Entries by dickbernard

French-Canadians: A Family History

PRE-NOTE: This post is a new book, presented with permission of the author.  More below.  There are four preceding posts you might wish to view as well: The Solar Eclipse (April 9); Propaganda (April 11); Senate District Convention (April 12); and Covid-19 first year (April 6).   The Covid post includes several recent comments. * […]

Senate District 47

Last Saturday I attended the local (Senate District 47 DFL) Political Convention.  I’m Democrat, so it was the DFL (Democratic-Farmer-Labor) Convention.  This was the second Convention enroute to Election 2024.  Precinct caucuses, (Feb. 27),  elected delegates to the District Convention; Saturdays District Convention elected delegates for the upcoming Congressional District Convention (May 4 in St. […]

Propaganda

Lest it be lost, below, I urge you to set aside the time to read this long commentary from a blogger I’ve never heard of: Terri Kanefield (note the April 6 post) This is long.  Take the time, agree, disagree, but do take the time….  Thanks to Molly for letting me know about it. * […]

Eclipse of the Sun, April 8, 2024

I was curious about solar eclipses in the United States since we became a nation.  Here’s the list. Yesterday’s eclipse in Rochester NY, mid afternoon wasn’t directly visible to the locals. Below photo by and of John Bernard in Rochester area on April 8….  The internet report about Rochester NY for April 8.  I knew […]

Covid-19: The first year, some personal recollections

Four years ago, as Covid-19 strangled all of our ‘business as usual’ notions, there still seems a national PTSD.   We all have our stories. I decided to use my time ‘in quarantine’ 2020-21 to sort through and label over 20,000 photos then-and-still stored on my computer.  Most photos were unlabeled.   (Most were digital, […]

After Easter: a time to focus on the future.

This morning I surprised a Ma and Pa Duck out scouting for a nesting place.  Memo to Ma and Pa: there are better places than a bush besides a busy sidewalk…good hunting.  A few minutes earlier I remarked to a fellow walker in the Health Center my prediction that there’s at least one decent snowstorm […]

Windmill

Overnight Tuesday came an e-mail from a friend, commenting on a Frank Lloyd Wright home she know, somewhere. The reference jogged me to think back to mid-October, 2013, visiting Wright’s Taliesin, Spring Green WI, and seeing a unique windmill there (see photos at end of this post).  In turn, that caused me to think of […]

Easter

PRE-NOTE: I recommend the on-line program Monday March 25.  Details, scroll down here. This morning (Saturday March 23) at 6 a.m. I was arriving at my coffee shop, and directly ahead of me was the most striking view of a full moon I have ever seen.  It was about tree top level, soon to set. […]

Israel/Palestine

The emphasis of this post is the upcoming talk by Nurit Peled-Elhanan (see below).  All I know about the talk and speaker is what you see below.  To be clear, what the speaker will likely talk about is common in how national histories are conveyed.  All who feel they’re part of a dominant culture or […]

Haiti

The major headline in today’s Minneapolis StarTribune: “U.S. ups embassy security in Haiti.  Military flies to capital with gangs largely in control“. This is not the kind of publicity one likes to see.  The details are readily available on-line, so I won’t go into the current event.  Rather, I want to afford an opportunity to […]