On a day like today it is difficult to imagine that ten days ago we were experiencing our single day of snowy winter in the month of February. Our local welcoming presence, the carved bear at the corner of Sherwood and Juliet, seemed to be reveling in the snow. But February 29 was an interesting […]
See Update from Carl Peter at end of this post. Going through some old photographs recently I came across this one of Louis Bruhn, taken by my father in May, 1974, at a Valley City State Teachers College alumni gathering in Anoka, Minnesota. (click to enlarge). I lived in rural Anoka at the time, and […]
Coleen Rowley’s post on HuffPost, yesterday, (link below) is the reason for this blogpost. Almost exactly a year ago, someone suggested Coleen Rowley and I have a debate on issues relating to peace and President Obama. I agreed. I actually saved the last of a chain of e-memos about this, dated March 30, 2011. Actually, […]
At the preview of the Nobel Peace Prize Forum on February 14, we were told that, for the first time, the major sessions of the Forum would be live-streamed and accessible around the world. I did not publicize that to my own mailing list, since I was most interested in attendance at the event. There […]
Full disclosure: When Barack Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize I was pleased and not at all surprised. From the moment he took office, the tone of U.S. relations with the rest of the world began to change, and changed rapidly. I was a new blogger when he spoke in Egypt in June, […]
After reading my post on Day Two, a friend asked a perfectly reasonable question: “What is the takeway for you each year you attend this Forum?” My answer: exhausted as I am, back home after the third and final full day of the Forum: I feel, as I’ve heard said in another context, “touched, moved […]
Tonight on return from a long day at Forum events, I opened an e-mail from my retired friend and colleague John Borgen. In the e-mail was a link to this song sung by a young person with a spectacular voice, Jackie Evancho. Somehow, it fits like a glove the earlier part of the day, and […]
UPDATE March 8, 2012: A personal photo album from the entire Nobel Peace Prize Forum is accessible here. A wonderful Jazz combo from Augsburg College opened the 2012 Forum, first with a fine rendition of John Lennon’s Imagine, and Sting’s We Work the Black Seam Together. It was a neat beginning to a superb day, […]
About this time of year in 2002, Paul Miller and I met each other at a meeting, and we learned we lived in the same community. Paul was already active in the cause of Justice for Haiti, and over the coming months he began to urge me to visit the island Republic with him. It […]
About 60 of us dropped by Woodbury’s indoor City Park Saturday morning to meet Congresswoman Betty McCollum, whose 4th Congressional District moves to the east in January, 2013. Of course, during this time of transition, my town remains in Cong. Bachmann’s district until January, but all candidates for all elective offices need to become acquainted […]