Entries by dickbernard

Armistice Day

POSTNOTE Nov. 12: Yesterday, after the bell-ringing at the Victory Memorial, came some personal reflections on War, generally (see “Later” section).  The most recent, overnight, is an essay from Heather Cox Richardson, on the end of WWI and the almost immediate transition to WWII.  Her note is powerful and you can read it here. On […]

Gaza/Israel (2) one month

Pre-note: Overnight, from Sue: Tuesday night. “Frontline on PBS showed an old documentary of theirs detailing the history of Israeli-Palestinian attempts at peace over a number of years from the Cairo Agreement of 1994 through the Oslo Accords to the Wye River Memorandum to the Camp David Summit and the Taba Summit to the outbreak […]

Gaza/Israel one month

A few brief musings from Oct. 31. One month ago today, October 7, 2023, the carnage occurred ‘outside the walls’ of Gaza in Israel.  I wrote about it on October 8, here, and early on (in a note on Oct. 13) said I’d comment more on the one month anniversary, which is today.  The latest […]

October 31, 2023

Please see endnote as well. Halloween eve it snowed overnight, the first of the season, certainly not the last.  Something we look forward to, and then wonder why….  Here’s the view from the garage at 9 a.m. Tuesday. It brings to mind another Halloween: October 31, 1991.  I was in Hibbing at the time.  Halloween […]

Le Vent du Nord

There is a great plenty of difficult news out there in our world.  This is an opportunity to take a refreshing and very enjoyable break. Last Sunday evening we spent a great couple of hours with the Quebec music group Le Vent du Nord.  There was a full house at the Cedar Cultural Center, Minneapolis. […]

“MEA”

PRENOTE:  Some comments have been added at the very end of the Oct 8 post about Gaza.  Here.  I expect to do a followup post on this topic on Nov.. 4.  Your contribution is solicited. * In a couple of months I’ll mark 24 years retired after a 36 year career in public education.  Nonetheless, […]

Fresh Energy

PRENOTE: I have added some postnotes to last weeks post on Gaza.  Please take a look. * Yesterday we, along with several hundred others, attended the annual breakfast of an organization which does very good work, Fresh Energy. We have contributed substantially to the work of Fresh Energy since 2016.  Fresh Energies mission is “to […]

Israel October 7, 2023

POSTNOTE 6 FEBRUARY 6, 2024: Followup posts: Nov 4, Nov 8, Nov 18, Dec 10, Dec 25,  2023, Feb 5 2024 POSTNOTE 5 October 24, 2023: I continue to seek some kind of reasonably reliable information about what, exactly, Gaza is.  Here’s something from NBC News which seems reasonably reliable and helpful. POSTNOTE 4 October […]

Long term

This is an ‘odd couple’ post, consisting of two recent editorials in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and an update on a previous post.  Three different topics. First, I completed reading Cassidy Hutchinson’s memoir, “Enough“, and I summarize it by adding to my initial post about it, here.  Succinctly, the book was a very good use […]

Haiti, revisited

In December, 2003, and again in March, 2006, I had two opportunities to visit wonderful ordinary people in the country of Haiti. In 2008, four disastrous tropical storms hit Haiti in August and September.  Two years later, Haiti advocates grieved together as Haiti suffered through the unimaginable. tragedy of the earthquake of January, 2010; thence […]