#552 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #9. Climate Change

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A year ago today I was at a resort in suburban Albuquerque NM. It was a nice spring day, and I walked down to the Rio Grande River and saw this tree which was winning the race to be first to leaf out for 2011.

April 10, 2011 Bernalillo NM on bank of Rio Grande

Today, exactly one year later, I went to my favorite little park in my suburban St. Paul MN community, and took a photo of a typical tree from roughly the same perspective as I did a year ago.

Woodbury MN April 10, 2012

If anything, the Minnesota tree is further along this April 10 than its New Mexico neighbor ten degrees of Latitude (roughly 700 miles) to the south was exactly a year ago. The tree in Woodbury MN seems, among its peers, to be about average in leaf development this April 10; last years New Mexico tree was far ahead of its neighbors, which is why it attracted my attention back then.
What is going on?
I’m not a fool. There are many variables that might possibly lead to the unusual “twinning” of two trees of different species far distant from each other. There are differences in weather, day to day. Etc. Etc. Etc.
For certain, however, March, 2012, was an exceptionally warm month. Odd and often unusually severe weather, from droughts to storms, seem more frequent, and more and more certainly linked to human behavior. (UPDATE: Yahoo News had this about March, 2012, on April 15.)
There is something else going and on, and except for those mired in fantasy or with a particular vested interest in maintaining a particular illusion that climate is not changing, and that humanity has nothing to do with it, the debate is over: we humans in the industrialized world have had a great deal to do with the changes we are seeing, and while we don’t know the precise consequences for each of us where we live, there are definitely consequences and they are likely not going to be pleasant.
It was seven years ago this summer that we saw Al Gore make a powerful presentation in St. Paul on what he called the “Inconvenient Truth” of Climate Change. And a year later, we saw his powerful film on the topic. (It can now be easily accessed everywhere.)
An Inconvenient Truth has survived vicious criticism over the years: About a year ago I heard a well known climate scientist say he’d give An Inconvenient Truth 90% for accuracy – a very high grade in anyone’s league, especially when it comes to complex science.
Listen. Learn. Close down the denial mechanism.
Humanity – especially the developed industrialized world – is doing ourselves in and it bodes ill for the future of succeeding generations, perhaps even our own generation.
Check in once in awhile at the website of a new organization called Science Debate.
A while ago I asked a good friend who’s passionate about this subject to recommend a single website he thought would be a good portal for ongoing information. Here’s what he recommended.
But whether these sources, or any one of many others, get engaged and do your part to stop the denial.
As farmers have known forever, weather and climate are bigger than we are.
We are fools to make them even larger factors in our future than they would naturally be.
UPDATE APRIL 11, 2012:
from Lee Dechert, St. Paul: Within the climate science community, Skeptical Science is regarded as the best up-to-date source for a basic understanding of climate science, and for countering misinformation and disinformation on that science. Al Gore is a good example. Last year Minnesota Sen. Bill Ingebrigtsen and his GOP committee members rejected and ridiculed Prof. John Abraham’s expert testimony that opposed rescinding a state law that limits emissions from coal-fired power plants and prohibits construction of new plants. I e-mailed a complaint to him; he replied in part by ridiculing Al Gore; I responded in part by saying there are people who also deny the holocaust. His co-authored bill was based on an ALEC “model bill” and was one of the environmental roll-back bills vetoed by DFL Gov. Mark Dayton. The GOP, with its Tea Party backers, is the only major political party on our planet that has officially denied the reality of human-induced global warming and is opposing public and private efforts to reverse it and adapt to its climate change impacts. The International Energy Agency has warned that some impacts will soon be irreversible.

#551 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #8. The un-Civil Political War of 2012.

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The main front-page headline of today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune is pretty clear “election 2012 Ad blitz targeting Obama is on its way”*.
Karl Rove and Company is baaaacckkkk, big-time. They were preparing for the Main Event, and here they are.
There are no surprises in the article (click on the headline to see the entire article). There will be hundreds of millions of dollars spent with a single objective: to smear and thus help defeat President Obama and Democrats in November. It is coordinated and it will be vicious beyond any previous precedent. Big, big money will be funding this stuff for the next six months. Buyer beware.

“Obama” is really used as the symbol of people like me: “liberal”, “Democrat”, “union”…they and words like them are all “hate words”. (In a few days I’ll be writing about that business of “hate words”. Stay tuned. The subtext will be “Using the Middle Class to kill the Middle Class”.)
Nothing we’ll see in the barrage of ads (and “forwards”) will be any surprise to me. There is no intention at conveying “truth” in any sense of that word. These “ads” will doubtless include those barrage of “forwards” that I get most every day. (I always look at these forwards, since I want to see how the “truth” is destroyed.) I’ve written about this before, most recently March 24, 2012. It is so rare to receive a forward that on balance is “true”.
I also look at the truly vicious stuff that comes from the “Tea Party” internet structure. I’m a glutton for punishment, I guess.
As for me, I happen to be a retired Teacher Union representative who’s a very moderate liberal Democrat who has a great deal of respect for President Obama, (though I supported Hillary Clinton until she conceded the nomination in 2008.) My best prominent political friend was a former Republican Governor of Minnesota. I’m reasonably well informed person on politics, and reasonably active in the local level of the political conversation.
If you are at all interested in my perspectives, check in once in awhile and simply put the words Election 2012 in the search box. You’ll find anything I’ve been writing about the topic (there have been 7 preceding items.)
If you aren’t interested, fine. Not so fine if you believe the ad barrage, as you will be lied to, constantly, from the comfort of your easy chair. If you are unsure what to believe, reluctantly I would say, believe nothing when it comes to political argument. There is truth out there, but it won’t come from the “forwards” or the ads.
More on this topic in the next few days.
Note: June 27, 2011, I did a directly related post to this one. It is here. I note that in that smear campaign, $20 million was said to be involved. In the one now beginning, the amount will be over $200 million, and national, and this is months before the big and vicious onslaught in the fall.
Caveat Emptor.
* – I’ve subscribed to the Minneapolis Star Tribune for many years. In the most recent years it would likely be most accurately described as moderate conservative Republican in orientation.
UPDATE APRIL 11, 2012
1. From Willard Shapira, Roseville MN: The election of 2012 is nothing less than a no-holds-barred battle for control of America now and the foreseeable future. Civility is out the window; anything goes when the stakes are this high.
2. One of this mornings e-mails was a “forward” from a valued long-time friend, with this question: “Is this true?”
The text, much in very large print, all capitals and screaming color, was
“Shocking News from ABC’s Diane Sawyer”
“Biggest travesty of all times…
The entire e-mail, along with the video, follows my response:
“I appreciate your asking.
I looked at the piece, and I checked Snopes, Nothing about Chinese building American bridges there, possibly because this is a brand new piece.
Here is what I noticed:
1) This is probably a brand new piece of propaganda, and it very likely is a ‘cut and paste’ job using ABC footage and website. It says right under the video that it was aired in September, 2011, six months ago, and the video itself probably used footage even older. But surrounding the video is current news. For someone like you or I it would be almost impossible to discern the “truth” of this apparently very real piece of film. It is probably gross misuse of ABC’s rights, but ABC won’t pursue – too hard. And you can’t attribute this “forward” to anyone specific (typical of such forwards).
2) The piece emphasizes three STATE projects, California, New York and Alaska, but its clear intent is to blame OBAMA and put him and GOVERNMENT in cahoots with CHINA (see the second sentence.)
3) There is something unstated here: these are very big business contracts. As you know, “states” as entities don’t build anything. They let contracts to profit-making concerns who are constrained only by state and federal law. Business (and we consumers) do a LOT of shopping in China.
If one were to dig at all, one would find this to be far, far more complicated. If something surfaces on Snopes, I’ll let you know.
That you would have received this on Monday doesn’t surprise me at all, actually.
Here is what I wrote on Monday on my blog post (you’ve been reading the post I refer to).
After sending my response, I thought about this some more, and added this:
I think about this kind of stuff, quite a lot, actually, and it occurred to me after sending my response that I had left out perhaps the most important piece of data: in my state, and at the national level, and probably in most states, the real ‘driver’ of public policy for the current Republican party is Big Business. One of the main mantras I hear all the time is “get government off our back”, in terms of regulations, such as fair wages, who we can buy from, etc., etc. So, with the bridge example, the prime contractors go where they can get “whatever” cheapest…but continue to blame “government” for the problems.
Prove me wrong on this one. I think it will be difficult to do so, since, as I say, I hear it all the time.”
The “forward” continued.
Diane Sawyer reporting on U.S. bridge projects going to the Chines….NOT Americans.
The bridges are right here in the U.S. and yet Obama has approved for Chinese contractors to come in and do the work. What about jobs for Americans???
Watch this video. It doesn’t take long to view.
This one should be tough for the supoorters of the current regime to swallow…AND it comes from ABC NEWS.
U.S.A. Bridges andRoads Being Built by Chinese Firms. Shokcing to say the least! This video is a jaw-dropper that will make you sick. (It was also shocking that ABC was actually reporting this story.)
The lead-in with Obama promising jobs in the U.S. by improving our infrastructure is so typical of all his promises! Our tax dollars are at work – for CHINA!!!
I pray all the unemployed see this and cast their votes accordingly in 2012!
Click here: U.S Bridges, Roads Being Built by Chinese Firms Video – ABC News
PLEASE pass on to everyone.

#550 – Dick Bernard: Heritage. The Collet’s of St. Anthony MN. An Easter Story

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There are legions of people who toil in the trade of family history. I’m one of them. We can all tell similar stories: as you begin to peel the onion, you find endless layers. Dead ends turn into “aha” moments. Aha moments can later return to dead-ends. The quest for a families history never ends.

Easter week I had an “aha” that may be one of those openings to a new chapter in my own family history. I hope someone takes the bait. I’ll just provide raw material.

My grandmother Bernard was Josephine Collette (until ca 1878 the family name was Collet, then Collett), born, it was always said, at St. Andrews ND in 1880. St. Andrews, at the confluence of the Red and Park Rivers, was built on the general site of an Alexander Henry Trading Post, known to most present-day people as a rest stop on Interstate 29 between Grand Forks ND and the Canadian border.

St. Andrews had a short and interesting life as settlers poured in beginning in 1878. It is said that Grandma’s Dad, Octave, ran a “hotel” at St. Andrews, probably during the period he was proving his claim a few miles west at Oakwood.

For years I knew the Collette family had first migrated in total to the legendary frontier town St. Anthony, preceding, then later absorbed into Minneapolis. They came west sometime in the 1860s. They had come from St. Lambert QC.

There are no family legends about intervening stops, or how they actually made the trip (depending on when they came, they might have gotten as far as the Mississippi R by train, thence upriver by steamboat.) But no story of what had to be a hard 1000 mile trek has surfaced.

Exactly when they came and left St. Anthony is still lost to history. The 1870 census of St. Anthony shows 14 in the Collette household and that the second to last child Joseph (May 21, 1864) was born in Minnesota, the older children in Canada. (St. Anthony in 1870 had a bit more than 5000 population, similar to Grafton ND today.)

By 1869 my great-grandparents Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette had married – at St. Anthony of Padua in St. Anthony – and had their first child, and were likely living with the rest of the family, though recorded as a second household. You can see a tintype of Clotilde and Octave, likely taken after their marriage in 1869 in St. Anthony MN, below (click to enlarge all photos).

Clotilde Blondeau and Octave Collette at St. Anthony MN ca July 1869

The census shows that four adults were working in a “paper mill”; the two wives were “housekeepers”. (There is mention of the Paper Mill at page 328 in this most interesting link about the St. Anthony Falls District.)

By 1875 most if not all Collette’s moved to Dayton MN (suburban Minneapolis), thence in 1878, the first of the family moved to Dakota Territory. They seem to have made group decisions on these matters.

But where did they live in St. Anthony?

Until this past week, I hadn’t delved into this question.
I found the likely answer a few miles from where I type this post, at the library of the Minnesota Historical Society. In the 1871-72 city directory of Minneapolis and St. Anthony was this: “Collet, D. farmer 2d St. cor [corner] Maple”. I asked to see a period map of St. Anthony (click to open, portion below): St Anthony ca 1870001.

I’ve been to this area many times, in fact, twice this past week I was in the falls area for other purposes. I made a trip to see the exact spot. Alas, there is no longer a “Maple Street”. A quick review of contemporary maps fixed Maple as now being 6th Avenue SE, the access point to Fr. Hennepin Park and the famous Stone Arch Bridge one short block away, and three blocks upriver from the I-35W bridge – the one that collapsed into the river in 2006.

While the environment has totally changed from 1860s and 1879s to today, it felt like I was home for Easter.
Here are some photos I took in the area Friday April 6, 2012. Click to enlarge.
Happy Easter.

downtown Minneapolis from the corner of 2nd and “Maple” (6th Ave SE) Apr. 6, 2012

The corner, looking west at the ruins of old Pillsbury Flour Mill.

On the Stone Arch walking bridge. The Collet corner would be two blocks behind the photographer.

Tourist Map at Fr. Hennepin park. “Collet Corner” would be a block outside right hand side of the inset box on the map.

Tourist info at Stone Arch Bridge two blocks from 2nd and Maple (6th Ave SE) St. Anthony (Minneapolis).

Postscript: Of course, tentatively answering one of these questions raises infinite other questions. Without enumerating mine, perhaps you can raise your own…and help with the research!
Type the word “heritage” in the search box to find the previous five heritage articles. #1 is here.

#549 – Dick Bernard: Part Two. The slow but certain suicide of Capitalism

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I’m not an enemy of Capitalism. From my earliest years some deference was paid to the person who lived in the biggest house in town; who occupied a position of status or rank; the most “successful” relative…. Right or wrong, they were thought to be deserving of being a bit better off.
Today, Capitalism funds my retirement pension (unless its most ruthless advocates achieve a goal of destroying my Union which provides the funding to assure my private pension solvency.)
I also have no apprehensions about Socialism. Indeed, without very strong elements of Socialism in the American economy, Capitalism would die, and Capitalism knows it, but doesn’t have the common sense to know when to quit bludgeoning the middle class and government, which are largely creatures of Socialist largesse – public schools, health and the like.
Examples to debate are endless. The Bible quote in last Sunday’s Passion (see it here) was a most interesting one, cutting the apparent Capitalist of the day considerable slack in how she spent her money.
Oh, if it were so simple.
If I were to pick an exemplar of unfettered Capitalism it would be desperately impoverished Haiti, once the jewel of the French Empire. You can find many examples of extreme wealth there; elite families benefit by friendly laws and have destroyed competition. As one gets richer and richer and richer, defeating a potential competitor is easy.
Poor as it is, I’ve heard post-earthquake Haiti described as a “goldmine”. So, somebody has a monopoly on cement; someone else on school uniforms, etc., etc., etc. And the wealthy in Haiti can enjoy their lifestyle wherever in the world they wish, while the overwhelming vast majority of the people subsist. It is a society of, by and for Capitalism; and in the last 100-200 years it is largely of the American variety. Its cruel circumstances were imported from France and the U.S., largely.

In our own U.S., the Capitalist impulse towards self-destruction is harder to see than in Haiti, but nonetheless it is apparent. We are killing ourselves.
The accelerating imbalance in wealth in America (and elsewhere) is apparent to anyone who cares to look. Last Sunday, 60 Minutes had a segment on burgeoning art markets for the super wealthy.
The wealthy have far more than enough. But, it seems, the more they have the more they want.
A friend of mine, a retired corporate manager and no friend of government or taxes, described this dynamic a few days ago, without intending to do so.
He and his wife spend February and March at one of those Florida Gulf Coast condominium complexes, and they had just returned home.
We were chatting, and the topic got around to where they stay each year.
They rent: $5,000 a month. Two bedroom, 9th floor, Gulf side.
We chatted: The owners of their condo have three or four homes. The 19 floors of their condo has over 100 units; only 6 are year round residents. The condo they rent cost $1.3 million when purchased a few years ago, and probably on a good day would now sell for $600,000. Monthly Association fees are $891, and my friend guessed that the place is rented perhaps four months a year. Most of the year it is empty. There are additional costs for upkeep. There are numerous other similar buildings in this community….
One can gather how a conversation about government, taxes, liberals, unions, etc., would go at dinner in one of the restaurants in this wealthy ghetto. Likely the owners pick as their legal residence the state which has the lowest taxes, and extract every entitlement that they can.
Yes, we have always had the better off, and mostly they were accepted and respected.
But like the semblance of balance necessary to keep a tub of clothes on spin cycle from ruining the wash machine, the obsession with more and more wealth – escalating inequity – is ruining everyone, including the very wealthy.
The wealthy are already a victim of their own greed – imprisoned by their own wealth – but its all they know. The rest of us will just tag along as their (and by extension, our) self-destruct mission continues…unless we decide to do something about it in our still free elections.
Happy Easter.
(Part one is here.)
UPDATE April 4:
John Borgen: Yes, we are a country of the corporations by the corporations for the corporations. Making profit is our holy grail. So many believe they will strike it rich, win the lottery, inherit the big bucks. Consumerism is our religion. Our citizens are drunk on TV, sports, video games, alcohol, drugs, sugar, gossip, blame, selfishness, American elitism.
Ah, the rugged individual! The entrepreneur who cashes in. Only in America!
I heard on the radio,according to the Gallop organization, the top three happiest countries are Denmark, Norway and Finland. The USA
is # 11.

#548 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #7. Talking Politics. The DFL Senate District 53 Convention

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If you aren’t normally involved in politics, or even if you are, you might be interested in this recap of last weekends local district political convention.

We have a societal, essentially tribal, inclination to label and judge “broad brush”. Therefore, rather than talking face to face, we label: Iran, collectively, is evil; or, or or….
And “Politicians”. Back in early January a well known activist wrote me a letter framing the issue, without intending to do so: “Politics is the art of the possible and involves compromise. That is the job of politicians and I respect that. The job of [my movement] is to focus on [our] issue….” In other words (my opinion) we can’t and won’t compromise….
When you go to a local political convention as I did Saturday, you know that labels are unfair and inaccurate.
In my case, to be “Democrat” does not mean to be alike. If one or the other party has been taken over by fringe ideologies, that simply means that others let it happen. If the left wing (which in my opinion is very similar to the right wing) feels deserted by the Democrats it is because it doesn’t show up, or its positions are considered too extreme and it refuses to negotiate.
In Minnesota the formal process began with the caucuses in February.
Someone on Saturday said that similarly relatively small numbers of Republicans and Democrats attended their respective precinct caucuses in February.
I don’t know the Republican process; I know that all are welcome at the Democrat (DFL) caucus. Some would call this openness a liability; I consider it a strength. And if you came to the caucus you were at step one of the process* in the DFL party. You could propose and argue resolutions, you could stand for delegate to the Senate District Convention, and from there have the opportunity to be a delegate to the Congressional and then State Conventions.
In my caucus and convention, everyone who wanted to become a delegate had the opportunity.
So, we delegates gathered in Maplewood on March 31 to organize a new Senate District 53. The credentials report showed 119 of us, which was about 70% of those had agreed to be delegates. Vested in us was the power of the convention to endorse candidates for office, as well as deal with the over 90 resolutions forwarded from the precinct caucuses. Volunteer committees gathered several weeks before the convention to plan for March 31.
Beginning at 9 a.m. we dealt with all of the things that are important in such Conventions.
We heard a number of speeches from candidates or their representatives, some ‘circuit riding’ from one convention to the next. I always have great respect and admiration for those, including those who do not prevail, who put themselves on the line vying for these offices. Being a candidate is very hard work.
We heard from our candidates: two of the three positions were contested. We chose our candidates to support for State Senate and State House of Representatives. All three are women. These fine committed potential public servants are: Susan Kent, Ann Marie Metzger and JoAnn Ward.
We were all getting tired, and we still had to pick delegates to the Congressional District Convention, and deal with the resolutions.
We had no contest for delegate positions. Everyone who wanted to go on had the opportunity, either as delegate or alternate. There is an affirmative action rule requiring that there be equal numbers of men and women, and we met that criteria.
Then came the Resolutions.
At the Convention pre-meeting, we had winnowed down the initial 90 resolutions to 33 (many were essentially identical). The Convention could have approved and advanced all resolutions, but 7 were challenged by delegates for assorted reasons.
There was reasoned, and reasonable, and brief, debate on all of the questioned resolutions. When we adjourned at nearly 4:30, 4 of the resolutions had been removed, one through a tie vote. One was very significantly revised, then passed.
29 Resolutions go on to the 4th Congressional District Convention later this month.
By participating, you learn that politics is not evil, but good. That reasoned debate among reasonable people comes to reasonable results.
And most important, that political decision making goes to those who show up and participate, including through voting….

(click to enlarge photo)

Ann Marie Metzger seeks nomination as District 53B candidate March 31, 2012


* – “A” in the triangle is what this commentary is about: “we, the people”. We have all the power. We ARE politics.
“B” is what all the big media and important pundit chatter is about. But without “A” there is no “B”.
A daily summary of “B” which I find very useful is Just Above Sunset. The April 1 post, “Engineering a Better America” is a very useful read.
For the other commentaries on Election 2012 just enter those words in the search box above.

#547 – Dick Bernard: Part One. Palm Sunday, the Passion, Haiti and the Mega-Millions Lottery

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UPDATE April 4: An excellent commentary on the economics of the lottery can be found here. And on another angle, here.
A followup post on this topic is here.
This morning started, as usual, with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The entirety of page A4 – no ads – was devoted to two topics: the top two-thirds was headlined “U.N muddies Haiti’s cholera war”; the bottom third was headlined “3 Mega Millions winners, more than 100 million losers.”
The two articles speak clearly for themselves.
Then we went to Basilica of St. Mary, picked up up our palms, and settled in for the long Gospel, the Passion, this years version according to St. Mark, Chapter 14:1 – 15:47. (There are three versions of the Passion, and they rotate each year.)
This year, probably because of the juxtaposition of Haiti’s most recent uninvited and undeserved catastrophe with the frenzy to hopefully win the treasures of the Lottery, one section of the Passion particularly caught my attention.
Here it is as recorded in my Grandma Bernard’s 1912 edition of the Douay-Rheims (Catholic) Bible:
“And when he was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, and was at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard: and breaking the alabaster box she poured it out upon his head.
Now there were some that had indignation with themselves, and said: Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
But Jesus said: Let her alone, why do you molest her? She hath wrought a good work upon me.
For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but me you have not always.
She hath done what she could : she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial.” (Mark 14:3-8)
Every Catholic who darkened a church door today heard this Gospel, and likely some in other denominations as well.
Last week, some of us were having a little debate about the relative merits/demerits of the Lottery, and the ‘feeding frenzy’ for tickets as the Jackpot went up into the stratosphere.
The conversation got around to the evil of taxes (the winnings are taxed), and giving contributions after winning, etc. There were many points of view, even among the few of us in the little conversation.
Then comes this piece of text which can, doubtless, be ‘spun’ in many different ways, depending on what one wishes to believe.
Personally, I think the Christian Scripture (aka New Testament), including this particular text, is not a comfortable collection of thoughts for the wealthy Christian…and by any measure of this or any other time, Americans are a very wealthy society. That’s probably why the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) are much more comfortable to the set that gives deference to wars and kings and such….
But, what does the text from this morning mean?
Or, rather, what did Jesus mean?
Happy Easter.
UPDATE April 4:
John Borgen: I am rereading one of my favorite books, The Hebrew Bible, A Socio-Literary Introduction by Norman Gottwald. In it he continues to observe that the admonitions of the prophets to the Jews and Israelites, for over a thousand years, PRIOR to the time of Jesus, was to remind the well-off that they are not to exploit the poor, the peasants and those less fortunate than they are and to provide economic and social justice for all. The author suggests the book of Psalms upbraids wealthy Judeans and Isrealites for “pauperization of the populace through the manipulation of debt and confiscation procedures…”
The suggestion is that “Yahweh” punished the leaders in ancient times for the lack of economic and social justice which didn’t exist. Gottwald says these kinds of things throughout this interesting and challenging book.