Insecure

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February 16, 2022, I published my first post about the Ukraine crisis.  Later that week, more than 6 months ago, I had surgery for Colon cancer.  The post is accessible here.   The first shot had not yet been fired.

Fast forward: August 23, I was part of a group who might a wonderful bunch of Ukrainian teens who were able to come to the U.S. for a welcome break from war back home.  I wrote a bit about it here.  Thursday, Sept 15, there will be a zoom gathering sponsored by a group I’m part of, and you’re welcome to join wherever you are.  Details forthcoming.  Click here.

And yesterdays news included a segment on Ukraine kids returning to school in a new environment…preparedness for missile attacks and the like.

Insecurity, now a part of life, not only in Ukraine.

And back here, at home, there is the  absurd carrying on relating to the former Presidents trifling with national security, with his own Army of loyal privates, saying in assorted ways ‘no big deal’.

As recently as this week unlikely suspects, including Karl Rove and William Barr, former attorney general, are sounding the alarm about the mishandled official documents on Fox News, no less.  This is insane.

And people are at the State Fair, as I was earlier this week, and on the midway and elsewhere on the Fairgrounds you’d hardly know there was anything other than perfect weather to contend with.

If only it would be so easy.

Election 2022 is a slight bit over two months away.  Labor Day is Monday.  In our society, no one can be forced to vote, or even to vote with full knowledge of the consequences.

Since our nation took its ‘walk on the wild side’, entertaining authoritarian rule, I’ve maintained that the base for this is perhaps one-fourth of the voting age population.  The other hangers on, usually single issue types, have rarely gotten the percentage over 40%

But far, far too many don’t even bother to vote, much less informed.  It is our recipe for disaster.

Every election, for every position, is consequential.  Be registered; encourage others to register; learn the candidates, the issues, the implications.

November 9 is too late.  We’re talking about our future, more so, this year, than ever.

We’re the difference between a functioning democracy and Putin’s authoritarian Russia.   It is as simple as that.

 

 

Gorbachev

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Mikhail Gorbachev died August 30, 2022, at 91.  I’ll leave the news to the regular media.  This post is to pass along some long ago memories, from early June, 1990, when the Gorbachev’s visited Minnesota.

I took quite a number of pictures, such as you can take snapshots of a VIP when you’re just trying to guess where he/she will be at a particular moment.

The below three most evoke the day, for me, anyway:

Gorbachev June 1990

Gorbachev’s leaving Minneapolis June 4, 1990 photos Dick Bernard

The hand out the car window is (I think) Mikhail Gorbachev, on John Ireland Blvd.  The photographer, me, is just to the south of the Department of Transportation Building.  The middle photo is, I think, at the Lexington Ave ramp off of I-94 in St. Paul.  The lower one, as the Gorbachev’s left Minneapolis.  It was a chilly somewhat wet day, overcast, I recall.  Not prime time for photography, especially for some rank amateur, like me.  The sun lowering in the west was peaking out by the times the Gorbachevs were about to take off.  I think I at least caught the essence.

There’s a great plenty of replay of Gorbachev’s life, and about the visit to Minnesota which can be accessed elsewhere.

That he was here at all was pretty remarkable.  I do wonder how Vladimir Putin really feels about Gorbachev.  You won’t see it from any official announcement, I’d be certain (as I write I haven’t seen such announcement so far.)

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Mikhail Gorbachev was an uncommon leader for the Soviet Union.

I have no expertise beyond being an interested citizen, for years, in international issues.  My closest call were the above photos.

Gorbachev had more than ordinary political skills to become final leader of the then Soviet Union.  He is a very interesting person to study.  I look on him very favorably.  A simple first reference is the Wikipedia article about him.   Another article is about the dissolution of the Soviet Union.  One of the resulting independent countries was Ukraine.

When he visited here in 1990, the end of the Soviet Union was little over a year away.

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If you wish to learn more about June 4, 1990, simply search Gorbachev Minnesota for more.