#712 – Dick Bernard: Office of the President

/0 Comments/in , , , , , /by

Tonight I was at the meeting where my wife, Cathy, completed the last of many terms as our Homeowners Association President, and before that on this Association Board, and another before that.
She left the Board only because she’d done more than her fair share over many years. There was no competitor, and no one asked her to quit. She got some very nice applause and compliments.
There are millions of Cathy’s out there, taking on responsibilities that no one else really wants. They all, whether good, bad or indifferent, deserve applause for what they do for all the rest of us.
(click to enlarge)

Cathy Bernard, April 25, 2013, presiding at her last Association meeting.

Cathy Bernard, April 25, 2013, presiding at her last Association meeting.


Down in Texas, same day, the George W. Bush Presidential Library was dedicated. All the living Presidents were there. Whoever the incumbent, whatever the position, however petty, being President is a tough job.
Cathy did a great job all these years: she was a hands-on President. It wasn’t always easy. She knew the 96 units; she had to deal with the usual problems brought forth by the 96 occupants (some of which are in foreclosure, owned by the bank).
You don’t know what the problems will be in being an organization President. Some had gripes about this or that tonight. But they weren’t griping about her; they were griping about this issue or that for which, if they owned a free-standing home, they would be solely accountable for solving – or not.
Meanwhile, down in Texas, today was G. W. Bush’s day.
Somebody said that the word “Iraq” was not mentioned once; someone else that the public opening will be May 1, the 10 year anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” – the day we “won” the Iraq War 43 days after it started….
Of course, the scale of problems the Bush Administration and the others had to deal with are more complex than those that Cathy and her small board had to contend with.
The only real difference, in my opinion, is the certainty that the G.W. Bush reality between 2001-2009 will be massaged so much to be unrecognizable, set up against the reality of those long, long eight years.
For the tiny most privileged few in our country, the eight Bush years were magnificent: he was probably the best President in History, according to them, and if they look at only the short term (which is all they care about: we Americans have very short memories.) A while back someone sent this pretty dramatic graphic on income equality in this country, from the San Jose Mercury News. It is worth watching it to the end.
The tiny minority has it all, money wise, in this country. They could easily fund the Bush Library. He deserves it, according to them.
What surprises me, constantly, is that the people who are being economically left behind tend to vote for the ones who create and massage the income inequality.
Do watch the video graphic about income.
The issue is not what Obama is going to do about it; it is what you and I are going to do about it.

#711 – Dick Bernard: Disabling the Winning Formula, working to change the usual conversation

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

Last Friday my second post about the aftermath of the Boston Marathon came shortly after the identity of the suspects in the bombings were given faces and names.
Subsequent there have been tens of thousands of words about, especially, the one surviving suspect in the case, a true-blue young “Caucasian” (white, in other words), from the very region which gives Caucasian its name. The indicted young man has a funny name. While a naturalized citizen he’s an immigrant, a Moslem from a Moslem country. And his brother, now deceased, went to Russia at some point for reasons as yet unknown, but feverishly speculated about.
The tragedy is no longer the story. The alleged perpetrators provide endless spin especially for earnest sounding politicians and the media. The blather is constant.
The Boston Marathon tragedy has been reduced to digestible sound bites, depending on the desired message and audience: “MOSLEM”, “MOTHERS SONS”, “IMMIGRANT”, “FRIEND”, “CHECHEN”, U.S. CITIZEN, etc.
Words are dispensed to humanize, or de-humanize, persons. Are they of our “tribe” or theirs?
So, while the brothers are white, there is a desire to taint them by geography, by possible association, and on and on.
What is happening in this case is not new, of course.
However dangerous, “us vs them” is politically useful and has a very long history. The reach of all forms of media now makes it more dangerous than ever.
Sunday, at Catholic Mass, the first reading (which is required in every Catholic Church) was from ACTS 13:14, 43-52, in which “The Jews…stirred up a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their territory.” The reading is here: 1 Acts 13001
It bothered me to hear that Epistle (it comes once every three years) since I thought my Catholic Church was getting past labeling the Jews in its official narrative.
The Bible is a big book, and there are plenty of choices of readings. Why this one?
Fourteen years ago, April 26, 2000, we were among 40 Jews and Christians on a “Millennium Pilgrimage of Hope” which led us to places where Christianity truly went off the rails: places like Auschwitz-Birkenau and Terezin and Plaskow (the locale of the film “Shindler’s List.)
To say ours was an intense two weeks was an understatement: Christian and Jews together at the very places of some of the worst horrors of the Holocaust.
Back home, some months later, one of the Jews on the trip sent a review of a book on Oberammergau Passion Play (“Hitler’s favorite passion play…” which had its own impact. You can read the review here: Oberammergau001
Some years earlier, on the 60th anniversary of the first Atom bomb at Hiroshima, I had occasion to write a column for the Minneapolis Star Tribune about my grandmother Rosa’s reaction to the bombing of Hiroshima and then Nagasaki.
Rosa was a saintly kind of woman, and her reaction to the bombs was “Hurrah, the old war is over!” At the time, she had a son on a Destroyer in the Pacific theatre; a son-in-law who’d been killed at Pearl Harbor; a nephew next farm over who was a Marine officer in the Pacific; and a neighbor who had been killed in combat “over there”.
For her, the war had become very personal.
I wrote in the column that to Grandma, and most of our American “tribe” I would guess, “the war was very personal, in the person of their brother, their son, their nephew, their neighbor; those on the other side were simply “the Japs”.” (The column can be read here: Atomic Bomb 1945001
If we care about the future of our “kind”, which is humanity itself, wherever these humans live, we best learn to become a world community and reject the attempts to blanket label others and threaten war at every real or imagined time of crisis.
We need to deal with criminal behavior as just that: criminal behavior.
There was never a good time for war; today, the time for war is truly past.

#710 – Dick Bernard: "The First Rough Draft of History"

/0 Comments/in , /by

UPDATE April 20 5:30 a.m.: This overnite post from Just Above Sunset sums the situation in Boston and America as well as anything I’ve read. It is long, but well worth reading. Just Above Sunset, by a blogger in Hollywood, is always worth reading.
*
Back in the summer of 1997, I was visiting the Air and Space Museum on the National Mall in DC. A shuttle bus pulled up, offering free rides to a new facility across the river in Rosslyn called the Newseum. Admission was free, and the place was interesting.
It was there I first saw the quotation about news being “the first rough draft of history“.
Lots of history has been rough drafted since then, and in fact, two of my grandsons just visited the Newseum on a recent field trip to DC.
I think of my fascinating visit that day, and a later visit to the same place a few years later, as the media is diving into the latest developments in Boston, and in West, Texas (site of the huge explosion with apparently many deaths at a fertilizer plant.)
So…I was listening as two men were talking about the situations this morning. Apparently, there are many Czechs in West, Texas, so one person wondered if Czechoslovakia and Chechnya were one and the same. Wellllll…I mentioned the geographic distinction, and the fact that there is no longer a Czechoslovia (now Czech Republic and Slovakia). Oh…. Geography can be complicated.
Doing my exercise on the stationary bike, the television was tuned to Fox News, bringing the latest. The spin was obvious: Chechnya, Muslim, Russia….
And I could report on what CBS is spinning at this very moment, at 1 p.m. CDT.
No matter.
Perhaps the advice of the New Yorker’s Charles Pierce is best at this point. Here’s his post from this morning.
It’s helpful to find out a little about the place that will now become as familiar as the hanging chad a few years ago.
In time, there might come some common understandings and some reasonable perspectives…one hopes…on the part of most people.
It will be difficult.
Prior Post here:

#709 – Dick Bernard: The Boston Marathon

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , , , /by

Yesterday morning, before 9 a.m., I was at the gym exercising at my usual place. Behind me, visible in the mirror, were two women, exercising beside each other and quite loudly chatting.
One of them mentioned to the other that her husband was in Boston, running the Marathon, checking in from time to time.
A few hours later I heard the news of the bombs at the finish line at the Marathon. This probably changed the woman’s conversation. Perhaps I’ll read in the Woodbury MN news something about this today or maybe next week…. Such is how communication goes these days. Instant and worldwide.
I got to thinking about two happenings in my own life.
Back on April 20, 1999, I was in the car on the freeway in north Minneapolis when I heard that there had been shooting at a school in Littleton, Colorado.
Littleton. That was where my son and family lived.
Soon enough, I learned my granddaughter, then 13 and in Middle School, was safe. No cell phones then. It was via e-mail.
I tried to find where Columbine high school was on the then-version of Mapquest. The school location on the map was misplaced, I soon learned. My son and family, it turned out, lived only a mile from the high school, and later he said he probably had seen the two killers the previous day in a local McDonalds restaurant – just three of the customers at that time, that day.
But in those days, communications was not quite so convenient or instant (though it was pretty good.) There were cell phones of a sort, but not ubiquitous like now. There was cable, but not hundreds of stations vying on the competitive edge for news. I don’t think I was thinking, then, about what has since become something of a mantra for me: “too many news people, too little news.”
Then I thought back further, to December 7, 1941, when my Uncle – Dad’s brother – went down with the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor.
I was alive then, just 1 1/2, so I didn’t pay much attention.
Dad told me about his memories of that awful time years later. They didn’t know for certain that his brother, Frank Bernard, had died until some weeks later. The time was so chaotic that I don’t think there was even an organized Memorial Service for Frank. His parent were in Long Beach for the winter and had no car (they traveled by train, then), his sister in Los Angeles, and his brother in rural North Dakota. Making even a phone call was not a routine matter. No television. Less radio. The news coming via newspaper – I have the clippings.
We tend to forget that.
And now we are besieged for hours upon hours by repetitive images of the same exact thing; by speculation by experts about who done it, and why it was done. Everybody with their own agenda for communicating whatever it is they choose to communicate.
We’re a big country, and such incidents will happen from time to time.
We used to worry about the Russians bombing our school in central North Dakota in the 1950s; now, well you know….
We need to get a grip and keep things in a bit better perspective.
It was bad, what happened in Boston, yesterday.
As a city and as a nation and as a world we’ll survive it.
We really have it pretty good, here.

#708 – Dick Bernard: Reflecting as I Relaunch

/0 Comments/in /by

I first published at this space on March 25, 2009, four years and now-708 posts ago.
If you do the math, that’s about one post every two days – far more than I ever anticipated.
Lately, there’s been a lull in the action: 7 posts in the last 30 days; one for every four. The hiatus began with 12 days in Florida, and I haven’t quite got back in gear.
It’s not for lack of topics. In fact, the problem is that there are too many topics from which to choose. If you stop by this space once in awhile, you’ve noted I’m an eclectic sort, writing about whatever, whenever something crosses my path in which I am interested. And there are a lot of things that interest me.
I had in mind – and still do – a stand-alone post about my friend Dr. Michael Knox, a retired professor whose dream and passion is a United State Peace Memorial. I’m on his rolls as a founding member, as is my wife, Cathy. It’s $100 bucks well spent, in my opinion. “Why not you?” I ask. Or someone you know. His project is just getting a good start. Why not be a pioneer?
Michael traveled a lot in his day job, and on a trip to Washington DC noted that there are infinite monuments to War, but one is hard-pressed to find anything that relates to Peace. He’s working to change that. Getting the word out about what he is doing is the most important task.

Michael Knox, U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation March 17, 2013

Michael Knox, U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation March 17, 2013


Witness for Peace off Clearwater Beach FL March 15, 2013

Witness for Peace off Clearwater Beach FL March 15, 2013


My Florida trip included plenty of conscious opportunities to see ordinary people at work. I made a deliberate decision to go across Central Florida from Sarasota to Ft. Pierce, totally off freeway. It’s a very different Florida than the tourist brochures…. And I also decided to just watch people as they live, a grocery store clerk, etc. In our too-frantic world, we often misse the obvious.
The world – even Florida – is full of common folks just doing their best to get by. They aren’t in the news, but the country wouldn’t survive without them.
The main reason for extending the Florida trip was to attend a conference of retired teachers in Orlando, and I ended up being a presentor for a couple of sessions there. I would guess these folks averaged 35-40 years of public school teaching. I’m quite certain their main interest – apparent from attendance at the breakouts – was protecting their pensions, now vigorously under attack. They tried to plan well under the rules, then somebody decided the rules had to change. That’s the dilemma of being a, dare I say, “Public Servant”.
Retired teachers at a conference in Orlando FL March 23, 2013

Retired teachers at a conference in Orlando FL March 23, 2013


Next door to them, in a much larger venue, was a current guru of “think and grow rich”, a very attractive woman who rose from homelessness to wealth, and probably gains most of her wealth from people who pay money to hear her spin tales to, as a common t-shirt said, there, “Decide Freedom”. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, go for it. She had a large attendance, no doubt. They paid good money to attend her weekend series. Sunday (below photo) seemed to emphasize young people; the previous night, older folks…. She doesn’t need my additional publicity.
IMG_0929
There was a certain amount of dissonance, I felt, between the two conferences, next door to each other in the same hotel. Reality versus Dreams.
Maybe it was just me.
Oh, so many topics. (And there are several more in line, maybe, as time goes on.) About the time of the new Pope’s election, and the never-ending dysfunction of American politics, I heard the Canadian Consul-General speak, very diplomatically, of course, comparing the U.S. and Canada people and systems. I was there less than an hour, but what a substance filled hour it was.
Stay tuned.
Maybe the real reason for the lack of activity, though, are things happening here at home. I think I have the Commissioners of a very large county in my area nervous. I discovered something they considered routine back in December, which has taken on a life of its own. I think they have reason to be at least a little bit nervous. You can read about it here. The up-to-date news on this issue begins “below the fold” – a ways down on the page.
And in a couple of weeks I’m sponsoring a little deal on the occasion of Law Day, Wednesday, May 1. The guest speaker, arranged just yesterday, is a 93 year old gentleman who’s former President of America’s largest Association of Lawyers, the American Bar Association.
That will take a little of my time…. But learning from elders, as Mr. Brink is, is very important.
Come on over, if you’re in the Twin Cities. Access to information is at the aforementioned March 27, blog.

#707 – Dick Bernard: The Gun Issue. It's time….

/0 Comments/in , /by

UPDATES at end of post.
For other posts on the issue, simply place the word “guns” in the search box.
There have also been many comments to the same post at Woodbury Patch here
This mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune had a very powerful full page pictorial editorial on the Gun Issue. Here’s the article, and below is a photo of the actual full page spread.
(click to enlarge)

Editorial, page 2 of OpEx, Minneapolis Star Tribune April 7, 2013

Editorial, page 2 of OpEx, Minneapolis Star Tribune April 7, 2013


Tonight, CBS 60 Minutes had two segments featuring the Newtown parents, whose children were killed in the massacre on December 14. The segments are accessible here, and are well worth watching.
We are urging our lawmakers to do the serious and courageous work of tightening control of firearms in this country. If people wish to own guns, then they need to accept more responsibility, especially if they wish to own weapons that can only be described as war combat weapons.
Most all the talk I hear from the “Gun” side is “Rights”. It is within the role of our legislators to talk very seriously about “Responsibility” of gun owners as well. Our society has many laws which in one way or another mandate responsibility. Guns are a major area shamefully under-regulated (in our opinion). Too many in the gun-owner population do not well regulate (take responsbility) for themselves. Responsibility does not mean more guns in more places. (Even the most cursory reading of the 2nd amendment notes the words “well regulate” in the very first sentence.) We should not accept a new “wild west” mentality in the 21st century.
If you’re Minnesotan, here’s a current list of lawmaker contact information: Minnesota Lawmakers 2013
UPDATES/COMMENTS:
from Phyllis: April 9: I work at a golf course during the summer months…..Every spring all of us employees are required to go through a criminal background check along with a credit check. And, this is only for a part time summer job at a golf course!!! I have no problem with either of these background checks, but we have people who are so against having criminal background checks before purchasing a gun which would save lives! My “liberty” is that I want to feel safe…..
from Paul: April 9: I find the arguments NRA and others almost laughable – except for the incredible tragedy of excessive gun violence in this country. Notice, I said “this country” because in this we are truly unique in the world. “WE ARE NUMBER ONE! YAY!”
But I suppose they do have a point there when it comes to the slippery slope. After all, those of us who are old enough remember when it was possible to buy and own a personal automobile. Of course, that was before laws like speed limits, seat belt requirements and drivers licenses were enacted prior to the confiscation and outlawing of all personal car ownership. Ah, I remember those early days. I loved my cars. And how stupid those laws were. When cars laws were passed, there were still speeders and drivers without licenses who did not wear their seat belts.
And, of course the same thing has happened since the first gun control laws outlawing personal ownership of submachine guns, bazookas, rocket launchers, grenades, atomic bombs, etc.. We have had so many guns confiscated since that. Now almost no one has one.
Oops, what am I saying? That didn’t happen at all, did it. Duh!
From Judy: I posted your gun comments on my FB page. (I’m on a mission).
From Jeff: The conspiracy of a solid majority of know nothings in the USA, combined with the power of profit (gun/ammunition companies and their lobby the NRA and the right wing media) , and
The long and steadfast tradition of American exceptionalism continue to fight the overwhelming popular support for common sense gun responsibility laws.
Over the weekend, and I am not sure where, I read that the USA is basically one of 3 countries in the world with a right to gun ownership like that in the 2nd Amendment, there are
A handful of other Latin America countries with some sort of similar right in their constitution… if anyone else read the same article or post maybe they can cite it? I am not sure where
I read it.
From Tom, April 9: Dick-When I had a student drop the “I’ve got rights” argument on me, I would hand him/her a dictionary and ask him to find the word “rights” and keep his finger in that page. Then I would ask him/her to find the word “responsibility”. Then I would ask “which comes first”?”

#706 – Dick Bernard: Meeting the Space Age, up close

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

I suppose the space age began for me sometime in late October or November, 1957.
We were visiting my grandparents at their farm in south central North Dakota, and the Fargo Forum had published the expected track of the Russian satellite Sputnik, which had been launched October 4, 1957, igniting the space race and intensifying the Cold War of those good old days.
Right on schedule, and on the exact predicted course, Sputnik appeared to all of us gathered on the lawn of the farm house under the dark star-laden country sky – at least you could tell it from the stars as it “blinked” on and off as it tumbled across the heavens, reflecting the sun earthward.
The rest is, as they say, history.
And what started as Cape Canaveral and became Cape Kennedy, and then again became Cape Canaveral on which stood Kennedy Space Center, became famous for generations of ever bigger and more impressive rockets, triumphs and disasters.
I’d visited there with my then-13 year old son, Tom, in June, 1977.
And on March 13, 2013, I went back with 13 year old Grandson Ryan, and his friend Caleb, to once again do the tour of Kennedy Space Center. Here is a Facebook Snapshot Gallery taken on the day of our visit.
While there, I learned that there was to be a launch on April 19. I had never seen a launch, and as it evolved, I was visiting a relative perhaps 30 miles down the coast, and excused myself to go north for the launch of an Air Force Atlas, watching it from the Indian River-side property of my friends the Brady’s. They’ve watched launches from their property since the early 1980s.
March 20, 2013, was my first.
I would like to say the launch was an amazingly impressive sight – the launch I saw – but it was not very dramatic. We saw liftoff at 5:20 p.m., and my snapshot is essentially the view that those without binoculars had from the Brady’s.
You had to be attentive for the telltale speck of light off on the horizon. My host knew about where it would launch, which helped.
(click to enlarge – look for the orange dot near the horizon!)

Launch March 19, 2013

Launch March 19, 2013


We watched liftoff till the evidence of the vehicle disappeared, which seemed to be more or less the time that the first sound waves reached us, a minute later. This meant we were about 12 miles from the launch pad.
The last photo before the launch vehicle disappeared from sight.

The last photo before the launch vehicle disappeared from sight.


The more astute observers got a closer view, as reflected in the below photo on the front page of Florida Today Newspaper on March 20. You can see the video behind the photo on the Florida Today website, here.
There can be endless debate about the space program, and the purpose of this particular launch; whether it was a waste a money, or a vehicle for good…or for evil….
For me, it was rather exciting to actually see this one launch, probably the only launch I will ever actually see in person in my lifetime.
Photo from FloridaToday.com March 20, 2013

Photo from FloridaToday.com March 20, 2013


For more on the U.S. space program, a good “launching” place is the NASA website, here.
Equally interesting, in the same area and enviroment, is the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge, one of America’s finest. In a sense, at least, wildlife and high technology seem to co-exist just fine.