Recently I attended a greatly informative information meeting on the realities about, and need for, Universal Health Care. The meeting was facilitated by the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition. The experience led me to recall my own personal history, which was published as a column in today’s edition of the Woodbury (MN) Bulletin. The column […]
I have watched the news about Haiti until I can’t watch much of it any more. I ask you to be very, very attentive to Haiti long after the TV cameras leave and the fundraising appeals end, and we move on to other things, as we always do. Collectively, we Americans have a very short […]
Last night, we listened to the magnificent Minnesota Orchestra as the front band for the 1939 classic film “Wizard of Oz”. It was a wonderful evening. I felt a bit guilty being there, given what has happened in Haiti in the last few days; on the other hand, we had these tickets for almost a […]
UPDATE: Sunday, January 17: It was reported today that Fr. Hagan, who was back in Port-au-Prince at the time of the earthquake, was injured. His office and guesthouse destroyed, and school damaged. Just one of endless fragments of information coming out of Port-au-Prince. Saturday afternoon we went to early Mass at Basilica of St. Mary […]
So, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid is being drawn and quartered for remarks made about candidate Barack Obama in the run-up to the 2008 Presidential election. “There but for the grace of God go I”, and probably most everyone else, of any ethnicity, anywhere. As a good friend of mine is wont to say “give me […]
UPDATE January 12, 2010: I have been most intrigued by the assorted interpretations, on all “sides”, about the real meaning of most everything about Avatar. About all I can say is that it serves a useful function in causing thought and (hopefully) conversation. Now, if the assorted “sides” could dialogue with each other about the […]
Wednesday of this week a good friend from the old teacher bargaining days, Paul, met me for coffee at a St. Paul restaurant. He, his wife and I talked about many things, and part of our time was about the raggedness of today’s political conversation in this country, even within “birds of a feather”. Among […]
UPDATE January 8, 2010, by James Nelson: On December 17th, the day I left Copenhagen, a 22 minute film was debuted concerning wide scale revegetation in developing countries. They talk about trees but they primarily use shrubs and deep rooted grasses. The film is entitled “Hope in a Changing Climate“. The case studies are from […]
We haven’t seen the just-released blockbuster “Avatar” as yet. This review has increased my interest in actually seeing the movie. Of course, Avatar is not “real”, as in reality, but sometimes films like these are helpful to think more seriously about the longer term. It apparently is a fantasy encouraging people to really look at […]
UPDATE January 7, 2010: Representative comments follow, plus a followup observation from the writer of the original post. (I have disabled comments due to an avalanche of ‘spam’. My e-mail address is on the “About” page.) Yesterday afternoon an e-mail announced that I was on YouTube. Since I’ve not been on YouTube before (at least […]