#838 – Dick Bernard: Poverty. Seeing Reality, and Consequences of Ignoring that Reality.

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The below, above the postnote, was written Tuesday, January 28, before the Presidents State of the Union.
The public relations battle around the State of the Union of the U.S., by far the richest country on earth*, will likely be around, in one way or another, America’s middle class, the haves and the have nots, the wealthy and the super-wealthy and the 99%…. The 1% always seem to seize what they consider the high ground. Where are the 99%, and why? That’s for side discussions.
1. Sunday, we took our 9th grade grandson over to Basilica of St. Mary to help with the preparation of the Undercroft (fancy word for Church Basement) for a program called Families Moving Forward, a partnership of a number of Churches who offer their facilities for a week to give overnight housing to temporarily homeless families. This particular week, there are four families who have taken up residence there, one with four children. These are families where someone is working for pay somewhere. At least one of the families has been told, since September, that they have an apartment, but the apartment owner keeps delaying their move-in, now five months later**.
It’s the “other side of town”, literally, from us. We’ve worked on occasion with this program. Our grandson was along because one of his class assignments was to volunteer for at least six hours at something. Sunday afternoon was a part of those six hours, setting up the undercroft.
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Tubs of sheets, pillows, et al, ready for set up. They're kept at the Church for use every few weeks. Volunteers do laundry at end of the week.

Tubs of sheets, pillows, et al, ready for set up. They’re kept at the Church for use every few weeks. Volunteers do laundry at end of the week.


A two bed room, probably for Mom and child. Note the privacy walls.

A two bed room, probably for Mom and child. Note the privacy walls.


The "doorway" to the room

The “doorway” to the room


Even knowing the reality these families are living this week, and some have for many weeks, and even actually being there, setting up those rooms, the exercise is still an abstract one difficult for me to fully comprehend.
Even in the worst times – and I’ve had some – I’ve never been “homeless”. And now I’m fairly ordinary retired “Middle Class” and definitely not “poor”, though I had a couple of very close brushes with that state in my adult life.
A couple of hours after arriving, we left the Undercroft for a windy, chilly, Minneapolis. A number of homeless folks, adults, were in the entrance to the Basilica, warming up before going back out on the street. They’re likely out on the street today as well. I’m in comfy circumstances here at home writing about them, all of whom will be functionally “homeless” tonight in below zero weather.
2. Ten years ago, December, 2003, I was in Haiti for the first time. Haiti, then and now, is among the poorest countries on earth, less than two hours east of Miami, Florida.
One evening, our driver invited us to his home on a hillside overlooking prosperous Petion-ville. I took the below photo from the roof of his small cement block house on the side of the hill. His wife and young child were delightful hosts. The hill neighborhood was, I would guess, reasonably middle class by Haiti standards. I don’t know how his place fared in the earthquake in January, 2010. I do know the family survived.
Hillside homes above Petion-Ville (above Port-au-Prince) Haiti December, 2003. Taken from the roof of one of the concrete block homes by Dick Bernard

Hillside homes above Petion-Ville (above Port-au-Prince) Haiti December, 2003. Taken from the roof of one of the concrete block homes by Dick Bernard


When I took the picture, my focus was on the neighborhood around our hosts house.
Today, I’m focused on the houses you can see at the very top of the hill, separated by walls and fences from those below. Your computer may allow you to zoom in on them.
Haiti has fabulously rich people too: they move comfortably between the U.S. and France and other places and back to Haiti. They’ve made their wealth in various legal ways, and they still make the rules. Haiti in that regard is not much different than the ideal United States as envisioned by the advocates for the worthy wealthy.
The very rich live within, but harshly separate from, the very poor nearby.
3. There is seldom attention to the downside of a huge gap between rich and poor. Sooner or later, as in Haiti, the rich become prisoners with in their own country, living behind walls with their own armed guards to remove any suggestion of the rabble invading. They cannot truly live free. I’ve seen the same in another third world country.
There are a lot of other consequences like, the poor cannot afford to buy the stuff that adds to the riches of the rich…. Poverty has consequences even for the rich.
It’s not a healthy state, and we’re moving in this direction, perhaps more quickly than we’d like to imagine.
We need some perspective, soon, and serious attention to closing this gap.
Polls now show that I’m not alone in my concern. Americans don’t mind wealth. They do mind an ever more greedy approach to personal wealth and power. We’ll see in November if they act on their attitudes.
* The United States as a country has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s wealth. Haiti, referred to in #3, below, has .142% of the world’s population, and .008% of the world’s wealth. (Data from Appendix 1 of Transforming the United Nations System by Dr. Joseph Schwartzberg, United Nations University Press, 2013, comparing Population and Gross National Income)
** Some years ago at the same Basilica Families Moving Forward, four of the guests were a family of four, husband, wife and two teenage daughters. The drama of the evening was the husband being criticized for causing the family to lose the chance at an apartment, where they failed to make an appointment. Listening to this, it turned out that the husband had two jobs and one car, and the apartment was difficult to reach, and they lost their chance at housing….

POSTNOTES Thursday, January 30:
This mornings Just Above Sunset, always very long, gives a most interesting perspective on the general issue of rich and poor. If you wish, here.
Tuesday afternoon, we took our grandson and his Mom to “Twelve Years a Slave“, the powerful film about a free Negro from Saratoga NY who was sold into slavery into 1841, was a slave until 1853, and lived to write and speak about the terrible experience.
It is not a comfortable film. Nonetheless, I strongly recommend it. Ryan, our grandson, who asked to go to it in the first place, pronounced it good as well.
For me, watching, the film made lots of connections already known, more clear. Plantation owners felt no shame whatsoever in their entitlement. They drew their support from the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), the good old days, when Masters were men and women were subordinate and slaves were slaves, property.
We were born as a slave nation over 200 years ago, and we’re far from over it today.
But neither are we going back to where we were.
My class, “old white men” tend to vote to go back to the “good old days” – last presidential election I recall President Obama lost to Mitt Romney in this class getting only 40% of their vote.
But they didn’t prevail. And their numbers will continue to decrease, at an increasing rate.
This doesn’t prevent some of them to continue to be very bitter. I get some of the “forwards”, and even some personal invective once in awhile.
But the “times, they are a’changin’ ”

#837 – Peter Barus Remembers Meeting Pete Seeger, Twice

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NOTE: Icon folk song composer and singer Pete Seeger passed away Monday at 94. For a common persons selection of Pete Seeger on film, check YouTube here
Your own personal recollections and Comments about Pete Seeger are solicited.
Peter Barus writes from Vermont Jan. 28:
Dick,
Pete Seeger is gone.
Here’s something I wrote when the issue was the Nobel Peace Prize (Jan 17, 2009).
The local radio station is devoting the whole day to remembering Pete, along with some big names, friends and neighbors, and family.
The world is a different shape now, without him.
Love
Peter
————-
If anyone ever deserved the highest awards for encouraging peace and justice in this world, Pete Seeger does, and many times over.
He has lived a lifetime of commitment to the great family of humanity and a world that works for all of us, with nobody left out. He has worked at this alone, when not too many people were watching, as well as in groups and teams and movements of people.
The last time I met Pete Seeger was in Nigeria, in 1963. This was one of those times when he was single handedly transforming the world, standing up before a crowd of strangers, in a strange land, and doing what he always does: bringing every single person into the full presence of their membership in the human race.
My father and mother and younger brother and I were on a little vacation from our then-home in Northern Nigeria, where Dad held an Exchange Professorship in Electrical Engineering at Amadu Bello University in Zaria. Nigeria had been “independent” for about four years. We drove into Benin City in our Ford Taurus, sort of like a ’56 Ford, but with less fins. The steering wheel was on the right, this being an erstwhile Crown Colony. Benin was not yet caught up in the throes of revolutionary war, as it would be the next year.
We stopped at a “rest house,” the usual name for a hotel in that time and place. They had a bar and a full-service entertainment establishment next door, if not actually in the hotel itself. The women hooted at me, a skinny white foreigner of sixteen, in a parody of flirtation, to see if I would blush, and laughed hilariously when I did.
That evening we all trooped down to the bar to see if there was something to eat, not to mention some Star beer for Dad. The joint was jumping. A happy crowd filled every corner of the hot, dim room. And there, in one corner, next to some French doors to a verandah out back, was Pete Seeger, banjo and all. He was sweating profusely, as always, and singing at the top of his lungs, whanging on the banjo. The crowd was entranced, enraptured. Joy was in the air. Pete taught them “This Land Is Your Land,” with local modifications for “From California, To the New York Island,” substituting some prominent landmarks.
Many in his audience could not speak English, but few seemed to care what the words to Pete’s songs were; they were soaking up the meaning through his infectious personality. When a break finally came, Pete went out the back door, and everybody politely let him have a little breathing room. So I went out there too. I had talked with him before, when I was about ten years old, fascinated with banjos, when he came to the college town I grew up in.
Pete was very tall, and gracious and kind. I mentioned a friend or two who knew him better than I, and he was pleased to hear of them. I felt that he actually remembered me, a small boy with big round eyes in a small college town where he performed sometimes. Back then, if I remember right, he was in the middle of a battle with HUAC, the so ironically-named House Un-American Activities Committee. When asked what he did for a living he had said: “I pick banjos.” McCarthy had asked him disdainfully, “And where do you pick these banjos?” What else could he have said? “Off banjo trees?”
Exotic creatures stirred in the grasses beyond the light of the verandah where we stood. Pete tuned up his famous long-necked banjo, the one with several extra notes below the usual range of the 5-string banjo, added to accommodate the key a crowd wants to sing in. He said “Take it easy, but take it,” and he went back into the raucous, happy crowd to sing them into a state of wondrous community with the whole world.
I have to say that my life’s course changed as a result of meeting Pete Seeger. I’ve always felt he was a special friend, though I only met him a couple of times. I emulated him in both his philosophy and chosen profession. This has given me a certain view of what it takes to do what he does. The memory of him and that crowd of people, who could not have been more exotic to each other, in songs of human possibility, has stuck with me for more than forty years, and inspires me today.
COMMENT:
from Mike R, Jan 29: I was in high school when the Weavers were most popular, and I was a fan like most NYC kids my age. There were folk song concerts all over the city, lots of places for folk and square dancing. Later on I became aware of Pete Seeger as a solo artist and a fan of his. When he toured in the 70’s and 80’s with Arlo Guthrie Pat and I saw him at Orchestra Hall.
His artistry was, as always, unique and he had the audience in his hands from his first song. He was known for “This Land is Your Land,” but I liked “Guantanamera” (a Cuban song) best.
He was part of my youth and I will miss him for his music and his humanity.

#836 – Dick Bernard: A Community Meeting

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Tonight President Obama presents his State of the Union message to Congress. I will watch it. Here’s a preview.
Sunday night my favorite blogger, a retired guy in Los Angeles, Alan, succinctly described the history of the State of the Union in the first few paragraphs of his six-days-a-week blog, Just Above Sunset. You can read that here.
A week from tonight, Tuesday, Feb. 4, here in Minnesota, is a far more important meeting in every community, the Precinct Caucuses. I urge you to attend yours. I wrote about this last week, here. Most every state, I reckon, has something similar, albeit called something else or at different times.
Do attend yours. It is at these meetings that citizens begin the future, for good or ill, through becoming political party delegates, passing resolutions, etc.
In between the caucus and the State of the Union comes the very difficult job of managing our complex society, through numerous democratically selected entities: legislatures, school boards, city councils, etc….
Three days ago, I attended a meeting in suburban Oakdale, where four local legislators, Senators Kent and Wiger and Representatives Ward and Lillie met with interested constituents to report on what they were doing. About 40 of us answered the invitation and attended.
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Rep JoAnn Ward addresses a question at the Community gathering Jan. 25, 2014

Rep JoAnn Ward addresses a question at the Community gathering Jan. 25, 2014


from left: Rep. JoAnn Ward and Sen. Susan Kent, Minnesota Senate Dist (SD) 53; Rep. Leon Lillie and Sen. Chuck Wiger, SD 43 Jan 25, 2014

from left: Rep. JoAnn Ward and Sen. Susan Kent, Minnesota Senate Dist (SD) 53; Rep. Leon Lillie and Sen. Chuck Wiger, SD 43 Jan 25, 2014


These meetings happen periodically everywhere. I found out about this one through being on an constituent e-contact list for my state Representative.
At this 1 1/2 hour meeting, we were invited to submit questions in writing to which any or all of the legislators could respond. You didn’t even have to listen carefully to discern that administrating an entity, in this case a state with over 5 million citizens, is not easy, though the tendency in our media saturated society is to describe problems and solutions in sound-bite certainty.
Not so.
As I remember, here are the issues brought up, briefly, on Saturday. And this was just in 1 12 hours. Just this list gives an idea of the multitude of issues “on the table” at our state legislature:
1. A proposed re-purpose of a Benedictine Nun facility in Maplewood for use as housing for women transitioning from desperate situations. This Tubman Center project is a major proposal before the 2014 legislature and is in our area. As described in one source I read: “Transitional housing is supportive housing that helps fight the homeless problem in todays society. Transitional housing is generally for a limited time period. Stays can be from two weeks to twenty four months. Transitional housing provides people with help after a crisis such as homelessness or domestic violence.”
2. The crucial issue of early literacy education for youngsters.
3. A need to increase the Minimum Wage.
4. Discussion of the recent roll-out problems of MnSure.
5. The always-issue of Transit, with discussion of the Gateway Corridor Study. Our District is between Wisconsin and St. Paul, and I-94 runs through it, so this is a crucial issue in this area, with lots of ideas of how best to address the need. This issue is a good example of the need/requirement for cooperation between government entities at all level, from the local to the national government. In a complex society, we cannot be free agents, though some would like this “freedom” to be so.
6. Partnership and assistance with a new Research and Development facility or 3M, whose corporate headquarters is in our legislative district.
7. The Bullying Bill. This is a column in itself, and Sen. Wiger, a legislator for 19 years, and before that a school board member, was particularly passionate: “there will be a bullying bill”, I recall him saying. The present law is only 37 words and badly needs redefining in many ways. Bullying is destructive behavior, and while it adversely affects only 2% of students, nonetheless that is a huge and unacceptable number. I wrote about this issue in June, 2012 for the Journal of the Minnesota School Boards Association (MSBA). If interested, here it is: Bullied MSBA Journal001.
8. Making legislators aware of concerns about the Minnesota Orchestra 488 day long Lockout which ends Feb. 1.
9. Exempting retired military pay from State Taxes
10. Labeling of Genetically Modified products.
11. Judicial Retention election procedures
12. Changing the Electoral College
13. The 5% Campaign related to disabled persons.
14. Addressing the problem of insurance coverage for persons with chronic Lyme Disease. Some people don’t just get over Lyme Disease, but insurance limits are sometimes a problem.
In addition, there were several strictly local issues: sidewalks in Maplewood; redevelopment at Tanners Lake and the old Oakdale Mall, etc., etc.
All of this in an hour and a half….
Get on your legislators communications list, thank them, help in whatever ways you can.
They are, like their colleagues at other levels of government, representing all of our interests as a society.

#835 – Peter Barus: Syrian Peace Haggles.

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Too infrequently, good friend Peter Barus weighs in on issues from his home in Vermont. Agree or disagree, his postings always make sense. Here’s his latest, about how negotiations work, as he learned it in West Africa, and how it is in many places, but not so much in the U.S. Peter always has interesting perspectives.
Dick,
The big news the other day was that the “Syrian Peace Talks” were a spectacular failure, because the belligerents were taking intractable, incompatible positions, loudly insulting each other, and giving Ban Ki Moon and our poor John Kerry a hard time too. It may no longer be so these days, but I think there are still traditions in play here that most of us here in America don’t understand.
I though back to my youth in a West African country, where there were no Wal-Marts or Home Depots or Ikeas. We had two ways to get stuff: go to the market, a vast, stinky, sprawling, brawling, noisy, colorful assault on the senses and sensibilities of we newly-arrived expats; a total multi-sensory delight, in other words. Or, the traders would come to the door.
Word got out before we actually arrived at our new home, and a line of bicycles festooned with baskets waited patiently as we unloaded and found our bearings in the pleasant, shaded, stone-walled and asbestos-roofed house. Then some mysterious signal or change in the pheromones in the air occurred, and goods were spread all up and down the gravel driveway and onto the verandah.
There were incredible bargains. Not just bargain prices, but the actual process of bargaining. We had been instructed briefly in this art and science. We had not been prepared for the theatrical lengths to which these savvy gentlemen would go.
The rule was, you, the purchaser, take the price you are willing to pay, and divide by three; the trader, meanwhile, jacks up his price by a factor of at least three; then somebody starts the game by making an offer.
The first offer elicits dismissive laughter, and (did we but know) a long diatribe concerning our ancestry, our education, and the congenital deformity of our foreign brains. Then there is a counter-offer, which we greet more sedately, but with total disdain, both parties now clearly abandoning any possibility of a deal, and going off to other prospects to start other battles. But everyone knows this is just for show.
Returning to the (actually) coveted item, if the trader has not already told you in English about each of his children, all of their diseases, and the sizes of their feet, which fall between available shoe-sizes, making life very expensive, and causing them all to go hungry or barefoot, he soon will. You hem and haw and finger the goods, and make critical remarks about their provenance and quality. You point out the threadbare sleeve, the base of the antique statue where a little chip exposes new wood, the shabby way the bits of glass are set in the tin-can bezels on the dagger’s hilt, the mangy appearance of the camel-skin purse/drum/wallet/hassock. The Kente cloth “Made in China.”
Eventually, at a pace sure to entertain for the entire afternoon, both the trader and the customer get within shouting distance of a price. At that point, another customary feature comes into play: the “dash.” There are other cultures with other words for this little extra something thrown in to sweeten the deal. In New Orleans it is called “Lagniappe,” as in “por lagniappe.” A Baker’s Dozen. A scarf to go with the handbag, some earrings to go with the necklace. An extra dollop of dessert thrown in. When the price is nearly met, this little extra bonus is displayed, and arrayed delicately with the goods in question. It is now time to be tipped reluctantly over the brink, and accept the final offer. Then is a bond of eternal friendship forged, never to be put asunder, until you ask the price of that other thing over there.
Then, everyone walks away happy, having beaten the other down shamelessly, having taken them for a ride, and having made them like it. Often it has been a community effort, with three or four total strangers chiming in, offering opinions, even making side deals. I once bought a lovely Tuareg sword with a broken watch and a few shillings, in the course of which deal the watch was sold twice to other people, including a repair man, and I never found out what the owner of the sword actually got paid, but everyone was ecstatically happy, and I managed to avoid incurring the wrath of the tall blue man.
I have been through this all around this world, in Africa, India, the Middle East, Europe, even England. It is a perfectly civilized and rational way to do business, almost anywhere but the United States of America. Here, prices are marked, and carefully calculated to meet profit margins, not to be altered by mere employees. After living in other lands, it seems rather boring and a bit belittling to all concerned.
Back to the big Syrian Peace Debacle.
It is a miracle that the killers of what, a hundred and thirty thousand people? – have now gotten together to divide up the spoils, which as I read it, is the only way the real victims – women and kids and elders mostly – are ever going to get some relief. But that’s what this game is now, and it is being done in the traditional way. Outrageous claims and laughable offerings are thrown down at the beginning, true. But this only establishes that (a) there is a deal being made, and (b) that both sides are going to move about halfway from their positions to the middle of the now-established continuum of acceptable bargaining room.
Americans are not considered smart enough to handle this, by our own media. Besides, they need to sell us the stories, not just tell them. So now what we have is one show for the East, and one for the West. Also, Americans are so incapable of enjoying the process that our national legislatures are thoroughly useless. We only understand the word, “compromise,” in its negative aspect, as in “a compromising position.” There is no sense of the joy of haggling here. In the East, nobody is happy with a deal unless it is a hard-fought and hard-won haggling session, after which the real party can start.
If the Syrian Peace Talks are not allowed to move through the stages of haggling that the antagonists’ respective cultures and upbringings require, the alternative is truly awful to contemplate. These are, after all, on all sides, the people responsible for the incredible slaughter that is still going on in Syria. Because it is a proxy war to a great extent, the haggling will be allowed, or interfered with, by the real antagonists, for their own purposes, and probably many more people will be murdered or displaced. Hopefully the talks will go out of the spotlight now, and maybe something can end the killing.
Interfering in a haggle, by the way, is very unseemly, and derided with cries of “Not your water!” by onlookers and bystanders, of which there is always a crowd when the haggling gets good. Maybe this is the Big Picture, and our media are just part of the idle crowd of shouters. I hope so.
Love
Peter
POSTNOTE from Dick:
Peter’s words are particularly relevant, in my opinion, because we Americans tend to have a rather parochial, and unusual idea of what “haggling” (bargaining) is. In most of the world, our method is pretty unusual, not at all normal, and this has been so for a long long time.
When I was a kid, back in the 1940s, let’s say I came across an extra buffalo nickel, just burning a hole in my pocket. (I was not from the “penny saved is a penny earned” school). I’d go into the local store and see what I could get for my nickel. There was no haggling, there. If it was a nickel, a nickel it was. Cash or no deal.
That is how the “American” system works. I need a pair of socks, and I find it, and the price is marked, and that is what it costs. That’s how we do it.
Of course, there are variations: Pawn Stars, American Pickers and Antiques Road Show, etc give slight made-for-tv adaptation on the norm.
I’ve seen “haggling” on a couple of trips to Haiti, and it is a hard adjustment for an American like me.
But I’ve had the good fortune of sitting in on good tough collective bargaining sessions here in the States as well: scenarios where employers and employees come together to try to strike a bargain on wages, benefits and working conditions.
There is a strong element of “haggling” in good American bargains between Union and Management. One side starts here, the other there. Both know the general destination some months down the road, but the ritual is the same as described by Peter. Sadly, only a few who comprise the Union and Management bargaining teams experience the benefits of the haggle, among which are the elements of listening and assessing and relationship building for the longer term. (The worst example of a bargaining process was the recent attempt of Management to break the Minnesota Orchestra Musicians Union beginning with non-negotiable intractable demands ending with a 488 day lockout. Finally, that too ended with a bargain, which I think was fair…but why 488 days of attempting to break the union? In our own relationships with other countries, that kind of dynamic has played out most dramatically, in my view, in our relationships with Cuba (since 1959) and with Iran (since 1979). Our inclination to want dominion and control over others is our Achilles Heel, in my opinion….)
If a bargain succeeds, regardless of how bitter it might seem, the two parties come out winners in the longer term. That’s what I hope happens with the haggle in Syria and other places.
There were many “best” bargains that I can remember. None of them were easy. They were a process, and if both parties respected the process, even if there might be a short strike to conclude the ultimate deal, both parties and the surrounding public were the better for the haggling. I know, because I was part of the team at many tables.
Experienced negotiators know this.
Unfortunately, most public members do not.
Thanks, much, Peter, for the seminar!
COMMENTS (see additional comments in the “responses” section of this blog)
from John B: Interesting POVs [Points of View]. In school districts I think there are alternatives, optimally if there is mutual respect, trust and transparency. Unfortunately, these are often in small quantities.
Response to John B from Dick B: Of course. We both worked in School Districts. Even when there is already a well formed “family unit” with well defined community rules/roles – community, teachers, administrators, etc. – there are still problems and a need for negotiated solutions which reflect the needs of each. How much more complex this all becomes when you are dealing with different communities, cultures, values, etc.
Toss in the United States habit, over the years, of using factions of people to divide against each other for the ultimate advantage of the United States, and the problem of negotiating becomes even more difficult. This has played out in many places, famously in Iran in 1953, for instance.
In Dec 2003 – Feb 29 2004 I happened, by accident, really, to witness what in reality was a U.S. sponsored coup against the democratically elected government in Haiti. Our hands were all over this change in governments, and the people on the ground know this….

#834 – Dick Bernard: The March 1 & 7-9, 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Forum, Augsburg College, Minneapolis MN "Crossing Boundaries to Create Common Ground"

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Tawakkol Karman, Yemen, co-recipient of 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks at conclusion of 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College.

Tawakkol Karman, Yemen, co-recipient of 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, speaks at conclusion of 2013 Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg College.


This year is the 26th annual Nobel Peace Prize Forum, now permanently sited at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. Link to enroll, and all of the promotional material for the Forum can be viewed here*. (This years Forum is sited at three different venues: Augsburg, the University of Minnesota, and the Minneapolis Convention Center (March 1, Dalai Lama),. The place of each event is noted within the program. Augsburg and UofM facilities are just a short walk apart.)
This morning, along with 15 others from the long-standing group, People of Faith Peacemakers (POFP), I was privileged to hear Forum Director Maureen Reed take us through this years Forum agenda, which includes four Nobel Peace Prize Laureates who will be in attendance. Together we spent a rich hour of discussion about the Peace Prize. The handout from Dr. Reed is here: Nobel Forum 2014001
The African Development Center near Augsburg and the University of Minnesota hosts POFP.
Dr. Maureen Reed, Jan 22, 2014

Dr. Maureen Reed, Jan 22, 2014


The Nobel Peace Prize Forum and allied Youth Festival have a very long and rich history in the Midwest and especially at Augsburg College. Here are links to the histories of the Forum and the Festival, which is now part of the Forum.
The Forum at Augsburg College is the only event outside of Norway which is allowed to use the Nobel Peace Prize name.
Originally, the Forum was rotated between the five Norwegian Lutheran Colleges in the upper Midwest: Augsburg, Concordia College in Moorhead, Augustana College in Sioux Falls, Luther College in Decorah IA, and St. Olaf College in Northfield. Three years ago the decision was made to concentrate efforts in a single location, and to partner with other institutions and businesses. Judging from the first three years, the change in structure was a benefit to all, and through in-person attendance and live stream video the Forum now reaches tens of thousands of people around the world.
This years Forum includes as guests and presentors Laureates His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet (1989), Dr. William Foege of Medecins Sans Frontieres (1999), and Leyma Gbowee of Liberia (2011). The 2013 winner, Organisation for Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will present two workshops at this years Forum.
Registration is open, and $46 per day, with lower fees for students. The tuition cost covers less than half of the actual cost of the Forum.
As one who has been to a number of years of the Forum/Festival, I can attest that participants will get far more than their moneys worth.
Act now.
Spaces fill very quickly, and enrollment is limited. The daily calendar as known at this moment is here.
* – The Youth Festival is not open to the public and is specifically for middle and high school students. Spaces are filled by application from schools.
People of Faith Peacemakers Jan 22, 2014

People of Faith Peacemakers Jan 22, 2014


At the Nobel Peace Prize Festival opening March 5, 2009. Augsburg College Minneapolis. Photo: Dick Bernard

At the Nobel Peace Prize Festival opening March 5, 2009. Augsburg College Minneapolis. Photo: Dick Bernard

#833 – Dick Bernard: The 2014 Minnesota Precinct Caucuses Feb 4.

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Comments follow. Note also the Responses tab for additional comments.
To find your own Precinct Caucus location in Minnesota, click here.
In my state, Minnesota, the evening of Tues Feb. 4, it is Precinct Caucus night for Republicans and Democrats. In my Senate District, the Precinct Caucus will be at the local Tartan High School in Oakdale, and last night I was there with a few others to do the “walk through” – where the rooms are, rest rooms, cafeteria, auditorium, etc. It is a routine kind of exercise – somebody has to organize these caucuses, and they do need organization, but that kind of pre-work is noticed by hardly anyone.
Yet, the seeming lowly Precinct Caucus is arguably the single most important political meeting for all political parties leading to the General Election in early November every second year. It is at these caucuses that persons propose resolutions to help the parties determine their positions on numerous issues, and those who wish run for and are elected to be delegates to a larger political gathering in a few weeks, where candidates for local and state office come to make their pitch. (Usually there are more positions open for delegate than there are candidates interested in running for the privilege of attending another meeting; but, this is the first, essential building block of the political process.)
At the District level, the process continues, as delegates run for and are elected to the State Conventions. Most of these delegates have to run the gauntlet of seeking the office. Others, such as current office holders, as the Governor, have paid their dues and are automatically delegates.
But all of it, including who will be endorsed by the party structure as candidates some months from now, begins with that lowly Precinct Caucus.
Here’s a primer, for my party (click on Precinct Caucus tab). Doubtless, there is a similar primer for the folks “across the aisle”. (Somebody mentioned last night that the Republicans had wanted to rent the same venue in which we are meeting, but we had reserved before them…even where to have a meeting has its competitive aspects, I guess.)
I am one of those unusual creatures that as a matter of routine goes to the caucus and always agrees to be a delegate to the next level, at least.
It takes time, and the meetings are usually not world-class in excitement – say, Super Bowl – but they are far more important than any Super Bowl.
(The singular “excitement” exception, in my memory, was the 2008 Caucus at Oak-Land Junior High School, where THE issue was the preference poll for Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama for President. That night we were in a caucus-related traffic jam nearly a mile west on I-94, and I ultimately had to walk a half mile to the caucus location to simply have the opportunity to scribble a name on a piece of paper giving Presidential preference. (I chose Hillary that time, solely because I thought she had more relevant experience than then Sen. Obama. Now he’s nearly six years our President, and in my opinion an outstanding one. But, it was at those caucuses where he truly began his run for the White House.)
Normally in theses posts I include photographs.
I don’t have any photographs of Precinct Caucuses: they’re usually a few people sitting in a classroom passing resolutions. Paint drying is about as visually exciting. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Caucuses are absolutely crucial to the functioning of our democracy, regardless of party.
Look back at this space in a couple of weeks and I’ll have some photos I took Tuesday night, February 4, 2014….
The off-year caucuses (this year is one of those) are usually most lightly attended despite (my opinion) being the most important, since out of them ultimately are selected the candidates who stand for legislature, Congress, the U.S. Senate etc.
Related Posts: here and here.
Comments:
(note also additional comments added directly to the post, below)
from Fred D: I think for me, a transplant to MN 9 years ago, going to the first caucus was the hardest as I really didn’t know what to expect. But I felt like I was in on the ground floor of something. I remember meeting [to-be Minnesota legislators] for the first time. [Caucus] was a way to feel engaged.

#832 – Dick Bernard: Martin Luther King Day

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Today there’s no school in Woodbury, and on Saturday my spouse said that grandson Ryan, 14, had expressed an interest in going to the film “Twelve Years a Slave“. I had a conflict Sunday afternoon, but suggested today, and if he’s still interested the three of us will probably be in the theatre this afternoon.
It was just an idea from a 14-year old, who’s getting a day off from school, but a most appropriate choice.
It occurred to me this morning that it was 50 years ago, at this time of year, when Martin Luther King’s book, “Why We Can’t Wait” was published.

Published in 1964, and still in print, Why We Can't Wait by Martin Luther King Jr is an outstanding first-person view of the year 1963.

Published in 1964, and still in print, Why We Can’t Wait by Martin Luther King Jr is an outstanding first-person view of the year 1963.


Why We Can’t Wait chronicles the watershed civil rights year of 1963, Birmingham Jail, March on Washington, assassination of President Kennedy and on and on, and is a basic primer for me about that crucial time in history. It is still in print and well worth a read, or re-read.
In turn, January, 1963 was the 100th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, when all of this slavery and discrimination stuff was supposed to end, and, of course, did not.
Now, of course, we are 150 years into freedom, and the problems remain and are seemingly more intense than ever. We have a black President, and that bothers some folks; and efforts are pretty intense in some places to make certain that rights, particularly to vote, are rolled back so that the wrong kind of people are less likely to be able to show up at the polls.
This morning I read a very good summary of today in the United States, which includes a link to a very long article in the New Yorker in which President Obama is interviewed, and in which he says this: “Despite [Abraham Lincoln] being the greatest President, in my mind, in our history, it took another hundred and fifty years before African-Americans had anything approaching formal equality, much less real equality. I think that doesn’t diminish Lincoln’s achievements, but it acknowledges that at the end of the day we’re part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right…“I just wanted to add one thing to that business about the great-man theory of history. The President of the United States cannot remake our society, and that’s probably a good thing.” Obama then adds, “Not ‘probably’. It’s definitely a good thing.”. (The link to this entire New Yorker article by David Remnick, Going the Distance, in the Jan 27, 2014, issue, is within the post linked at the beginning of this paragraph.)
There is definitely still racial tension in this country: I read it all the time in those abusive angry “forwards” sent to me by zealots – people that I actually know who send on the hate. They have never let go of slavery.
But this country, not even the deepest of the deep south states, is no longer in 1863, or 1963.
There is also disequity that is now far worse than in recent years, and other great problems as well.
But there will be no going back…if people engage in the political process this year.
Have a good day.
And set about making a difference where you live.

#831 – Dick Bernard: The Metrodome Deflates….

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One previous post about the Minneapolis Metrodome is here. It was written on the occasion when the weight of snow tore a hole in the roof, and the cover collapsed.
Yesterdays news in the Twin Cities seemed to be dominated by the deflation of the Metrodome, home since 1980 of the Minnesota Vikings and the Minnesota Twins, as well as a long history of other major and not so major events. It was a soft beginning of the structures demolition: no explosives here; they simply turned off the engines that kept the dome inflated and it slowly settled to its death.
It was too cold, I suppose, to be much of a tourist destination, but the advice was to stay away and watch the event on TV: you can watch a time lapse here,all of 26 seconds. Here’s a one-minute intro to the future of the Metrodome area. (Both pieces are preceded by 15 second ads: the cost of watching….)
Yesterday afternoon, enroute to a meeting in northeast Minneapolis, a crash in the Hennepin-Lyndale area tunnel was causing traffic delays so I took an alternate route which led past the newly deflated Dome. There was almost no traffic, and I stopped in a vacant parking lot and took a photo for posterity.
(click to enlarge)

Metrodome looking southwest, Jan 18, 2014

Metrodome looking southwest, Jan 18, 2014


The Metrodome, occupied in 1982, was a perfectly functional facility. A main claim to fame I recall is that it was completed earlier than expected and built under budget.
I am not a pro football fan. I recall attending only two events at the Met, both Minnesota Twins (baseball) games, the first with my now-son-in-law the year it opened; the second some years later with my Dad. One time only, in the early 70s, I attended a Vikings game at Met Stadium (now Mall of America). This was before the days of jumbo screens above the action, and I was in the cheap seats, three rows or so up along the third base line, which was the back side of the end zone.
Those of us sitting there couldn’t see anything. We could watch the ball in the air when a pass was thrown; and watch the yard markers move. And we paid money for the privilege. It was enough for me.
That was then, one stadium ago.
Soon there will only be a hole-in-the-ground and a new palatial structure will take its place in downtown Minneapolis a year or two down the road.
The side show events, like the Monster Trucks, etc., will have to find another home. The Vikings will play their home games next year a couple of miles away at the University of Minnesota, outdoors.
As it happened, perhaps not so coincidentally, the day previous to the demolition the Vikings announced a new coach for next year. This new coach, like all new coaches before him, will bring refreshing and needed change, it is said, and the possibility of a Super Bowl victory, or so goes the hope-springs-eternal narrative.
But along with the new coach, the Vikings need a new Quarterback, too. That is the second leg of the Sacred Stool.
The third leg, of course, is the Owner, who oozes charm and money, but is loyal only to Profit – a shark.
Pro football is an ultimate capitalist prize, and the new stadium is mostly a perk for those who can occupy the most expensive boxes, not even required to associate with the rabble in the seats below.
Next year is the 54th for the Minnesota Vikings. Two new stadiums and a succession of New Coaches over the years has never led to a Super Bowl Championship….
Maybe the 55th year will be the charm, or the 56th….
Back in the fantasy world:
Today is the semi-final day where four teams vie for the 48th Super Bowl two weeks from now.
One thing is certain: love it or hate it, the U.S. comes to a halt on Super Bowl Sunday. It would take a nuclear conflagration at home to divert public attention.
Computer traffic will drop off to next to nothing here at home, nobody either sending or reading e-mails. The nations attention riveted on the Super Bowl of advertising!
It is as it is.
The earth movers are about the process of constructing a new Arena for the Gladiators of the North, the Minnesota Vikings.

#830 – Dick Bernard: Dr. Joe Schwartzberg on Transforming the United Nations System, Designs for a Workable World.

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UPDATE JAN 22, 2014: Dr. Schwartzberg has kindly provided the essence of his talk on January 16. You can read it here: Dr. Joseph Schwartzberg TRANSFORMING THE UN, Talk at St. Joan of Arc.
 Dr. Schwartzberg emphasizes this isn’t a script, more an outline of his remarks.
UPDATES, including comments, will be added at the end the text. There is also a “responses” feature.
An earlier post about this book was published Jan 2, here.
More about Dr. Schwartzbergs work here and here.
January 16 over 40 of us had the privilege of hearing Dr. Joe Schwartzberg (Schwartzberg Bio001) introduce his new book of ideas on Transforming (rather than “Reforming”) the United Nations System. (Schwartzberg Endorsement001)

Dr. Joe Schwartzberg Jan. 16, 2014

Dr. Joe Schwartzberg Jan. 16, 2014


Schwartzberg UN Book002
How does one summarize two rich hours, during which even the author of this important new book could only scratch the surface of its content?
Impossible.
Best advice: buy the book (information at end of this post), and make a winter project to read it all; agree with it, disagree with it, dialogue about it, have study groups talk about it, but make it an opportunity to learn about an ever more important international institution trying to help 192 nations and over 7 billion people have a future.
The United Nations is far more than simply two simple words created 68 years ago in the “never again” rubble of WWII. The institution remains crucial to our planetary survival: a few hours after the Thursday meeting a front page headline in the Minneapolis Star Tribune read “Climate risk is critical, U. N. warns”, quoting a near-final draft report of the Nobel Peace Prize winning U. N. affiliated Agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: STrib Climate Change001
In its 400 pages, Transforming the United Nations System, Designs for a Workable World (hereafter “Transforming”) sets about the task of describing the UN system, and making suggestions for improving its capacity for dealing with relationships between nations in an incredibly diverse and ever more tied together and dangerous world.
It is an academic work, and I predict it will get more than a cursory look at UN and other government and non-government agencies concerned about global issues and solutions to those issues.
Since the post-WWII days of its forming, when five victor nations and 48 others, led by the United States, created the United Nations, and later set up its headquarters in New York City, there are now 192 state members in the United Nations. These states are of almost unfathomable diversity: from a nation with less than 10,000 population to one with far in excess of 1,000,000,000 population; from extraordinarily rich, to very poor, all of us occupying the same speck of the small planet earth. And no longer are we separated by geographic distance or even geographic boundaries.
What happens one place, affects others….
*
Here are some small additional contributions to the conversation about the United Nations (I welcome your additional comments).
Only once in my life have I been at the United Nations in New York City. It was late June, 1972, and we were on a family trip.
A few days earlier we had been in metro Boston at a college, I think it was Clark College (now University) if memory serves, and we saw a gigantic globe on the grounds.
After leaving the UN that cool and overcast day in June we went down the street, almost literally, and saw the still under construction World Trade Center towers, and then went out to see the Statue of Liberty. The snapshots I took then are below, and in a way they represent the promise and the quandary of the present day world in which we live: little over 40 years ago in time, but so very far away in so many things that directly impact out future.
(click to enlarge photos)
United Nations late June 1972

United Nations late June 1972


Giant globe, Boston June 1972

Giant globe, Boston June 1972


Twin Towers late June 1972

Twin Towers late June 1972


Joni and Tom late June 1972

Joni and Tom late June 1972


New York City from the Statue of Liberty late June, 1972

New York City from the Statue of Liberty late June, 1972


We saw other places of great historic significance on that trip. Boston, Philadelphia, etc. A trip now near 42 years ago, not to be forgotten.
(Best as I can determine, from Transformation, 59 of the current 192 UN member nations have joined since my visit in 1972. The original UN nations numbered 53 in 1945.)
*
The United States is one of the UN’s 192 member nations, quite young at 227 years, no longer having the luxury of isolation and and the now-fantasy of our exceptionalism (though some would still wish this to be so).
In one sense the U.S. is definitely “exceptional”. In Transforming, the data on pages 338-345 show the United States as having less than 5% of the world population, and near 25% of the Global National income. No other country among the 192 even approaches a 10% share. China, at about 9% is second. We are exceedingly wealthy, and prone to lose perspective. Even our poor are relatively wealthy….
The U.S. is the most generous country in funding the UN: we provide 22% of the UN budget according to the book.
Best as I can determine, the current UN budget is about 5.5 billion dollars, not including peacekeeping and funding for several major UN agencies, which are separately organized and funded, but nonetheless considered UN projects. With world population at about 7 billion, this means less than $1 per year per person is allocated directly to the United Nations by member states.
If 5.5 billion and 22% share is accurate, the U.S. contributes about $1.1 billion to UN operations this year, meaning, divided by our 310 million people, that we each contribute about $4 per year to fund this agency. (The most recent state of Minnesota biennial budget is about $63 billion for a population of less than 6 million.)
Of course, every fact is open to argument.
But as a country the U.S. is so rich, it is difficult for even ordinary folks with ordinary income to comprehend how unequal we are.
*
Like most citizens, I have only limited knowledge about the world perspective. I think I’ve been to about 13 countries in my lifetime.
Since 2012, I’ve had a real gift from my sister, Mary Ann, who’s been a Peace Corps Volunteer in another United Nations member nation, Vanuatu.
According to the data in Transforming, Vanuatu, in the United Nations since 1981, has a population (251,000) about two-thirds the population of the city of Minneapolis MN, and a negligible Gross National Income.
Since her posting at Vanuatu in the fall of 2012, Mary Ann has provided regular updates on her experience there. You can view her commentary here.
More personally, my first hand acquaintance with the UN country of Haiti began in 2003 about the time the political turmoils were about to take down the democratically elected government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide. February 28, 2014 (the actual date was February 29, 2004) is the 10th anniversary of the coup d’etat that led to the exile of President Aristide.
While Haiti has been a member of the UN since the beginning (1945), the near 10 million population island nation has both a dependence on and less than desirable view of the United Nations, and particularly UN member states the U.S., France and Canada which quite demonstrably interfered with its democracy, and officially give only lip service to helping Haiti succeed as an independent nation (Haiti is the land of thousands of NGOs [non-government organizations], coming from everywhere, to help with everything, not always constructively or cooperatively).
There are many connections between the U.S., the UN, and Haiti, not always direct, or easily sorted out, and not always negative, but always mysterious.
On one occasion on our 2006 trip we met with a French speaking Canadian police representative, a very nice man, whose job it was to train local police representatives in the interior city of Ench (Hinche). He was funded through the UN, which in turn was funded by Canada, which may have been supported by the United States. It was all a mystery.
On the same trip, while having a tire repaired on one of our vehicles, we met with some Nepalese soldiers on break in a park in Mirebelais, not far from their post. They were in a UN vehicle, and nice kids. Nepal is a poor country, and being part of a peace keeping force would be, at least, a job for these young military representatives. Likely some Nepalese soldier unknowingly introduced Cholera into Haiti; this was translated into the UN’s fault.
And of course the devastating hurricanes and the deadly earthquake in January 2010….
Between 2004 and 2006, especially, I maintained some web resources on Haiti, still accessible here.
March, 2006, Ench Haiti

March, 2006, Ench Haiti


*
Some summary thoughts:
In sum, we need each other. But relationships, individual needs and aspirations, and how to accomodate them, can be very complicated. And the UN is a part of a solution….
It is easy to kick around the United Nations, that supposedly sinister force some allege has unmarked helicopters about to force World Government on them. (These are the same types who would encourage their “sovereign” state to pull out of the United States.) “UN” can be and has been used as a convenient hate word.
But we are, like it or not, living in an interdependent world where isolation does not work as a national strategy, and then are extremely negative consequences for the strong, if we do not care a lot about the weak.
In a very real sense, the tragedy of 9-11-01, symbolized by the Twin Towers, pictured above when they were still under construction, is simply a signal that we are not isolated on a big rich island bordered by oceans; nor insulated from the rest of the world. Nor is the welfare of the rest of the world of no concern to us.
For just a few examples: man-induced global climate change does not respect borders; disease epidemics are a daily and exportable possibility from anywhere in the world at any time; the vulnerability of the internet is a reality; the possibility of dangerous mistakes or intended outcomes of genetic modification which will affect us all. These are among the things we, as citizens of this small planet, need to pay attention to.
With all its faults, the United Nations has made the world a better place, and would be sorely missed were it to disappear.
*
Buying Dr. Joe Schwartzberg’s book:
I can connect you directly with Dr. Schwartzberg. Just send me an e-mail: dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom. I’ll get the message to him. Include information such as mailing address and phone.
Or, you can order directly from United Nations University Press, here is the link.
*****
Columnist Eric Black wrote about Joe Schwartzberg and the book in MinnPost on Jan 14, 2014: link is here.
from John B, Jan 20: Congratulations to Joe Schwartzberg for his thought provoking and visionary prescription for transforming the United nations. There is little chance for the ideas to be enacted anytime soon, but in time, possibly. One of the most moving experiences of my life was visiting the UN headquarters in New York about six years ago. I was struck by the vision of possibility and, at the same time, a sense of hopelessness as I thought about how difficult it is for powerful nations, like the USA, to share the power it has with other nations.
Joe is a treasure. He is first of all a thinker and a powerful teacher. He is an example for all educators who embrace their discipline (geography in his case) and use their knowledge and understanding to project transformational ideas into the world. Thanks , Joe.

#829 – Dick Bernard: "Return to Civility"

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In my little corner of the universe, two topics dominated last week: 1) the 50th anniversary of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” speech (Jan 8, 1964); and 2) Gov Chris Christie’s situation in New Jersey (top headline on front page of USA Today one day last week: “I am not a bully”).
Neither poverty nor bully-ness is over in this country, but as things go, the news will soon be on to other daily outrages: that seems to be what the term “newsworthy” means these days.
Meanwhile…
Early last week I happened to notice a little book in my office:
Return to Civility001
I’ve had Return to Civility for a long while (copyright 2007), and it’s a collection of tiny pieces of advice to make our world, close by and everywhere, a better place, through our own actions.
I picked up the book, and the first page I came to is the one which follows. It struck me because recently a good friend had complained about a picture I’d taken at a funeral, and published as part of a previous blog post. It was nothing to be (in my opinion) offended about: just a picture of some people, including my friend, all perfectly respectable, none labeled in any way, just part of a group of folks at a funeral. It was the first time I’d heard the complaint, and told my friend that. But…there it was as a piece of advice about returning to Civility*.
(click to enlarge)
Return to Civility002
The original Return to Civility was co-authored by 16 staff members of the well known Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis MN.
Every piece of advice is simple, yet profound: just flipped to #111, “Learn when to keep quiet”. Then #214, “Stick to general, uncontroversial topics early in a conversation.” For the 14th day of 2014, “Don’t answer your phone if you’re engaged in conversation with someone.”
The rules are only suggestions, of course, and as with the conversation about the photograph at the funeral, not always clear and precise.
Nonetheless, if we are ever going to get past the dominance of Bully-ness in leadership (I’ve heard it called “country club behavior” by someone else, who knew what he was talking about), we’re going to have to take the idea to heart, call people on inappropriate behavior, and as is common policy in our schools (Bullied MSBA Journal)001, to take the issue of bullying on – yes, in a civil way!
* – Given the same circumstances, I’d probably take the same action – the photographs – again. Indeed I have, subsequently. But the complaint did cause me to give thought to the entire process of complexity of relationships in this ever-more exposed society of ours.
Related post here.