Dick Bernard: The I-35W Bridge Collapse, Minneapolis MN, August 1, 2007

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We head to “the lake” today for our annual week at Breezy Point north of Brainerd MN. We have the same week each year. My computer takes a vacation, too. Likely, tonight, the local Elvis impersonator (he’s very good) will do his gig by the dock, and we’ll have an enjoyable time.

Ten years ago, August 1, we were at the same resort, watching the news, and up came an announcement of the I-35W Bridge collapse in Minneapolis. We first had to figure out what bridge it was – it’s not a normal route. In my computer photo file – the index says “Apple iPhone 6:38:13 pm” – someone, apparently at the Guthrie theater not far away, had taken a photo of whatever was happening just down the street, later sending it to me. I have a guess. See text below. In due time, the scope of the tragedy became known: 13 dead, 145 injured. The bridge took years to rebuild; there were lawsuits and financial settlements, and talk about our crumbling national infrastructure.

Thursday of this week I crossed the replacement bridge twice, to and from a 5 p.m. meeting at St. Anthony Main. The significance of ten years ago at this very spot didn’t even cross my mind. Life goes on, memories are short. So long as we avoid the personal potholes of life, we can, in our affluent society, largely ignore our responsibility for the greater reality around us. My opinion: our neglect of our infrastructure (which in my definition includes our inability to even work out differences of opinion amongst ourselves) is our slow-moving and continuing 9-11-01 – a disaster in progress.

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Photo of I-35E Bridge Collapse August 1, 2007 via iPhone, quite likely from the Guthrie Theater.

Back on August 1, 2007, I had an e-mail list – no blog – and there were a flurry of comments, from which I reprint two, below. A month later, when the area was reopened for people like myself who wanted to see the scene, I went down and took a few photos, three of which follow.

Here’s from Jody, August 1, 2007, 11:57 p.m.: Tonight, I took my kids to Minneapolis to see the musical 1776 at the new Guthrie Theater. I called it an early birthday present to myself, and their gift to me was to go happily from start to finish.

I decided not to take I-35W. It seemed, I don’t know, like the wrong road to take, though it would be my normal way into town. We took an alternate route and got off the highway at about 6:08. There had not been too much traffic and we were very early for the show. The road we were on, Chicago Avenue, went right downtown and suddenly, as best as I can describe — it was chaos. The fire truck that came by first just about pushed the SUV out of his way to get by. Emergency vehicles were coming at us from three directions. I hardly knew where to be — on the right, off the road, stopped — it was just bedlam. I finally got into the parking ramp where it felt safe. My adrenaline was rushing; it was pretty clear something was wrong. Some emergency vehicles had boats.

The Guthrie overlooks the Mississippi River. We joined an ever-growing crowd at the window. The theater has a long beautiful seating area, comfortable chairs, great view — and there we could see the bridge in the river. We could see the smoke from the burning tractor trailer. Emergency vehicles. People. And there was shock. Horror. Cell phones not working. Huge number of bystanders crowded the banks of the river from all angles to watch.

7:30 show time. The seats were not filled. We waited. The show started late which isn’t typical, I hear. We had front row seats, but the mood was subdued. We made an effort to become involved with the production, which was truly wonderful. Part of me felt guilty that I was sitting there. Why hadn’t we gone down to help — although I’m sure our help wasn’t what they needed.

I am only home twenty minutes and trying to catch up with what happened from the television vantage point.

We talked on the way home about the fact that while if I had taken 35W, we would have gotten off the exit before the bridge — but the family joke is that when I have both kids in the car I get to talking and miss my exit (one famous trip to the airport turned into a long trip).

We’ve had calls and emails from friends all over the place, so I thought I’d write. And now eat some ice cream.

I-35 Bridge scene Sep 2, 2007


(click to enlarge this photo, and you will see a black building closeby to downtown Minneapolis. That is the Guthrie Theater, and the vantage point from there would be very similar to the photo you see at the beginning of the post.)

from Mary, Aug. 2, 2007, 4:34 p.m.: My cousin Lois __ survived the 35 bridge crash. She is my mom’s sister’s oldest girl and we attended her [family] reunion together on July 22nd.

After work, most routes were congested and she tried 35 going north and found it stop and go, She was not able to get off because drivers would not yield to her signal. Fortunately, She had driven (inched) to nearly the north side and her maroon older sedan dropped 60 feet with the failing bridge, landed hovering on the frontage road. She walked out of the scene with a truck driver to the Lutheran Center and was taken to U hospital and treated for spine injury. She chose to go home and is recuperating in Arden Hills.

She is grateful she did not drop into the water and she notes her car has had national press coverage. I saw it in the NYTimes slide series. Sadly, her perception was that the car next to her did not make it. She welcomes prayers during this tragic time.

I drove to work under the bridge for 3 years choosing slow life. Last week I walked to my work at Ted Mann Hall a few blocks from there. To avoid the pollution of slow moving freeways, I use alternative routes often.

I welcome the wake-up call to invest in our infrastructure, protect our people and reevaluate transportation-work viability.

(The photo below is of the north side of the bridge, roughly where Lois would have been. The photo above shows a road going under the collapsed bridge which would have been Mary’s usual route.)

Collapsed I-35W Bridge, Minneapolis, Sep 2, 2007

Looking at the destroyed bridge, Sep. 2, 1007, from the parallel bridge just downstream.

POSTSCRIPT. There is a continuing tsunami of national news swirling around the current administration and Congress. A good summary of the last few days is here. I agree with the George Will “snip” which is included in this summary: “Trump is something the nation did not know it needed: a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation’s excessive fixation with the presidency.” Every one of us has shirked our duties for far too long, expecting – and blaming – the President, whoever that might happen to be, for every thing, real or imagined. Ideologically I’m not a George Will type, though his opinion is well worth a read.

The Empty Chair

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September 19, 2013, I was at the North Dakota farm of my Uncle Vincent and my ancestors. It was a place I had been many times before, and this particular day I took the below photos, and 29 more.

I had ridden out to the farm with Uncle Vince, then 88 years of age. We did this every time I came west during the years they’d lived in town, ten miles away.

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Sep. 19, 2013

I’m not sure why I made this particular trip. My photo logs around that date show no related trips connected with the specific visit to that home place 320 miles from where I live.

My photos that day were the usual ones of the ever more run-down farm. This day I took this specific photo of the metal shed, showing where Uncle Vince, in recent years, spent most of his time when he visited his life long home. I purposely showed the place exactly as it appeared. There was no staging. At the time of the photo, Uncle Vincent was down by the barn, turning off the water to the garden; preparing for winter, as he always did.

What I do remember about that day, and those snapshots, was that I felt I was documenting the coming end of the then-108 years old Busch farm.

Since 2006 Vincent and his sister, Edithe, lived in town in assisted living; Edithe had, about a year earlier, moved into the Nursing Home down the hall.

As had become normal, Vincent continued to come out to the farm to do something: on this day, turn off the water to the garden.

But something else was becoming more obvious. Once again, he had forgotten why he made the trip to the farm, and I had to remind him more than once about what he had come to do.

He was slipping. He was also more and more depressed. He’d just sit in that old chair at the farm and look towards the nearby house and yard he’d lived almost his entire life, and look beyond in the direction of the old hometown, Berlin ND, elevators easily visible, about five miles from the knoll on which the farm stood. He’d just sit there in his chair and look….

Sep. 19, 2013, Berlin ND from the Busch farmstead

I remember one other particular photo that September day. It is below.

Sep. 19, 2013

I was down by the old garden, and took a photo of the old barn – I’d done that many times before. This particular day, as I noticed the car by the barn. I realized with a start that given Vince’s short term memory problems, it was a real possibility that he might drive home to LaMoure without me, not remembering that I’d come out with him. So I hustled back towards the barn.

Visit over, I made the over 300 mile trip back home.

My photos show that on October 24 I was back in LaMoure, then again on November 10, to do the deed that many of us have to do with an elder loved one.

Vince and Edithe Oct 25, 2013

The folks in assisted living had determined that Vincent could no longer live semi-independently in his apartment, and on November 11, 2013, I had to give him the talk, along with the Director, that he had no real choice but to move to join his sister down the hall in the Nursing Home. I accompanied him on that short trip by wheelchair. It was not easy.

These are things that stick in one’s mind: those Fall days in North Dakota will be among my enduring memories.

Fourteen months later, Feb. 2, 2015, Vincent died, having just achieved age 90.

There was always a melancholy sense with Vince; that he felt he’d failed, somehow, let the family down. It’s easy to fall into that trap.

I know better. He honored his family and his community as well. He was a good man.

We’re all on the same train track called “life”, with all that entails.

Three days ago, I went to the funeral of David, a teaching colleague from 50 years ago. Funerals become regular social event for older folks like me. I sent along to the mailing list announcing David’s death an old Ann Landers column that has always been meaningful to me, and offer it to you, now: The Station001

All best for a good life.

NOTE: Here are the blogposts written about the Busch farm and North Dakota generally over the last few years: Dick Bernard Blog Posts on Buschs and N. Dakota

POSTSCRIPT:

Neither Vince nor Edithe ever married, nor had kids of their own, but there were those 28 of us who called them “Uncle” or “Aunt”, and saw them from time to time. Six of us preceded them in death.

Sometimes you wonder, did you make any difference at all? I’m pretty sure Vince, in particular, wondered about that, though he was close-mouthed about his feelings.

Lately, I’ve had a couple of pieces of “evidence”, among many others, that yes, they/we made a difference.

Earlier this month, daughter Joni, was appointed Principal of a Middle School near here. She’s been a school administrator for 13 years, and the new assignment is a particular challenge/honor: she takes the reins at a 66 year old school, while at the same time supervising the construction of its replacement school a few miles away. She’s earned the promotion to what is a difficult job. Here’s the article announcing her appointment: Joni Hagebock001

Just a week or so ago we got the latest issue of the Catholic Archdiocese newspaper, and the entire back page was devoted to Carrie Berran, who we immediately identified as the daughter of another of Vince’s nieces, Mary Jewett. As the article states, Carrie was honored as the national NBA Jr. Coach of the Year for the United States. Not at all shabby! Carrie Berran Jul 2017003.

Carrie Berran

Donald Trump at Six Months: “An Eye for an Eye”

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I follow politics pretty carefully.

Not everyone likes “politics”…if that includes you, be forewarned: this is about politics.

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There are political images which stick with me, among which are these two:
First, the below sign I saw in Rochester MN, “down the block” from Mayo Clinic, a few days before Nov. 8, 2016. The sign speaks for itself. I’ve used it before in this space.

About the same time, CBS news had one of those visuals – an interview outside a long-closed steel mill in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The subject: a guy in Trump get-up – t-shirt and hat – declaring that Trump would get he and others jobs back in the long closed mill in the background.

This guy was a true believer in Trump as savior.

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Sign in Rochester MN Nov. 3, 2016

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I am a “Democrat”, a little more active than most, I would say. I know what the word “Democrat” means as it plays out in debates among political friends. We are an inclusive bunch who bring meaning to Paul Wellstone’s oft-repeated mantra: “we all do better, when we all do better”. I don’t apologize for being a “liberal”, or “Democrat”. Because we are people, we bring meaning to the famous Will Rogers quote: “I’m not a member of any organized political party…I’m a Democrat.“ We have differences of opinion on lots of things. Such differences can be a liability for us; but its better than living in a regimented dictatorship.

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There is not much to add after Trumps first six months in office as President of the United States.

His statements on Tuesday, after the latest failure to repeal “Obamacare” in the U.S. Senate, reminded me of something I heard over a year ago, during the early campaign time. You can read it here: Trumps comment about his favorite Bible verse: “An eye for an eye”.

Trump will do anything to win; and he despises losers.

But as President of the United States, he is in way over his head and has not a clue how a reasonable political system works, to benefit and protect everyone. Whether his incompetence is a blessing or a curse depends on point of view. “The Swamp” is ever darker and more murky in his first months. He needs to be called on abuse of power.

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Reprehensible as it is, I can almost understand Trumps attempts to destroy people like myself – people called “liberals”, “Democrats”, “the opposition”. It is how Trump does business. This man seems to have no moral boundaries other than the exercise of raw power to win by any means necessary. Wednesday he publicly and pretty clearly threatened the Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada about playing ball with his regime’s agenda to kill Obamacare or else.

Heller has been reading the political tea leaves in his own state about general support for what is derisively called “Obamacare”, which the Republicans through various and sundry means have been trying to kill since its enactment in 2010. Heller was seated perfectly for an on-camera real-time tongue lashing by Trump, like would happen on “The Apprentice”, I suppose.

Publicly Heller laughed off Trumps public demand; privately, he and everyone else knows how political death – that of he and others – is achieved in this media and big money obsessed time in our history.

Trumps sole objective is winning, for himself alone. Period. This has been publicly known long before he descended the escalator at Trump Tower to announce his candidacy in March 2016.

Trump is not alone. The Republican far right wing, which controls the Republican party, and thus effectively controls the country at this point in time, has the same general objective as Trump. They quite certainly despise Trump, but are terrified of him. And he has been useful to their own agenda to control policy. But six months in – one eighth of his first term – their own chickens are coming home to roost. Still, long term damage is being done and it will impact us all unless we, as individuals, get more active.

The fearful and angry base – about one in four Americans – which elected Trump Nov. 8, 2016 based on his own endlessly repeated false promises to them, will find out soon enough that he did not give a damn about them. Repealing “Obamacare” and other similar initiatives from the current Republican leadership, national and state, “evangelical Christian” or otherwise, has nothing to do with anything other than raw exercise of power.

“Caveat Emptor” – “let the buyer beware”.

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There is much more to say. I’ll close with just a couple of recent comments from other sources that speak to me a bit on this 21st day of July, 2017:

My friend Bob, a few years senior to me, had this letter printed not long ago in the Columbus (OH) Dispatch. I share this with Bob’s permission. His letter basically reflects my views, though as we all know, respectful differences of opinions make for a viable society, or family, or church, or most anything….

Bob is an old hand at managing very large and very complex political (people) systems. He preceded this letter with this comment to me: “Here’s a letter the editor I had printed a couple of weeks ago – I softened its contents in order to improve the chances of it being printed.” That’s a word to the wise about how to have impact.

Bob’s letter:

“Keep the faith; U.S. will recover.

Thanks to The Dispatch, along with many other media outlets, for giving us the real news about our fake president.

I hold out much hope that eventually the majority will wake up and take appropriate action to return our great nation into the hands of those who still believe in the common good.

Right now the Democrats are in disarray and have lost their direction, while the Republicans are a general disgrace. We must gather the true and honest traditional conservatives and the open and realistic progressives to make our country great again and recover it from the hands of those in control.

As I reflect upon our nation’s history during this week of our Fourth of July remembrances, I hold out great fear and great hope. We will either slip further under our present fake leadership or get real and recover.

Thanks again to The Dispatch for pushing us toward the “get real and recover” option.”

My response to Bob: I don’t see the Democrats – my party – “in disarray” based on my own personal experience within the party. “Democrats” are truly a coat with many colors. We all have our opinions. I have, also, often said that my political hero – really mentor – was progressive Republican Minnesota Governor Elmer L. Andersen. He and others like him were a credit to political society…and they have been banished from today’s Republican power structure.

What is your opinion? You have a lot to lose by being silent with your own constituency (we all have a constituency) at this crucial juncture in our American history.

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AGE OF ANGER, A HISTORY OF THE PRESENT: Some weeks ago my friend, Marie, mentioned a book being passed around in her circles. I ordered the book, “Age of Anger, A History of the Present” by Pankaj Mishra (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017). I picked it up at the book store a couple of days ago, and it will be my primary vacation read the first week of August. Here’s the Preface, and the Quotation which leads the first Chapter – gives you an idea of what’s to be covered. It sounds like an interesting read.

Pankaj Mishra: “I started thinking about this book in 2014 after Indian voters, including my own friends and relatives, elected Hindu supremacists to power, and Islamic State became a magnet for young men and women in Western democracies. I finished writing it during the week in 2016 in which Britain voted to leave the European Union It went to the printers in the week that Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. Each of these earthquakes revealed fault lines that I felt had been barely noticed over the years, running through inner lives as well as nations, communities and families. The pages that follow try to make sense of bewildering, and often painful, experiences by re-examining a divided modern world, this time from the perspective of those who came late to it, and felt, as many people do now, left, or pushed, behind.”

and the quotation leading the Prologue in the same book:

“Everywhere, people are awaiting a messiah, and the air is laden with the promises of large and small prophets…we all share the same fate: we carry within us more love, and above all more longing than today’s society is able to satisfy. We have all ripened for something, and there is no one to harvest the fruit…” Karl Mannheim (1922)

As I say, this is my vacation read. Stay tuned.

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Get engaged. It is the only thing you can, and you must, do.

POSTSCRIPT: More about the issue, overnight: Just Above Sunset “Ten Times Harder”

COMMENTS:
Note comment from Dave at the end of the blog itself (below the other comments).

from Anonymous: The Peter Principle is a concept in management theory formulated by Laurence J. Peter. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. Thus, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.”

The Peter Principle is a special case of a ubiquitous observation: Anything that works will be used in progressively more challenging applications until it fails. This is the “generalized Peter Principle”. Peter noted that there is a strong temptation for people to use what has worked before, even when this might not be appropriate for the current situation. Wikipedia

from Sandy: I totally agree with everyone you wrote about Trump and your other friends too! It is just sickening what he is doing and has done. It is incredible to me that the poor people that voted for him are so clueless and uneducated that they actually believe that he will “make America Great agiain” It is painful to watch everyday and what has been going on and frankly no one in Washington seems to be doing a good job. It is a total mess for sure! Thanks for you highlights and insights!

from Norm: Right on, Dick!

Trump is clearly in over his head albeit with the sole purpose of winning through the power of his office and particularly to undue as much of what President Obama set in play as he can. His main mission in life at the moment appears to be to eliminate any and all legislative and executive office references to Obama.

It is not unusual for a new president of a different party to come in and change some of the things put into play by his or her predecessor, of course. On the other hand, they generally have ideological or other reasons for doing that. Just wanting to eliminate it because Obama put it into play is rather odd to say the least and consistent with your description of the tower man who is streaking slowly towards puberty as everything being all about him.

I wonder how many mirrors he now has in the White House and all of his other residences to look at himself every time he wants to do so? I wonder if some of them even have an message that plays when he steps in front of them that tells him how great he is?

Of course, his promise of bringing back all of the well paying jobs in the extraction industries that existed in the 60′ and 70’s or so was pure B.S…and he knew it…as did many of his avid supporters…”but at least he will try” I heard from many of those folks.

I ran into a fellow a few months ago while waiting for an appointment who was wearing a Viet Nam Veteran cap. Being a veteran myself of the VNW era, I asked him where and when he had served. He told me and then he quickly and rather enthusiastically made it clear that he was a Trump supporter and that he wanted him to bring things back to the 60’s when he apparently was doing better than he apparently was when I talked to him.

That was the first time that I had actually had someone tell me that he hoped Trump would bring things back to the way that they were in the 60’s, i.e. the “good old days” as I am sure that the thought that he remembered them to be.

To be fair, he said that he had worked in heavy construction for most of his post military service life and his body had eventually broken down requiring lots of medical care…and he felt kind of left out of things…just the kind of folks that Trump appealed to in his campaign.

I am afraid that the avid Trump supporter that I talked to that day last March is going to be disappointed with what the tower man delivers to him including the possible losing of his coverage for medical care.

Nice job, Dick.

from Bob: I think this piece sums up what we’re dealing with:

NYT – Declaration of Disruption – Peter Wehner – JULY 4, 2017
ONE of the essential, if often unstated, job requirements of an American president is to provide stability, order and predictability in a world that tends toward chaos, disarray and entropy. When our political leaders ignore this — and certainly when they delight in disruption — the consequences can be severe. Stability is easy to take for granted, but impossible to live without.

Projecting clear convictions is important for preventing adversaries from misreading America’s intentions and will. Our allies also depend on our predictability and reassuring steadiness. Their actions in trade and economics, in alliances with other nations and in the military sphere are often influenced by how much they believe they can rely on American support.

Order and stability in the executive branch are also linked to the health of our system of government. Chaos in the West Wing can be crippling, as White House aides — in a constant state of uncertainty, distrustful of colleagues, fearful that they might be excoriated or fired — find it nearly impossible to do their jobs. This emanates throughout the entire federal government. Devoid of steadfast leadership, executive agencies easily become dysfunctional themselves.

Worse yet, if key pillars of our system, like our intelligence and law enforcement agencies, are denigrated by the president, they can be destabilized, and Americans’ trust in them can be undermined. Without a reliable chief executive, Congress, an inherently unruly institution, will also find it difficult to do its job, since our constitutional system relies on its various branches to constantly engage with one another in governing.

But that’s hardly the whole of it. Particularly in this social media era, a president who thrives on disruption and chaos is impossible to escape. Every shocking statement and act is given intense coverage. As a result, the president is omnipresent, the subject of endless coast-to-coast conversations among family and friends, never far from our thoughts. As Andrew Sullivan has observed, “A free society means being free of those who rule over you — to do the things you care about, your passions, your pastimes, your loves — to exult in that blessed space where politics doesn’t intervene.”

A presidency characterized by pandemonium invades and infects that space, leaving people unsettled and on edge. And this, in turn, leads to greater polarization, to feelings of alienation and anger, to unrest and even to violence.

A spirit of instability in government will cause Americans to lose confidence in our public institutions. When citizens lose that basic faith in their government, it leads to corrosive cynicism and the acceptance of conspiracy theories.

Movements and individuals once considered fringe become mainstream, while previously responsible figures decamp to the fever swamps. One result is that the informal and unwritten rules of political and human interaction, which are at the core of civilization, are undone. There is such a thing as democratic etiquette; when it is lost, the common assumptions that allow for compromise and progress erode.

In short, chaotic leadership can inflict real trauma on political and civic culture.

All of which brings us to Donald Trump, arguably the most disruptive and transgressive president in American history. He thrives on creating turbulence in every conceivable sphere. The blast radius of his tumultuous acts and chaotic temperament is vast.

Mr. Trump acts as if order is easy to achieve and needs to be overturned while disruption and disorder are what we need. But the opposite is true. “Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour,” Edmund Burke wrote, “than prudence, deliberation and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”

Mr. Trump and his supporters don’t seem to agree, or don’t seem to care. And here’s the truly worrisome thing: The disruption is only going to increase, both because he’s facing criticism that seems to trigger him psychologically and because his theory of management involves the cultivation of chaos. He has shown throughout his life a defiant refusal to be disciplined. His disordered personality thrives on mayhem and upheaval, on vicious personal attacks and ceaseless conflict. As we’re seeing, his malignant character is emboldening some, while it’s causing others — the Republican leadership comes to mind — to briefly speak out (at best) before returning to silence and acquiescence. The effect on the rest of us? We cannot help losing our capacity to be shocked and alarmed.

We have as president the closest thing to a nihilist in our history — a man who believes in little or nothing, who has the impulse to burn down rather than to build up. When the president eventually faces a genuine crisis, his ignorance and inflammatory instincts will make everything worse.

Republican voters and politicians rallied around Mr. Trump in 2016, believing he was anti-establishment when in fact he was anti-order. He turns out to be an institutional arsonist. It is an irony of American history that the Republican Party, which has historically valued order and institutions, has become the conduit of chaos.

Dick Bernard: Antioch, and a local Festival….

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We were at the St. George’s Middle Eastern Festival in W. St. Paul yesterday. It continues today, noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Here’s the website, and schedule of events: St. George Festival001. I’m very tempted to go back. A few thoughts from yesterday. (St. George’s is just south of Butler, between Robert and U.S. 52 in West St. Paul.)

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Yesterday, our friend, Don, 88, expressed an interest in going to a church festival in a neighboring suburb, West St. Paul. It was a good idea, and a nice day. Don’s objective: to ride a camel, for the first time in many years. He felt he was up to it (he was), and off we went.

We were early, and went inside the Church which includes a display of icons. A parish member was there to supervise and answer questions. I had noticed that the Church labeled itself as Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church. I had a general idea of Antioch, and Orthodox, but asked the gentleman about Antioch and by extension “Antiochian”. Were the two related? Why “Antiochian”?

This was not a new question to the guide. He asked were we generally aware of Turkey and the Middle East? Surely. More or less at the elbow, where Turkey and Syria meet, is the city of Antioch.

(On the below map, note generally where Smyrna and Syria come together).

It was Antioch where this branch of Christian Orthodoxy began, but largely due to too frequent earthquakes, the headquarters of the Church was relocated to Damascus, Syria. “Damascus” brought up an obvious question from one of us, about Syria today….

(click to enlarge, double click for more detail)

But before that, here’s an article about Antiochian Orthodox.

The mere mention of “Damascus” brought a rapid fire, very civil, series of “one-liners”, overlooked by the assembled icons on display below a photo of the founding group of the local congregation back in the 1920a.

St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church Congregation 1920s

Damascus brought up the current Syria issue, which brought up Isis, which brought up Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s relatively benign treatment of Christians, and Mosul, and the Ottoman Turks and the Armenian genocide, and Ottoman Empire (basically the green portion of the 1896 map) and on and on an on. Into the mix came powerfully the less than helpful impact of powerful religious ideologues of all religions. And also into the mix came the issue of the French and British partition of what is now the Middle East in the wake of WW I: Sykes-Picot is how that is often characterized.

None of us were there to solve the middle east, or any other problems.

We were there for a camel ride, and it went well – Don can now cross it off his bucket list, to add to his real-life experiences with camels when he was much younger and a visitor to over 50 countries in the world (including Algeria and Morocco, where the previous rides took place).

But that brief conversation sticks in my mind.

July 14, 2017 W. St. Paul MN

#1275 – Dick Bernard: Upcoming “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”

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Mean weather coming through. Woodbury MN, about 9 a.m. June 11, 2017

Two weeks from today, July 28, is the opening, in selected cities nationwide, of “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power“, the followup to the 2006 film by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth.

The general opening nationwide is August 3, 2017.

Whenever the Twin Cities is one of those places that plays “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”, we’ll be in the audience.

Details on show times and places will be available here.

Of course, I have not seen the 2017 film – it is not yet released. Someone who has both seen the new film, and heard Al Gore talk about it, is this person, Hani Nam, from Los Angeles, May 2017.

My wife and I saw Al Gore speak about the issue of climate change in person in 2005 – a dozen years ago! – then saw the film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, at the time of its release one year later, in June, 2006. Here is what I wrote then: Inconvenient Truth 2005, 2006001.

June 16, 2011, five years after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I attended a talk by a respected local authority on Climate Change, Prof. John Abraham. In the q&a session following the talk, I asked the Professor for his perceptions of the accuracy of the film. You can read his answer at the post I did then, here. Prof. Abrahams comments speak for themselves.

Dec. 14, 2015, I applauded the COP agreements on Climate Change in Paris, here.

It is hardly a secret where we are at this moment in history…indeed, the preview clip of An Inconvenient Sequel hi-lites the problem going forward.

When an “Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” plays in your area, make a point to not only attend, but to get active.

The solution – the Power – is in every single one of us.

PERSONAL POSTNOTE:

As a society, we seem to have become addicted to denial of reality, because we can to a certain extent deny reality. Most of us have the money to turn up the air conditioning, or turn up the heat, or in other ways to avoid the natural realities of bad weather, as I was able to avoid the bad weather coming through on June 11 (the photo which leads this post). I was in my car, and could turn around when it appeared it was foolish to continue into the rapidly approaching storm. I am also aware, however, that my personal environment, in a heavily populated city, is always potentially at risk. Cynically, best the tree fall on somebody elses house, or someone else lose power for an entire day (as happened about 24 hours ago in other suburbs of my metropolitan area.)

But everyone of us, everywhere, is in the same kettle, it is called earth. We have the same home….

There is one simple distinction which we all need to learn, and that is the distinction between WEATHER and CLIMATE, here provided by the National Weather Service: “Weather – The state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. Weather refers to these conditions at a given point in time (e.g., today’s high temperature), whereas Climate refers to the “average” weather conditions for an area over a long period of time (e.g., the average high temperature for today’s date).”

Weather is that nasty cloud which leads this post. Climate is the much broader and longer term patterns of weather which do not respect human borders, and are the focus of the science of climate change.

In my opinion, an unfortunate semantic mistake was made early on when the conversation focused on the term “global warming”, true in a climate sense, but easily ridiculed by reference to oddities of daily weather. Ridicule does not change reality…it does make conversation and resolution more difficult.

Humans with adequate financial resources can basically and temporarily deny the impacts of climate change. For everyone else, including plants and animals, who live within the reality of heat, cold, wet, dry, the potential for surviving change is less certain.

We advanced humans are effectively cooking our childrens future, and that of other living things as well.

One of the best presentations I personally witnessed was this eight minute presentation by a climate scientist to children at the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in 2009. Prof Alley and his colleague scientists were co winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Here are two websites: IPCC and NOAA

Dick Bernard: The Korean Peninsula and Poland, very briefly…

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Book recommendation from Marie: A book you might be reading is: Age of Anger A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra.

*

Hubris always ends badly*.

This date the great meeting with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump occurs in Hamburg. The only U.S. representative with Trump will be Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State. Yesterday, Trump gave a major speech to an invited audience in Poland. In the same time period North Korea successfully launched an ICBM which signalled its capacity of delivering a nuclear warhead as far as Alaska.

I’m an old geography major, old enough to have had my college degree a year before I was sitting in an Army barracks in Oct 22, 1962, watching President Kennedy tell we Americans about the Cuban Missile Crisis where Russia was said to be delivering ICBMs whose range was as far as Cheyenne Mountain, below which I was sitting near Colorado Springs Colorado.

It seems a good time for a tiny briefing about Poland and Korea….

KOREA.

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Personal adaptation of p. 104 of 7th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World

Note especially the red rectangle at center in the map. That rectangle is about 125 miles wide, giving an idea of the scale of the map. Note Seoul, and Pyongyang, and Tokyo and Hiroshima, all hi-lited in yellow, as well as the 38th parallel, the demarcation between the two countries** since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War (though it was never a declared war).

The Korean peninsula is not a place for a “loose cannon” on any side…. Note the CIA Fact Book about both North Korea and South Korea. For comparison, Minnesota has a population of about 5 1/2 million; N. Korea about 25 million, S. Korea about 51 million. In land area, N. Korea is slightly larger than the state of Virginia; slightly smaller than the state of Mississippi; S. Korea is a bit smaller than Pennsylvania, a bit larger than Indiana.

Google Maps notes that you can’t get from Seoul to Pyonyang by road. Still the map is interesting. And a guided missile is a very short trip away from both in the area of the 38th parallel. Tokyo and the rest of Japan are not that far away, either. Here’s the Japan briefing book from the CIA.

POLAND.

If there was ever a place for a white nationalist to give a speech, it would be Poland. Here’s the CIA Factbook on Poland. Poland has not been treated kindly by history: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin….

I have been to Auschwitz, Krakow, Czestochowa and Gdansk (2000 and 2003).

My grandmother was in 8th grade in about 1896 when she learned the geography of Europe. Here is the map from her textbook which shows Europe as it existed then. Most interesting to me is that this map, from a standard text for American Catholic Schools at the time, does not even name Warsaw, already a major city**.

(click to enlarge)

As we learned when we visited Auschwitz in 2000, Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish times) was basically a prison camp for 140-150,000 Poles, about half of whom died; adjoining Birkenau was the extermination camp for the Jews. Nearby was a third forced labor camp, Monowitz, part of the I. G. Farben Buna factory (from the book “Auschwitz, Voices from the Ground” purchased at Auschwitz, May, 2000).

Pope John Paul II, the “Polish Pope”, born in 1920, grew up in nearby Wadowice, Poland, and thus felt the full impact of both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union. His world view was likely shaped by his experiences.

I remember, from the time of our visit, that perhaps 10% of Poles fell as victims of WWII; as well as virtually all of the Polish Jews. (Note here.) Of all countries, Poland was among the most devastated by WWII.

On the other hand, our dear friend, Annelee, who grew up in Hitler Germany, lost her Dad to the war. He was a conscript who refused to become a Nazi, though he would have benefited from such a move. They are not sure where or when he died, though it was likely in Russia. They lived in terror of being taken over by the Russians after the war (they weren’t).

* “Hubris”? Some time back I was giving a ride to my friend, Joe, a retired distinguished international emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota. The car conversation got around to Napoleon and Hitler’s misguided attempts to control all of Europe and Asia, attempts which failed. “Hubris” is how my friend defined their actions. In a different sort of way, yet very similar, Donald Trump is trying to translate a slogan into action: “Make America Great Again”, but I think the world leaders are a bit wiser now. This won’t stop the macho coffee conversations about “kicking ____’s ass” (fill in the blank with whomever or whatever the target of choice might be.

There has never been a good time for hubris. Most certainly not now, when we are a global society, with the capacity to destroy ourselves.

It is time for cooler heads everywhere to prevail, one person, one conversation at a time.

Back to you.

Comments welcome to Dick_BernardATmsnDOTcom.

Another map from the same 1896 text. Click to enlarge. Note that Moscow is not even mentioned.

** – Note comment from anonymous below.

COMMENTS
from Jeff: Old maps are interesting. My German grandparents on my mothers maternal side emigrated from Pomerania, which was then part of Germany, is now part of Poland. I think it was originally East Prussia , which eventually became Germany under Bismarck. A majority of the people in Pomerania were German , some had Polish surnames but were Germans. The maps of Asia are more interesting… Iraq doesn’t exist as it was part of both the Ottoman empire and Persia. Syria didn’t exist, and look where the Ottoman empire extended around Arabia encompassing Israel, Palestine, Jordan the Gulf emirates, parts of Saudi Arabia. Vietnam was a colony of France, India, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore a part of the British Empire…..

Response from Dick: Indeed. Most of us have only the thinnest veneer of knowledge about the world as it was or is, even our own country. It makes for problems…and opportunities for people who benefit from simplistic notions of superiority or such. One of my vivid memories from the trip to Poland was at the Krakow Cathedral in early May, which I think was Constitution Day or such in Poland. There was a Mass there, and after Mass, one of the people we met was an ancient man (WWII vintage) wearing very, very proudly his Polish Army uniform. I should dig out the slide. It was just an old Army uniform, festooned with whatever decorations he had received ‘back in the day’.

“Tribes” are useful, and sometimes important, but more often than not dangerous. A friend gave me a CD by a superb Irish Tenor, including assorted songs, mostly of lament. One which sticks especially is “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, about an Aussie who encounters the Turks (the Ottomans) at Sulva Bay in Gallipoli is WWI. Listen to it here.

A year or so ago we went to the Russia Museum in Minneapolis to see the exhibit on WWI from the Russian perspective. One caption I remember quite vividly. Apparently, the Kaiser and the Czar were first cousins, the German and the Russian rulers. And apparently WWI really started with some argument over something or other. This was before the assassination….

from Jeff: Actually the Kaiser, the Czar, and the King of England were all cousins… It wasn’t that long ago either.

from Fred: Very well put. Excellent idea to use a little geography and cartography to assist the uninitiated.

from Terrance: I have been amazed over the past 25 years since the fall of the Soviet Union how little we learned from the Catholic textbooks about how many people from various little nations, religions and ethnic backgrounds were forced into the USSR. If they weren’t Catholic, they were dismissed in our Geography classes as irrelevant.

** from Anonymous: I read your blog about Poland and Korea and agree with you that we Americans need to be better informed about both. But may I offer a few critical comments?

You stated that “the 38th parallel, [was]the demarcation between the two countries since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War.” That is not correct. The 38th parallel was the the boundary from the end of WWII until the start of the Korean War. The de facto boundary since that war has been the cease-fire line at the time of the truce which ending the fighting (in 1953). That line was to the north of the 38th parallel in its eastern sector and to the south in the western sector. (In 1980 I crossed it to visit a national park in what passed from North to South Korea in 1953.

The blog was interesting.

from Norm: Great observations and commentary, Dick.

I am not an old geography major albeit old I am. On the other hand, I am and have always been a geography buff going way back to my early introduction to them in National Geographic. I have always loved maps of areas ranging from those of a township to a state to the nation and to the world, whatever their purpose but mainly that show geographical features and political boundaries although the latter change frequently in boundaries, name and existence.

I served nearly four years as a USAF photo radar intelligence officer which was later categorized by the folks in the public sector when describing my work history as that of a cartographer which it essentially was in many cases.

I have always been intrigued as well by how natural geographic features such as rivers, mountains, large lakes and so on can affect the politics of things. For example, the folks on the leeward side of the mountain range having different political views and customs let alone cultures than those on the windward side of the range or on the other side of the river or large lake or whatever.

That is just very interesting to me, Dick.

“Respect the Board, Please”

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June 11, 2017, about 11 a.m. at southwest corner of the space formerly occupied by the Scaffold.

Today, as I have for 16 years, I’ll go to my local Caribou Coffee, spend my usual 1 1/2 hours, sip a single cup of coffee, and come home to begin the rest of my day.

This coffee place is a busy, very civilized place. I imagine that it reflects this suburban community of over 60,000 quite well. The people I see every day, from my own neighborhood, to the post office, to other places, reflect civility and respect for each other. In point of fact, I travel around more than most in this metropolitan area of more than 3,000,000 people, and the usual experience is the same: civility and respect.

We are basically good people in this country of ours.

*

In the coffee shop there is a blackboard where people can and do write things. Occasionally I’d see someone draw something there, or post a few words. Personally, I’ve not lifted a piece of chalk….

A couple of Saturdays back, I came in to see a simple declaration on the Board, then the next day, a response below it:

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Public messages at coffee, June 24, 2017

The unknown authors were not known to me, nor perhaps to others. In fact, the sign seemed not to be noticed.

A bad cold side-tracked me from my favorite haunt for several days, and when I came back the sign had been erased, replaced with the simple phrase that titles this post, accompanied by a chalked smily face. Perhaps something had happened in my absence. There were no other comments on the now blank board, a frozen conversation as it were.

Yesterday, I watched an artistic employee draw a commercial for the featured coffee at the space. It isn’t the same.

*

We are, basically, a civil society with, most recently, a very mean and very visible edge to it, particularly in the very public and belligerent political discourse. The few “shouted” words on the blackboard dramatize the downside of our current situation in this country of ours.

Each one of us has a responsibility to change that conversation in the many simple ways available to do us. This is not a big deal. I notice a lot of genuine politeness among strangers recently, that I had not been seeing. That is a very good thing.

In and of itself, the three word complaint on the Board at Caribou was no big deal.

But it was not viewed as innocuous, and someone (not I) complained about it.

In a very small way it brought to the surface the rather ugly tenor of that public conversation we confront daily in the newspaper, the internet and the media itself: a single dimensional view.

We are better than what caused “Respect the Board, Please” to be written.

Have a good 4th of July.

POSTNOTE: The flag and flower appear in an earlier post which many have read: Here, scroll down to comment 24. The flag and flower are gone now…most recently I was back to the site this past Sunday. It is another place I will be watching.

Dick Bernard: A Matter of the Family of Humankind

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Today is the day before the 4th of July. Three random thoughts on the matter of “family”.

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Ste Famille QC, June 2017

1. A few weeks ago, my brother John took a short trip into the Quebec of our French-Canadian ancestors (Dad was 100% French-Canadian). Within Ste. Famille, part of the beautiful Ile d’Orleans, John noted the evocative roadside sculpture shown above. (In the background is the north channel of the St. Lawrence River; just a ways to the right out of eyeshot is the famous Ste. Anne de Beaupre.)

This sculpture and John’s photo interpretation make one of those pictures “worth a thousand words”. I have my thoughts, you have yours.

2. During this same time period the results came for my DNA analysis through, in my case, 23andMe. I’ve done family history for many years, and just hadn’t gotten around to the ancestry piece.

I finally did it. I’m glad I did.

The results were a little surprising, but only a little.

My analysis has me as 99.9% European, primarily (37%) French and German but 22% British and Irish and 26% “broadly Northwestern European”*.

A look at the map (below), and a most cursory knowledge of immigration patterns over thousands of years fills in most blanks, I suppose, for most of us.

(click twice to enlarge more)

In my case, one of my primary root families, the first Collette (as we spell it) ancestor in our French-Canadian bunch came from Brittany more or less between Brest and St. Malo, which area is directly south of westernmost England, and the rest of the French roots were mostly along the western side of what is now France. The British Irish is hardly a surprise.

(A friend whose German ancestors came from the Ukraine, and was by definition a “German from Russia”, took the same DNA test, and told me that her analysis was that she was “mostly French”. It surprised her; it didn’t surprise me. She didn’t look German, and her family name didn’t sound German, but by geographic location (Alsace-Lorraine) her French ancestors had likely been part of the Germanic portion of Europe.)

I am very happy I invested in 23andMe. At the minimum, it is a gift to later generations who might wonder who they are. I recommend the process.

Questions? Feel free to ask. I’ll share what I know: dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom.

3. In the meantime, I continue in the process of really looking carefully at “stuff” from the German ancestors in ND. There continue to be interesting surprises, including this postcard which surfaced recently. (Shown are both sides of the card.)

(click twice to further enlarge the writing)

This “postal” has its own rich story, which must rely on individual interpretation of snippets of facts within. I only know a few of the facts, but here are some pieces I can share:

A. The card was to my grandmother Rosa Busch who, at the time the card was delivered was about 27 years old, had lived on the farm for six years, and had two children, ages 4 and 2. Berlin, her town, had come into being in 1904. She and her spouse came from extreme southwest Wisconsin, near Dubuque IA. It was a time when land was available and a boom of sorts was on, relying on railroad transportation.

B. Eagle Butte, according to Wikipedia, was incorporated in 1911, the same year of the postmark on the card.

C. It is unlikely that the correspondent had ever lived in or near Berlin ND. The towns were far apart in a day before easy access between places.

My guess, and that’s all it is: the two women probably knew each other when they were growing up in southwest Wisconsin. Eagle Butte is a place name I’d never heard of until I saw this card.

What’s your theory?

That’s three very short stories for July 3, 2017.

* – POSTNOTE: The analysis noted that I had more Neanderthal components than 89% of the sample. This, of course, gave an opening to my four younger siblings – payback time for things remembered from our youth! But, Neanderthals were survivors, and it can’t be all bad. Maybe when they were handing out the chromosomes I got most of the good stuff! Anyway, so goes the argument.

We are all part of the human family, and all residents of the same planet which has no boundaries. It would be nice if we remembered that, always.

Have a great 4th.