#468 – Dick Bernard: Election, Tuesday, November 8, 2011

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This is an off-year election, but nonetheless with very important local issues.
It brings to mind the 2009 local election in my town, which I wrote about in this space a year ago. You can read it here.
If you don’t care to read the piece linked above, succinctly: there were ten candidates for four school board seats: “When the votes were tallied, the numbers revealed that only 6% – one of every 16 – eligible voters had even bothered to go to the polls. The candidate receiving the greatest number of votes polled 3% of those same eligible voters. That person sits in office today because one of every 33 local citizens took the time to vote.”
A somewhat similar scenario faces us tomorrow. I will report (by update on this post) after November 8. I don’t expect miracles.
Whether one votes, or not; or casts an informed vote, or not, they are in reality “voting”.
A vote is too precious a thing to waste.
If there’s an election in your town, Tuesday, find out what the issues/candidates are and do your best to not only vote, but vote well-informed.

#464 – Rev. Dr. James Gertmenian sermon: A Culture of Contempt

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NOTE FROM DICK BERNARD: An advantage of having even a small network to communicate with is the ever present, and increased, possibility of a nugget dropping in unannounced and unexpected.
Such is the October 16, 2011, sermon “A Culture of Contempt” of Rev. Dr. James Gertmenian, pastor of Plymouth Congregational Church in Minneapolis.
Rev. Gertmenian’s is a powerful and very timely commentary, related to and generally commenting about the currently raging Occupy Wall Street, 99%, Gospel of Success and similar movements.
Here, with Rev. Gertmenian’s permission, is the pdf of the sermon: Gertmenien Oct 16 11001 The sermon is also accessible in its entirety, including the audio version, here.
My friend who alerted me to its existence, Mike Romanov, said this: “I’m Jewish, but this really moved me. You probably know his scriptural references much better than I.”
The Christian Scripture Text is Luke 1:39-56. I include here that text as it appears in my grandmothers 1906 Douay-Reims (Catholic) translation: Luke 1 39-56001
Dr. Gertmenian applies this text in his sermon.
Whatever your relationship with religion, organized or otherwise, I urge you to read and reflect on Dr. Gertmenian’s message, and then act.

#461 – Dick Bernard: Two Trains Running

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Last night we attended August Wilson’s play, Two Trains Running, at St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre. It is a play first performed in the late 1980s, and set in the 1969 African-American community of the Hill District in Pittsburgh.
The Penumbra engagement runs through Sunday, October 30. (click on photo to enlarge)

Two Trains Running is one of August Wilson’s ten now famed “Pittsburgh Cycle”, ten plays, one about each decade of the the Twentieth century, as experienced by African Americans. All but one of the plays is set in his home town of Pittsburgh.
I’ve seen eight of the ten, nearly all at Penumbra Theatre in St. Paul. Last nights performance was also at the Penumbra, the second time I’d seen the play there.
There is more than adequate internet information about the play accessible here. Other blog entries I’ve written about August Wilson are accessible here and here. Both include photos I took of his Pittsburgh in 1998.
August Wilson is now an American institution with two Pulitzer Prizes for his work.
Set simply in a down-at-the-heels restaurant in the Hill District, Two Trains Running has seven characters: the owner, the waitress, and five customers who, in two acts, eight scenes and three hours, comment very powerfully on the matter of personal stories, relationships and contemporary history.
It is a time of tension in the United States and particularly in the African-American community. Pittsburgh’s Hill District is being killed to be reborn through urban-renewal; Malcolm X, though dead some years, lives on in demonstrations occurring somewhere in the city. There remain “two trains running” from Pittsburgh to Jackson, Mississippi, home to the Restaurant owner till the violence of racism drove him north years earlier; bitter personal experiences he could not leave behind.
Into, and out of the Restaurant come the characters who make up its regulars. All are simple yet immensely powerful representatives of lives in the neighborhood. They include the local numbers runner; an ex-con not long out of the penitentiary; a sage elder; a demented street person; a wealthy mortician; the waitress and the owner. They speak their voices; their relationships ebb, flow, ebb again…. They speak “family”, though none are related in the legal sense of that term.
Off-stage, a local prophet, laid out in a casket at the morticians funeral home, draws unseen mourners; a woman, said to be 322 years old, dispenses advice to troubled souls, as might a muse.
We sat in the front row, feet against the stage. We were in that restaurant, and within those characters lives….
It was near 20 years ago when I first saw Two Trains Running at the Penumbra, so it was a new yet old experience last night.
Though there was no way for me, a white man from a country upbringing in North Dakota, to directly identify with the experiences of those in that Pittsburgh restaurant, it was simple enough to see how lives, even of strangers, interact, come together, drift apart.
We may pretend that we can isolate ourselves from others, but we are all family in one way or another. I can only speculate about what August Wilson was saying to us through his characters. His mortician, wealthy because of others deaths, important because of his wealth, would some day die himself, unable to take his wealth along for the ride. Polar opposite, the street person with the grocery cart, obsessed with the ham he’d been promised but never received, probably was every man – each of us.
Last night, Mr. Wilson worked his magic for me once again.
We’ve come a long way since August Wilson’s Pittsburgh, 1969.
Or have we, really?
Maybe when August Wilson was writing his play in one or other restaurant back in the 1980s, he had in mind the 99% vs the 1%. Who knows?
In Two Trains Running there were demonstrators in the streets; there was no work; there was great inequality between those who have, and those who have not.
The message was, in too many ways, spoke to today.

#460 -Dick Bernard: Clueless at the Top

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Last week I had the time to act on a long avoided task. I took on our long neglected bookshelves.
Among the collected works that caught my eye was a book I had purchased in 2005, “Clueless at the Top, While the Rest of Us Turn Elsewhere for Life, Liberty and Happiness” by Charlotte and Harriet Childress. The essence of the book is captured both in the title and at its helpful and informative website, here.
It’s hardly a revelation that we Americans live in a hierarchical (pyramidal) society – perhaps we’re inclined to a hierarchical structure. We seem to want somebody in charge, particularly someone to blame. But the collective body is often ill served by these same clueless leader(s). (I suspect you have someone in mind as “clueless” already.)
Most noticeable are the clueless ones at the top of the big hierarchies: the leaders of the country; of big corporations. They’re convenient targets. Indeed they can do immense damage by virtue of their position. But most likely in the course of any day we will witness many other hierarchies down to the most basic, seemingly never-ending (and endlessly controversial) biblical one: “wives, submit to your husbands” (Colossians 3:18).
At whatever level, hierarchies often create big problems.
As I relooked at the Childress’ volume, it occurred to me that we are ALL “clueless”, every one of us. Within each of us there is the constant struggle between belief and reason, between knowledge and faith, between the easy route and the hard. We lurch between wisdom and cluelessness, hopefully with a bit more wisdom than stupidity!
Sunday night, for a single example, I watched the 60 Minutes segment on recently deceased Steve Jobs, visionary founder of Apple and easily one of the people at the pinnacle of the hierarchy called success. Jobs is legendary and deservedly so (I type this blog on part of his legacy: an iMac).
At the same time, Jobs died at 56, still youthful in his career; his death came at a very early age in contemporary America. In a fateful decision some years ago, he apparently chose to not follow advice to get surgery for cancer when that cancer could conceivably have been cured. Rather, he opted for alternative means which did not work. He followed his own advice, and it served him ill.
Mr. Jobs apparently was no different than the rest of we mere mortals in at least the cluelessness aspect.

So, what to do.
The only reasonable place to start dealing with this cluelessness issue is within ourselves, starting exactly where we are, not even bothering to look elsewhere for people to blame.
Last May we saw a documentary which will be publicly available in a month or two. It is entitled I Am, the Documentary, and its main take-aways for me were 1) the inherent democracy of the natural world, the ability of natural systems to work together cooperatively; 2) what was called The Power of One: the capacity each one of us has to make a positive difference not only for ourselves, but for society at large.
Sunday night, after 60 Minutes, we watched a public television special on “Radioactive Wolves” at Chernobyl 25 years after the catastrophic nuclear meltdown in 1986. What sticks with me from that program were two things: 1) the natural populations (wolves and the like) seem to have recovered without apparent significant long term damage; 2) all that remained of human presence was the abandoned and stark evidence of former human occupation, including the virtually completely abandoned city of Pripyat.
As Chernobyl et al demonstrate daily, there is a great abundance of “Cluelessness at the Top” amongst we humans.
Let’s do what we can within our own individual “pyramids” to make this planet we occupy a better one.

#453 – Dick Bernard: Occupy Wall Street

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As I write, October 13, the Occupy Wall Street initiative seems to be gaining momentum.
Two weeks ago, September 30, I submitted an opinion piece on the issue to my local newspaper at a time when the metro newspapers were ignoring the happenings in New York. I was motivated by the video clip of the folks on Wall Street balconies sipping drinks while overlooking the protestors below. You can view the clip here.
My op ed, “Wall Street Protests Matter to Us”, appeared in yesterday’s Woodbury Bulletin, and speaks for itself.
Tomorrow there is a demonstration in Minneapolis which I will likely try to attend.
The protests are spreading.
But I am reminded of some cautionary thoughts, which seem different, but to me are very directly related.
1) Right or wrong, the Wall Street folks feel that they deserve their excess wealth. This time of year is bonus time “on the Street” and (I hear) $1,000,000 bonuses or more are not uncommon. Folks who get these bonuses are slaves to making money, and labor very hard to make that money for whomever, and have come to expect this wealth, whether deserved or not. If the bonuses are cut somewhat (a likelihood this year), you will hear the weeping and gnashing of teeth all the way out here in the hinterlands.
I recall conversations with a woman about my age at a workshop thirteen years ago. Her daughter was a young analyst on Wall Street, and the previous year had made $800,000. The number sticks in my mind because I was a hard-working guy, in what I felt was a pretty well paying job at the time, and this young woman’s annual take was ten times my own annual salary.
The Mom got some benefits from her daughters success, and who of us can argue when one of our kids makes good? And in our society, the almighty dollar is the usual evidence of making good.
As I say, “right or wrong, the Wall Street folks feel that they deserve their excess wealth.”
(There is nothing intrinsically wrong with money, in my opinion. The ‘devils in the details’ are abundant, however. First is greed, which affects not only aspiring billionaires, but can take root far down the economic ladder as well. As important, if not more, is the lack of long-term vision when it comes to money policy. Wall Street has come to look on this as short-term (annual bonuses for performance, for example); and has imposed even more harsh markers on Business. Talk with anyone in big business, and the “quarterly numbers” will come up. One doesn’t achieve long term goals by being stuck on short-term thinking….)
2) As for protests, they can be good, a means to an end, but they cannot be the end in themselves: (Here is a fascinating column about the New York City Occupy Wall Street group.)
As noted it is possible that I’ll be at the event in Minneapolis tomorrow, but it is unlikely that I will be there for more than that single event. It is a big commitment to drive a distance to such things, and there are competitions for one’s available time and resources.
The protests, which were largely invisible in the national news media when I wrote the op ed two weeks ago, have now become very visible, and they are spreading, and that is good.
But sooner than later they will ebb and once again become invisible on the national media screen. The opposition – the rich 1%ers – know this reality: you simply have to wait out the protests and go on with life as usual.
If the organizers and supporters of these protests are wise they are already planning the next steps beyond the protests.
Next steps include things like I did: submitting a letter or an opinion to the local paper; communicating with others we know, including lawmakers, etc., etc.
The reality is that the ‘system’ we love to hate will ultimately have to create a reasonable solution. Anarchy or the like isn’t a viable option, even though it’s fun for awhile.
3) Finally, there is an argument about “class warfare” out and about.
I don’t doubt at all that there is such a war, and it was a preemptive strike by the privileged 1% against the rest of the population.
But it is important to remember that those 1%ers are not a monolith, all thinking alike.
Always keep in mind the folks like mega-billionaire Warren Buffet who are out there, doing their part as well, and moderate views are an extremely important part of this struggle.
Protests are good, but they are only one tactic in what is a very long term struggle.

#452 – Dick Bernard: Heritage is alive and well! (Part 2 of 4)

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Related posts: here and here and here.
Earlier this summer I more or less formally resigned my volunteer position as family historian. Thirty years and several books was enough, I reasoned.
But one just doesn’t “resign” from such a “career”, I’ve learned, and the past week, which began with publication of this October 5 post on Heritage is evidence.
October 6 I was at the ND farm near Berlin where my mother grew up, helping “rescue” (a favorite term of my Dad) scrap iron for my uncle. In the junk behind a shed we recovered two pieces of farm history: the remnants of two single bottom hand plows (ploughs), the oldest of which (at right in photo below) probably turned the first furrows when Grandma and Grandpa began to plow the virgin sod prairie in 1905. This plow would have been pulled by a team of horses, and the accompanying wooden accessories have long since rotted away, but the business end remains, and is now safely stored in my uncle’s shed. A few days later, I saw a similar though larger plow in Ada MN, a monument to the pioneers who broke ground in that area. That is the second photo, below. (Click on photos to enlarge)
Both ploughs were surprisingly light and in surprisingly good condition, most likely having laid outside for as much as 100 years or more. When I picked them up I was symbolically reconnecting with my grandparents and their heritage.

Remnants of two one-bottom plows, October 6, 2011. Oldest at right.


Monument to pioneers, Ada MN October 10, 2011


A few days later, in Park Rapids MN, I had the privilege of helping lead a group of 59 people in a conversation about Heritage. The base of discussion was the list found here. There was a vibrant and rich conversation among the participants about what their heritage was, and what it might mean. Our 90 minutes flew by. Here’s a photo of the participants in the session:

Park Rapids MN Headwaters Center for Lifelong Learning October 11, 2011, meeting in Community Room of Northwoods Bank, Park Rapids MN


The very act of gathering and conversing about shared and diverse elements of heritage became a community building exercise in itself, one said.
Between October 6 and 11 came other examples of how the melting pot heritage of America is very rich.
October 7 and 8, I participated in the Midwest French Festival and Convention in Moorhead and Fargo. The below photos represent the tiniest view of a vibrant Festival. More photos on Facebook, here.
In order of appearance:
1) Timothy and Doree Kent discussed the Voyageur, Native and Metis life of the 17th Century before several hundred students and adults.

Tim and Doree Kent October 7, 2011


2) Several persons explained, in English, French and Norwegian, the statue of the Norwegian Rollo across from the Sons of Norway Lodge in Fargo. (Rollo had much to do with the history of the French province of Normandy.) (The inscription on the statue in Fargo: “Rollon. Born 860 A.D. at More, Norway. Founded the Dukedom of Normandy 911. His line through William the Conqueror became the Royal House of England 1066 and of Norway 1905.”)

Statue of Rollo, edge of downtown Fargo, ND, October 8, 2011


Reading the history of the Rollo statue in English, French and Norwegian, October 7, 2011


3) Parishioners at the rural Wild Rice ND parish of St. Benoit (Benedict) gave a most interesting tour of their Church, center of a community with a rich and long French-Canadian heritage.

A tour of St. Benoit Parish, Wild Rice ND, October 8, 2011


4) Dan Truckey, Director, Beaumier Heritage Center, Northern Michgian University, Marquette and Dave Bezotte, Archivist, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, gave a workshop, and performed French-Canadian music for the group. Both are involved in keeping French-Canadian heritage alive in the Upper Peninsula.

Dave Bezotte and Dan Truckey perform at the conference, October 7, 2011


5) In the evening, the great Quebec group Le Vent Du Nord gave a fabulous concert. Later this month they are among a select group of world musicians performing at a major gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark. Many samples of their music can be found on YouTube, and at their website is the Sep 17, 2011, performance of Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion, on which they were guest artists.

Le Vent du Nord, Fargo ND, October 8, 2011


Group Dance to the Musique of Le Vent du Nord October 8, 2011


There is, literally, no end to the potential for conversations about our heritage, and the conversations are interesting and indeed essential. We are, indeed, who we came from; and we live on in those who descend from us.
October 10, at Itasca Park, at the headwaters of the Mississippi River, we came across a family celebration. We don’t know the persons names: the elders had their first date at the headwaters in 1948. She was 17 from Osakis MN, he 21, from Floodwood MN. They married, lived and are now retired in California, and they were joined by some of their family. Their family, joined with others from many cultures, many countries and many places in the U.S., make up our collective country and world heritage.
Let us celebrate Heritage in the broadest and most positive sense.

At Lake Itasca MN, Headwaters of the Mississippi R, October 10 2011

#448 – Dick Bernard: Ken Burns "Prohibition"

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We watched the first segment of Ken Burns latest documentary on PBS last night. (Part 2 of the 3 part series is tonight at 7 p.m. Sunday nights program here. More details including archived material here.)
I very highly recommend watching the entire series…and doing more than just watching: it is a natural for very serious reflection.
Disclaimer: I am not a tee-totaler. On the other hand, if I was the statistical average for consumption of beer, wine and spirits, the alcohol industry would scarcely exist. My parents were, I believe, tee-totalers. They never said why, but my guess is that for both of them, their opinion was formed through earlier family experience. I’m the family historian. I can speculate.
As I watched Prohibition last night, I kept thinking of the arrangement on my office bookshelf, which has been directly behind me whenever I’m at this computer screen, and has been the same for many years (you can click on the photo to enlarge).

Front and center is a Crucifixion in a bottle, one of several made by my Grandfather Bernard at some point in his life. The bottles, all the same, were said to be whiskey bottles. Grandpa in his early life was a carpenter, a lumberjack and miner, later in life chief engineer in a flour mill. According to my Dad he did these creations himself. They are rough yet precise works. It is unknown when he crafted them. He died in 1957.
To the left of the whiskey bottle is a goblet made of shell casings by my Uncle Frank, Grandpa’s son and Dad’s brother, in the machine shop of the ill-fated USS Arizona (where Frank died and his burial place). Behind the goblet is a model of the Arizona. To the right is a mini-Peace Pole given to me by my friend Melvin Giles some years ago. And behind all of them is a portion of an American flag. Invisible to the right is a model of the Destroyer Woodworth, on which my Mother’s brother, Uncle George, was an officer in WWII.
As I say, all of these have a long history at this particular place in my office, behind my computer screen. Together they evoke “America”. And at the center of it all is a Whiskey Bottle and a Crucifixion scene….
Part One of “Prohibition” recounts the nearly 100 year effort to ban alcohol in the United States. It is a story full of personal tragedies, zealots, charismatic evangelists, superb lobbyists, and the usual collection of political characters, saloon keepers and charlatans.
Prohibition became the 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States in 1920.
Part two and three of the series will detail the failure of this campaign prohibiting a behavior and the ultimate repeal of the Amendment – the first (and last) such action ever in the 224 year history of the Constitution. What good it might have done was likely exceeded by the negatives.
The learning opportunity from this film comes, in my opinion, not from the event itself, but how it relates to all manner of schemes and causes to require this, forbid that, or condemn the other.
The list is very, very long. Pick your particular bias – something that you think should be done, and required of everyone. It’s on my list. And there’s some charismatic leader who can sing a mean song, and some passionate zealous followers who cannot conceive a country or a world without their passion being enacted to their satisfaction. The cause is their crusade.
As prohibition proved, such things never ever work. The experiment in prohibition should be an object lesson.
But, you say, “that was then, and this is now”?
Sure it is.
Think.
UPDATE October 5, 2011: We watched Parts 2 and 3 of Prohibition on Monday and Tuesday evening.
I’d highly recommend the entire Prohibition series for stone-sober viewing and then deep reflection about what will (not “can”, but “will”) go wrong, for any zealots, ideologues, moralists, etc. who think they can successfully manipulate American diversity by their own scheme or design. This includes the ones who claim to have the objective truth, not to mention God firmly on their side.
As the five hour series demonstrates, you can reach a peak in power and influence, but it is a long and certain fall from the pinnacle in ways you could not anticipate, and in the process you inflict considerable damage upon the very society you proclaim to save.
As I mentioned, I am neither a tee-totaler nor a drinker worthy of the label.
Makes no difference, I’ve seen the ups and downs of this and many other issues over the years. The ideals collapse upon very different realities.
I never studied the subject of alcohol (and tobacco) consumption, other than by observation during my adult life. Legally mandated notice about such as the dangers of alcohol and tobacco use certainly did have a positive impact. But, I think, the greatest impact on the body politic was simple changes in the way people were, together. It used to be, for instance, that you could find accommodation for smoking everywhere. Today smoking is by no means an endangered vice, but it doesn’t hold a candle to what it used to be, and nobody had to pass a constitutional amendment to make that so.
This will not stop the power people from attempting to move their own political agendas, from attempt to outlaw certain kinds of marriage, to mandating war without end, to perpetual and enduring peace, to ridding the world of abortion, or to rendering irrelevant certain political factions which hold different opinions from the temporarily dominant majority. Dreams ultimately collide with reality.
All the carefully concocted schemes will, at minimum, collapse over time, leaving rubble in their wake.
Will our societ collapse along with them?
Go to the link at the top of the page to rewatch the series, or check with your local PBS station.
Don’t miss it.

#447 – Dick Bernard: A 1977 visit to the Renaissance Festival

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Today is the last day of the 2011 Renaissance Festival in suburban Minneapolis MN.
Friday’s local news brought a story about a fire at the Festival. Several food vendors shops burned to the ground. The fireman being interviewed said that they were hampered by the fact that they had to truck in water to fight the fire: there are apparently no fire hydrants on the grounds of this seasonal event.
No modern fire control measures on-site: that’s very renaissance, even medieval.
It happened that the Renaissance Festival had come to mind recently, as I had come across an old strip of negatives which were unidentified, and I took them in to get a few prints to hopefully date the strip.
It turned out that the pictures were taken in late summer of 1977, and four of them were taken at the Twin Cities Renaissance Festival that year (remaining photos at the end of this post, click to enlarge.)

Renaissance Festival, likely 1977, rural Shakopee MN. That young lady with the Turkey leg is likely over 40 years old today.


Though I have no “evidence”, I can remember being at the first Renaissance Festival, at the then “new town” of Johnathan MN in 1971. The Festival really expanded when it moved to rural Shakopee some time thereafter, and we usually joined the throng in those early years.
Being the Renaissance Festival, the event was frozen in time. It ends today, and until I saw the news had no particular thought of going out there, but maybe we’ll make the trek across town just cuz of the news combined with those old photos.
As part of the news program, one shop owner whose nook survived the fire, noted that a concrete wall between his and the other establishments probably saved his business. That’s very un-Renaissance.
In the real Renaissance times, indeed, much, much more recently in even recent history, a fire would have meant the end of the entire complex or town.
We’ve moved beyond that, with fire departments, and communities who fund such public services with taxes.
Thankfully for those folks who have businesses at the Festival, fire rigs with water could save most of them.
And how about that little girl in the first photo (above)? She’s likely now over 40. One would bet that the vendor preparing that turkey leg back then, and today as well, is fettered (and helped) by this-or-that governmental regulation to keep everyone’s food safe….


#443 – Dick Bernard: Homeless.

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This morning, as usual, we went downstairs at our church for the usual coffee and donuts. (Our place is the Basilica of St. Mary’s at the near edge of downtown Minneapolis – it is a downtown parish – a place of diverse sorts of people.)
I got my coffee and donut and saw a lady sitting at a table by herself. “Mind if we join you?” I asked. “Fine”, she said. She was well-dressed, looking to be in later middle age, with what appeared to be a nice piece of luggage on one of those portable pull carts.
Making small talk, I said, “it looks like you’re traveling“. It was a somewhat obvious observation. We’re an easy and safe walk to the convention center, and the church gets lots of visitors.
Probably she had been to some conference, and was taking in Mass before catching a cab for the airport….
She didn’t respond to me. She finished her coffee, got up abruptly, and then very angrily said “if it makes any difference, I’m retired and I’m homeless.” Apparently there had been some court case in New York which she had lost. She stormed off to wherever, with no chance for us to say anything, as if she would have wanted us to say anything. There are times when less is best.
Two other people had joined us by then. It was a puzzling happening for all of us.
There is a “profile” of homeless. We see lots of homeless in this social gathering hall after Mass. But they LOOK like homeless are “supposed” to look. Yes, it’s a stereotype, but mostly these folks, mostly men, sometimes a few women, stand out from the usual crowd. This lady didn’t look homeless, not in the least. But apparently she was.
As I write, before noon on this same day, I’m just beginning to process what I just experienced.
In a surface sense, everything in our society, at this moment, looks sort of normal. Even with high unemployment, 91% of us are making a living (85% if you throw in the people who have given up on looking for work.)
It is easy to pretend that there is no underclass, inexorably increasing.
We’re in a family that is experiencing the creeping problem of unemployment within our own family circle. Makes it much harder NOT to notice….
Beyond the rhetoric, somewhere as I type, is this attractive well-dressed older woman pulling her luggage, and carrying a back pack.
It is certain she wasn’t being facetious.
What is her story, I wonder.
Where will she be tonight, this coming week, this winter, next year?
I think I know what I’ll be thinking about on this walk I’m about to take.
What lessons can be learned, and applied to our ever meaner society?

#442 – Dick Bernard: The Week that included the International Day of Peace September 18-24, 2011

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When I posted #441 on September 21, I was unsure whether or not the International Day of Peace would be of consequence or even noted.
Looking back a few days, there was a great plenty of notice about the Day of Peace, some very positive, some very negative, all very public.
The Thursday Minneapolis Star Tribune had a front page article on the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia…on the International Day of Peace. The entirety of page three of the paper related to President Obama’s address to the United Nations.
Former President George W. Bush was in St. Louis Park for a fundraiser on Peace Day, and a full third of page B3 of the newspaper – essentially the only coverage of the event – was of a protest against the Bush administrations sanction of torture.
In the “is the glass half full or half empty” analogy, I would give Peace a very strong showing this week, even though there is plenty of negative to emphasize.
The Presidents address to the UN was measured and instructive: taking the world as it is, and strongly encouraging, for example, direct negotiations between Palestine and Israel on long-term Peace. As such highly public events work, no doubt both Israeli and Palestinian leaders knew in advance what the President was going to say: this is the nature of diplomacy. Peace cannot be imposed on societies, as we’ve learned over and over again. Societies need to come to their own conclusion. We cannot impose, only facilitate or interfere with, agreement.
As to the tragic Troy Davis decision, I tried to articulate my position in a proposed letter to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, submitted today. I said:
“Regardless of Charles Lanes opinion on the correctness of Troy Davis’ execution on Sep 21, (ironically the International Day of Peace), state sanctioned punishment by death is a dying proposition…and it will be a well deserved death when it comes.
I am reminded of the distinction between two words: decide and choose. When one decides something, all other options are removed. The root for decide is shared with words like suicide, homicide, fratricide, and on and on. There is no turning back from a terminal decision, like a sentence to death. It feels good for awhile (our prisons are full of murderers); but does it help society to be a murderer itself?
Choice at least has room for redemption or correction.
Back in 1991, shortly before the famed Halloween Blizzard, I read about and attended a commemorative service in a Duluth church cemetery. Three black men with a carnival had been lynched in Duluth in 1920 for the alleged rape of a white woman. There was no corroborating evidence.
The men were buried in unmarked graves and on that late October day in ’91, a group of us gathered at their discovered graves to recognize their untimely and unjust end.
At the time of their lynching, one youngster in the lynching crowd in downtown Duluth apparently justified the action: “they was just niggers”.
We’ve advanced, but the primitive instinct of that youngster is alive and well and in our society.”
We’re a complicated world, and there were/are doubtless endless examples of good and evil on Wednesday, September 21, 2011, as on every other day of the week and every week preceding and to follow.
For the long haul, Gandhi said it best: “we must be the change we wish to see in the world”.
Gandhi, assassinated in 1948, never succeeded in his quest, but his messages are before us, every day. We MUST be the change….
Peace is a destination; the Road to Peace is one we must travel each day.
Think Peace, and work for it.