February 2014 – Page 2 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

#841 – Dick Bernard: Reflecting on "Going for the Gold" in Sochi

February 8, 2014/2 Comments/in Economics, International Relations, Media, Politics /by dickbernard

This will probably be modified later today (it’s 10:30 AM CST). Comments are solicited.
There are three photos, below, which may be of interest.
Last night I watched a portion of the Opening Ceremonies at the Sochi Olympics. It was an impressive spectacle, as usual. I saw the Americans come in, and the Russians, and I particularly noticed the tiny team from Jamaica, minimally funded but there, and assorted team members using assorted means to make their own movie of what they were experiencing…. (I’m too old fashioned to ever get used to the now common practice of using those big notebooks to take pictures – doesn’t look like photography, regardless of how professional the quality can be!)
Anyway, the entire script has been written to please the advertisers and the news media and business and the politicians. Those are the only reasons for the Modern Day Games, in my opinion. The cast for the Big Show are those who will win or lose, bringing home the gold, or (mostly) not. Embellishing or diminishing for a moment in time someones national pride.
I’ve never had so much as a close call to the Olympics themselves.
Back in 1983 I took a job representing teachers on Minnesota’s Iron Range, and early on I heard the story of the teacher-parent of one of the U.S. Hockey Players (remember “Miracle on Ice”, Lake Placid 1980) who had trouble getting personal leave time to watch his (or was it her) son play hockey for the U.S. against, ultimately, the Russians. Rules are Rules, you know. I wasn’t personally involved in the case, but it was still being talked about. I suspect the parents went to the games, with or without “leave”….
The Winter Games.
Then a few years later I used to attend conferences in Colorado Springs, and just down the road, on my walking route, was the famous Broadmoor Hotel, and on the grounds was one of the training facilities, I seem to think it was Figure Skating, but I might be wrong. Just now, I learned that Colorado Springs is where the U.S. Olympic Committee resides (see here).
And I must mention Salt Lake City, 2002. My brother has lived in Salt Lake City for years, and on visits since have seen some of the venues for that games.
The Olympics is a huge economic (business) enterprise.
Perhaps my closest call with the Olympics came when I was cleaning out the house of my reclusive brother-in-law, Mike, in the early 2000s, and found there a little box with about 40 snapshots, all taken in about 1972, about half of them at the Munich Olympic Games. At the time he was a GI in Germany, and went to the games as a spectator.
This was the games of the hostage masscre, perhaps the first games where the word “terror” became a part of the games narrative.
Mike’s photos are just snapshots, and they likely were taken in the early days of the games, before the hostage crisis dominated everything. But they are interesting to look at nonetheless.
(Click to enlarge)

At the Munich Olympics 1972

Munich Olympics 1972

Munich Olympics 1972. Not sure if the young woman is an athlete or not.

I suspect I’ll watch bits and pieces of the Winter Games this year, as each Olympiad. But they are not of compelling interest to me.
Hopefully there will not be any bigger news than what we’ve seen so far.
Congratulations to the Russians and best wishes for a good Games.
POSTNOTE: Shortly after writing this post, I was standing in a post office line and chatting with a lady about my age. Conversation got around to the Olympics, and pretty soon she said, “my kids wanted me to fly to Arizona for a bit to get away from the cold, but I said no, you never know what will happen”, with the obvious overtones that somebody might highjack or blow up the plane.
There was no reason to pursue this discussion: fear is a powerful thing. On the way home I wondered about the incidence of terror related incidents aboard planes. Obviously, there’s 9-11-01 over 12 years ago; and there was an attempted high-jacking in the Ukraine in the last 24 hours. But given the millions upon millions of passengers, and passenger miles, flown in a given year, the terror threat is so minimal as to be non-existent.
Still, tonights news, I’d bet, will emphasize the Ukraine attempted high-jack, and attach it to the Olympics at Sochi. It’s a pretty safe bet….
COMMENTS (note also the “responses” section at the end of this post for possibly other comments):
from John B: Yes, the hype about the big Olympic “stars” gets over done. The chasm between the amateur and professional sports ( basketball, hockey) competitors and the truly amateurs (track events, biathlon) seems peculiar. Although I have watched Olympic coverage in the past, I have really enjoyed two things, the pageantry of the opening and closing ceremonies, and of course, rooting for the Norwegians and other Nordic athletes . . . . check out the cross country skiing.
from Lydia H: Very interesting, Dick!
I saw a bit of the snowboarding…pretty amazing actually…tho it’s the ice skating that I follow in Winter Olympics. (Don’t watch the big ceremony since it’s just too Vegas!)

#840 – Dick Bernard: Misinformation, The Tyranny of Language: a Suggestion.

February 6, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Education, History, Labor, Media, Politics /by dickbernard

The February 6, 2013, Minneapolis Tribune carried an interesting column in the Opinion section: “What we can learn from abortion decline”, by William Saletan.
The subhead said that “with the [abortion] rate down 13 percent, both sides are right about some of the factors”, and in the second paragraph: “Pro-lifers are right that the decline is a good thing. And pro-choicers are right that what’s causing the decline – and will keep it going, if we’re smart – is women making these decisions on their own.”
You can read the column, here, on your own.
I was less interested in Saletan’s analysis, than the other set of screaming headlines and assertions on the same day about what a little statement in a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report meant about the Affordable Care Act (ACA, aka “Obamcare”) impact on future jobs.
Succinctly, all of the hype seems to focus on one small section on page 124 of a 175 page report (which you can read in its entirety here), “Effects of the ACA on Demand for Labor”, and which you can see summarized in another way here.
In short form, as I saw the gist of the report, many people who presently stay on their job only because they have health care through the company, may now leave that job early, since they don’t need or want to work full-time, and can get lower cost insurance through the Affordable Care Act. The employment reduction, thus, is largely voluntary.
In addition, and I have not seen this mentioned in the screaming headlines, these voluntary quits will leave job openings for people entering or wanting to return to the workforce – lack of job openings is another huge crying need in this country of ours.
In short, the screaming job-killer headlines and soundbites about Obamacare are essentially false; and as suggested in the “abortion” commentary cited at the front of this post, issue groups of all shapes, sizes and ideologies, data mine for the single phrase that supports their case in a report or even an utterance at a hearing somewhere, and ignore the rest of the information that people won’t take the time to read.
We are a society dominated by “headlines”. And opinion-makers know that. People just plainly and simply don’t read in depth, nor consider opposing points of view.
So we are lied to, daily, by misinformation and disinformation and inaccurate summaries of information.
And this is a dangerous trait for the short and long term health of us as a society.
We can defeat this, but it takes a bit of effort on our part, to not take the bait of the whoever is pitching whatever.
Life – take our own as our own example – is complex, day to day, hour to hour, sometimes minute to minute.
In the last day my future schedule changed dramatically for next week. I’ll be gone two or possibly three days attending to a relative near death and her brother who’s lived with her his entire long life. I knew it was coming sometime. All I didn’t know was when. Life is not frozen in time by a headline or an assertion….
An easy exercise, worth taking, is to assess your own life and some occurrence that – because you’re an ordinary person – didn’t translate into headlines.
For one example: I retired 14 years ago from a good job, at 59 1/2. I could do this. My employment carried a very good retirement plan; I could continue excellent medical and dental insurance; and I could explore other options without a lot of fear of starving to death till Social Security and Medicare kicked in.
It was a benefit to me.
It also held benefits for others: I had 27 years of relevant experience, but I was at burnout stage in my job, and I knew I was no longer as engaged or as efficient as I had been.
When I left, somebody new had an opening for the position, perhaps indirectly, as people transferred and otherwise took the position I had left.
Overall, everyone won when I left, including myself.
I think that’s the essence of that short paragraph in that CBO report….
For your own sake, what are your examples?
It takes work to see “the forest” rather than taking somebodies word about “the trees” that make up that forest.
It takes work, but it’s work worth doing.

#839 – Dick Bernard: The First Day of Spring! "Jeans and Plaid"

February 1, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Minnesota, Quietings /by dickbernard

For more years than I can remember, February 1 has always been my unofficial first day of spring. Yes, I know: Punxsutawney Phil (and Grafton Pete) have not yet even predicted the end of Winter, but no matter. After January leaves the territory, while there will be bad weather ahead, it doesn’t last as long and is never quite as bitterly cold.
February began with another funeral, this time for my wife’s long-time friend, “Cliff the Barber“, who died a few days ago from cancer.
It was the longest funeral service I’ve ever attended, but also one of the most festive and meaning-filled. The church was packed to standing room, and forever the theme of this funeral will be remembered: people, men, women and children, were asked to wear plaid & jeans, and they came through. The church was packed with plaid and jeans. And in the midst of sorrow, much joy. Cliff was a very special person.
(click to enlarge)

Before the service Feb. 1, 2014

Everybody brings their own story to life’s table, and Cliff was no different. He was an ordinary guy who lived near his entire life in the east St. Paul neighborhood. He was one of those single chair barbers working for many years in his small shop at the corner of McKnight and Minnehaha just north of 3M.
“Pretentious” would not describe Cliff.
He was also a pretty fair neighborhood musician, for many years a staple with his guitar at Sunday services. The slide on the screen for much of the service was his guitar leaning against a wall.

Cliff’s guitar, Feb. 1, 2014

During the service and at the end, a pretty good bunch of musicians, “Blue Grass Friends” brought both music and joy to the memorial.

Blue Grass Friends, Feb 1, 2014

In a sense, this week, the end of my winter, and the beginning of my spring, has been full of music.
On Monday, legend Pete Seeger passed away.
Just yesterday, local legend Larry Long wrote a tribute in the Minneapolis Star Tribune to Pete Seeger.
In part Long said this about Seeger: “He carried the memories of the people in the songs he wrote, the songs he sang, the stories he told and the decisions he made daily to stand for justice from wherever he stood.”
I think that there was no real difference between Seeger and Gebhard and Long. In their individual and unique ways they brightened (and brighten) the world around them.
Service over, we joined the long line to get Brats and Kraut and Beans in honor of an ordinary man, and in honor, in effect, of us all.
At the back of the room, difficult to hear above the chatter, was a blue grass jam session a-going.

At Cliff’s lunch….

Welcome to Spring!

Cliff’s former barber shop at northwest corner of McKnight and Minnehaha, St. Paul MN. It’s now owned by the beauty salon next door. Note sign in the window.

Directly related to Cliff and family: here