Today is the No Kings Day with major demonstrations country wide.  In Minnesota’s Twin Cities is centerpiece.  Bruce Springsteen and other celebrities will be front and center.  We’ll be enroute to a family wedding in Missouri, so won’t be on site.

But before I go, I’d like to share Paul Krugman’s March 27 post on Immigrants.  It is worth your time.  https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/the-end-of-immigration?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email.

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The family wedding is my grandsons, now eight years a Marine on active duty.  No rumblings about transfer to the Middle East, though as any member of the uniformed armed services knows, orders can change on very short notice.  His spouse to be is daughter of a career Marine, so knows this reality by personal experience.  We look forward to a good wedding.

I’ve been asked to propose a toast to the newlyweds, and I accepted.  What to say in a couple of minutes to young people 60 years my junior, in front of a group primarily people I’ve never met, mostly from a state I’ve infrequently visited.  Probably mostly young people.

I’ve decided on an immigrant story – one from my own family history, and one relating to Missouri.  Dad, 100% French-Canadian, lived the last ten years of his life, 1987-97,  in Belleville IL, suburban St. Louis.  St. Louis is about 80 miles from where the wedding will be.

During Dad’s life in Illinois  (Mom had died seven years before he moved to Belleville), he liked to see the local sights when company was in town, and this happened with me.

One particular day we went to the famous Arch in St. Louis.  Nearby is a well known tourist area, LeClede’s Landing, where St. Louis began.

I visited a tourist information place, and noted a book: :”St. Louis A Concise History” by William Barnaby Faherty, S.J.  I still have it.

Very early in the book a line jumped off the page:  “…(1764).  Mrs. Marguerite Blondeau Guion, presumably the first woman to come to St. Louis, crossed the river from Cahokia in late May to join her husband…she recalled many years later, the crew had erected only two or three huts….”

Of course, Marguerite was not the “first woman” west of the Mississippi in today’s Missouri.  Back then history was written from the victors perspective.  Native Americans were another matter indeed.

The name “Blondeau” jumped out at me.  That was the maiden name of Grandma Bernard’s mother, my great grandmother, Clotilde (Blondeau) Collette.

Long story short, French-Canadians kept and keep good records.  I’ve learned down the road that Clotilde and Marguerite were in the same ancestral line, albeit born over 100 years apart.

That short descriptor, buttressed by research by my cousin, Remi, in Montreal, leads to some observations:

Marguerite and her husband were in their 20s; unbeknownst to them they were boots on the ground building a great city.  Being young was an asset, not a liability.  The concept of being a foreigner, or owning a place, was probably foreign to them.

Marguerites husband apparently died at about 40 of some unknown cause.  Young age didn’t inoculate from death.  They had four children, three died as teenagers or less.  Marguerite apparently lived to over 90, and died in St. Louis, by then a major city.  Somebody thought she was notable, thus the portrait below.

Marguerite Blondeau Guion (undated but before 1832 in St. Louis MO)

They left Illinois in 1764, shortly after the British took control of eastern North America after defeating the French at Quebec.  Across the Mississippi was then Spanish.  The Declaration of Independence by the upstarts in the 13 colonies, 1775,  was a dozen years in the future.

A quick check shows that many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were young people, the youngest 26, and many in their 30s. 

Of course, there are many additional questions.  In those times and until relatively recent history, Marguerites last name would have been Guion; she would have scant legal rights regardless of the country.  There was lots of work to be done, and doubtless Marguerite did some of the work in the same ways it is done now, one action at a time.

Then, as now, the future was in the hands of the young.

A young woman, probably younger than Margeurite, shared an insight with me recently that bears repeating.  She had just had a birthday, and the place where she worked, my favorite coffee shop, had brief bio sheets of each worker, composed by the individual.

She asked me to look at hers, and I did.  She pointed out one particular phrase on the sheet, one likely familiar to all of us:  “Don’t Quit”.  She had modified it by deleting four of the letters, which then made the advise “Do It”.  Made sense to her, and to me.

I had earlier noted something else put on the community blackboard at the store by, it turned out, the manager, whose daughter is a freshman in college this.  It, too, was simple: “You matter.”

“Do it.  You matter.”

COMMENTS (more below):

from Jeff: Nice post….I wonder what our relatively young Founders (relative in the sense that avg life expectancy in 1776 America was about 30, though that was mainly due to child mortality, if you got past your teenage years likely lived into your 50s or 60s…still 30 somethings in 1776 are like 55+ somethings today) would like of our geriatric leadership now?

Three items on a snow day in Minnesota

1.  Thomas Friedman.  Robert Reich, on March 15, 2026, shared a remarkable column by Twin Cities native Tom Friedman about the example demonstrated by the citizens of Minneapolis particularly in recent troubled times.   I hope the column is accessible to all.  It is long and very worth reading, wherever you happen to be from.  It applies to everyone, everywhere. https://open.substack.com/pub/robertreich/p/sunday-thought-2-the-legacy-of-these?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email.

In the event the above link is not accessible, the Friedman column is from the New York Times for March 15, 2026.  Below is the NYT share link which may work.:

From The New York Times:

Why Minnesota Matters More Than Iran for America’s Future

Moms donating their breast milk to strangers, dads taking someone else’s kids to school: Minnesotans showed a basic human impulse to look out for their neighbors.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/15/opinion/columnists/minneapolis-ice-trump-neighbor.html?smid=em-share

2.  Paul Krugman is an authority on Economics, and his substack columns, mostly behind a paywall for subscribers only, have been great seminars on the reality of world energy policy.  They are invaluable to help understand the facts and the nuances behind the news,

3.  In yesterdays post I included two “snips” from the 1978 Encyclopedia Britannica about Iran’s people, and its oil resource. It you didn’t look at it, here is the same link: Iran 1978 Britannica.  As the article notes, Iran is a diverse society politically and multiple religions, though dominated by a single religious denomination.

It should be concerning to us that in our own country there is a substantial movement advocating  its brand of political domination “Christian nationalism”.  May it fail, miserably.  Of course, there are other similar examples with other faiths.  Power corrupts.

4.  Drones: 15 years ago at this space I did a post about Drones. The Drones.  Consider it in context with the fact that it was written 15 years ago, in the infancy of Drones as a weapon.  It is one of 25 posts over the years where I’ve mentioned the topic.  At the time I wrote this, we all knew of people who had remote controlled model airplanes, boats, etc.  They were early versions of drones.

This particular post got a dozen or so comments, at a time when the issue of military Drones was just beginning to get attention.  You might find of interest the comments 15 years ago, and how they fit into today’s far more earnest conversation relating to war generally.

There is so much happening at this moment especially in the Iran area that I want to add some items to the essential conversation.  We all need to be directly involved.

Here’s a rough map I adapted from an old Atlas I have which helps define the area.  This is from 1982, so the map is of the then USSR, but it serves the purpose (the USSR ceased existence in the early 1990s).   I particularly ask you to note the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz at lower right (note arrow), and the Israel area at lower left.  The photo is also available on pdf form here: Iran and area 1982.  Iran, not all of which is shown on the map, is 2 1/2 times the size of Texas and has about 3 times the population.  It is a very large country.

Adapted from Rand McNally World Atlas c1982 p. 129

Where do I stand on the current situation?  I am not a Pacifist in the purist sense.  On the other hand, after 9-11-01 I was one of the few who thought that going to war to avenge 9-11-01 would not have a good outcome, and I said so, publicly.  War is never a solution – the end of one war begets the next, as we learned after WWI.

In the current situation I am most interested in how history will be defined – where history begins.

Iran has a very long recorded history – the U.S. is barely in its infancy in comparison.  With respect to learning about Iran and “the west”, anyone with an interest should seek out a source that goes back at least to the beginning of the oil era (1900s forward), especially the political history.  (Every now and then I refer back to my 1977 edition of Britannica for such insights.  The section on Iran is over 50 pages.) If you know someone of Iranian ancestry, ask their opinion.  They will not necessarily speak with one voice.

Personally, I did a “preemptive” post entitled Iran the day before the 2026 State of the Union.  It can be read here.  You’ll note I directly quote two Iranian-Americans on the issue.

Personally, I remember President Jimmy Carter’s visit to Minnesota in 1978 to sign legislation relating to use of the Boundary Waters area.  It was not universally supported by Minnesotans (see #2 on this from Minnesota Public Radio).   I recall that Iran entered in.  I was at the then-Minneapolis Convention Center the day Carter spoke, with heckling from folks with “STOP” signs.   This demo and Carters visit didn’t relate to Iran, of course, but I do remember, that day, having to walk past a phalanx of protestors with grocery bag masks over their heads, apparently protesting the U.S. support of the Shah of Iran, though I had no idea, then, what that was all about.  (Here’s some history of visits by the Shah to the U.S.  Note the reference to Mossadeq – he’s part of the story, too.)

POSTNOTE: Here is Heather Cox Richardson’s March 2 Letters from an American on the current issue.

ON A SEPARATE TOPIC:  Coincidentally the bombing of Iran started on the same day as my local political convention, which I attended in full.  So, basically, none of us had much of a notion of what was happening outside our venue.  Here is what I wrote about the convention itself, if you are interested.

COMMENTS (more at end of post):

from Carol, from CNN.com:

Americans living in the Gulf tell CNN that they are frustrated by the US government’s response in the region, with some saying they prefer to stay in their adopted home while others are heeding the warning to leave.

In the United Arab Emirates in particular, several Americans tell CNN that they have more confidence in Abu Dhabi’s leadership than Washington’s.

Kiran Ali, the creator of a WhatsApp group chat with 800 American women living in Dubai, says the overwhelming sentiment from members is trust in the UAE, “coupled with a bit of (a) disturbed feeling towards the US for not fronting money for evacuation, for not doing more to make sure US citizens are safe.”

She said that the US State Department’s call to immediately evacuate the region, despite airspaces being broadly closed, conflicts with the guidance it continues to give on the phone to shelter in place.

Other Americans living in the UAE tell CNN they prefer the uncertainty of missile interceptions to the risk of their kids experiencing a mass school shooting in the US.

“The cynic in me knows that my daughter has more of a chance of being hit by a bullet in the US than a drone in Dubai, so we feel very comfortable about seeing this through,” one man said.

from Fred: I’m a map guy and this one works very well. Easy to read and get a better feel for the proximity of the nations. Circled nation names helps as you scan it.

from Joyce, from recent Charles Pierce column in Esquire:

As a Catholic Christian from birth, I have come to wish devoutly that two things had happened in the early days, when the Jesus Movement was just getting rolling. First, that Saul had gotten back on his horse and hightailed it back to Tarsus and never written a word about this charismatic carpenter he never met. And second, that Patmos had been destroyed in a massive volcanic eruption an hour before John in his cave had set stylus to papyrus. We could have avoided a lot of extra-Jesus foolishness down through the millennia. Case in point, from Jonathan Larsen’s Substack:

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers at a briefing Monday that the Iran war is part of God’s plan and that Pres. Donald Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,” according to a complaint by a non-commissioned officer. From Saturday morning through Monday night, more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the military had been logged by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF). The complaints came from more than 40 different units spread across at least 30 military installations, the MRFF told me Monday night.

Take command responsibility away from these people immediately—and yes, that includes the Secretary of Talking About War, who committed his life to the Precious Blood of Jack Daniels years ago—because they are telling soldiers that they are naught but cannon fodder in an eschatological conflict. That is not only completely banana-pants but also directly in conflict with the words of the Founder himself as recorded by Matthew, the former imperial revenue officer, in the 24th

chapter of his reminiscences.

Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. … But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

The officer corps can sit down and shut up.

from a long time friend with very deep roots in the Middle East area:        It was appropriate for you to look back to 1950 and mention the Shah in your discussion, but you neglected the most important event from that period. In 1949 Iran had freed themselves from other powers and established a democracy patterned after our American democracy.  I can still remember young girls running around in short skirts like the girls were doing in the United States.  Then next came the actions taken by the US in support of this new democracy.  Instead of supporting it, our CIA joined forces with the British Intelligence Agency and worked to destroy this democracy and return it to the rule of the Shah.  When the British are involved, there is a caste system involved.  I worked with three individuals who were part of that Privileged Caste System, and in spite of all the factual information that they had, they would not accept the premise that they were a part of that Privileged Caste System.  It was all the horrible things that the US did to the Iranian democracy that resulted in the Iranians pleading “Death to America”, something that you would have also done if they had done such horrible things to you.  That was the most important point that your discussion had overlooked.

The British Government is one of the most horrible in the world, which doesn’t always extend to the population, but generally does.  Remember the actions taken by the early British settlers that were working to take land away from the Native Americans folks in the [Indian] Reservation and surrounding areas so they could farm if.  I doubt if there was ever a treaty with the Native Americans that the British settlers ever honored.  And I believe that I shared with you the horrible things that were done to the Native Americans in the [ ] Reservation and surrounding areas that had fled to northern Canada where they could find food and were then herded back to the [ ] Reservation and held there until most of them starved to death. That British culture is in general a horrible culture, and I am bothered by how much of it has extended to America.

from Leila:  Seems like Israel finally found the right time to persuade trump to invade.  He has claimed to be Iran’s friend of the non religious sect; hope he’ll be respectful and know when to leave.