On check-in at my hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, I asked if the August Wilson Center (AWC) was somewhere in the neighborhood. That was an easy question: it was three short blocks away. I walked there, and found the back side of it was visible from my 15th floor room (the orange traffic signs are alongside […]
A brief trip to Chicago in early March was to attend the burial of my Uncle Art. As it happened, my hotel was in the “village” of Westchester (pop. app 17,000), a middle class suburb where my Uncle and family had lived for over 20 years till his first wife died and he remarried and […]
Today I was at the local copy place, making a photo copy of my mother’s first contract as a teacher. Busch Esther 1929 contra001. At the next copier, a young woman was making large numbers of copies on colored paper. A somewhat older woman, though much younger than I, was with her. We struck up […]
As I write, in the background is Wolf Blitzer and Company at CNN already endlessly analyzing the actions in Libya today. A retired General is talking. Of course, everyone is a war expert. War is always interesting, and a launching platform for all points of view. Peace is boring, or so it seems. How do […]
Today’s newspaper brought news that Garrison Keillor might, just might, retire in 2013, leaving Prairie Home Companion (PHC) in the hands of someone else. Precisely when Garrison will no longer be part of the picture is an unknown, probably including to himself. But as someone a couple of years senior to Keillor in age, I […]
Note from Dick Bernard: This Essay seems particularly appropriate to present at the anniversary of the bombing of Iraq March 19, 2003, and our seeming continued reverence for War as a solution for human problems. Our wonderful friend, Annelee Woodstrom, grew up in Nazi Germany. She was 7 when Hitler came to power in 1933, […]
Sunday afternoon, enroute to other things, I found a cartoon I had saved for some reason back in March of 2002. (Click on photo to enlarge.) About the same time I found the cartoon, came a CBS “60 Minutes” segment on a New York City experimental school that pays $125,000 a year. You can see […]
Early last evening we were having a light meal at a nearby hotel before hearing the Minnesota Orchestra in Minneapolis. (Magnificent concert, as always.) Our server, Mindy E., took my credit card to ring up the bill, and on return asked me “are you a teacher?” She had seen the imprint on the credit card; […]
The bizarre drama that is Wisconsin continues to play itself out. It is a very high stakes and scary game, where an ideological fringe has, for the moment, managed to seize control of the government and is asserting its will. In the end the ultimate victims of this power play, the working middle class, will […]
The document which makes up the title of this post is 48 pages and was written by Dick Bernard between September, 2008, and July, 2012. It speaks for itself, including, especially, the word “Uncomfortable”. Uncomfortable Essays 2008-2012 It consists of 17 Essays on assorted topics which could generically be considered thoughts on more effective organizing […]