Saturday night the U.S. Senate voted 60-39 to avoid filibuster on the Health Care Reform Issue. Every Republican voted “no”. The realistic expectation from here on out is that the Republican mantra will be to make sure Health Care Reform fails; indeed, that anything that the Democrats and/or President Obama wants will fail. It’s a […]
Monday and Tuesday I took a trip out to ND to give my Uncle a little help at the farm near Berlin; the place where Mom grew up ‘way back when’. The hardest part of the work is the drive back and forth, though there was some heavy lifting that needs two people. This time […]
Yesterday my Uncle Vince and I were driving down a country road* near his farm, and and out of the blue he said, “tomorrow must be Armistice Day, right?” Right, indeed. I was surprised to hear him call it Armistice Day, since in the U.S. it’s been called Veteran’s Day since 1954, when an act […]
Note: Anneliese Solch, later to become Annelee Woodstrom, grew up in the small community of Mitterteich in Adolf Hitler’s Germany. She was 7 years old when Hitler came to power in 1933, and was drawn to the exciting things that might be available to her if she became part of the Hitler Youth. Her parents […]
I live in an affluent community. There is no “other side of the tracks” unless one counts a few Habitat for Humanity houses not far from here, or some lower income apartments. This is a well educated place, full of professional types. My community is one of several who are part of our local school […]
Recently, I’ve read several articles, research based, on the truly dangerous behavior of humans: denying reality. The long and short: we live in a society where we believe what we want to believe…and most of us are in a position, at least for the moment, where we can get away with it. Climate Change? No […]
Last week I was invited to one of those events that have hard and fast ground rules. In this one, a prominent speaker speaks; the condition the listeners are asked to accept is to not breach confidentiality. In some senses it is a very reasonable rule: a person would like some reasonable chance to be […]
“Iraq” is one of those words-never-uttered-in-polite-conversation these days. Even in the protest community, out-of-Afghanistan is more in as the issue du jour. Iraq does come up, but only indirectly, and not by name: there is worry about our horrible national debt…but not much focus on where much of that national debt came from: almost a […]
Thursday we attended a luncheon for a group, Friends of the Orphans #mce_temp_url# . The Town and Country Club in St. Paul was packed with persons, there to learn about helping bring hope to orphans in Haiti, Central and South America. Our guest speaker was Fr. Rick Frechette of the Passionist Mission in Haiti. Fr. Rick […]
This morning a New York Times bulletin said “Obama Declares H1N1 Flu a National Emergency“. The summary said “Mr. Obama had signed a proclamation that would allow medical officials to bypass certain federal requirements. Officials described the move as similar to a declaration ahead of a hurricane making landfall.” Preparedness is great. But my initial […]