As I write, October 13, the Occupy Wall Street initiative seems to be gaining momentum. Two weeks ago, September 30, I submitted an opinion piece on the issue to my local newspaper at a time when the metro newspapers were ignoring the happenings in New York. I was motivated by the video clip of the […]
Related posts: here and here and here. Earlier this summer I more or less formally resigned my volunteer position as family historian. Thirty years and several books was enough, I reasoned. But one just doesn’t “resign” from such a “career”, I’ve learned, and the past week, which began with publication of this October 5 post […]
Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Wangari Maathai died September 25, 2011, in a Kenya hospital. I never met her, or knew much about her. I wish I had. My friend Lynn Elling asked retired Minneapolis teacher Nancy Paxson to send along Ms Maathai’s obituary and her wonderful and inspirational recitation “I will be a Hummingbird”. […]
UPDATE September 7, 2013: This post has evolved into time into a series of posts directly related to Heritage. Directly related post are here. Also related is a post on Tin Type photographs accessible here. Also see Part 3 here, and Part 4. Also at Nov 3, 2011; Dec 22, 2011; Apr 7, 2012; Sep […]
Related posts here and here. On my father’s death in 1997, I became custodian of our family photos. While he came from an ordinary North Dakota family of French-Canadian descent, the family had an inclination to take pictures documenting important events, such as weddings, new births and such. Within the box of photos was a […]
We watched the first segment of Ken Burns latest documentary on PBS last night. (Part 2 of the 3 part series is tonight at 7 p.m. Sunday nights program here. More details including archived material here.) I very highly recommend watching the entire series…and doing more than just watching: it is a natural for very […]
Today is the last day of the 2011 Renaissance Festival in suburban Minneapolis MN. Friday’s local news brought a story about a fire at the Festival. Several food vendors shops burned to the ground. The fireman being interviewed said that they were hampered by the fact that they had to truck in water to fight […]
A few days ago, at a political fundraiser in St. Paul, a 3-term Congressman told us that “Congress” as an entity has a 12% approval rating. That is about as close to zero as it is possible to get. I knew this number from earlier reports, and I’ve always observed that we Americans, who select […]
Late yesterday we went to a small gathering of people in St. Paul. It goes by the generic label: “political fundraiser”. As such things go, this was a small event. The candidate was there: a three term Congressman from southern Minnesota; a Democrat in a district that is probably shaded Red (Republican) historically, and reaches […]
UPDATE: If you have not yet read Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, do it…. Tuesday I noted this item on Yahoo news. It includes a remarkable video, worth watching, which at most recent count had been viewed well over 600,000 times on YouTube. You can access the video within the […]