Thursday night when we watched President Obama’s acceptance speech, a drop-in guest was a member of our family who is one of those 8% of Americans who are unemployed. In fact, he would qualify as one of those who are regularly interviewed on the evening news, or in the political ads, about how terribly hard […]
UPDATE Sep. 8: If you wish to watch the President Obama speech, here’s a link provided by a friend. Watching and listening to President Obama’s speech tonight at Charlotte I kept thinking back to one of the last campaign events we attended on October 13, 2008, at Macalester College in St. Paul MN. The event […]
UPDATE 10:30 p.m. CDT September 5, 2012: Watch or read President Clinton’s address if you can. Link is here. This is a long speech, very on point. Useful information resources if you are interested: Republicans should stop talking about the Moocher Class from Bloomberg News here and Economics for Voters here. See postnote at the […]
A number of years ago I began receiving what I’ve come to call “forwards”. I decided to receive them, not ask to be taken off the mailing list for them, fact-check them usually through snopes.com, and respond to the sender if not always, frequently. These forwards were uniformly false, either in fact or in implication. […]
UPDATE Tues Sep 4: This long post, Just Above Sunset, entitled “Another Labored Day”, pretty well describes the tension existing on this Labor Day, Sep 3, 2012. click on photos to enlarge them Last Friday I was at a very stimulating conversation about the future of my teacher’s union: the one for whom I worked […]
Today, September 2, 2012, is the fourth anniversary of the first day of Peace Island, “Hope in a Time of Crisis, A Solutions-Driven Conference”. Peace Island was a remarkable and exhausting Tuesday and Wednesday running at the same time as the Republican National Convention just two or three miles down the road in downtown St. […]
TIME SENSITIVE UPDATES FOLLOW PHOTO OF FRENCH-AMERICAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION BOARD. Welcome! to a work in progress. While the French-American Heritage Foundation begins to take root, here is a portal to much information about French-Canadian heritage in the Midwest of the United States. Your comments/ideas/contributions of material welcome. E-mail dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom. Above graphic courtesy of a great […]
Several photos are at the end of this post. Click on any to enlarge them. A conversation, a letter, and a visit to three ladies this summer brought to the surface some long ago memories, worth sharing. Best I know, 1920 in North Dakota was a pretty ordinary year for farmers on the prairie. The […]
Sunday I walked in the Woodbury Days Parade with/for JoAnn Ward, local (District 53A) candidate for Minnesota State Legislature. We were unit 48 of (I understand) over 120 units in this very long parade in the middle of a pretty sultry day. Speaking for myself, I’d rather be many places other than on display in […]
Today, I decided to attend the Vice President Joe Biden event at the Depot in Minneapolis. I’ve attended these kinds of events before, so I knew exactly what to expect. It took an hour out of yesterday to pick up the ticket, then four hours today to drive over, stand in line, stand inside waiting […]