#595 – Dick Bernard: The Comic

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Under cover of night, I snuck a comedian out of town this morning….
Really, I wish I could tell stories like comedians can, but in this case my story is a true one. My daughter-in-law, Robin Menier, who lives and works in Woodbury and represents acts, had a comedian she represents as their house guest, and asked if I could give Tim a 5 a.m. ride to the airport.
It was a delightful assignment.
He’d been the head-liner at the House of Comedy at the Mall of America, and was enroute to Boston for a few days gig on a cruise ship heading up the northeast Atlantic shore, then off to Alberta for some gigs out there.
The bags are always packed.
I’ve never met a ‘real’ comedian and it’s a bit of a stretch to say I got to know Tim in a half-hour pre-dawn ride to Gate Four at Terminal One. But it is surprising what tidbits you can pick up in even a short conversation.
The big tid-bit was he was a heckuva nice guy, in the business since college, now late 30s, I gather.
He climbed the ladder like all do: doing the improv, studying how other comics did their thing, timing and all the rest.
He’d been a theatre major in college, which helped with the stage presence, I suppose, but like anything else, if you’re going to succeed at work, you have to work towards success.
We talked a bit about communication. He doesn’t watch much TV he said, which surprised me, and we compared notes on that, since I went through quite a few years sans TV (I’m considering going back to that TV-free life style again).
All comics have a routine, and he suggested his might be a bit abstract-random. He isn’t scripted, but likes more to just go from what life presents.
The dance between audience and performer is always of interest when it comes to comedians, and they know us as well as we know them.
There is a long and almost undefinable gap between being a dead-on-arrival act or, as my daughter-in-law Robin likes to say about eastern college kids highest rating of a comic, “wicked funny”, but the pros know how all that works. It goes with the territory. (I’m 50 years out of college, but this bit of Tim seems pretty wicked funny to me: here. I picked the college segment.)
5:30 a.m. I dropped Tim off, appreciative that I had met him, and energized for another day in our ‘burb.
And by the way, he’s Tim Young.
His agent, my daughter in law Robin Menier, represents Summit Comedy, offices in Woodbury, and can be reached at robin@summitcomedy.com or 1.800.947.0651.

#594 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #31 – Politics 101. We, the Presidents of the United States of America

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November 6, 2012, “we, the people” will select, by our vote, or by our non-vote, an entire assortment of representatives, from local to national level.
We’ll vote well-informed, or ill-informed on candidates and on issues. We will be solely responsible, as always, for our action (or inaction).
We like to ‘slice and dice’ our elected officials, bureaucrats, and the like. But the uncomfortable fact is that we are the true leaders of this democratic republic called the United States of America.
Recently a friend sent a link where nine experts described the single biggest mistake a leader can make. Because you are a leader, it is worth a look, here. It takes about six minutes of your time. Apply it to yourself…as a leader.
Today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune carried a long front page article about the legal flap over the words to be used on the November ballot to describe two proposed Minnesota Constitutional Amendments. You can read it all here.
I understand the politics and policy parts of these two proposals quite well. I would contend that the challenges to wording are necessary and appropriate. The people who want the amendments to pass are hoping people will vote yes without understanding the implications or even the substance of the issue they are voting on.
(I’ve been watching these issues for a long while. I’ll be on the “no” side on both.)
Sometimes I marvel that our country and its states survive at all given the non-thinking that is all too prevalent in our society, particularly about that broad realm that is called ‘politics’.
On the one hand are those, primarily off on the right fringe, who are terrified of the words that represent who I am: “liberal” and “union”.
I know many of these folks, some of them very well, and I think they’re okay with me, personally. But there is a tendency to broad brush my ‘kind’, and to drag into the kettle of shame anyone who seems even a little similar to me.
Political leaders of this right-wing bunch want to take control of government at all levels.
I’m more than a bit concerned.
On the other hand, out on the edges of the left are people who essentially argue “my way or the highway” in a somewhat different way. The position is well articulated, in a letter I received from a prominent leader in the local peace and justice community in mid-January 2012: “Politics is the art of the possible and involves compromise. That is the job of politicians and I respect that. The job of the _____ movement is to focus on issues.”
Herein lies the rub: the “issue” for todays radical right wing is to get control of government and through that to get control of policy making.
Conversely, the left-wing leader doesn’t like the scrum of politics, considering it something other than an issue.
No question, who will win if their view is ascendant in November.
History is full of examples where a fringe manages to get temporary control of government.
November 6 we’ll be faced with an array of candidates and issues, among which are those constitutional amendments.
But you would think, at this point, that the only office up for grabs is the office of President of the United States.
At this point, most people probably even have only a vague notion about any of the other candidates for any office.
Below is my rough version of a ‘picture’ of the Pyramid of State: what’s ahead for each of us in the next few months.
Disagree if you will, or suggest modifications.
But get informed, work hard and contribute to the campaign of best candidate for each office, and vote very well informed on November 6.
(click to enlarge)

UPDATES:
1. Joan, July 12:
Reading this post, and watching and listening to the video were exactly what I needed at this moment.
How can we return to this kind of real leadership, where integrity and compassion, balanced and reflective, open to options and working in the service of others, are the respected model. The video lists many important qualities, and they are all important. My question back to you is this: how do we move our society to a higher ground with expectations for leaders to be working for others and the greater good (in deed, not just in word)?
2. Allison and Dick, July 12:
Allison: Just read your most recent blog post and really enjoyed it. The video you posted a link for, however, (about the worst mistakes a leader can make) was troubling. Isn’t it alarming how so many of the mistakes people cite as the worst thing a leader can do are just assumed to always be true of the US President? For example, people often say that you can’t really trust the President or that he (hopefully we can say “he or she” in the future) is not always consistent. I understand that politics are complicated and that compromise is often involved. I think the American people understand that too. But what does it say about leadership in our country that we accept that our President will, and maybe even must, make all of the “worst mistakes a leader can make”?
Dick: The main point I hope to make with the post is that we are ALL LEADERS, but we tend to focus all attention on one person.
If you’re a leader, you’re going to make mistakes, period. It goes with the territory.
The key thing is to learn from the mistakes.
And if you expand my argument to “We, the people” at large, we are abundantly guilty of a lot of the sins mentioned by these business leaders, including arrogance, and all the rest!
I’ll add your comment to the blog post, by the way.
I might redraft a little my illustration [above, original rendition], but it will basically remain identical to the first, just a little more explanation like s.d. means school district, that sort of thing.
Allison: That’s an interesting argument. I understood that you were trying to point out that we are all leaders, but I don’t think I understood the implications of that. Perhaps I still don’t understand. I get that mistakes come with the territory for any leader. Are you suggesting that our whole understanding of what it means to be a leader needs to be revamped a bit? Like that because we all make mistakes, political leaders included, the “worst mistakes a leader can make” essentially becomes a meaningless category since we all do them? If that’s what you’re saying, I totally agree. Max Weber wrote a famous analysis of charisma and leadership. Though I probably don’t have the most sophisticated understanding of what he said, I understand his argument to mean that what makes a true leader is charisma – such that the mistakes are all there still, but the leaders charisma conceals the mistakes. It seems like for many people Obama achieved this before his first election. To me this seems like a useful way of understanding the mythical phenomena of leadership on a large scale, as opposed to the daily leadership that you are arguing we all participate in.
Dick: I’m going to try to make that more clear.
We are accustomed to blaming everybody but ourselves for things that don’t go right….
Actually, I had gotten the video from someone else in a different context, and initially looked at it as if a corporation ceo or such would have looked at it, but as I thought about it, it seems it applies to all of us, particularly politically.
If we weren’t a democracy, we could use the argument that we don’t have any say. In our society, at least so far, we all have equal say, and it’s called an informed vote on election day. But too many of us don’t vote at all, or vote uninformed.
I’m going to ponder your thought, though, and stay tuned.
Thanks for reading it.

#593 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #30. The Politics of Resentment

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Over a year ago, in mid-April 2011, a coffee acquaintance, a generation ‘south’ of me in age, asked me a question.
As a second job, he’s long been a local volunteer fireman. One of his duties was to handle his units retirement investment fund. Apparently their fund was not doing well – they were getting virtually no return on investment.
He knew I’d been involved in education and teacher unions, and at the time there was rage against teacher unions and teacher pensions, especially across the border in Wisconsin. The essence of his obvious questions were framed in a manner you can detect in an instant: “who do they think they are?”; “how can they have such good pensions when mine is so bad?”
I’m not sure what he expected me to do: to grovel and beg forgiveness? For starters, I knew little or nothing about Wisconsin teacher pension history, policy or law. I’d never lived or worked there.
But he didn’t know two things about me: first, that I not only grew up in the family of two career school teachers, and had all of their one year contracts, and know the general how’s and why’s of teacher pensions, including their history; second, that I had just been at a national conference of retired teachers where, understandably, a major topic of discussion was the status of teacher pensions nationwide.
But in such situations as our conversation, there is no room for argument.
I did tell him I had a document at home that might be useful for him, and indeed I had such a document which I had picked up at the conference. It is here: Pensions 2011001. It speaks clearly for itself.
A few days later, I gave his Dad an envelope with the document, and that is the last I heard from the man about the topic, though I continue to see him from time to time.
My document, plus a note to him about the reality about how teacher pensions came to be and are funded, apparently did not fit his particular bias, which was that teachers were abusing the system with plush pensions provided, of course, by gullible taxpayers.
He (and doubtless many others) were stuck in first gear on the issue: teachers had something they didn’t, or at least didn’t have quite as abundantly, and somehow that was wrong.
What he was articulating, in my opinion, was ginned up resentment of others in his economic class who were doing better than he, and even worse, that these were public employees who were also union members (as if volunteer firemen were not public employees or organized – as his group certainly was).
Over and over again I have seen this dynamic in play as the rich and powerful fashion sound bites and literature pieces to prove that somebody, such as those teachers, are ripping off the system.
It isn’t true, of course, but that doesn’t matter. Neither does it matter that those employees in Wisconsin had likely deliberately, and over a long term, bargained away part of their short-term wages and benefits in favor of the longer term retirement benefits – really a prudent conservative trait (and I know teachers as basically being conservative). All that mattered is that they were a bit too uppity for “Public Servants”, and must get back in their proper subservient place as, literally, “public servants”.
Oddly, similar resentment does not seem to flow from middle and lower class to the aristocrat class. Somehow or other, there is admiration for wealthy, however that gain has been made.
It is really quite crazy making.
The poor and the middle class are in very large numbers defending the rich who, by and large, could care less about their less affluent brethren….
The plutocrats and oligarchs are badly outnumbered, and know it.
Their solution: endless media buys and incessant lies stoking resentment – person against person – over the coming months. In other words: “divide and conquer”.
The lesser folks – some call them the 99% – had best figure out some way to stick together and take the offensive, or the situation will only get worse, and all 100% of us will be adversely affected.
For other political related posts, simply enter Election 2012 in the search box, and a list will appear.

#592 – Dick Bernard: Visiting Heritage House in Woodbury

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I stopped by Woodbury Heritage House on Friday to take the monthly snapshots.
The sign was up announcing that today, the 2nd Sunday afternoon, the House will be open for tours, as it is every 2nd and 4th Sunday afternoon during the summer.
(click to enlarge photos).

Heritage House, Woodbury MN, July 6, 2012


These days the house looks a bit bedraggled because they’re about the process of redoing the ancient siding.
Sure, there isn’t much to a tour of a one room house (there is an upstairs, but that’s closed to visitors) but you’ll meet some nice folks who are more than willing to give a historical overview of this suburban attraction.
Give some thought to dropping over on one of the open Sundays.
This is the 12th month I’ve been stopping by Heritage House to take a few photos. For some reason, I missed last October, but no matter, here you will see my small album; 27 photos of a year in the life of a Woodbury Historical memory, and one of my favorite places to see as I pass by each day.

My first snapshot of Heritage House, August 17, 2011.

#591 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #29. One Week After the Supreme Court Ruling. On Words in Politics and In defense of "Taxes".

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After the first week the conversation about the Affordable Health Care Act has (it seems) been politically narrowed down to this: “it’s a tax” (therefore it’s evil).
It is this because geniuses with words like Frank Luntz have determined that the word “tax” resonates negatively with people. It’s a ‘dog whistle’ word.
We’ve been conditioned to respond to words or images like Pavlov observed in his dogs. “Tax” is only one of those stimuli, but it is a very major one.
So, where words like “mandate”, “Premium”, “license”, “fee”, “assessment” and a host of other synonyms for “tax” could be used, “tax” it is. In fact, those alternative words are abundantly used with the current Republican majorities, including in my state, to avoid calling a tax they’ve levied what it is: a tax.
They’ve made the very word “tax” toxic.
Of course, this will be denied by the architects: We’re heavy duty into the political lie season, and it will be far, far worse than it has ever been.
It’s only just begun. If one can accept lies as truth, you’ve truly reached the newspeak of Orwells 1984.
Tax is used because it is a good hate word causing certain types of folks to almost froth at the mouth and attack like rabid dogs anyone who suggests that tax might even be good.
(A lot of these folks look a lot like me: older people who benefit by things like medicare. But they forget that medicare is not an entitlement, rather something they ‘earned’, though it was earned through a tax they and their employer paid for many years.)
So be it.
It’s time to take back the language, and each one of us can do it, one conversation at a time.
Take that word “tax” (a word hardly anybody has ever liked).
The smaller than normal Afton Parade I attended yesterday gave lots of examples, just within its units, of the word “tax”.
The military veterans who led – who always lead – the parade were, as military, public employees – consumers of taxes.
There are lots of legitimate beefs with defense expenditures, but military is one of the “taxes” that tax-haters seem to love.

Reenacting war on a sunny day.


There was a public school unit in the parade: tax. And several fire trucks: more tax. Even Vulcan’s Krewe annually rides in an old fire truck purchased by tax.

Vulcans in the Afton Parade


I got to the parade by public road: tax. There was traffic control in the town through police of assorted kinds: more tax.
Taxes is ubiquitous in our society, and the reason it is is that tax makes a civil and liveable society possible.
Everyone can pick and choose taxes that they would like to get rid of, but along will come someone else who depends on that very tax.
And which of us is not protective of our own tax benefit!?
That ambulance may be something I need sometime.
(One of the articles I noted this week was that the aging fleet that provides air support in the time of forest fires is inadequate and underfunded, just in time for the disastrous wild fires in Colorado Springs and elsewhere. I’m sure there is plenty of rationale for why those planes weren’t really necessary at the time of crisis, but living on the edge can be dangerous. You can’t turn on a dime when there are major crisis, but we seem inclined to lurch from one to the next.)
Still hate taxes? Then start by fighting to cut every thing you receive, direct or indirect, past, present or future, as some kind of benefit from taxes. You’ll change your mind quickly.
And bring back the “vision thing”.
We can be willing victims of the lies, and respond as Pavlov’s dogs did to it.
Or we can take the offensive and take it on.

#590 – Dick Bernard: The Afton Parade, July 4, 2012

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We always go to the Afton parade. It is nearby, and it is the only parade I know that you can watch twice – the units double back down the same street, and pass each other.
Today I went by myself. It was just too hot.
This is a major election year, and this day I was mostly aware of the politics of the parade.
I was looking for one specific unit that had been in the parade last year: a gray-bearded surly looking guy alone in a convertible with a “Don’t Tread on Me” banner.
No such character this year, though he certainly had no reason to do much preparing.
In fact, the always civil crowd seemed even more civil than usual. I had expected at least one Glen Beck disciple prepared to toss somebody into the nearby St. Croix, but none such. The patriot wear was there, of course, but nothing ‘in your face’. Every now and then I’d hear some quiet chatting (“who you going to vote for?”), but this was infrequent. The candidate units that went by were treated respectfully, though there weren’t many in attendance.
It was simply a nice day, albeit too hot.
And when it was over we all went home.
Some photos from the parade, and at the end a letter from yesterday’s Star Tribune, and my (hoped for) published response:

The traditional color guard leading off the parade.



The essential person in any campaign activity: the staff coordinator. Whether the event is small or large, someone has to be in charge. This young woman did a great job. (I was on hand to possibly walk with the Sen. Klobuchar unit, and was willing, but was thankfully spared the duty.)

The WWII reenactors. The driver was proud of his Jeep, noting especially the vertical rod he’d installed for catching unseen wire. He was on a cell phone and we joked about that, and he showed me the old walkie-talkie he’d redesigned to hold his cell phone, so he could pretend more realistically. It occurred to me that I rode in those jeeps when I was actually in the Army. Though I was never in combat, the reality is much different than the fantasy, and as the number of veterans of ‘real’ wars decrease, it is easier for people to fantasize about of the glory of pretend wars. It is a dangerous fantasy.

The Sen Amy Klobuchar unit in the parade. I felt they made a positive impression, though few in number. At the same time, because of the conditions, I don’t think anyone faulted any other candidates for not showing up.
For an election year, there were few political units in this parade.

Local candidate Katie Sieben kicked into overdrive at the end of the parade. They ran. It was impressive, but they didn’t have any competition. You need energy to campaign, but this was over-the-top!
*****
A final note:
Yesterday the following letter appeared in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
As the election season gets into full swing, I am reminded of something my father (God rest his soul) said to me 42 years ago as I was preparing to vote for the first time. He asked me how I was going to vote. I told him I was going to vote a straight Democratic ticket. He told me I was wrong on two counts. First, never tell anyone (especially relatives) how you are going to vote! Second, and most important, was never vote blindly.
He told me to find out which candidates supported my positions. To do my own research. To never rely on just the TV news or written newspapers — each of these organizations have their own agendas.
I still try to do that, as should each and every voter. Don’t be tied to any single issue!
Blindly following anyone is the same as throwing your vote away.
ANTHONY ACHARTZ, SAVAGE
I filed this response. Maybe it will see ink, maybe not. [UPDATE: Published July 9, 2012 as Letter of the Day. Photo below.]
Most of Mr. Achartz’s letter (“don’t be manipulated”) I can agree with.
I completely disagree with his father’s advice, 42 years ago, to “never tell anyone (especially relatives) how you are going to vote”.
In 1970, communications possibilities were very different than they are today; far more primitive, but paradoxically more open and honest than now.
Today people can and do balkanize themselves into affinity groups where they have no need to consider any opinion other than their parochial view.
We have become (to borrow the U.S. Army’s ill-fated slogan) a “nation of one’s”, separated and divided and isolated into little circles more than ever before.
This fragmentation is dangerous to our democracy.
I’m probably a bit older than Mr. Achartz. My wonderful father and mother are both long departed, and to this day I can’t tell you how they voted.
It was their notion. It may have worked then, but it is not good now.
DICK BERNARD WOODBURY

#590 – Dick Bernard. July 4. "God has blessed America" and other signs.

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Happy 4th of July. Most likely I’ll be walking in a parade unit in Afton MN, supporting the candidacy of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar. Campaigning is tough on the best of days, but July 4, for a statewide candidate, is truly impossible. So, I’ll walk and people watch and in Afton there’s the additional benefit of seeing the parade on the return trip.
I am one of these people who are interested in signs of all sorts.
Driving in northwest Minnesota last week I saw a most interesting sign painted on a farm outbuilding.
(click to enlarge)

June 24, 2012 northwest Minnesota


Certainly the owner had a strong sense of what the saying meant, since such signs have to speak for themselves: the passer by is passing by, after all. But this sign is puzzling. I won’t even try to interpret it (but I would be interested in your comments.)
It was just one of several interesting signs I saw, just in the month of June, 2012. They join an endless succession….
On June 2, up at Skunk Lake for my sister’s 40th wedding anniversary, I saw a guitar case owned by a lady from out near Evansville MN:

at Skunk Lake June 2, 2012


I’m a Vet for Peace, and I noticed that decal on the case. (The singer, Patti Kakac, is a gentle and marvelous soul. She and her friends Anne Dunn and Sharon Henneman, gave some marvelous entertainment.) Here’s more about Patti and her music.

Sharon Henneman, Anne Dunn, Patty Kakac at Skunk Lake June 2, 2012


June 28 came a long and marvelous visit with R. Padre Johnson, someone I’d heard about only recently. Padre, a cowboy, painter, PhD, Minister, Special Forces medic in the toughest part of Vietnam during Vietnam War, spent an hour and a half with me before beginning his drive back home to Cody, WY.

R. Padre Johnson, June 28, 2012, in Bloomington MN


As we chatted, he held a goblet made by my Uncle Frank Bernard on the USS Arizona, sometime before December 7, 1941.
Somehow it seemed appropriate.
Padre’s specialty is the Family of Humankind. He’s been, he says, to 139 countries, spending quality time with people in their own environments.
Spend some time at his website. I have a copy of his book, “The Global Human Family” and while published in the 1990s, it is as current as today. Humanity is, after all, quite consistent, and even allowing for cultural differences, we’re very much all of one family.
Which leads me back to that first photograph, of that wall on the farm building.
What DOES it mean?
Oh, so much is open to interpretation, like two signs I saw on two sides of a tavern door a couple of weeks ago.
The one sign, permanent, said as I recall “Mexican food every Wednesday”. On the frame of the door as we exited the tavern was a handwritten one, impossible to miss: “No Mexican food on July 4” (which, of course, just happens to be a Wednesday).
What did those signs mean?
I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t have the guts….
Have a great 4th. I do wonder what menu is replacing “Mexican” at the tavern today.
French Fries?
God bless us all, everywhere.

#589 – Dick Bernard: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862

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Saturday we attended the opening of a major interpretative exhibit at the Minnesota History Museum about the War between the Dakota Indians and the United States of America.
This is a very well done exhibit, and very well worth ample time to both look and reflect.
The Minnesota History Center is easily accessible, on Kellogg Blvd, between the State Capitol and Cathedral in St. Paul.
All details are available here.
UPDATE:
from Bill Klein: Dick, thanks for the info re this exhibit. I plan to attend.
I had one of my special life experiences when as an 8 year old I attended the 75th Anniversary of this uprising in New Ulm in 1937.
After an reenactment at the New Ulm program I approached a very old Indian man and made the childish comment of how bad the Indians were only to hear this man who must have been in his 90s say to me “Little boy, you must remember there are 2 sides to every story!”
This lesson has stuck with me my entire life. Especially in my career at 3M in managing several large laboratories but also in many other areas of life.
As an adult I also have read about how our State government and white Indian agents in many cases behaved so badly towards these Indians. America’s treatment of people of color–Blacks, Indians and West Coast Japanese -Americans are shameful stains on our Country’s character.
Enough said.
UPDATE: July 10, 2012:
Dick Bernard: I saw this interesting commentary in the Twin Cities Daily Planet for July 9.
One of the first members, to Minnesota, of one of my French-Canadian ancestral families, was a private in Co G of the 1st Regiment of the Minnesota Mounted Rangers in Oct 6, 1862-Nov. 28, 1863. Samuel Collette arrived in St. Paul area from Quebec the year before statehood, 1857, and served a full year beginning when he was about 22. A family historian years ago gave me Samuel’s military documentation, but unfortunately all family records, including photographs, were later lost in a house fire.