People don’t like to hear bad news.  The phrase “See no evil; speak no evil; hear no evil,” comes to mind.  Unfortunately, bad news comes to us regardless, and it is important to pay attention.  And we have seen months and now years of evidence of dangers to our democracy.  In the end, we, the people, are accountable – all of us – if we choose to sit on the sidelines.  This is most especially directed to the 75 million who voted for Harris/Walz in November, 2024.  To ‘wash our hands’ of the present is to assure a future we will regret.

In the current day, when it comes to political conversation, people choose what they want to believe, and self-censor their own access to other opinions.  It is a dangerous situation

Occasionally I come across thoughts that deserve the time, and following are some recent ones.

It up to you to choose to take the time to read and really think about how the present applies to you, personally, in these very troubled times.

The Big Picture for August 21st from Jay Kuo on “Sadopopulism and the Fascist MAGA ethos”

Robert Reich on August 7 wrote an insightful piece of  “What you can do now“.

The Weekly Sift  for August 25 gives some important inservice education.

Get in action.

August 26: Robert Reich on Trump’s Downfall; and his Sunday Thoughts August 31.

August 26, Heather Cox Richardson Letter from an American.  Also August 28.

Wednesday, August 27, 2025, Annunciation: This morning a solitary killer murdered two young people at Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis.  Additionally there were 17 injured, most of whom were young students in their first week  of the school year.  Tonight was the first vigil, which I watched on TV.  Flags around the country are at half staff.  The story is newsworthy – but such stories have almost become commonplace.  They are all tragedies, multiplied over and over and over in our country awash in guns, which makes killing so easy.

Ironically, the previous day, August 26,  I met with my son, visiting from Littleton Co, and gave him two items of clothing to, in turn, give to his daughter, my granddaughter, Lindsay.

The gift was significant, even more so given what happened 24 hours later a few miles away at Annunciation Catholic Church.  The items were the shirt and trousers I wore on a sad day in early May, 1999, when Lindsay, her parents, and I were among those who slowly walked up what had been dubbed “Cross Hill” overlooking nearby Columbine High School, erected in memory of those killed at Columbine in the massacre there a week or so earlier.

I was in Littleton by coincidence: weeks earlier.   I had booked a stopover in Denver enroute home from hiking in Utah with a brother and sister.  A few days before my flight to Utah from Minneapolis, first at a meeting, and then on my car radio, I first heard about the massacre at Columbine High School.  I didn’t know where the school was or the details at first.  It turned out to be about a mile from where my family lived.  Lindsay, then a middle schooler, was 12.

Columbine was an unprecedented disaster 26 years ago.  It seems to have become almost commonplace.  The list of mass murders is now very long. [POSTNOTE August 30, 2025: as noted above, son Tom and family were near neighbors to the Columbine tragedy in April, 1999.  On the ten year anniversary of Columbine, I reprinted Tom’s memories of that awful time period.  You can read it here.  The post is from April 20, 2009.]

Also yesterday came a photo of grandson Spencer, just promoted to Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Marines.  Thirteen years ago – Dec 14, 2012 – I was at a suburban mall where Spencer’s Middle School Band was doing a concert.  I think he was 8th grade at the time.  Enroute home from that concert came another announcement on the car radio about another school massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown CT.

Will we ever take action against largely unregulated weapons of war awash in todays United States?  I don’t know.  But I hope we keep trying to bring sanity back.

August 28, 2025: This mornings Minnesota Star Tribune front page is pretty clear.

Minnesota Star Tribune August 28, 2025

Leaving the Health Center after my morning walk today, the tune playing was the Bruce Springsteen anthem “Born in the USA”(1984).  Listen to it.  It has a lesson for citizens today.  Let’s continue the conversation….

POSTNOTE August 29, 2025:  Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the police “have recovered 116 rifle rounds from the church“, and that the death and injury count is now up to 20.  The topic of Guns is no stranger to this blog: a search just now shows reference to “Guns” in 101 posts over the last 16 years.

Minnesota Star Tribune page 1 Aug. 29, 2025

POSTNOTE August 31, 2025: Today’s Minnesota Star Tribune was full of photos and commentary about Annunciation (see photo, below).  The newspaper had commentary about a 2005 school shooting at Red Lake MN in 2005.  I had written about this at the time and I still have it online, here.

This morning, at Basilica of St. Mary, my church, Fr. Gillespie handled the difficult topic very well.  Here is how the Basilica’s website carried the story (see Fr. Griffith”s comments. here).  Also, today, I got to thinking about the church response to 9-11-01, which I’d also written about at the time: Post 9-11-01001.

Minnesota Star Tribune August 31, 2025

POSTNOTE September 1, 2025: Over the years I have started to pay closest attention to the tone of the real conversation among real people in near proximity to me – such as at the coffee shop, or the people in church, or gatherings of any sort.

As I think about the people, generally (rather than the news as reported), I am noticing more of a quiet determination to make the world a better place, than to get mired in fear and loathing.

In the aftermath of 9-11-01, for instance, the national mood was revenge, pure and simple; Nineteen years later, in the wake of the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis, ordinary residents gathered to help clean up  in the aftermath of the many fires set by as yet unknown provocateurs.

There is, I sense, a movement towards community, rather than towards more division.  This is, I emphasize, only a feeling.  But it is a feeling.   I hope more build from it.  We – all of us – are the future.

POSTNOTE September 6, 2025:  There have been subsequent photos and stories in the local paper, but I decided to call a halt at September 1.  I hope lots of people take up the issue with their legislators – that is where the solution has to begin.  It will continue to be a very tough sell.  People love their guns….

“Guns” have been part of over 100 posts at this space over the last 16 years.

If you looked back at them, you’d see a consistent set of talking points.

1. I qualified as an expert marksman with the M-1 in Army days, 1962-63.  But I have never owned or had a gun or in fact used a gun in all the years since.
2. Getting rid of guns in this gun-ridden society is impossible.  It is as difficult as it was to get rid of booze during prohibition days.
3. It is easily possible to regulate guns through registration and other means, and stiffer penalties for violations.  A minority of the citizenry owns a large percentage of the guns, especially the most lethal ones.  Best I know from the Annunciation case, there was a single assailant who fired over 100 rounds in a very brief time period.  There is absolutely no reason in a civil society for that kind of armament being allowed on the street.
4. Having and using a gun to facilitate a crime is no guarantee of success.  In the Annunciation case, the perpetrator apparently committed suicide.  Those who survive their felony have almost zero chance of evading accountability.
5. In my state, state legislators are probably the most crucial focus of lobbying, followed by other elected officials, local, state, national, who depend on being elected to hold office.

POSTNOTE September 7, 2025: My pastor, this morning, dealt with the issue in a brief and very effective way.  Exactly what he said is not as important as that he said something.  I am sure there were different pairs of ears hearing the message in their own way, but that makes no difference.  In this case, silence is not golden.

PRENOTE: Overnight came a post from Heather Cox Richardson that deserves your time, and is about Russia/Ukraine/U.S. You can read it here.

Earlier this summer my cousin, Remi Roy, took a trip back to the home area of his German-from-Russia ancestors in the Odessa Ukraine and Romania area.  His post is here.

Saturday we went to Garrison Keillor Birthday Party at the Fitzgerald in St. Paul.  August 4 he made his report on the evening.  You can read it here (scroll to end of Garrison Keillor section)..

*

Today, August 9, 2025,  is the 80th anniversary of the second atomic bomb in war, Nagasaki.  The bomb exploded at 11:01 a.m. August 9, Nagasaki time.  My computer says that the exact same time here would have been 9:01 p.m. August 8.

Hiroshima 2025 Minn Star Tribune is the article in the August 7 Minnesota Star Tribune (a snip of the article is below)

The two events were horrendous.  Nobody knows with any certainty the deaths August 6 and 9, 1945.  Here’s a source that seems thoughtful on the issue.

The events at the end of WWII will be debated forever.  The tendency is to try to simplify what is an extremely complicated history. The horror of WWII has been documented, and all that is left is what have we learned for the present day and the future.  That is up to us, of course.  We know what happened before.  Have we learned anything that will help prevent a repeat?

My ‘witness’ this year to WWII was to watch the two hour American Experience program on PBS: “Victory in the Pacific”.

The good news is that the atom bombs were used only twice in combat, both by the United States, 80 years ago.  The bomb and even more powerful successors have not been used in combat since.  Their effect was the best argument against their use.  But they continue to exist, and they are constantly in the dark minds of despots, including our own.  The campaign against them has to continue.

*

In the August 6 post this year I took a slightly different tack on the issue.  You can read Peter’s comment  here.

For today, August 9, I want to recall a powerful two day workshop I attended in early February, 2005, at the University of Minnesota titled “Paths to Sustainable Peace: Accountability, Reconciliation and Problem Solving“.  My recollection is that the workshop had a specific connection to the 10 year anniversary of the Rwanda genocide of 1994. It was co-sponsored by the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program partners — the Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Pubic Affairs, the U of M Human Rights Center and the U of M Law School.

Included here is some of the content of the two days, specifically my now-20 years old personal commentary at the time of the conference.  It is simply my writing at the time, and I think it may help the reader to clarify his/her own notions on a most complicated topic: Sustainable Peace Feb 2005 UofM

I’ve participated in one way or another in hundreds of this kind of event over the years, and this is one of the very rare ones where I kept the file.

We are doomed if we fail to learn from the past.

(The workshop was 20 years ago.  We had been entangled in the Iraq War since 2003.  Twenty-two years later we, and the world, continue to be awash in very serious problems: Israel/Gaza, Ukraine/Russia, our own Civil War in the United States….  Resolution – sustainable peace – is up to us, not somebody else.  Your choice whether to open and read what I said 20 years ago.  I hope you do, and that the attachments give you some food for personal thought and motivation to action.)

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Brian:  Thanks for posting!   As a pre-teen kid I remember asking my Momma about why we nuked civilians in Japan’s cities?    She hugged, hugged and hugged me and said “Brian they attacked us in Pearl Harbor and Might Makes Right dear.”   Oh Scheiße!

PRE-NOTE:  Take a moment: There are three comments to the Tariff post, here.  Yesterday I did a brief post on three items, here.  Last week, Fred sent along a forward from a friend about Ukraine and Russia weapons.  The friends comment to Fred and by extension to us: “long, worth reading, worrisome“.

*

This week is the 80th commemoration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki August 6 and 9.

Longtime great friend, Peter,  from New Hampshire, weighed in after the recent post about Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  (That post, with details of scheduled events is here.  That post is largely about Twin Cities events, but check out what might be said or happening in your own local area.)

My local PBS station has at least three related programs: Tuesday Aug 5 8p.m. Channel 2 American Experience “Victory in the Pacific”; 11 p.m.; repeated Thursday Channel 17.  11 p.m August 5 Channel 2,  “Atomic Echoes: Untold Stories from WWII”.  I was five years old when WWII ended, and of course all of my life mentors were directly a part of the history of this country from the Great Depression to Pearl Harbor, thru WWII and Korea and the ensuing Cold War.  Uncle George Busch was Lieutenant on a destroyer in the Pacific 1943 through the end of the war; his neighbor and first cousin from the next farm over, Marine Captain August Berning, was in the midst of the action on Okinawa, and other island conflicts. (See letter from August to George Aug 10 1945 here.)

I’m a Vet and my preference is peace, but I also recognize that this is a terribly difficult question, and with each generation becoming more complicated, such as weapons of war.  My first post on Drones was at this space on May 12, 2009, 16 years ago.  You can read it here.  As with anything I write, it is my personal opinion at a particular point in time.  I did something on the topic of drones, my word search indicates, 20 other times since.

Peter’s comment speaks for itself, and it follows:

 

Peter’s Dad protesting the Vietnam War, Philadelphia area