Saturday we attended the opening of a major interpretative exhibit at the Minnesota History Museum about the War between the Dakota Indians and the United States of America. This is a very well done exhibit, and very well worth ample time to both look and reflect. The Minnesota History Center is easily accessible, on Kellogg […]
UPDATE July 1: An excellent 9 minute video summary from the Kaiser Family Foundation on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is here. This slices through the complexities. July 3: from the same source, a ten question quiz on what you know about ACA here. Many comments follow this post under UPDATES: I posted #587 before […]
UPDATE: 23 comments below. A second post on this topic, with additional comments, is accessible here. I’m publishing this a few hours before the Big Release of the Supreme Court decision on what has come to be known as “Obamacare”. I have no prediction. All I know is the reality, learned at too young an […]
Preliminary Note from Dick Bernard: At the Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Chapter of Citizens for Global Solutions June 21, 2012, Dr. David Schultz gave an important talk entitled “Wealth vs Democracy: The Battle for America’s Soul”. Rather than attempting to summarize what he had to say, I asked Dr. Schultz if he would be […]
Some months ago a cousin I’d never met in person, JoAnn (Wentz) Beale, wrote from California, suggesting that we get together when she came to an event in her home town of Grafton ND. It was a great idea. Her grandmother, Elize Collette Wentz, and my grandmother, Josephine Collette Bernard, were siblings, raised on the […]
UPDATE June 26, 2012: Here is the obituary on Lee Dechert. NOTE: Comments on Lee from Andy Driscoll and Will Shapira can be found at the very end of this post. There may be others, later. Richard Lee Dechert (that’s as in French: pronounced d-share) passed away quietly at home on June 21. Years ago […]
Earlier this week I was sitting in my Caribou Coffee “office” and a friend I see from time to time wandered in and joined me for a few minutes. Talk quickly got around to the political world and the upcoming election. He told me he’s filed for one of those important but seldom noticed positions […]
“Back in the day”, my Grandpa Henry Bernard (born on a farm in Quebec in 1872) spent most of his adult life in Grafton ND. He came to Grafton area with a first grade education and carpentry as a trade but had a particular gift for figuring out how mechanical things work. For years he […]
This is one of those days when nostalgia reigns, and all manner of inspirational stories are related about people who made a difference in one way or another in someone else’s life. Today, the examples will be Dad’s (of which I am one several times over). My thoughts today are to three recent and completely […]
I don’t consider myself a political junkie. I am liberal Democrat but I am not, nor have I ever been, heavily immersed in party decision making. I do think that there is little more important than active involvement in the task of selecting good reasonable people to represent us all in all elective offices, and […]