Memories

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PRE-NOTE: I pre-plan most posts, this one, days before news came about the collapse of the building in Miami where over 100 persons are still missing, and the death toll rising.  My thoughts and prayers are with all of those impacted by this tragedy.  I can’t help but think back to the Haiti earthquake of January 12, 2010, where over 200,000 died.  I had been to Haiti in 2003 and 2006, so I directly connected with that tragedy.  We are all one community.  Let’s not forget that.

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Being a young adult in the 1930s.

Recently, sorting through old photos left by my Dad, I came across this:

Henry Bernard, 1930s, Valley City ND

You have to have been there to know where this photo was taken.  Dad was basically under the iconic highline railroad bridge in Valley City ND.  The photo shows he was at the bank of the Sheyenne River.  Here’s the google map.  You should be able to clearly see the highline.  I’m guessing they were on the west side of the river.

The photo is unlabeled.   I fix it as early in the 1930s, taken by my Mom, Esther, sometime after they first met.   They were both country school teachers, and in those days those teachers would come to summer school to earn credits towards a full teaching credential.  Dad’s friend, John, and Mom’s sister, Lucina, seem to have been facilitators. Dad takes it from there, in memories he wrote in about 1980, in his early 70s.  “Esther and I did some dating during that summer.  We did a lot of hiking and I think we managed over the period of the summer, to walk up and down the ring of hills that surrounded Valley City.  I remember that Esther was taking a course called WEEDS and, in our wanderings, she picked up various samples for the class.  They were identified and pressed…[after the summer] we lost contact with each other….” (p. 130)

They reconnected, and married in 1937 “till death do us part” when Mom died in 1981.  After two years of teaching in tiny and depression-impoverished Amidon ND, they came back to Valley City where Dad finished his four year degree, and Mom had me.

Here are Dad’s memories of his post high-school, college and country school teacher days (click to enlarge links): pages 116-123 Bernard Henry 1927-37; pages 124-134 Bernard Henry 1927-37 (2).

This was a memoir of an ordinary man making his way in the often de-spiriting years of the 1930s.

Henry Bernard with students at Allendale #1, 1930.

 

The Buffalo Hunt

A legendary Catholic Priest in early Minnesota was Father Joseph Goiffon, a Frenchman whose first assignment was to the Metis in the Pembina River area in what later became North Dakota.

Here’s a photo of young Father Goiffon found in a 1905 History of Anoka County MN by Albert M. Goodrich.

I first ‘met’ Fr. Goiffon about 1991, when a lady gave me a sheaf of papers written by him in the early 1900s, after long career as a Catholic Priest, mostly in the French-Canadian communities of Centerville and Little Canada, Minnesota (1861-91).  The memoirs apparently had been written in French, and translated by Mrs. Charlotte Huot.  Like Dad’s, they were written by someone in his 70s, remembering his own long-ago, and very interesting.

Fr. Goiffon was born in 1824, and arrived in then-Minnesota territory in 1857.  After he retired in 1891, and before his death in 1910, he wrote his memories of being a frontier Priest, in what is now northeast North Dakota.  One of the rich recollections was of an 1860 buffalo hunt with the Metis of Red River, which you can read here (click to enlarge, 9 pages): Goiffon Buffalo Hunt 1860 .  For other ND/Metis stories from the Goiffon memories, here.  Click Library, click Chez Nous and go to index under Goiffon.

POINT TO PONDER: I’m older, now, than either my Dad or the Priest when they wrote their memories.  Over and over I’m reminded that elders do have things to say, and they do make sense!  If you’re elder, write your own memories.  Someone will appreciate them, some day.

The stories have been in my possession for years, hidden in files.  What shook them loose was a conversation with my grandson about the 1987 World Series, which in turn began because  my friend, Kathy, had given me the old newspaper kept intact for years by her mother.  (Photo of the cover below).  I decided to give the paper to Parker, now 19, who is a college baseball player, and our conversation led me to realize that there are places in kids lives for elder memory!  Parker was born 15 years after that World Series, and initially thought that the World Series was at the old Met Stadium, rather than the actual location, the Metrodome.  The newspaper, and google, and my own memories, filled in some blanks for him.  We all have a role in the place of memory for our past, our present and our future.

POST NOTE: Several comments to my post on voting, 6/22, and more added today.

Voting, U.S. Senate Bill 1

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It is anticipated that additions will be made to this post, specifically about Church and State, and Jobs.  Consider checking back at this space by the weekend.

POSTNOTE, June 23 8 a.m.:  See first comment at end of post, and read America Impossible.  America is not “them”; it is everyone of us.

Pre-Note:  Take the time for the on-line discussion on racism with Letoya Burrell on Wednesday June 30 at 6-7 p.m. CDT.  Details here, scroll down.  No cost.  Preregistration is requested.  Join the conversation.

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It has taken virtually the entire history of the American democracy, 234 years, to enfranchise almost all categories of American adult citizens.  The struggle continues.  This is no time, there probably never will be a time, to relax.  Citizens must be active.

This afternoon about 5:30 p.m. EDT, begins the first vote in the formal process of working towards a more perfect union. At the same time there is aggressive action, primarily at state, but also national, level to diminish and even eliminate hard fought gains, making it more difficult and more confusing for certain kinds of people in certain places to exercise their constitutional rights.

The issue is Senate Bill S-1, summarized here.

An excellent entry point to learn more is here, Indivisible.org.  

Those who will be voting on the future of this bill are people elected by citizens like ourselves.  Our Senator should be our focus.  All the rest is argument.  Get involved.

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Sunday night we watched the 2014 outstanding film, Selma, about the Civil Rights era around Voting Rights.    It remains available on-line and well worth your time as a refresher, or as a first time primer on the issue of Civil Rights.

COMMENTS (more at end of the post).

from Joyce, a must read from Heather Cox Richardson for June 22, 2021.

“and another, from Joyce: Six annoying words” from Digby, June 24, 2021

Just Above Sunset June 25: Beyond the Anger.

from Joyce: “Confident Assertions” – the Weekly Sift

POSTNOTE June 27, 2021: There is a seeming never-ending litany of additions I could make to this post: Power and the Catholic (and Baptist, and other church) leadership power struggles; who should be able to vote…or not…in this country; the Pulse nightclub now a national monument, and the ongoing conversations during Pride month, and on and on and on.  Let me summarize with a lawn sign long in a daughters front yard in a twin cities suburb.  It speaks volumes, in these times.

June 25, 2021 Apple Valley MN

Dad’s Day

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Thinking about today brought back to mind this photo from about 1920.

Henry and Frank Bernard and Fosto, ca 1920

Dad provided the photo and his always unique labeling years ago.   Somebody took a picture of his Dad (my Grandpa) and younger brother (my Uncle) with the family dog, “Fosto” in what appears to be the beginning or end of winter in Grafton North Dakota.  Dad would say that every dog they had was named Fosto.  Grandpa, about 48 when this photo was taken, had spent a year on Luzon in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War, 1898-99, and he’d say that someone he’d seen called their dog Fosto, and he liked the name.  Grandpa was a story-teller, a rough hewn old lumberjack, so who knows.  Whatever, he’d trained Fosto and my uncle Frank was intrigued.

Today we’ll see part of the family for lunch.  Everybody is growing up, here and there in the world, so we take potluck.  Possibly I’ll copy this photo for the grandkids, for whom my Grandpa is Great-Great-Grandpa on the genealogy charts.  Time flies.

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Thursday I was at the local sports center for my daily walk, and afterwards came back to take a photo inside the cavernous place.

The Sports Center June 17, 2021

Usually, when I’m there, there are a few of we senior citizens making the rounds, and the field itself is empty.  Group events like these budding soccer neophytes start showing up.

This particular day there was one other guy making the rounds, same time as I.  Usually he’s there with his wife.  I know them as Jack and Joan.  Mostly our task is to make our goal number of rounds – mine 11, his 10 – so usually the conversation is “good morning” or such if our paths cross.

This day we chatted.

Jack and Joan have lived in my town since it was a rural township, rather than its present 60,000+.  He knew the farmer for which the Sports Center had originally been named – Bielenberg – and had seen the changes the passage of many years in a metropolitan suburb have wrought.

Probably he was running foot races back in those early years in a new subdivision a few miles east of 3M world headquarters.  Today, his 10 rounds, must seem like a hundred miles, though it’s only about two.  His doctor has prescribed walking as a desirable alternative to losing a limb due to vascular problems.

This day, Joan, always there with him, was absent.  Yesterday, making the rounds, an errant ball from a youngster hit her unawares, and the fall resulted in a visit to the emergency room, a concussion diagnosis.  It sounded like recovery was likely, but its the kind of things old folks worry about and young folks can’t relate to….

Jack commented about the coach this particular day, who he said was the hockey coach at a local high school.  As he was walking past the little pep talk the coach was giving the kids, Jack heard him talking about the importance of “character and responsibility” and he was much impressed by that wisdom being passed on from one generation to the next.

Just one day and one conversation about one life.

Happy Father’s Day to everyone whose role in any way today is passing along small or large insights of value.  We own a piece of that field called “life”.  We each appear, proceed, and after a while life as we know it ends.  Its up to us to make the best of what time we have.

The sports center, Woodbury MN June 18, 2021

Tintypes like this one usually weren’t labelled. This one, likely 1880s, almost certainly featured my Grandpa, front and center, probably as a teenager, before he left for parts west.  His trip began in rural Quebec thence Berlin Falls NH as a lumberjack, thence to Dakota where he arrived in the early 1890s to join his brother, already there. It is not too much of a stretch that the man behind him may be his father, and the others his nearby family.  He is my own grandkids great-great-great grandfather!

Speculating about the photo…Doing family history for years, I know some things about Henry Bernard’s family, in which he was the youngest of a dozen, of whom few lived in his home area – St. Sylvestre QC – when he would have been growing up.  Only one of his siblings, his brother Joseph, migrated west to Grafton ND in 1888.  He was a young married man and came with his wife’s family, Gourde.  It is quite possible, totally unprovable, that Joseph and his new wife Dezilda, are in this photo as well, and the photo comes about 1887.  It is said that Gourdes, and their nine children, and two spouses, and two infants made the trip west, probably by immigrant train.   My Grandpa, Henry, followed a little later, I think about 1892.  I have a single later photo of Joseph with Henry, and perhaps more forensic work could see if Joseph is also in the photo.  That task is for someone else, if ever interested.  Dick Bernard June 20, 2021.

PRIOR DAY POST: Biden-Putin.

Biden-Putin

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The first official U.S. observance of Juneteenth.  An opportunity from which to build a better future.

Participate in an on-line zoom conversation on racism, June 30.  Details here.  Scroll down to Human Rights Forum.

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Constructive Relationships are essential in all aspects of human life, from the most simple interpersonal to somehow preserving the planet for our descendants future.

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The Putin-Biden meeting in Geneva was not “the Thrilla in Manila” or “Rumble in the Jungle”.  Just Above Sunset, which is always my favorite analysis of analyses by people much closer to the actual action, didn’t disappoint the day of so after: “Swiss Boredom“.  By no means is the column boring.  As always, I remember subscribing to this fine blog edited by fellow retiree Alan in LA.

Of course, both Vlad and Joe have been around global and national politics for years.  They see their mandate in entirely different ways.

President Biden’s predecessor was around for one term….  His lust was for more and more personal power.  He was Vlad’s first fan.

President Biden tends more towards seeing the world as humanity’s mutual community.

In 2003, as part of a Baltic Cruise, we spent a day looking around Putin’s home town, St. Petersburg, Russia.  Among the stops was an opportunity to see the elevator in the hotel that then President George W. Bush had ascended a few weeks earlier, when he was in town to visit Putin, then not too long the Russian President!

No we couldn’t go up to the room.

Later, we had lunch in what was reputed to be one of Putin’s favorite restaurants on the outskirts of the city.

Earlier we’d seen the place in the river where they finally managed to kill Grigory Rasputin, the mad monk who had the Czarina’s ear for far too long back in those final good old days of the Czars.

In June 2003, we’d just started the War on Iraq – the bombing began on the first day of Spring if I recall.  A few days earlier one of our fellow tourists, at a stop in Finland, was triumphantly wearing his American flag jacket.  The young lady conducting the tour was not at all pleased…you could tell.  The oaf didn’t care; AMERICA, in your face!

Outside St. Petersburg, we finished our day trip seeing and touring the outrageously ostentatious palaces Peter built.  No wonder there had been a revolution.

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Those few days in 2003 were memorable and instructive.

If today’s American right-wingers were given a forced choice for a leader, Putin or Biden, I wonder who they’d favor.

The previous President – their guy – made his choice: authoritarianism.   Democracy is messy and very hard work; Authoritarianism in its many manifestations seems so much simpler, but comes at a very big cost to everyone.  With the other guy, we were on the road to ruin.

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I had an unexpected and unique opportunity to interact about this business of relationships on a larger scale the evening of June 17.

We had been invited to watch the film “Oslo Diaries“ which is readily available on line, then to have a discussion about the film on Zoom.

Oslo Diaries is about the quiet and ultimately very serious negotiations in an attempt to resolve the Israel/Palestine relationship question between 1992 and 1996.  For most of us, what we’ll remember is the signing ceremony at the White House involving Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in 1995; and the assassination of Mr. Rabin later the same year.  The film fills in lots of blanks.

The discussion among us fills in more blanks; it is online here, and includes my own comments.  David Schultz was an excellent discussion leader.

Both the movie and the conversation about it are worth your time and personal reflection: how do you fit into the resolution of any problem, anywhere?

We all fit in, both to the problems, and the solutions.   We make things worse, or better.  I’ve always liked the Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has“.

POSTNOTE:  Of course, this same week, the American Catholic Hierarchy (Bishops et al) have laid on the table for discussion the possibility of denying to President Biden the privilege of Communion (Eucharist) a central point of Catholic theology.  It’s their version of saber rattling….  Their pathetic ‘shot across the bow’.  As a lifelong pretty active Catholic, the odds of their kind of punishment (that’s what it is) actually passing is relatively low; if it passes, its consequences for the Catholic Church itself, especially the hierarchy, is predictable.  They will please their arch-conservative brethren, and be ignored by the big majority of Catholics who disagree.  Their reputation will be further diminished, except to their true believers.  They diminish rather than enhance the sacredness of the belief in the Eucharist that they hide behind.

Anyone who has ever actually taken Communion in a Catholic Church knows how absurd this threat is…from a church standpoint.  It is nothing more than a political talking point to the radical right wing.

 

Oslo Diaries

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On Thursday evening, June 17, 7 p.m. CDT, there will be a Zoom conversation about the documentary film “Oslo Diaries”.  All details are here.  Scroll down to Third Thursday film.  The on-line conversation requires pre-registration.  Speaker David Schultz is a well-known speaker in this area, and the evening will be very informative.

It is very useful to watch the film, which speaks to the Oslo peace process attempted between 1992 and 1996 involving Palestinian and Israeli participants.  The movie is in the words and images of the participants at the time.  It is 97 minutes.

Near its end, one of the main participants, Yitzhak Rabin, is assassinated.

Do consider participating, and sharing this opportunity with others.

This film and discussion is extraordinarily pertinent for this time in our history.

Making a Difference

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PRE-NOTE: Our 4th grandchild turned 21 this week.  if you wish, here’s my post.

POSTNOTE: Recommended viewing tip for Monday, June 14, 5-6 p.m.  Details: Martin Sheen June 14 2021

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If you’re reading this, it’s a reasonable guess that you’re one of about 200 who’ve actually seen this text.  Most likely you’ve gotten notice about this, since viewer numbers tend to spike on that day – my counter shows that.  I don’t know who you are specifically, though most on my mailing lists of over 500 are people I’ve come to know over the years.

I keep going since I expect there are unknown millions out there who are plodding along like me, trying to make a positive difference, one unlikely person at a time.  So, thanks to you for stopping by.

If you want to make a difference in the future of this country, my recommendations:

  1. Register to vote, regardless of the attempted roadblocks being thrown up by your elected representatives.
  2. Cast an informed ballot in every election for the most reasonable of the two candidates who are favorites for most every electoral choice in every election.
  3. Get involved more than you think you’re capable, personally and financially.  Get out of the safety zone – your ‘wall’.   Each of us is the solution, or the problem….
  4. Be an ‘evangelist’ over and above trying to be well informed, seeking a single convert – most likely you know who that is.  It’s not a matter of converting the hopeless case, but even some of those actually consider the implications of their choice.  Most people are reasonable, like you.

Of course I could go on and on.  Leave it at those.

Here’s some other ideas, some learning opportunities I’ve recently come across.

Two very interesting and enlightening talks hosted and posted recently by the Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers.

  1.  Nancy MacLean interviewed by Don Shelby on her book “Democracy in Chains” with preliminary remarks.  The interview itself starts at about 10 minutes, but preliminary comments are also interesting, from Minnesota’s Attorney General; a Climate activist, Sam Grant; and a state legislator, Emma Greeman.  [MacLean/Shelby is available on YouTube, though sometimes not.  Just try it again if unsuccessful.  Search the two names together to find the correct talk.)
  2. Don Shelby, comments after the Nancy MacLean talk.  This requires entering a passcode, which is &wd0N%&a.  He gave, willingly, more than an hour of his time to debrief us on the MacLean talk.

Don Shelby?  He’s a local news legend in this area.  I recently described him as our areas Walter Cronkite. He’s always been a straight shooter.  If you live in this area, you probably heard him on the local news.  If you watch public television, his long interview with filmmaker Ken Burns is a standard fixture during pledge week.

He’s far more than just an old talking head.

MacLean?  She’s taking on the denizens of the hard radical rich right-wing, which makes her a target for Trolls and Bots.  It’s a risky business to be a truth teller and a professor.  She’s made the jump.  Her book is well worth reading.

Other summer suggestions, as long as I’m on.

Younger folks are taking on re-inventing an organization of which I’ve long been part of, Citizens for Global Solutions Minnesota.  Go there, and scroll down for the on-line Third Thursday Film next Thursday and try it out.  Scroll down a little further to the Human Rights Forum on June 30, featuring Latoya Burrell, online.  And scroll down a little further to the “Becoming Human” lecture series on Racism, featuring six St. Thomas University professors in which I was a participant a year ago.

My friend, filmmaker Arthur Kanegis (“The World is My Country“) has started a most interesting weekly. on-line program (Wednesdays, 10 a.m. Pacific Time) featuring people making a difference where they live.  The most recent program featured a lady taking on nuclear proliferation; a previous week an author about “Walls”.  These aren’t famous people.  But they deserve an audience.  Check out the program here.

NOTE BEFORE PUBLISHING:

This has been an active week in political Pinocchio rhetoric.  June 8, I heard a long interview of John Bolton about President Biden’s trip to Europe; later Mitch McConnell lamenting that hearings about the Jan. 6 insurrection would be politicized.  Of course they will, deservedly so.

This week the President went to Europe on his first trip there as President, preceded by over 40 years in either U.S. Senate and Vice-President with a broad portfolio of experience and relationships in foreign relations and all sorts of expert and experienced advice.  The Vice-President, lifelong Californian, went to Central America and Mexico was criticized for not going to the Wall, and advising Central Americans not to come north.  She similarly is experienced and well-advised.  Diplomatic trips are not ‘buddy to buddy’; different nations have differing interests and priorities.  We are very well served.

There was the usual breaking news.  Thursday the story in the New York Times that the Justice Department of the previous president had been investigating certain members of Congress and their families for alleged leaks.  Dr. Fauci and Science has become the enemy in the spin rooms; Critical Race Theory, whatever that is is on the table in some places; the military, or so it is alleged, is not troubled with racism, and Sen. Tom Cotton raised a question with the African-American Secretary of Defense which he would not allow the Secretary to answer, doubtless because what was demanded was a soundbite “NO” or “YES” which could then be manipulated as a soundbite on ‘news’.

Of course, it depends on whose ‘news’ one chooses to believe.   We are prisoners of sound bites, and it is not healthy for our democracy since “truth” has been deemed to be obsolete.

“Caveat emptor” remains prudent.

We are in truly dangerous times.  Back on August 1 and 2, 2020, dare I say more rational times in a truly irrational period in U.S. History, I wrote my personal opinion of the “D’s” and the “T’s” (no typo) at that time in history.  This was written back in the day, summer 2020, when I presumed that an election would be held, and somebody would be elected, and back to some sense of normal.  I won’t say I was ‘naive’, because these are not normal times, when lies are accepted as truth by far too many.  But if you’re interested in what I was thinking then, unedited, here they are simply titled  D and T.

(I knew next to nothing about the former President before his election in 2016, except that he had no government experience at any level, and he was a TV personality who owned real estate.  If you’re interested, every word I ever wrote about him, or his opponent in 2016, remains archived here.  Simply put his name in the search box.  Caveat: in some cases, I didn’t say anything about him, but someone would comment, using his name.  But in most cases, my treatment of him was pretty benign.)

By this time in history I say he is easily and accurately labeled as the worst president in America’s history thus far.  It will be a long while to recover from this nation divided against itself.

This week, the Boston Globe, a prolific winner of Pulitzer Prizes, began a series of six editorials making its case about the past man in the White House.  Take some time to at least check it out here.

Upcoming this week, some thoughts from a career union representative about the economy.

ANTICIPATING THE QUESTION 9:15 a.m. JUNE 12, 2021:

Above I say this: “By this time in history I say he is easily and accurately labeled as the worst president in America’s history thus far.  It will be a long while to recover from this nation divided against itself.”

I agree, this is a pretty audacious assertion.  The President of the United States – every single one of them, ever, is the final decision maker, and no decision is ever right, to someone, usually with a large microphone.  Harry Truman’s desk reminder, “The Buck Stops Here”, was very accurate.

#45, along with the constant lies, did one thing that makes him deserve eternal infamy in my mind.  He declared himself to be a peace president – against war over there, anywhere.

At the same time, he sanctified war within our country country, us versus them: Democrats, immigrants, people of color…on and on, day after day, after the election which he lost very decisively.

As he fades into the sunset, as he certainly is, and will continue to, he still attempts to keep us divided and at war with each other.

This will be his only lasting legacy, and it is a bitter one.

That’s why I think he’s the worst ever.

21

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Today is grandson Ted’s 21st birthday.  He’s likely working today, no doings planned.  By 21, you’re an adult, out of the nest, by choice, or not….  Ted’s a great kid – I can use the term since I’m 60 years his senior, and I was in my last year of college when I turned his age in 1961.

He’s the fourth of the grandkids to turn over 21.  Life’s odometer keeps moving along.

Today I decided to share with Ted and the rest of the family a memory from 2006.  (Ted is on the right; his cousin Spencer is in the middle.  Spencer turned 21 some months ago.  Today he’s a Marine stationed in Japan.)

August 12, 2006, Rogers MN

The boys were six years old, then, a bit nervous riding on the flivver with Tony Bowker, the owner.

This was no ordinary flivver.  It was their Great-Great-Grandpa Bernard’s 1901 – or was it 1903? – Oldsmobile.  Grandpa stored and preserved it for many years until it began to do the tour of collectors, Bowker the most recent (the auto, to the best of my knowledge, is now lodged at some car museum in central Pennsylvania.  It spent most of its life in North Dakota.)

Grandpa came into the car honestly.  Someone had purchased it, then left town for somewhere else, and stored it in Grandpa’s barn.  He was never heard from again.  In the early 1900s there weren’t a lot of flivvers on the streets, and those that were were as likely nuisances, as they were fun.  At any rate, it became grandpa’s car.

I actually have quite a few photos of it.  My favorite is this one, taken probably in the early 1920s in Grafton ND.

Grafton ND, at Bernards, about 1920.

Dad is at the left of the adults.  Grandma and Grandpa are generally in the middle of the pack, with a lady between them, and Aunt Josie, their daughter, Dad’s sister third from right.  Dad’s other brother, Frank, then about 5, is probably one of the kids sitting in the car.  Their dog, Fosto (all their dogs were named Fosto, according to Dad), is in front.  The guests were apparently down from Winnipeg probably coming in the two cars in the background.

Some years ago, I wrote a piece about the Oldsmobile and its history.  You can read that here.  It has not had a boring life, that is for sure!

I hope you’re having a great day, Ted.  Happy Birthday!

 

Moving on?

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This mornings paper greeted me with two major headlines:

I had most recently been over to 38th and Chicago on May 23, 2021, two days before the one year anniversary of George Floyd’s murder.

On the Kevin McDonough issue: I and others were abundantly blessed by having him as Pastor during his time as Vicar General of the archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.  I’m quite sure his current parishioners feel similar to me.  My time at his parish was 1991-96, which was the same time period where the sex abuse problem was getting deserved publicity, and my Church and other institutions, religious and otherwise, were forced to come to  grips with what was a major problem.  This was over 30 years ago.

There are other recent issues along the same lines.  For just a single example: The Tulsa Massacre of 100 years ago is finally being acknowledged, and now the demands are what has to be done now to repair the terror that destroyed then lives, and still affects the generations of survivors.

The question arises in my mind: Is there a time to move on, or is every grievance a moving target living in perpetuity?

Must 38th and Chicago be a permanent monument to a heinous crime for which the perpetrator was found guilty?  Can Kevin McDonough, whose only crime was not doing enough (wisdom of hindsight) when it was on his desk that complaints landed, be permanently tarred and feathered, though his only offense was not doing enough about something he didn’t know enough about at the time?

I don’t know the answer to these and other questions.  Neither does anybody else.  It may be impossible to dispassionately deal with any of these issues.  If you’re alive and American you have an opinion, likely.

Is there an appropriate ‘mourning period’ for injustice?  I did the traditional google search, and gave up quickly.  It depends on the rules established by whomever, whenever.  There was an interesting article on the topic which I share here.  I share it only as an example.

Probably where I stand on these issues is best reflected in a comment by my friend, Mary, in my Memorial Day post.   You can see it in the comments section.  But here it is as it appeared earlier this week. “About 5 or 6 years ago when I was in Vietnam, I asked a question of a wonderful guide who had been very open about his experience of war. “How do you feel about all the Americans tourists after what you, your family, and friends experienced during the war and after?” He gently replied “we never forget but we always forgive” His words were an a very important lesson to me. As are the messages of Veterans for Peace.”

All grievances are not alike.  I had an entire career seeing that truism in action, every day.  Solutions need to be found for every circumstance.

But holding on to grievances forever is an albatross of going forward.  The advice of the Vietnamese guide says it all for me.

 

 

The Death Penalty

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Tuesday, the day I write these first lines, President Biden was in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, June 1, 2021.

The details of the massacre and of his speech will continue to be recited in assorted forums in assorted ways.  I agree with the tenor of the Pressidents remarks.  Let that suffice.  A still unknown number of people were sentenced to death that awful day, without charges, without trial, without obituary or even name.  Their deaths were apparently deemed unimportant.  A commentary not only for then, but continuing on until even today.

This day I would like to invite you to watch and listen to a discussion of the death penalty at a program I watched two weeks ago, recorded on Zoom.  It was a discussion of the film Just Mercy, which I’d seen a couple of years earlier, and which is still available and well worth your time.

The link to the program is at https://www.globalsolutionsmn.org. Go to the video archive, listen to the discussion involving Amy Bergquist of the Advocates for Human Rights and Stephen Rohde of the California ACLU and BendtheArc.  All speakers were very well informed.

As I was watching/listening I got to thinking about the fact that Just Mercy related to a case about a man sentenced to die in 1987, adjudicated under the laws and mores of a state at that time.  Then I thought of another well known film I saw in 1996, Dead Man Walking, same theme.

At the time of our on-line discussion, the George Floyd case had shortly before resulted in a conviction of a policeman for murder in my metropolitan area.  The murder was caught live on video from many angles – a technology only recently available to almost everyone; not so much 25 years ago.

I also thought of other ways of killing we have perfected in recent years, such as killing people by character assassination, particularly on vicious social media, only recently seeming to be reined in at least a little bit.

The death penalty, as it seemed to be discussed on the program, relates to the old way – application of Law to judge, fairly or unfairly, people charged with violating some law or other.

In the aftermath of George Floyd, and many others; and the universality of portable video cameras in the form of iPhones, and all the variations thereof, we are in a new Wild West, or so it seems.  The new technology can be a great force for good, but can as easily be manipulated for evil….

We have a lot to talk about.  Amy and Stephen and moderator Kathya, herself a lawyer, provide a great base for discussion.  I am not sure how long the video will remain available on line.  Best to take a look while you can.

I hope you watch the film as you pay attention to compelling current events.