with over $1,000,000 incomes), and there is no place to bargain. If in fact it is true, which is likely, the Republican negotiators either were hopelessly naive, or, more likely, desired the outcome which was headlined on July 1, as “SHUT DOWN”.
Regrettably, few people really pay attention to politics, except for sniping, negative comments about “them”. And in this polarized political environment, the tendency is to shut out reasonable arguments that don’t represent your “side”. So, at this point, few people are interested in anything past the sound bites they might see on the evening news or in a headline; and too many are caught up in that most shallow mantra: “we don’t have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem”.
If this thing doesn’t settle, soon, the body politic will begin to come to grips with a very harsh reality, much as I did 28 years ago. Back then an important (and I believe, still, necessary) decision for my own mental health went awry, later creating serious problems affecting only my tiny (in relative terms) personal universe. We’re now making serious problems for our entire country, for everybody.
There’s a big difference between derailing an entire train, and one person jumping off of it….
ADDITIONAL COMMENT ON DAY THREE: Of course, everything would be immediately solved if one of the negotiating parties dropped their demands and conceded to the other. That has been an obvious potential problem since the day after the election in 2010 more than eight months ago; and it is the ‘sound bite show’ – if only THEY or HE would concede, we could settle this thing in a moment.
I was glad when they went behind closed doors to try to settle things without news release and fanning flames.
It didn’t work. It remains the only potential for success.

Ryan with "t c". He got his hat autographed!