I’m a Democrat (called DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) in Minnesota). Today I attended the 4th Congressional District Convention as a voting delegate. This was my first 4th CD Convention. It was a simple matter of redistricting due to the 2010 Census. The previous ten years we lived at the same address, but in the 6th CD. Registered […]
Highest on the list of contemporary issues I am concerned with is what I would call the “Minnesota Perpetual Voter Disenfranchisement Act”. This Act, HF 2738, is the proposed Amendment to the Minnesota Constitution which covertly (at least to public gaze) ends same day registration (the means used by one of six Minnesota voters) and […]
From Dick Bernard: Carol Turnbull is a local friend, about as fair and even-handed a person as I know. Recently ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) has gotten into her spotlight, and she wrote the following excellent column for our local paper, the Woodbury Bulletin. The article appeared in the April 5, 2012, edition. [UPDATE April […]
Towards the end of yesterday’s most stimulating conference of Parents United for Public Schools, a slide appeared on the screen: “I skate to where the puck will be, not to where it has been.” Wayne Gretzky Gretzky was the almost superhuman hockey player who made it all look easy. I had the privilege of seeing […]
I’m very near 72 years of age. The people of my and my parents generation created the Middle Class, and have been huge beneficiaries of it, in endless ways, from Medicare to the GI Bill to Unions, and on an on and on. For the younger generation, as Joni Mitchell’s popular song goes, they may […]
A year ago today I was at a resort in suburban Albuquerque NM. It was a nice spring day, and I walked down to the Rio Grande River and saw this tree which was winning the race to be first to leaf out for 2011. Today, exactly one year later, I went to my favorite […]
The main front-page headline of today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune is pretty clear “election 2012 Ad blitz targeting Obama is on its way”*. Karl Rove and Company is baaaacckkkk, big-time. They were preparing for the Main Event, and here they are. There are no surprises in the article (click on the headline to see the entire […]
There are legions of people who toil in the trade of family history. I’m one of them. We can all tell similar stories: as you begin to peel the onion, you find endless layers. Dead ends turn into “aha” moments. Aha moments can later return to dead-ends. The quest for a families history never ends. […]
I’m not an enemy of Capitalism. From my earliest years some deference was paid to the person who lived in the biggest house in town; who occupied a position of status or rank; the most “successful” relative…. Right or wrong, they were thought to be deserving of being a bit better off. Today, Capitalism funds […]
If you aren’t normally involved in politics, or even if you are, you might be interested in this recap of last weekends local district political convention. We have a societal, essentially tribal, inclination to label and judge “broad brush”. Therefore, rather than talking face to face, we label: Iran, collectively, is evil; or, or or…. […]