June 2014 – Thoughts Towards a Better World

#907 – Dick Bernard: The Tool Shed

June 30, 2014/0 Comments/in Bruce Fisher, Community, Economics, Environment, Minnesota, Peace & Justice, Quietings /by dickbernard

My friend, Bruce, and I were in one of our occasional jousting modes earlier today. I had sent along a post including a commentary by a self-described member of the .01%ers – the super wealthy. Basically, Mr. Hanauer, reminded his fellow super-wealthy folks that starving the middle class was not productive for the wealthy. The middle class was, after all, the market for the goods that drive prosperity.
There were a couple of parries and thrusts back and forth (see end of this post for the entire thread) and in his last comment Bruce said this about our future when we run out of the resources we have squandered: “I think community will be more important than it is today. Neighborhood resources will be important to sustain lifestyle.”

It happened that just 20 minutes before the above comment I had received an e-mail with the following subject line, and brief contents: “Project Update #6: Aurora/St. Anthony Peace Garden Shed + Tool Lending Library by Garden Volunteer, Kristine Miller. Project Update #6: We Made It!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you beautiful people!!!! More information soon! With love from your friends at the Aurora/St. Anthony Peace Garden”.
Kristine, who I had met just days ago, and community activist Melvin Giles, who I’ve known for years, and others, unnamed, had pulled off a major accomplishment, raising some funds for a simple tool shed in their neighborhood. The story is in a less than three minute video accompanying the final report of the fundraising success.
(Melvin is the “star” of the video. Listen for his “strawberry” story.) This isn’t a million dollar deal, but for the folks around 855 Aurora Avenue (just a block or two south of University Avenue, and a few blocks west of the Minnesota State Capitol) it surely is the very essence of “community” as described by Bruce. It is, also, a “kickstart” to encourage folks to make small and large differences in their circles.
The video shows the shed being replaced; I was privileged to see the new shed, still under construction, a few weeks ago. The photo is below. The shed was built as a project by students from the University of Minnesota School of Landscape Architecture.
(click to enlarge)

The still-under-construction tool shed at 855 Aurora Avenue St. Paul. June 11, 2014

Ehtasham Anwar interviews Melvin Giles in the garden June 11, 2014. Filmed by Suhail Ahmed. Ehtasham and Suhail, both from Pakistan, were at the end of their year in the U.S. as Humphrey/Fulbright Fellows at the Human Rights Center of the University of Minnesota Law School. Interviewing Melvin was part of Ehtasham’s year-end archival project about peace-making in the Twin Cities.

It is the small stories such as this one which will save our planet.
As Margaret Mead so notably said many years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.“
FOR ANYONE INTERESTED, here’s Bruce and my on-line conversation “thread” which helped lead to this post. I think such ad hoc discussions (arguments) on-line can be useful to both parties, if they begin and end with respect, as I think Bruce and I have for each other, over a number of years now.
Dick, June 30, 5:29 a.m. to my usual list: If nothing else, read up on Nick Hanauer, at about the middle, about the Middle Class: [link here]
Here’s a brief bio about Hanauer.
In the end analysis, its people like ourselves, not the politicians, who’ll have to change the direction. The nature of politics is to read the wind of public opinion and get and stay elected. It’s a nasty reality in our electoral system. You are useless if you can’t stay elected, and being a representative requires you to follow more than lead.
Nobody, especially idealists, likes to hear that.
So…what do you plan to do about it, these remaining few months before the 2014 election? It’s about four months away.
Bruce, 9:27 a.m.: “…thriving middle class is the source of American prosperity, not a consequence of it.”
What has American prosperity done to the environment? That question looms large in the presents of human influenced climate change & global warming. Our economy is predicated on infinite expansion, while our planets resources are finite. Because of dwindling quality of natural resources( the high quality stuff that built the middle class is gone), the economic expansion that the rebuilding of the middle class depends on becomes far more expensive than what it took to create the golden years of the middle class from 1946 to 1980. And, the degradation to the environment becomes more severe.
I think this model that the Sunset guy [the blog referred to above] is trying to get back to is a broken romantic dream like the return to the Garden of Eden.
Dick, 9:38 a.m.: So, I challenge you, what is the alternative…a viable solution in our country, when even folks on welfare decline to accept certain kinds of used furniture because they’re not good enough….
I’m a bit more sensitive than usual about this as I’m beginning the process of closing out the history of a 110 year farm, as my 89 year Uncle, the last survivor, never married, is in the nursing home in the nearby town.
In some of the old farm photos, recently, I found two iconic images of the good old days (before prosperity). One is of a two bottom, four horse, cultivator, tended by the hired man, who probably slept in a grain bin during his summers there. The other is “Edithe’s favorite milk cow” (my aunt Edithe died in February). This from the day when she and Grandma, basically, milked the cows by hand, and had a hand run cream separator.
This was the “pitchfork” era, as you know. We’re heading back to it [“pitchforks”, literally] quickly, but the solution is not to go the utopian route. Its a bit like being addicted to something: initially, the cure is worse than the disease, and most people can’t take the transition (poverty) between wealth and reason….
Bruce, 11:31 a.m.: I’m not sure what alternatives we have. But, what I am sure of is that we aren’t given the truth of what the consumerism & materialism has done to our home. The high quality natural resources that were taken out of the earth to build the society was used to manufacture, buy, and sell things for profit. These precious natural resources that are real wealth are expressed in the stuff called junk thrown in landfills & dissolved into the atmosphere, land, and water.
The articles like the Sunset guy wrote perpetuates the destructive dream of a new middle class where labor is equal to capital so that the ever expanding economy can march timelessly on into the sunset. It can’t.
The next twenty years will be different from the past twenty years. Cheap oil is gone & the alternative fossil fuels are very expensive and don’t provide the net energy gain that the quality stuff did. The alternatives to fossil fuels will not support or sustain the consumer life style that built the middle class as we remember it. We will have to drastically change life style and the ultra-rich are the ones who will suffer the most relatively to what they are accustomed to. That is why some like Hanauer advocate for higher taxes on the rich, better wages for labor, and stronger safety net for the needy. It’s to grow the middle class. They are liberal market place capitalists that want to generally perpetuate the status quo.
The solution is to understand what the consumerism of the middle class did to the planet. Then we can move forward with solutions. People hate change, but they get use to it and it becomes normal. But, time is dwindling.
Dick, 1:04 p.m.: The Sunset Guy just reflects on stuff, as you know. [ED. NOTE: In my opinion Just Above Sunset is a very useful (and free) daily musing on matters national and international]
What would happen if we were forced into the horse and milk cow stage again? My relatives knew that era. I witnessed it in action when I was young.
The grandkids generation (mine are from about 8-27 years of age) are going to be the first generation to fully bear the brunt of our wastrel ways.
It is complicated, beyond that.
Bruce, 3:55 p.m., June 30, 2014:
I think community will be more important than it is today. Neighborhood resources will be important to sustain lifestyle.

What is a better indication of a vibrant middle class: a high quality education system, transport system and health care system or individual material wealth? Values will change.
The rich of the 50s through 70s thought that the planet’s natural resources were infinite and understood the way to wealth & perpetual growth was to grow the middle class affluence so they could consume material goods, which would keep the economy expanding making the wealthy wealthier. They for the most part thought like Hanauer. But today the wealthy understand the finite nature of the high quality natural resources of years gone by. Their answer to grow there wealth is to hoard and strangle the middle class because there isn’t enough to go around. Their answer is short sighted. The middle class is shrinking & will not return to the position it once maintained. But, the wealth of the wealthy will collapse too, because their money depends on the health of the primary natural resources( the planet) and the resources that manufacture & create things. From what I’ve read, the Thomas Pikkety book, CAPITAL IN THE 21st CENTURY gets at this point. The wealthy would rather invest in the investment markets than grow the economy. The potential to make higher rate of return is better. That is a big disconnect.
Politically, this argument is being made by fringe parties & candidates for office. I don’t see any one running for office of any kind from the two major parties making this argument. Jean Massey’s IRV [Instant Runoff Voting] voting system is the best way to effect the political changes we need. It will allow the marginal candidate with the best ideas a good chance to be elected.
Dick, to everyone who’s read this far: So, what is your opinion?

#906 – Dick Bernard: A "Fortnight for Freedom". The Tyranny of Belief?

June 28, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, History, Peace & Justice, Politics, War /by dickbernard

A few hours after publishing this post, I went on my daily walk, and found this in chalk along the curb. It had been placed there since yesterday (I always walk the same route)*.
UPDATE on the photo, June 29: I went by the spot about noon, and no evidence of the chalked saying – it rained overnight. So the photo is the only reminder that it was ever there. One of the truths of accomplishing big things is the adage: “if you can believe it, you can achieve it”. This applies to many things in many ways.
(click to enlarge)

June 28, 2014

At the exact same time as the disastrous sectarian (religious) war in Syria and Iraq, another religious inspired event, an essentially covert religious “war” of its own, is being marketed in the United States. It began on June 21, Summer Solstice, and runs through July 4: a fortnight involving an annual natural phenomena, a national holiday and a religious initiative. It is quite a marketing package.
Today is the half-way point of the official observance; but it will continue long past July 4th, rest assured.
It is called “Fortnight for Freedom” and its marketing focus is on an alleged heavy-handed federal government coming down on poor beleaguered Christians who are, it is suggested, forced to compromise certain religious beliefs to obey laws with which they disagree, such as parts of the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).
Just one example: being required as a company or employee to dispense birth control to others who desire that particular service when ones believes birth control is a sin. It is, indeed, a clash: a demand of freedom for one; with no apparent attention about freedom for the other whose views might differ.
The initiative seems to make so much sense, if you go no further than the surface rationale. As you think more deeply about the implications, though, it is really a tangled web of deception. “Freedom” apparently only applies to those who can then restrict certain others freedoms. Thus Fortnight for Freedom isn’t about freedom at all, it is about domination and control, imposition of beliefs, only without the bombs and bullets. It is about marketing an idea, a belief, as superior to other contrary beliefs.
Here is a description of Fortnight for Freedom. “Fortnight for Freedom” and its companions have come at me from a number of different directions in the last week or so.
Last Friday, the local Catholic Archdiocese newspaper, the Catholic Spirit, had a photo of four earnest looking Bishops on page 11, all intently looking at an iPad above a headline “Bishops focus on religious liberty….” I am Catholic. I get this paper. I know their story….

Catholic Spirit June 19, 2014 p. 11

Here is the article that accompanies the above photo: Bishops focus….002
Technology and Media and Words are wonderful…and awful. The words “Fortnight for Freedom” are not even mentioned in the accompanying article; but the timing of the article is no coincidence.
The Bishops of my Church (I am an active Catholic), have far more than enough “freedom”; there is no need for them to demand even more freedom to take away freedom from others who have differing beliefs than they do, including great numbers who consider themselves, as I do, “active Catholic”.
But this is not just a Catholic hierarchical notion. Last Sunday, a good friend gave me a letter “Standing Together for Religious Freedom, An Open Letter to All Americans“, issued by a Southern Baptist entity, whose first signatory is a Catholic Bishop. The few other signers are, it appears, almost all Catholic or Evangelical Christian leaders of one denomination or another.
This is a top down deal between very odd bedfellows; not a bottom up groundswell. When I was growing up, we Catholics avoided Evangelicals. It was probably also true, vice versa: Catholics were Papists, not Christians.
I see no signers of the Open Letter from mainstream Christian denominations, Jews and Moslems, nor the great numbers of people who do not happen to share a particular belief system. They appear to be only Catholic and Evangelical “leaders”.
There is a bottom line for me in this:
There is a certain amount of “freedom” and “liberty” available. Think of a very large soup kettle full of liberty and freedom.
The Founding Fathers of the U.S. had the right idea about “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” but even for them, then, the concept was essentially reserved to white men with property (including slaves).
At the same time, our founders purposefully and deliberated separated Church and State, an inconvenient truth for some who now actively attempt to rewrite our national history to fit their version of the facts.
We’re now at 238 years of the experiment called American Democracy. It took nearly 200 of those years, some of them very hard years, to come to some fairly reasonable equilibrium about what freedom and liberty meant in practice: ending slavery; securing the right to vote for women (1920) and others (universal suffrage); more universal rights like the Voting Rights Act, Womens Rights, (1960s) etc.
In each of these cases, and others, there was a need to equalize “power”; to share in the wealth of that container of life, liberty and happiness. Each person has a right to that freedom and liberty.
Notions like Fortnight for Freedom want to turn these around; to redefine or to establish new definitions of what “freedom” and “liberty” mean.
Their intent, under the guise of seeking freedom, is to take it away from some as a benefit to others.
To go backwards, not forwards.
Be vigilant.
What do you think?
POSTNOTE:
After I completed the above, I was scrolling through unread e-mails from earlier in the week. This particular one, passed along by Joyce, is particularly telling about the relationship between todays Piety and Power.
As I was writing the above, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Massachusetts law requiring a 35 foot “buffer zone” for protests at abortion clinics violated free speech. It was noted that this same Supreme Court has a much larger “buffer zone” at it own Court in our Nations Capitol, and doesn’t get the contradiction between its own behavior and its own ruling. Here’s a good commentary on that issue.
COMMENTS
from Carol A: Really liked your post, Dick. For a long time, I’ve thought our country has lost its way on the issue of freedom. Freedom without responsibility and respect for others freedom is merely freedom only for a few. Freedom is like individualism in this country. Both need to be balanced and if there is anything we lack, it is balance. We see that in the Tea Party who refuses to address any issue where they might need to compromise. They’re dead set on destroying Obama in whatever way they can. My way or the highway.
I think the issue needs to be discussed and be out in the open. It’s not whose freedom is most important, but how do we balance it with respect for other people’s freedoms.
from Norm N: A link from Time. “Doctors urge more hospitals to perform abortions”.
Response from Dick: Per both Carol and Norm’s comments, I think the weak link in the advocates arguments (i.e. to end abortion, etc) is that it completely dismisses any other point of view, and pretends that a simple solution, perhaps legislatively or by court decision, can be crafted and controlled by advocates for a particular point of view. We are a pluralistic society, and more so than ever, “the other” can never again be driven into silence. Difficult issues require compromise, and compromise requires people to dialogue, truly, with people who have different points of view.
from Peter B: It would be useful if we could be clear about the issue of insurance covering women’s health care: the institutions are not “required as a company or employee to dispense birth control…” Only qualified medical professionals and pharmacists do that.
If I were taking this on, I would focus on the muddying of the waters that is the usual strategy for those who wish to raise these tempests where there is no real Constitutional issue. Whenever they get us to argue the pros and cons of their supposed grievance, they have already won the argument, because they have established in the discourse that there is an issue there. It is bogus.
There’s no “there” there, but as we see, these tactics of confusion and mendacity work all too often. It is a lot trickier to try to argue that a company is infringed upon because its insurance package covers things they don’t like covered (as, I read somewhere, the Hobby Lobby company has provided its own employees for years). People smart enough to make that case face an uphill climb if they want to rouse up people stupid enough to buy it.
I have a good friend who is now in trouble for not paying taxes, forty percent or more of which support the bloody wars of aggression and conquest now conducted in our names, and for private profit. If there is a bright line between the obligation to pay taxes and our religious objections to mass murder, there must be a bright line between paying for health care coverage without discrimination, and our personal religious objections to family planning, etc.
It’s all about what is done in your name, with your money, and the real question is, what’s yours? What constitutes an act for which you are accountable? And to Whom? The definition is completely arbitrary and made up out of whole cloth. It is an impossible question that we had hoped to resolve by just putting it off limits in the Constitution. But language doesn’t hold still. Even the meaning of a comma after “well regulated militia,” has changed.
Now, the Supreme Court has ruled that establishing a perimeter around abortion clinics where people are not allowed to scream in the face of a girl walking toward the building is inhibiting the screamers’ free speech rights, which trumps the girl’s right to walk unmolested down any street in America. (How do they even know whether she is trying to deal with private issues that are hers and hers alone to live with, or just looking for a clean bathroom?) It is (or was) actually only the government that is accountable for any infringement of free speech in the Constitution. It’s a “Congress shall make no law” thing, if I am not mistaken. And what about all those restrictions on protest in D.C.?
We need to work farther upstream than the political conflict itself: literacy and critical thinking skills are the worst casualty of the Education Wars. Democracy cannot stand against ignorance, and you can’t win a shouting match.
from Bruce F: You are correct, Dick, Hobby Lobby’s idea of freedom is based on power & domination. Their entire business model is based on that precept, especially their relations with their employees. The answer for their employees is to unionize. A very difficult proposition for them, but if they were unionized, this law suit regarding the ACA wouldn’t be, along with a whole host of other assaults on labor. Hobby Lobby, like many business, are taking advantage of and thriving in the week economy & labor market to exploited there employees, and it’s in the name of freedom.
I fear a 5-4 decision in favor of the plaintiff.
from John B: Organized religion is a part of the establishment. Most religions espouse the delayed gratification in an after life paradise IF the believers obey the teachings, and we know what that means.
I want to believe there is a higher order to life, maybe even a GODHEAD, but beware of conflating mainstream American religion with freedom. Most religions are dying in a slow and painful manner. Some of them, like certain ones originating in the eastern Mediterranean region are promote despicable social practices. These are the opposite of freedom. As examples, consider the breakdown in negotiations between the Jews and Palestinians or the wars between the Sunnis and the Shias.
I long for a day when a LOUD voice from the sky says: “You guys don’t get it. It was love each other, not loot each other, pray for each other, not prey on each other, share with one another not steal from one another.”
The number one freedom valued in America is the freedom to make money. It is the highest value.
from Jeff P:Well, if this is a major event, its odd I hadn’t heard of it till you
mentioned in this post, but then , as you know , I am a godless apostate.
I think the public at this point, from Ireland to the USA to Germany to
Mexico and most Catholic countries finds the words of bishops particularly
meaningless given the record of the self same clergy in policing itself.
Otherwise , I defer to the Founding Fathers :
History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people
maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of
ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always
avail themselves for their own purposes.
-Thomas Jefferson to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813.
Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of
the holy author of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting
“Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus
Christ, the holy author of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the
great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of
its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the
Hindoo and Infidel of every denomination.
-Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for
Religious Freedom
“What influence, in fact, have ecclesiastical establishments had on society?
In some instances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the
ruins of the civil authority; on many instances they have been seen
upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no instance have they been
the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wish to subvert the
public liberty may have found an established clergy convenient auxiliaries.
A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them not.”
[Pres. James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General
Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785]
Can a free government possibly exist with the Roman Catholic religion?
— John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 19, 1821
.”…the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political
direction.” [George Washington, 1789, responding to clergy complaints that
the Constitution lacked mention of Jesus Christ)
from Andrea G: An excellent read. I couldn’t have stated the issue better. As I scrolled through the letter and the signatures, I wondered how much progress would be made regarding ‘traditional’ social justice issues (poverty, housing, education) if those entities collectively focused on such issues.
from Ray B: When politicians take our tax money and use it in a way that supercedes our basic right to religious freedom must concern us all. Notice and genuine concern through a process starting with the people to stop this downward spiral of our systematic loss of political and religious freedoms must take place. Our well thought out constitution saw the need for democratic freedom and the separation of church and government and must not be tampered with in the un democratic way of this time in our history by those in power and ignore these rights in the name of protectionism with no restraints, all in the name of “the country’s best interests”. Concern for our own people should not be ignored by wars, playing big brother to the world at own demise and financial near insolvency. Our people’s basic rights and the right to jobs, food, safe haven are in our best interest”
from Flo H, Jun 30: I’d never heard of Fortnight for Freedom, but certainly experience the effects of the movement in my community and church. What happened to the belief that, “Your freedom ends where my freedom begins.“? [Ed. Note: Flo didn’t suggest any link, but I’ve added a bunch of links about the phrase.]
from Greg H, Jul 1: I share your sentiments. The conservative tide, at least in the courts, is strong. We will just have to ride it out; I don’t see any alternative.
Curious as I am, I Googled Hobby Lobby to learn if they have any Minnesota stores.
Would you believe their only Minnesota store now is in Woodbury [55125]? Another will open in Maplewood at some point. You may wish to click on this link to view their home page.
response from Dick: We happen to live in Woodbury, about 7 miles from the store. I am not a shopper, so had never heard of this store; my wife is a shopper, but has never mentioned this place. Such is how shopping is. I won’t waste gas or time to even go see the place.
At the home page for Hobby Lobby there is a momentarily appearing ad with two quotations attributed to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (they are portions of the first and third quotations which can be read here). They aren’t up very long. They are probably like all such quotations: a bit like distilling the Bible into one verse without context….
Here is the wikipedia entry about Hobby Lobby.
I know lots of people who believe lots of things. In our free society, the danger is when someone with a particular belief embarks on a course to impose that belief on everyone else through Law. The only remedy I see, personally, is staying active politically. For someone with the interest, and time, here is a long post that discusses the implications of Hobby Lobby.
* – The sign was very tastefully done, and I have no objections to such an expression at all. When I was taking the photo at the beginning of this post, I noticed a lady in a black car stopped near the corner. Possibly it was because I was standing in the middle of the road! But when she turned the corner, she rolled down her window and said – as if friend to friend – words to the effect “really true”.
She drove on, and I left. It is a safe speculation that she had something to do with the neatly done graffiti.
At home I read Jeff’s comment, below: “…if this is a major event, its odd I hadn’t heard of it till you mentioned in this post….” In my opinion, movements – makes no different the issue or ideology – often take root quietly and unnoticed, until something happens. The lady likely knew about this sign, as did her church, whichever that happened to be, and she was glad somebody (me) was looking at it. And I thought it important to pass the word about it. (The Bible quote is from Mark 9:23, so says the chalk. I have four Bibles here, three Catholic and one the “red-line Bible”, and in each of the four the quotation is worded a little differently. Below are the respective quotations I have. With the Bible, in particular, it depends both on the translation, and the context that is given to certain phrases or passages….)
1. The post on the curb: Everything is possible for one who believes. Mark 9:23. Possible origin of this translation, check here.
2. Grandma’s 1906 Douay-Reims: Verse 22: “And Jesus saith to him: If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth.”
3. My 1961 St. Joseph Catholic Edition: also Verse 22: “But Jesus said to him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”
4. Dad’s 1978 Good News Bible: Verse 23: “Yes” said Jesus, “if you yourself can! Everything is possible for the person who has faith.”
5. From 1989 Revised Standard Version: Verse 23: “Jesus said to him, “if you are able! All can be done for the one who believes.”

#905 – Dick Bernard: Cloud Watching and Some Beautiful Flowers

June 25, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

Late yesterday afternoon was beautiful weather for driving, east bound from North Dakota to the Twin Cities.
A brilliant sun was at our back, and all around us were those wonderful puffy cumulus clouds, and farther ahead magnificent “mountain ranges” of white clouds atop rainy weather somewhere to the east. The vista began about Freeport MN, “Lake Wobegon” country, and lasted till we bore south at St. Cloud. I tried to catch the moments in photos, but you know how that is: the best pictures are in the minds-eye, and the scenery, when it comes to clouds, changes by the second. But I did stop once, and below is what I caught in a snapshot – no prize winner, but at least evidence.
(click to enlarge all photos)

Along I-94 after 6 p.m. in the “Lake Wobegon” neighborhood, June 24, 2013.

As I drove, it reminded me of long ago days as a kid in North Dakota, on occasion lying on the grass looking at clouds floating by. Maybe you could imagine something a cloud represented; you got at least a sense of speed and direction and even elevation of the clouds. Of course, this was all abstract to a kid, but nice clouds in combination with a nice day were times and memories to be cherished, if only for a few minutes (till some bug, or another thought or interest, interfered!)
Perhaps the sense of those clouds was heightened by the two days prior when four of us were engaged with doing the necessary things which come with drastic change of life for a relative in a nursing home. Things like attending to beginning to prepare the farm home for hoped for new inhabitants; making arrangements for scrap metal to be hauled, etc.
It wasn’t a neutral activity for me, having spent a lot of time at this farm place over the years, and now the guy in charge of the most major change in the history of this 110 year old farm, owned and occupied continuously by the same family, and now being prepared for new residents, a new life.
This sense of change, more than the work at the farm, contributed to a personal sense of feeling emotionally and physically exhausted this particular day. We had planned to stay one more day at the farm; it would not have been productive for me.
The puffy clouds within my eyesight, coming home, were an occasion of reverie for me, remembering.
I had taken one last photo when I left the farmyard four hours earlier. It is below. At right is the original grain bin built in 1905; in background is the house we had been working on for the last day.

At the farm, June 24, 2014

Before leaving the property, I noted two voluntary clumps of peonies, festive in bloom beside the house. They were as if in memory of Aunt Edithe, who planted and nurtured them in past years, and who died just months ago. Through them, she lives on.

June 24, 2014

At the corner of Highway 13 and the farm road to the ancestral farm I stopped to take my annual photos of the Wild Roses that abound there each summer. The road grader crew needs to know of their existence, and allows them to live on, a vibrant colony.
The wild rose remains the state flower of North Dakota, and here is the one I found most attractive this day.

Wild Rose June 24, 2014

The clouds and the flowers: a good reminder to us all. Take time to enjoy the simple things of life. After awhile, it’s all that’s left.
POSTNOTE:
As noted, the sole survivor of the rural North Dakota home now lives in a nursing home. He has always been, and remains, very spiritual.
Recently I came across three family photos that are pertinent to his and the family story. They are below.
The first is of the old Catholic Church and Public High School in the County Seat in which he lives. The current Catholic Church, in the same location as the old, is directly across the street from the old High School, which was replaced by, and for 42 years has been, the Nursing Home, and is now my Uncle’s residence. Most recently Uncle was pushed across the street by myself on Tuesday morning.

early Church and High School in LaMoure ND

From 1915-68 the family Church was about 10 miles west, in tiny Berlin ND. Here is a recently discovered photographs of life in that Church.

Apparently a summer religious education time at St. Johns’ during the time when there were lots of kids in the rural area. The photo is undated.

School and church: two of many symbols of community.

#904 – Dick Bernard: Living in Hell.

June 23, 2014/2 Comments/in Community, Economics, Family History, Minnesota /by dickbernard

A few hours ago we were a pizza party for a friend who just turned 50. It was the usual kind of casual gettogether. Small talk. Catching up with people you haven’t seen for awhile. A cake with two candles: “5” and “0”, singing “Happy Birthday to you….” Each of us at or beyond that age can fill in the blanks of our own similar experience.
It was probably that party that generated the dream that woke me up the middle of this night. The strange dream whose details you can’t remember exactly, but had more than a hint of desperation within it, and caused me, this night, to break out in a sweat right before I woke up, just now.
It was a dream about being unemployed, with less and less hope. A reality about to begin for me 32 years ago this Fall; a reality in which the “50” man has been living for the last 2-3 years, with no active prospects. One day he was working; the next day it was over.
We stood around the birthday cake last evening, sang Happy Birthday and all, but everyone in the room, of adult age, probably were thinking, as I was: where will this hell end for our friend, our relative.
No one really knows.
For me, perhaps for most of us there in that room, there was a sense of hopelessness. I’m 14 years retired and my “linked in” profile is of little use to this 50 year old: even if I had contacts, they are in sectors for which the birthday guy has no qualifications whatever.
It is not quite so simple as “just go get a job”.
By the time you’re in your 40s, in our society, your life course has been pretty well set. You were trained for something, and you did it, and then it ended for one of an endless number of reasons, and there you were, stuck, getting older, unqualified for the available alternatives. So, as with this 50 year old, you need to retrain to do something you haven’t done before, and then begin life again, at 50, in competition with younger people who have better skills (and are cheaper, etc., and can be shaped and molded easier than someone with a particular mindset.)
More than most, in that room last night, I could relate to this guy seeking to start over.
Yesterday, in this space, I wrote of a trip to Quebec with my Dad at age 42 in June, 1982. At that moment in history I was at the end of a sabbatical leave from my career, and I had, literally, “burned out”, ten years into a high stress job. And there were assorted other dynamics intruding on an outwardly successful appearing life.
I was doing well, outside, but not doing so well at all inside. I needed to regroup.
Three months or so later I resigned the job (in the midst of a bad recession), and embarked on 12 months which I have always described, since, as both the best and worst year of my entire life. (I had better years, and I actually had worse, but not occurring at the same time.)
Because I had resigned, there was no unemployment insurance.
I started out pretty optimistic. My Christmas letter for 1982 was not hopeless. It is here, see the last paragraph:Vietnam Mem DC 1982001
Twelve months later, in early September, 1983, I was near desperate. I had been on the Corporate Board for Catholic Charities when my mis-adventure began, watching over programs for the down and out. Here I was, a year later, near down and out, too proud to reach out for welfare or the such.
It was probably old memories of that time that triggered the unpleasant dream just now.
At the end of September, 1983, I was reemployed, back to work in mid-October, and the hell began to end, and life has been very good since.
But I’m not prone to judge what’s going on in the mind of the person down-on-his (or her) -luck for whatever reason. Unemployment is not a soundbite. It is a cruel reality.
I’ve been there, done that.
I wish the new 50 year old my own resurrection, which began in Hibbing MN, mid-October, 1983….
Then, perhaps, it can be a “Happy Birthday”.

#903 – Dick Bernard: St-Jean Baptiste Day June 24. Adding to a conversation about heritage and culture.

June 22, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, History, Immigration, International Relations, Minnesota, Quebec/French-Canadians /by dickbernard

In Minneapolis, this Tuesday, June 24, the Canada Consul-General is hosting a celebration of St-Jean Baptiste, sponsored by Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis. The flier is here: La St-Jean Baptiste la Fete Nationale du Quebec. All are welcome, at a very moderate cost. Unfortunately, I’ll be out of state at the time of Fete de la St-Jean Baptiste. Otherwise, no question I’d be there. It will be a festive event.
My father, Henry Bernard, is 100% French-Canadian, thus qualifying me…and since 1980 I’ve been actively involved in family history matters relating to Dads Quebec (to Dad, always, refered to as “Lower Canada”).*
In 1982, Dad and I and four others traveled to rural Quebec, including Quebec City and Montreal, to make a first visit to the land of our ancestors (QC, Ile d’Orleans, St. Henri, St. Lambert et al). I had, then, only the most basic notions of the family history and traditions of my French-Canadian heritage. Dad was 74, then, which happens to be my current age….
After soupe aux pois (pea soup) at a festive weekend event of La Societe Canadienne-Francaise du Minnesota, some days later we all arrived in Quebec City on the evening of St-Jean Baptiste Day (StJB), Thursday, June 24, 1982. StJB is a major festive event in Quebec, a holiday, always June 24**.
I know Dad pretty well: arriving on the Lower Canada home soil from which his father had come in 1894, (and his grandparents on Grandmas side, 40 and 30 years earlier) was, for him, like arriving in Heaven.
Being a novice in the matter of ancestry at the time, the experience was less intense for me, but no less profound. Three times since I’ve been back, and later immersed myself in family history and the hobby of editing a little newsletter called Chez Nous.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

St. Jean-Baptiste side altar at Cathedral of St. Paul, June 23, 2013

In Quebec, this year as all years, June 24 is a major day of celebration. The official notice is here, in French. The document can be translated into English, here. But, no question, they consider this a French-Canadian day***.
So far, I describe a Quebec holiday, primarily French-Canadian, celebrated this year at the home of the Canadian-Consul General in Minneapolis, sponsored by a French-related organization, Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis. We French-Canadians frequently have held smaller celebrations here, most recently June 24, 2013. I wrote about aspects of last year here.
For those with intense feelings about matters French, French-Canada, Canada, and England, (and “Americans”, and “Yankees”, etc) the preceding words can excite some interesting conversation.
An alternative welcoming French word “rapprochement” comes to mind….
Enjoy June 24 and St-Jean Baptiste!
As it happens, I became involved a bit in the “drama” of French and Canadian on St. Jean-Baptiste Day a year ago, after the event of the brand new French-American Heritage Foundation, on whose Board I have served since its founding in 2013.
A year ago, I stopped by the Cathedral of St. Paul to take the above photo of St. John the Baptist, one of the six side altars devoted to national groups, primarily Catholic, who settled in the Minnesota of Archbishop John Ireland’s day.

I had long known of the altars existence but this day was different: for the first time, then, I really noted the signage identifying the altar:

It came time to correct, I felt, an error in the sign, and on July 1, 2013, I wrote a letter to the Rector of the Cathedral, Rev. John Ubel, in part, as follows:
“As you know, Archbishop Ireland, whose project it was to build the Cathedral in the early 1900s, had a great affection for both France and the French-Canadians who migrated here in the tens if not hundreds of thousands in the early days of the then-immense Diocese.
It is true that St-Jean Baptiste was a French patron, and it was through the French settlement of Quebec, that this same Saint became patron of the French-Canadians. So, the French part of the sign is correct.
The problem comes with the “Canadian” portion of the sign. It is misleading. Recently I was reviewing the 1940 United States Census form, where census takers were instructed as follows: in the column heading “Place of Birth”: “Distinguish Canada-French from Canada-English, and Irish Free State (Eire) from Northern Ireland“.
In the classic book, Maria Chapdelaine, (Louis Hemon, 1913), there appears this phrase on p. 89 of my English version: “When the French Canadian speaks of himself it is invariably and simply as a “Canadian”; whereas for all other races that followed in his footsteps, and people the country across to the Pacific, he keeps the name of origin: English, Irish, Polish, Russian; never admitting for a moment that the children of these, albeit born in the country, have an equal title to be called “Canadians.” Quite naturally, and without thought of offending, he appropriates the name won in the heroic days of his forefathers.”
I understand that this may not rise to the top of your list of priorities, and perhaps more evidence is reasonably required, but at minimum I would hope you review this matter.”
In the manner of such things, I had no expectation of a response from Rev. Ubel, but he did respond quite quickly and said my argument made sense, and they’d be looking into the matter.
Months passed by. Then, in the mail May 2, 2014, was a handwritten note from Rev. Ubel: “I do wish to write to share with you that we have completed the work to change the signage at the St. John the Baptist Shrine Altar. You were correct and we made the correction.
Many thanks for your patience. We decided to go with French-Canadians, though I certainly understand other arguments. French and Canadians is clearly wrong. We looked at our own historical records of the Chapel.”
I went back to the Cathedral, to see what had been done with the signage:

May 4, 2014

I look at this story as not a battle won in any national war; rather an effort to revisit a long history of too-often fractured relationships.
And this year I’ll really appreciate a great deal the efforts of Canada, through Consul General Jamshed Merchant, and Alliance Francaise de Minneapolis, and hope to see continuing and increasing efforts at rapprochement (what a wonderful word!)
* Mom was 100% German ancestry; her ancestors coming to Wisconsin between 1840s and 1860s from what was then Westphalia and Hanover states.
** A week later comes Canada Day, celebrated each year across Canada on July 1. I’d imagine this is a pretty big vacation week in Canada, not just Quebec.
*** St. Jean-Baptiste was early on a favored patron of France, from which my and others French-Canadian ancestors migrated beginning in the early 1600s. One story of that relationship is here.

#902 – Dick Bernard: The Summer Solstice, Reflecting on Global War and Peace.

June 21, 2014/0 Comments/in History, International Relations, Media, Minnesota, Peace & Justice, Politics, President Obama, War /by dickbernard

“Outtakes” after the photos. Check back in two or three days for additions at that space, and comments.
Today is the Summer Solstice. On June 7, between meetings, I drove over to the Lock and Dam by Minneapolis’ Stone Arch Bridge, and a group of people were rehearsing a dance (see photo). Turned out, they were rehearsing for a free program this evening at the Stone Arch Bridge. Here’s details.
(click to enlarge)

Rehearsing at Minneapolis Lock and Dam Parking Lot June 7, 2014.

During 24 hours time period on June 19 and 20, I had the opportunity to both witness and participate in three activities about matters of Global War and Peace. My role was more than ordinary, standing in for Drs. Joe Schwartzberg and Gail Hughes at the Annual meeting of Citizens for Global Solutions, Minnesota, on June 19; and as one of the three panelists about the current Iraq-Syria crisis on Lydia Howell’s one hour Catalyst program on Minneapolis’ KFAI radio on Friday Morning, June 20.
Then, in the afternoon, I dropped by a Community Peace Celebration in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul MN.
The entire radio program is accessible here. It was a stimulating and interesting hour, and the comments of myself, Sarah Martin of Women Against Military Madness, David Logsdon of Veterans for Peace and Lydia Howell speak for themselves. We covered a lot of ground in the one hour available. Of course, each of us left with assorted “soundbites” left unsaid (I’ll add some of these at the end of this post.)
(KFAI, to those not familiar, is a local radio station with a 35 years history which began as a 25-watt neighborhood station in the belfry of the old Walker Methodist Church in South Minneapolis. It is now live-streamed anywhere internet access is available. A look at its programming schedule reveals a most interesting selection not available on most “mainstream” stations. By near-happenstance, I was an on-air guest on KFAI program “Me and the Other” in October, 1982. This program continues as “Bonjour Minnesota” to this day.)
The radio program was about the beating of the war drums, yet again, by certain elements in the United States. As you will gather, if you listen to the conversation, there is difference of opinion about what all of this means. Even peaceniks (I am one, as were all of the others) have differing perspectives.
June 19, at the Citizens for Global Solutions meeting, I had the privilege of introducing colleague, Dr. Bharat Parekh, who took the Millenium Development Goals seriously, and after 9 years of effort is beginning to see significant success in a project to alleviate child malnutrition in, first, the Mumbai (Bombay) portion of his native India.

Dr. Parekh, June 19, 2014

A summarized version of Dr. Parekh’s talk will be subject of a later blog at this space.
Succinctly, it takes lots of slogging along to achieve success, even small success, and Dr. Parekh’s determination is beginning to pay off. In my introduction I pointed out two quotations which begin and end the home page of AMillionCopies.info: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world Indeed it is the only thing that ever has.“ Margaret Mead. And, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world.“ Gandhi
Finally, Friday afternoon I dropped by at the beginning of the 18th Annual Community Peace Celebration gathering on the Grounds of Ober Community Center, in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood. I was there early, and could stay only a short time, but already in evidence were the three Fs of a successful gathering: Food, Fun, Family. My friend, Melvin Giles, is one of the unsung community leaders who put on this successful event. This is yet another example of the truth of the Margaret Mead and Gandhi quotes recited above.
The final photos are all from the St. Paul event.
As Melvin always says: “May Peace Prevail on Earth”.
He and legions of others like him will get it done, one step at a time.
At the Peace Celebration June 20:

Neighborhood musicians June 20, 2014

Peace Pole

among the tables, some items for home gardens.

Peace Bell maker and artist at Veterans for Peace table

Message from Dwight Eisenhower on Peace

“OUTTAKES” from the Radio Hour:
Dick: Four of us had perhaps 40 minutes to share our thoughts. Here is one of my own, too complex to share in the brief time allotted. (The other panelists are asked for their opinion too.)
The current Iraq/Syria conflict seems to be a Religious Civil War, in some respects like our own Civil War 1861-65. I don’t recall ever reading that there was outside (i.e. English, et al) intervention on either side in that war. It was an internal matter to the United States of America.
Some statistics largely gleaned from the 2007 World Almanac and Book of Facts, and other sources.
I invite challenge on any of these numbers, as I am quoting from seemingly reasonable sources, but have inadequate context in some cases about what the numbers include, and thus what they mean.
The U.S. Civil War, 1861-65, including statistics for both “sides”:
31.4 Million Population of U.S. in 1860
2.2 Million Troops in the War
215 thousand Deaths in Battle
780 thousand total Casualties
544 thousand Maximum U.S. troops in Vietnam (1969)
Iraq et al 2003-2008
27 Million Population
200 thousand Iraq deaths in war
2.5 million American troops deployed to area conflicts
4.5 thousand American deaths in Iraq War
32.2 thousand American injured in Iraq War
from Jeff P, June 21: The deaths from usa civil war are over 500,000 , still debated by historians… the problem being that wounded or sick soldiers died, from lack of sanitary conditions.

#901 – Dick Bernard: Back to Iraq; the propaganda mill begins to churn…again.

June 17, 2014/0 Comments/in History, International Relations, Media, War /by dickbernard

Pre-note: three interesting links at the end of this post.
First Comment from Kathy M, June 18: To your point of questioning what our media tells us…You may have heard that the religious leader of Shia Muslims was fomenting violence. This article is considerably nuanced…complexity we Americans tend to overlook.
More comments at end of this post.
It seems time to “re-deploy” a sketch map I made about 2005 of a place then in the news…and now, again: Iraq environs ca 2005001. My college background was geography-centered, and maps like these help me to establish a personal context for places less familiar to me.
Personally, I think President Obama time and time again has exercised generally good judgement in his decision making, given the vast array of pressure points exerted on him from all sides. This will happen with Iraq too. Most every faction on every side will criticize what he does. We are good critics in this country.
Soundbite one: We Americans live in a very complex world, but we are (my opinion) a “sound bite” society. We don’t do complexity well. We seem to decide things based on personally chosen “headlines”.
During significant amount of time together in recent weeks, I had an opportunity, through a number of casual conversation with a Pakistani civil official, another perspectives on America, al Qaeda, Taliban, history, national borders, etc. Of course, a great many significant events have occurred in the last two weeks in his region of the world including terrorist attacks on the Karachi Pakistan airport; announcement of a changing U.S. role in Afghanistan, and, now, ISIS in Iraq and Syria.
Sound bite two: My colleague, nearing the end of his year in the U.S., seems genuinely positively impressed with Americans, generally; but “America”, on the ground in his country and others, is not viewed positively. We are good people, here, he says; but we are justifiably criticized for what is done in our name, there. The U.S. meddles everywhere through our government policies. On the ground, at home; we seem blithely (and dangerously) unaware of what is or has been done. Even our “friends”, as Pakistan is, suffer consequences. At one point he mentioned “55,000 casualties”, though I don’t recall specific context.
Sound bite three, my opinion: We ordinary people trust information from our own “trusted” sources that is not trustworthy, and we do so at our peril. We are a slave of propaganda, intentional or inadvertent. I offer one very recent example:

My long-time mainstream news source is CBS-TV local and national news.
Last Friday night, CBS news anchor Scott Pelley was reporting on the current crisis in Iraq, and among other things brief mention was made of 4486 American deaths in the second Iraq War 2003-2008. There was no context provided. I specifically noticed the number, isolated and specific as it was, and decided to check out the source. The newscast carried no mention of Iraqi casualties, military or civilian, during the same war, or ancillary costs to people “over there”: displacement of citizens, ruined homes and communities, etc.
The casualty number seemed to be an intended, important, stand-alone.
The source of the CBS information appears to be iCasualties.org . If you go there (I hope you do) it is not possible to easily find a home page which, in turn, divulges who maintains the site, or vouches for its accuracy. I had to go to Wikipedia to find anything more about the site: it is here. It seems legit.
There are other “body count” sites, of course. One I’ve known about for years, which seems to have rigorous standards, is iraqbodycount.org At that site, the Iraq death toll for the Coalition Military forces 2003-2013 is 4804. This is identical to the iCasualties number.
But there is a dramatic difference between the two sites in a critical respect: IraqBodyCount records 188,000 “violent deaths including combatants” in the Iraq War, of which 124,598 – 138,916 were “documented civilian deaths from violence”.
If you like “hunting” you can also find Iraqi casualties at the iCasualties site: 60,277. There is a caveat with the information: “This is not a complete list, nor can we verify these totals. This is simply a compilation of deaths reported by news agencies. Actual totals for Iraqi deaths are much higher than the numbers recorded on this site.”
It doesn’t take much looking to determine that there is a huge difference between the data CBS wanted to convey to its viewers (4486 Americans dead), and the horrible reality for Iraqi civilians in the Iraq War (up to 188,000 casualties as a result of the Iraq War). The numbers are for the same conflict, same period of time. And this does not consider the immense displacement of human beings (refugees) who fled one place (say Mosul, now) for safer conditions elsewhere; and disruption of society there. Or deaths related to the war in other countries in the region, like Pakistan.
I am reminded of the long-ago and deadly Vietnam War, where on the daily news we were treated to news reports every day that gave variations of this message about the war: “15 American deaths; 1000 Vietcong killed”. By golly, it said right there on the TV, every afternoon, that we were winning the body count (and thus the war). Mostly, I didn’t question these numbers, nor did many. They wouldn’t lie to me, I said to myself. But how real were they? There is a famous court case, Westmoreland vs CBS, back in 1982, which remains controversial to this day about this. You can google it for more than you’d ever want to know, from assorted sides.
The first casualty of war is the Truth, and CBS last Friday night revealed the need for extra caution in taking at face value anything reported on the news.
It takes more to be a good citizen than to simply be a good person in your neighborhood. Become informed and involved.
As for me, the only certainty of war is that it is killing us in many ways more than just physical death of our GIs. We need to recognize that.
Thanks to respected newsletter publisher Jeff Nygaard, here are two recent articles, here and here, from a long established source which has kept tabs on the Middle East since 1971.
Jeff also gave two examples of what he referred to as “Inadvertent Propaganda” at a recent workshop I attended. Here they are, with his permission: Nygaard Propaganda Examp001
UPDATE, June 18: Another example of messaging, from overnight, long but good: here.
from Norm N, June 18:
Mornin’ Dick,
Mention of the truth in your blog, had me thinking about a quatern I’d written for an adult ed poetry workshop I’d recently attended. What little poetry I write is most always humorous, but a class assignment to write a quatern had me do the following.
Reading your blog I think that perhaps, we and every newscast should begin with Sir Walter Scott’s: “I cannot tell what the truth may be; I say the tale as ’twas said to me. A quatern is a four quatrain stanza poem where the 1st line becomes the 2nd line of the second stanza and so on:
I can’t say what the truth may be,
I say the tale as said to me,
That was said by Wally Scott, he
Transcends the poet bourgeoisie.
With honest doubt the creed I see:
I can’t say what the truth may be.
The truth, tis said, will set you free,
Yet I sit here skeptically.
Am I a slave? Eternally,
With everything to disagree:
I can’t say what the truth may be;
All that’s said is chicanery?
And so be open and be free,
Believe not what the eye can see,
Live a life of skepticity.
I can’t say what the truth may be.
June 18 Washington Post on Humanitarian Crisis in Iraq: here
from Dick: From the beginning of this latest crisis I have recalled a comment I heard at a coffee shop in one of the Sun Cities near Phoenix in November, 2003, after the invasion of Iraq, and the U.S. “mission accomplished”.
The proprietor was Iraqi Christian, from Chicago, earlier from Mosul, and was happy that the U.S. had gone in to remove Saddam Hussein because his regime had not dealt kindly with the many Christians in Mosul.
As it has turned out, the Christians in Mosul and elsewhere have not fared any better since 2003, and certainly not today. The adage, “be careful what you pray for” comes to mind.
from Joyce, June 18, “very interesting history” by Juan Cole.
overnight, June 19, 2014, from Just Above Sunset, “Those Who Have Been There”.

#900 – Dick Bernard: A Ride on the St. Paul-Minneapolis Green Line

June 16, 2014/3 Comments/in Community, Family History, History, Minnesota /by dickbernard

NOTE: There is plenty of “regular” news about the inauguration of the Minneapolis to St. Paul Green Line train Saturday and Sunday. Minneapolis Star Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Twin Cities Daily Planet are three of, doubtless, many.

At the St. Paul Union Station terminus June 15, 2014

Some personal observations: a ride on the railroad
My spouse, Cathy, takes events like Father’s Day seriously. So, as Sunday loomed, she asked what I wanted to do for the day. I had only a single request: to join the throng that would doubtless pack the Green Line train on the opening, free, weekend. I even entertained the notion of trying to be on the first free ride early Saturday morning. That was a bit nuts, so we ended up going mid-afternoon on Sunday.
It wasn’t that I’ve never been on a train.
Occasionally we ride the Blue Line from Mall of America to Target Field via the Airport for a Minnesota Twins game. We begin the journey with plenty of seating; the return, after the game, begins with everyone packed like sardines.
The earliest train ride I remember was sometime in the late 1940s, 14 miles between Sykeston and Carrington ND, and back, in the single passenger car of the spur line which went from Carrington west to Turtle Lake in the morning, turned around and came back in the afternoon. Sykeston was the second stop. For some specific reason, on this particular day the route was reversed so that townspeople of Sykeston could “ride the rails” to small-but-larger Carrington and back, without staying overnight. There had to be some specific arrangement.
For a little kid, it was fun, including the occasional soot from the stack of the coal fired steam engine a few cars forward.
Once in awhile, rarely, there have been other train rides: as a college student from Valley City to Minneapolis about 1960 for a student union conference. That was an overnight ride, where the train seemed to stop in the middle of nowhere, frequently. Now and then there have been AMTRAK journeys, as St. Louis to Rochester NY; Washington D.C. to North Carolina; St. Paul to Hartford Ct via Rochester NY; Minneapolis to Chicago with my young son in the 1960s.
What are your memories of trains?
So, came Sunday afternoon, beginning at St. Paul’s Union Station. Initially the plan – my plan, as for a moment I “ruled the roost” – was to go the entire 11 miles and 20 stops from newly reopened Union Station to Target Field. I changed my mind. We went as far as the University of Minnesota stop, turned around and came back. The other stations we’ve seen before.
All of the route was familiar territory. It was just nice to see it from a train or, rather, experience it in a train. Westbound we were seated, and could see little; coming back we were standing, and could see little. It was a free day, after all, and train was full of people, including many friendly and polite families with young kids. This was an outing, not a trip to work!
Here’s two photos I took, one while seated; the second while standing. You can tell which is which!

View from the seated position

…and from the standing position.

Of course, there were a few grousers demonstrating. “STUPID” said one sign on Saturday; “Nobody will ride it” said another demonstrator. Waste of tax money….
Of course, it isn’t like the Green Line is something novel. Trains and subways and the like are ubiquitous, though not as ubiquitous as I’d like them to be.
As one nice person said while we waited at University Station for the ride back: “we drew preliminary plans for this route 25 years ago”. A news comment suggests that the idea was first surfaced 30 years before 2014. Long before that were streetcars.
It took so long because the “auto” interests prevailed. The monopolist who brought buses (big autos) to this area burned the streetcars so they wouldn’t be competition ever again. Later, I seem to recall, he went to prison for something or other.
But the Green Line was fun on Sunday, and when the hubbub settles down, it will be a busy line and enhance everyones quality of life. The grousers will grouse about something else.
Take it for a ride, sometime. I think you’ll enjoy it.

#899 – Dick Bernard: Happy Father's Day

June 15, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, Family History, North Dakota, Quietings /by dickbernard

Happy Father’s Day to everyone.
My favorite postcard, from 1910, to my Grandma Busch on the farm in North Dakota, from one of her sisters in Wisconsin, is this one:
(click to enlarge photos)

At the time, Grandma had two kids, three and one (my mother, the one year old), and Women’s Suffrage was 10 years away.
The card was a little reminder, I suppose, even back in the “good old days” (as perceived by some, perhaps even still).
This Sunday morning I was ushering at Basilica of St. Mary, as usual, and one of the male members of the fabulous Basilica Choir was leading the congregation in the Alleluia before the Gospel reading.
A lady came back about that time, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, proudly, “that’s my son, singing up there!” A minute or two later, enroute back from wherever she’d been, she added a footnote: “he’s an identical twin; his brother is also in the choir!”
Her pride was merited.
I thought to myself that in this picture was a biological Dad. And any number of male and females that had been in advisory capacities, along with Mom, as these twins with marvelous singing voices grew up. Being Father (and Mother) is a team activity, from birth to death.
In our own constellation, there are five biological Dad’s, each their own unique person.
Everyone of them, and this Grandpa, have their own styles and are examples to others. Note, I didn’t say “good examples”. It seems to me that each one of us, regardless of gender or role teach not only by our positive qualities but by our mistakes, which are (at least for me) plenty numerous. Every now and then I run across parents who are trying to insulate their kids from the evils of the world. I feel badly for them, since it never quite works out according to plan. Maybe we can minimize the problems, but as each one of us can attest we sometimes bumble along, remembering stuff we wish we hadn’t done; regretting things we wish we had, but didn’t.
My favorite Father’s Day picture is one I only recently found, from 1949, out there on Grandma and Grandpa’s farm:

Mother’s Day, 1949, at the Busch farm. Standing at rear, from left, Lucina Pinkney, Edith Busch, Henry with John Bernard. Middle Row: Esther and Mary Ann Bernard; Grandma Busch. Front row from left: Richard and Frank Bernard, Ron Pinkney, Florence Bernard, Jim Pinkney.

This is a Mother’s Day picture, but to me it contributes to the universality of the word “father”.
Dad is there, of course, and it is May, 1949. Not in the photo are Duane Pinkney, the father of the two boys are lower right (most likely he was taking the picture); nor are Grandpa Busch and his son, my Uncle Vincent.
We went home after that day on the farm, and as was quite common, came back late in July of 1949. This time we stayed overnight, and a vicious wind blew the roof off the barn, a scant 200 feet or so from where we had been sleeping.
Uncle Vince takes up the story: they now had a big problem on their hands. No barn roof. Dad was a school teacher and it was summertime, so he stayed around while the three men set about hand building a new roof for the barn. Dad was invaluable, Vince says. Me? I was nine. I remember bits and pieces: the form for the roof, the big people nailing boards…. Sixty-five years later the barn still stands, though it is not doing well, as they’d say at a clinic for barns.

The Barn, Sep 20, 2013. Built 1915, roof replaced 1949. Unused for years.

Look at that barn. Imagine it without a roof, in August, 1949, after the storm. Notice a young boy up there, 9 years old; his Dad, 41, his Grandpa, 69, and his Uncle Vince, 24. The nine year old was me, then, watching the others pound the nails, etc. Probably I could pound one or two….
Dad died in 1997. For some years prior to his death I would quite often be his driver when he came north to visit places like the farm. About that time, I began to spend perhaps a week most summers at the farm, just helping out. Vince, who is now in the twilight of his years, became in a real sense something of a new Dad, and a good one, though most of our times were basically quiet times. His sister, Edith, helped out in that role too.
We are all family, whether biologically connected or not.
At the end of Mass today, the Priest asked all the men to stand for a Blessing. Years ago this used to be for biological fathers only.
It’s a good change.
Happy Father’s Day.

Uncle Vince, at the funeral of his sister, my Aunt Edith, February 15, 2014

#898 – Dick Bernard: United States Flag Day June 14, 2014

June 14, 2014/0 Comments/in Community, History, Links, Politics, War /by dickbernard

PRE-NOTE: Do you have any flag stories – things you remember? I’d like to hear from you.
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Today is Flag Day in the United States. I’m a bit old-fashioned: a stand and doff-the-hat kind of guy when the American flag comes by. But I see a lot of misuse of the flag as a weapon, too, and I don’t like that.
Take a bit of time today to pay attention to flags you see. Rest assured, there are stories you will witness, if you simply pay attention.
The most notable flag which comes immediately to mind for me is the one I saw flying above Ft. McHenry in Baltimore harbor in late July 1999.
(click to enlarge photos)

Ft. McHenry MD July 1999

This is a replica of the famed Francis Scott Key flag which inspired the Star Spangled Banner.
Flags have a very long history, and usually they were, sadly, battle flags.
In June, 2003, we were taking a tour of the Palace in Copenhagen Denmark, and the tour guide pointed out that the Danish flag was one of the first prominent national flags. At the time, Denmark was a very powerful country, dominating the entrance to the Baltic Sea and thus dominating what we would now know as northern Europe.
Flags have been symbols of national pride, and, sadly, of national division.
Often, “God is on our side” is inserted into the flag, as is the case with the Danish flag.
Back in October, 2001, when the U.S. began to bomb Afghanistan in the wake of 9-11-01, I heard of a demonstration at the Minnesota State Capitol, and decided to go over to see what was going on. At the time, I was not a peace activist, but I was deeply concerned about how we as a nation were responding to 9-11.
The demonstration that night was a small one. I didn’t know anyone, and I don’t recall the specific speeches. To my knowledge, the demonstration was not recorded anywhere.
What I do remember, vividly, was a loud bunch across the street from the Capitol steps, brandishing American flags almost like weapons, and trying to drown out the protestors on the capitol steps.
Some images stick with a person.
Yesterday, I made a trip down to the Hennepin County Government Center (downtown Minneapolis) to revisit another flag which has become memorable to me.
It is a huge flag in the atrium of the tower.

Atrium of the Hennepin County MN Government Center June 13, 2014

I rarely have any reason to visit the government center and first noticed this large flag April 12, 2013, while dealing with another flag issue, still ongoing and unresolved (and by no means forgotten by myself).
There was then, and still is, nothing visible to tell the history of this flag.
Back then, in April, 2013, I called Hennepin County and after being redirected three times, came across one person who thought they remembered why the large flag was hanging there: “I think it was put up sometime after 9-11-01. They thought they had to do something….”
I’m not sure that the description of the flag by the person was accurate, but I’m willing to bet that I know more about the history of that flag than nearly 100% of the people who see it, including the Hennepin County Commissioners with whom I’ve been doing battle about my own personal flag issue since I uncovered something untoward about another flag in December 2012…. (see link to March 27, 2013 below).
There is a U.S. Flag Code, which is advisory and has no force and effect of Law (freedom of speech), but which is nonetheless “enforced” in various ways by various people, all proclaiming that truth is on their side; “truth” usually being emotional and power based. My attention to Hennepin County relates to a flag which was taken down by the Hennepin County Board in March 2012, after a 44 year history of flying proudly next to the U.S. flag, having been raised there by all of the prominent politicians of 1968, Republican and Democrat, and community leaders.
The same board members who took the flag down, including one who is running for MN Governor as the endorsed candidate of his party, not only refuse to return the flag to its former status, but for over a year now refuse to answer easy questions about why they took it down in the first place. (The March 27, 2013 blog link gives the rest of that story, for anyone interested. And it is an interesting and distressing story.)
Yesterday, leaving the Government Center, I decided to see the presence of flags in the Plaza and the streets bordering said Government Center.
There were plenty of U.S. flags flying – six I recall. There were several Minnesota flags, and a couple of Hennepin County flags, and a flag of Canada (where the Canadian Consul General has his office).
The champion flag site around that block was the headquarters of a major bank which had six flag poles, including the U.S., State, and three Bank flags, plus a sixth one which I can only describe by the photo I took of it. I asked at the information desk inside the bank about the strange flag, and they didn’t know anything about it. Here it is.

June 13, 2014, Minneapolis MN

“sibling” flags of above, June 13, 2014

COMMENTS:
From David T: Your piece reminds me of the so-called “Hard Hat Riot” in 1970. There was a protest in New York City over the Kent State shootings. A group of construction workers, organized by the local AFL-CIO, staged a counter “Love It or Leave It” protest complete with a plethora of American flags. Things got ugly when the two groups converged on city hall. Shouting turned to pushing and shoving to fisticuffs. There’s an iconic photo of a beefy hard hat guy using a large flag pole as a weapon to assault an alleged “hippie.” The photo showed the generational polarization of the day.
Another photo that I recall from the same era shows a group of VietNam war protesters atop a monument in, I believe, Chicago, waving VietCong flags. I’m not sure what message the protesters intended to send with the flags but for many Americans, the message received was that these folks were anti-American. My own opinion was that they were simply naive.
It’s amazing to me what powerful symbols a piece of decorated cloth can become; symbols that can be embraced by groups for good or evil. A survey of KKK rally photos shows no shortage of American flags.
From Shirley L: My dad was always very “flag conscious” and insisted that we display it at all the various times of the year when flags were displayed. He was rigorous about teaching us the right way to display, fold, and store the flag.
In Lake Forest, IL where we live the American Legion is diligent about displaying flags on the local business streets – today they have put out 500 flags! So lovely! They will, of course, be taken down at sunset.
We moved recently to a delightful condo in the center of town – a huge downsizing for us and we are loving it. From our window on the third (and top) floor of the building we can see at least five U.S. flags flying daily! City Hall and banks are the primary locations.
So – Happy Flag Day to you! Thanks for the Flag Day article.