#396 – Dick Bernard: Day Six of the Minnesota Shutdown; 27 days to August 2 in Washington. Messing with our minds?

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Related commentaries begin with #387 and #389, thence continuing through this post. This series will likely continue, almost daily, through August 2, 2011.
Down deep, most of us really want to believe that “they” (the politicians or parties we habitually vote for, or the religious or other powerful leaders we truly respect or resonate with) are really honest good people. It’s those other ones who aren’t…or so we convince ourselves.
What if our generalization isn’t true?
A quote I have always remembered – well enough to easily google it successfully last evening – was from the New York Times Magazine October 17, 2004.
The article was Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush by Ron Suskind.
Well down in the article, in the paragraph which begins “The aide said…“, is this quote: “…”We’re an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality…we’ll act again, creating other new realities….” What the aide was really saying was “we’re creating our own truth”.
Six years later, in the late summer of 2008, this new reality came home to roost, and America itself virtually collapsed. We’re still paying the price.
While the “aide” is nowhere revealed by name (it is common to have such anonymous ‘background’ interviews), what is said bears the paw prints of none other than Karl Rove, a high-level White House aide to Bush who for many years has been expert in the trade of diversion, disrupt and confuse tactics in contemporary politics. As this “aide” says, Rove specializes, still, in “creating new realities”. It has worked spectacularly well. But it is a false reality.
Rove no longer has a White House office, but he is in a far more central and dangerous (in my opinion) position in the contemporary game of playing politics with peoples lives, and indeed the life of our very society. While likely supposedly independent of the Republican political operation he is backed by very big money and will be extraordinarily central to the entire Republican campaign in 2012, which has begun already with the pending chaos in Washington DC, the government shutdown in my own state, and the problems in neighboring Wisconsin and other states.
While such can never be proven, if there’s a dirty trick out there, odds are it will come from within Rove’s playbook for manipulating opinion.
I don’t underestimate Rove’s capacity for deviousness. Since I first started having an active interest in how Rove operates – it was July, 1999, when he co-starred with George W. Bush, Joe Albaugh and Karen Hughes in long profiles in the Washington Post long preceding the official 2000 political season – I’ve watched for evidence of his almost trade-marked dirty tricks, performed by he and his abundant disciples.
His has always been an amoral world. Politics is considered psychological warfare. I would suppose Rove goes to church somewhere, sometime – certainly a Christian one – and I am quite sure he can disconnect his “professional” life from his personal. After all, if a carnie huckster can flim flam a rube out of a few dollars, why not a larger scale flim flam with a much larger number of rubes who can be made to believe almost anything.
There is a big problem with mythical realities as opposed to more genuine ones: mythical realities don’t exist other than in the minds of those who believe in them, and when the dream turns out to be bogus, its too late to do anything about it.
We are so awash in political lies that it is prudent to take at face value nothing which emanates in the political sphere that purports to be true. The false reality is slowly built, insinuation by insinuation; dirty trick by dirty trick. If your official source of political information is television ads, or talk radio, there is little chance of getting some kind of objective truth.
I don’t possess a magic wand for dealing with this problem, except to recommend being very skeptical. The coming year and a half we will be awash in huge amounts of money expended by shadowy PACs on convincingly put together lies about those they favor, and those they wish to destroy.
In the end, we’ll be the beneficiary, or the victim, of decisions we make.
It’s in our court.

#390 – Dick Bernard: Getting to a settlement

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As I write, 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 29, 2011, my spouse, Cathy, is down in the ‘grand canyons’ of downtown Minneapolis, representing our homeowners association at a last ditch mediation to attempt to resolve a matter involving several hundred thousand dollars. Actually, it’s high-priced lawyers who are representing all sides in this now nearly three year old case; Cathy is there as the Association President.
This is the first time Cathy’s been in such a proceeding and it will be interesting to hear her report by phone from time to time today. I have career long experience in this drill of attempting to settle issues, so I know how this process can work, or not….
Enroute to Minneapolis, Cathy drove within sight of the Minnesota State Capitol where a political stalemate is within a day of causing a major government shutdown at midnight June 30. I won’t predict whether they’ll settle or not. I hope they do. Wisely, the leaders of the parties have at least agreed to go behind closed doors, attempt to reach an agreement, and avoid creating a circus atmosphere. (There is a distinct and very important difference between what is happening here, and what happened in Wisconsin back in March. There, one party controls Governor, House and Senate; here the Governor is one party, the House and Senate another.)
In one corner, here in Minnesota, are a motherhood-and-apple pie appearing Young Mom-kind of person who is the Senate Majority leader; and a Jack-Armstrong-All-American [farm] Boy look-alike who’s House Majority Leader. In the other is the wealthy scion of one of Minnesota’s most prominent families, who’s experienced personally the downsides of life, and has scads of political experience. Both sides have a lot of support. There is a huge amount at stake if they can’t settle their differences and come to an agreement that can then justify a special session to ratify the terms of their agreement.
On the outside are ‘we, the people’: the people my Dad used to call ‘kibitzers’ or ‘sidewalk superintendents’ – knowing little or nothing, but having absolute kinds of opinions about what ‘they’ should or should not do, or, alternatively, attempting to wash our hands of the responsibility for the train wreck that we are witnessing not only in our state, but in Washington D.C.
I have my own opinions about what should be done to solve the logjams, but they are just opinions, like everyone elses.
I’m not sitting in those talks that are going on in assorted ways in assorted places. I’ve been in all sorts of similar settings, and I know the heat is on all of those leaders to get something constructive done.
I do have an opinion about what needs to change if we are ever going to go back to the kind of country we used to be:
So long as we choose to consider only one side of the story, and to listen to only one sides point of view, and associate only with people of like minds, we are going to stay paralyzed.
So long as we adhere to a philosophy that declares that our truth or belief alone must prevail, and that we must reject any other beliefs or truths, we will continue to fail.
So long as we have a notion that if we can just say ‘no’ long enough that we will get what we want, at the others expense, we are doomed.

I see little glimmers of hope, but the glimmers are small.
I hope Cathy comes home with a report of a tentative settlement in the mediation today; and that there is no government shutdown tomorrow night in Minnesota.
We need to get ‘er done.

#388 – Dick Bernard: Gay Marriage in New York State

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Early last evening I was watching my usual news program and a guest was talking about how New York Legislature was about to pass a law authorizing same sex marriage in the state of New York. I’ve been around political decision making for long enough, and closely enough, to question the judgment of a premature announcement of a bill which would be, but had not yet, passed and was still questionable…one doesn’t announce a victory with ten minutes left in, say, a basketball game.
But announced it was. And it happened. And it apparently has already been signed into law by its architect, Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
There will be countless opinions flooding the news on this issue. Here is my small ‘squeak’.
This is great news, long overdue. As I understand the law, my Catholic Church doesn’t have to marry Gays; neither can it block Gays from getting married.
This is a very big deal on a great many levels. To me, it is one more piece of evidence that sanity is beginning to return to the political conversation – and by “politics” I mean “people”, generally.
I’m straight, and I thus have no direct personal “frame” to understand the Gay perspective. But that’s the most important reason why such a Law as this is good.
Even most religious leaders who despise what they consider the Gay lifestyle seem to agree that God approves of Gays – at least they admit this on paper. But they don’t understand how it is to be Gay, thus they attempt to throw the theological “Book” – their interpretation of the Bible – at it. “Belief” is made to reign.
I really don’t care if my local Archbishop doesn’t like this new Law, or if my local legislator recently went with the majority to deliberately bypass Minnesota’s Governor and authorize an initiative on the 2012 election ballot to enshrine into our Constitution a provision making gay marriage unconstitutional.
New York went with common sense last night.
(I wonder if our Legislature rules are similar to those in Roberts Rules: where decisions made can be reversed if people who voted on the prevailing side move and second to rescind their previous action. If so, maybe this is still a possibility. In fact, I had this as one of my possible questions at a Forum with Legislators a couple of Mondays ago.)
What happened in New York State overnight was a huge big deal. It won’t make the issue go away in other places. But it will be instructive; and it will empower people like ourselves to speak more confidently and informed about this issue.
I think of two evenings ago, at our annual suburban political party picnic.
This years event was in relative terms lightly attended, largely due to chilly and uncertain weather. We had the usual political speakers, but the first one was very unusual for us. Teresa Nelson, Legal Counsel of the Minnesota branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, addressed us about two issues she felt were absolutely critical for basic civil rights in the upcoming year.

Teresa Nelson, June 23, 2011


The first issue was the proposed constitutional amendment on marriage; the second was another proposed constitutional amendment on a voter id bill whose only purpose is to suppress citizen right and ability to vote. Both are, among many others, national initiatives appearing in many places in slightly different forms.
We citizens have work to do in the coming months. Too many of us have not been engaged. If this applies to you, now is the time.
I offer one last thought on the marriage issue:
My hobby for 30 years has been family history.
In the course of researching my French-Canadian side I came across the marriage contract between my first Bernard ancestors in Quebec, in the year 1730. The translation of this contract is Quebec Marriage Cont001
It is worth taking the time to really analyze this contract: who it was with, what it says, etc. (Here’s the summary: the 1730 document was a civil contract, between the parties and the State, to be followed, two weeks later, by the religious Matrimony….)
Of course, Quebec then was an exclusively Catholic country, so the marriage ultimately had to be finalized in the Catholic Church.
But the U.S. is not Quebec. And the Catholic Church in today’s Quebec is, I’m told, all but completely irrelevant….
UPDATE: This over nite blog post does a good job of defining what’s going on with the political decision making on this and other issues as well.

#387 – Dick Bernard: Politics, the business of talking and listening and seeking agreement when agreement doesn't seem possible.

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Last night I watched President Obama’s thirteen minute address to the nation on Afghanistan.
I felt it was a thoughtful speech, and it takes no long leap to state that every word, every inflection, everything, was very, very carefully put together for presentation to a diverse and immense world-wide audience including friends and enemies alike. This was not some soapbox kind of oration. Words do matter. Even its brevity fit within YouTube standards (which, in turn, fit within our national attention span, which is, regrettably, very short.)
We watched the address within our usual news show, and a 13 minute speech doesn’t do much damage to an hour program, so, of course, the end of the speech was followed by the grave analysis of what the President said, or didn’t say, or should have said, etc. All of this was to be expected. Ditto the commentaries that will flood the internet, etc., etc., etc.
I respected the analysts last night, but I didn’t stick around to hear their very predictable analysis. They were there to buttress their ‘truth’ as they perceive it to be. If only every one felt the same.
The speech came after a rather significant ten or so days for this individual blogger.
Included was a very respectful hour on a recent Saturday with Sen. Al Franken, his aide, and 20 of us, sharing views on critical issues like Israel/Palestine; Afghanistan draw-down; military spending. Sen. Franken gave us an hour of his time – a rather precious commodity when his constituency is 5 million people. You learn quickly that a focused hour is a very short period of time, and about the best you can expect – which is the best of all – is an opportunity to take the measure of each others feelings, thoughts and perhaps, even, gaps in information, including in one’s own information. Twenty different sets of ears, even if ideologically in general agreement, hear the exact same thing in twenty different ways. Imagine how complex it becomes at President Obama’s level, or at Senator Franken’s.
(click on photo to enlarge)

MN Sen. Al Franken, June 11, 2011


A couple of days later I listened to a briefing by three Minnesota State Legislators giving their views of the intense negotiations now taking place to avoid a government shutdown on June 30. Again, these were ‘birds of a feather’ – people I would ideologically agree with, though not from my district. In assorted ways they conveyed the complexities of the issues to be addressed.
“Reform” is an oft-bandied about term, and one gets the sense that most of us are in favor of reform only if it makes our position stronger; we rail against it if we fear it will weaken our relative position. Of course, politics enters in to these conversations, and negotiations of differences in a fishbowl is a contemporary reality that (even coming from a proponent of open government) leaves something to be desired.
There is something to be said for being forced to sit together, privately, until something is resolved that both sides can own.

Legislators briefing citizens June 13, 2011


There were several more meetings on substantive things these past ten days. At each, the result was the same: if you sit with others of different views, you can learn something. But you can’t isolate yourself with ‘birds of a feather’ and expect to either possess the ‘truth’ or to prevail in your argument within a larger society.
The day before President Obama’s speech, two of us met with a young woman, a Senior this fall at Swarthmore College, who has taken on a most interesting task for a senior thesis: to talk to people about how they talk about our involvement in Iraq, past and present. Allison is a young person from both conservative and liberal roots in a rural midwestern state, going to a College in a major eastern city. She is involved in what I believe is a major project of major importance to us all.
If we can’t listen to and value and learn from each others opinions, how can we expect to resolve anything, politically or otherwise?

#386 – Dick Bernard: My 2:43 Speech*, and some thoughts on Climate Change

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* June 17, in this space, I related a dream about a 2:43 speech.
Here’s my version of that speech, considerably shorter than two minutes.
“Speak your truth to others, particularly those who may disagree with you. Listen. Learn. Participate. Keep open the possibility that there may be flaws in what you believe to be true. Listen outward, beyond your own preferred circle, at least as much as you listen inward to people who share your own beliefs. Imagine being in a circle. Usually, in our ever-more polarized society, we sit exclusively in circles, looking inward, with people who share our point of view. To do so is to deny the much greater world behind our backs, outside our circle: other circles with other legitimate points of view….”
What Professor Abraham’s talk on Climate Change on Thursday night did was to not only shake loose my dream; but cause me to articulate it publicly.
Dreams are private happenings. I haven’t studied dreams but at minimum they are our own brains speaking when the clutter of the conscious world has quieted.
In the context of Thursday, during the question time, I had written my question on a card for the Professor: “Was Al Gore correct in Inconvenient Truth?”
Doubtless, this is a common question to a Climate Scientist, and to my recollection, the Professor’s answer was brisk and with no hesitation: “Probably 90% accurate”, he said, relating a couple of areas where Mr. Gore’s analysis might have been a bit off target.
He suggested directly that the flap over Gore’s analysis was a good example of the clash between science and politics. Because Gore had been pigeon-holed as having a certain political point-of-view, his enemies had to dismiss his arguments, regardless of the truth they might contain. Enemies are, after all, never right.
Dr. Abraham didn’t mention the impact of belief, though he could have: often we say, “I don’t care what the facts are. This is what I believe.” It is an easy dodge of an unpleasant reality, but that doesn’t change the reality.
He went on to the next question, and I thought to myself in school boy terms: 90% would get a grade of A or A-.
A pretty good grade, I’d say. Not only that, but Mr. Gore brought the issue out of the shadows of public discussion.
Towards the talks conclusion, Prof. Abraham commented on the disagreement about the state of Mother Earth, and human impact on this condition called Climate Change. He proposed a manner of looking at this, using the analogy of a person knowing something was not right, and seeking a doctors opinion, and then a second opinion and third and so on. By the end, 100 opinions had been received, 97 of these agreeing on the diagnosis; with the remaining three equivocating about or denying the problem. Would the reasonable person go with the 97 concurring opinions, or with the three dissenting? It’s a choice after all.
The 3% dissenters have been remarkably successful in disputing Climate Change. All they need to do is to sow doubt, Dr. Abraham said. But as with the person who denies a medical condition until it is too late to do anything about it but die, so can humanity, particularly those of us in the so-called ‘developed world’, do ourselves in…in much shorter a time span than we might think.
I sat there thinking about other issues of the day, as peace and war, the economy, relations with others, etc., etc., etc. His talk had come in the midst of a particularly rich – and also absurd – political week in both my life and in the national conversation, so that ‘noise’ bounced around for me as well.
I close as I began: “Speak your truth to others, particularly those who may disagree with you. Listen. Learn. Participate. Keep open the possibility that there may be flaws in what you believe to be true. Listen outward, beyond your own preferred circle, at least as much as you listen inward to people who share your own beliefs. Imagine being in a circle. Usually, in our ever-more polarized society, we sit exclusively in circles, looking inward, with people who share our point of view. To do so is to deny the much greater world behind our backs, outside our circle: other circles with other legitimate points of view….”
Here’s to conversation – to dialogue. Here’s to action.

#379 – Dick Bernard: Memorial Day 2011. Confusing Times

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Today I will probably attend a Memorial Day observance sponsored by Veterans for Peace near the Minnesota State Capitol; I’ll wear the Buddy Poppy purchased at Hibbing from a VFW member on May 13, and a Forget-me-not purchased from a Disabled American Veteran here in Woodbury a couple of days ago.
Yesterday I drove over to a Minneapolis Church and put up a display for and answered questions about World Citizen and A Million Copies. The founder of World Citizen, Lynn Elling, still living, was a Navy officer in WWII and again in Korea who witnessed the horrific aftermath of Tarawa Beach and has since devoted his life to seeking enduring peace. He is the subject of A Million Copies, along with Dr. Joe Schwartzberg, distinguished professor emeritus at the University of Minnesota. Joe is a military veteran in the Korean War era.
The ‘center piece’ for that display at the south Minneapolis Church was this photograph of Dad’s brother, my Uncle Frank Bernard, in happier times in Hololulu, before he probably woke up just in time to die on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. He is one of a boat-load of members of my own family circles who served this country in the military, including myself.
Some did not return alive.

Frank Bernard of the USS Arizona at Honolulu HI sometime before December 7, 1941


So it goes.
Memorial Day is a day of mixed messages. We honor the fallen, true, but only our own.
In too many ways we seem to still revere War as a solution, when it never has been a solution: one War only begets the next, and worse, War…. Their deaths justify more deaths….
I offer two other websites this day – places to reflect on this business of Memorial Day.
The first is this from the Washington Post, a site with photos of our soldiers who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan.
I did a rough count at this site, and it appears that in the year since the last Memorial Day, 132 in U.S. service have died in Iraq; 494 in Afghanistan. There have been 6,013 U.S. military deaths in all, just since 2001. Compared with WWII and Korea and Vietnam, the casualty numbers are small, which makes it easier to diminish our ‘cost of war’.
The deaths are tangible reminders of an endless debate over the need for or wisdom of War. This will be played out millions of times today, whenever somebody has a thought, or reads a paper or listens to radio or watches TV.
I looked at another long-standing website that has labored mightily to keep accurate records of the carnage in Iraq during the past decade: conservatively, over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead from war – this in a country roughly the size and population of California. War is not one-sided, with only soldiers as victims. It is mostly innocent civilians who die.
The cost of war is far more than just our own cost in lives on the battlefield and, now, over a trillion dollars in national treasure just for Iraq. One of the last e-mails of the day, yesterday, was from a friend who had just attended a funeral of her friends husband “…62, mental illness, cancer, Agent Orange. His Purple Heart was there and other medals. His son [both are Marine vets] told me the Veterans Administration wouldn’t listen to his Dad. Do you know where [the son] could get some help?” Was that man a casualty of war too? There are lots of ‘walking wounded’.
I will follow up on the request. I’ll see what I can do.
We are a nation in love with War: if you’ve been to Washington D.C., or any State Capitol, see the monuments.
Can we act for Peace?
I’d invite you to visit the website for a group of which I am proudly a member, the U.S. Peace Memorial Foundation.
Consider joining.

#378 – Dick Bernard: Words

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This morning a friend of mine came in to the coffee shop about the time I was leaving, sat down at the table next to me and opened to the Opinion Page of the Wall Street Journal for May 28-29 weekend edition. The banner headline was “Word of the Decade” ‘Unsustainable’ “ by Peggy Noonan. A featured photo was Rep. Paul Ryan.
Noonan is a well known writer, former member of the Ronald Reagan administration, and chief speechwriter for George H.W. Bush when he ran for President in 1988.
Earlier, before coming for coffee, I’d read a piece by Ezra Klein of the Washington Post, in which certain public ‘facts’ from said Rep. Paul Ryan about medical costs were challenged. That article is here.
The previous Saturday, I heard former U.S. Representative Jim Oberstar, a veteran of 18 terms in the House of Representatives, talk with encyclopedic knowledge about things like Medicare and Social Security. Ryan and Oberstar could as well as have been on different planets.
Into this mess of interpretations of data comes the unsuspecting citizen, not knowing what to believe.
Peggy Noonan, on the conservative side, writes well – she was a Presidential speech writer after all. She knows how to lay out words.
Paul Ryan, another conservative, seems like a nice sincere intelligent young man. Certainly he wouldn’t lie, especially to his younger cohort.
Ezra Klein, a liberal, is a very young but recognized columnist for Washington D.C.’s main newspaper – he’s a young man who has access that the rest of us cannot imagine.
Jim Oberstar, another liberal, knows the real data probably better than any of the others from having lived within the institution that is the Congress for 46 years.
Each of these persons, and everyone else who uses words or images in print or in voice or visual media, seek to make a convincing case that their particular ‘spin’ will become policy.
Of course, policy can be tilted in a direction that will prove anyone’s point. If you wish to make something ‘unsustainable’ – to “starve the beast” as government was once described – you seek policies to make that result happen. You can’t starve someone, and make the victim stronger.
If you believe that certain government policies can be of value, and protected for the long term with relatively minor changes, you seek that result.
There is a war of words going on, and it is the task of the citizen, the voter, to attempt to discern somewhere the truth of the matter, and the protection of his or her best interest. But peoples eyes glaze over at words. “They’re all lying” is too common a mantra.
For the common person, which most of us are, discerning truth can be very difficult because Big Money controls in very substantial part the media of this country. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, is not the champion of the little guy or gal.
So, who’s truth is the truth? Noonan’s? The Wall Street Journal Editorial Pages? Paul Ryan’s? Ezra Klein’s? Jim Oberstar? And on and on and on and on.
Caveat Emptor.
UPDATE: I keep these columns brief on purpose – even the above 513 words (a regular newspaper column is about 600 words) is too long for many people to take time to read, much less to think about. Besides, I’m just an ordinary person: what do I know? (by implication, I know less than the four experts cited above). I beg to differ, but who cares….
But sometimes you need length. And just a few hours after I published the above came this much longer post by a Los Angeles blogger , on essentially the same topic of Words, in this case, focusing on the recent visit on the topic of Israel/Palestine. (I mention the words “Los Angeles” because this makes the blogger seem more important, coming from a bigger city than I. Of course, “Los Angeles” can be spun in different ways as well. Words….)
In this Twitter and Facebook Generation, sparcity of words is most essential.
But this will certainly kill us all, if we don’t begin to think things through.
Consider reading the longer post…and really consider the implications, to you, of official lying.

#377 – Dick Bernard: The Fargo Tornado of June 20, 1957

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Two grandsons and I were enjoying a major league baseball game at Minnesota Twins Target Field on May 25. It was a perfect day for a ballgame at this new park, which is at the very edge of downtown Minneapolis. (click on photos to enlarge them)

Downtown Minneapolis from deep left field, May 25, 2011


I couldn’t help but think that a few days earlier, perhaps three miles to my right, a disastrous tornado hit one of Minneapolis’ poorer neighborhoods* causing immense destruction, though nothing like the massive death and destruction in Joplin MO several hundred miles to the south.
I also got to thinking of a memorable tornado in North Dakota June 20, 1957. I was about to begin my senior year in high school that year, and we had just relocated to a town about 200 miles from Fargo. That storm had such an impact on me that I still have all of the newspaper clippings from the Fargo Forum from the day after that memorable storm. Fargo Tornado Jun 1957003

Fargo ND June 20, 1957



Storms came with the territory in ND and elsewhere in 1957. Out there on the prairie you could see the weather coming, and the prudent person had some kind of a storm cellar to retreat to just in case. I experienced one memorable close call in August, 1949: the roof of my grandparents barn blew off less than 100 yards from where we were sleeping late at night. Straight line winds were the problem; a shelter belt behind the house probably saved us from death.
We knew, then, that there was a tornado belt, its epicenter Oklahoma. We knew there had been a Dust Bowl, and where that had been, and when. We did have some history at our disposal.
I got to thinking of compare and contrast between 1957 and now: commonalities, differences.
1. WEATHER FORECASTING and COMMUNICATION about the weather was evolving but relatively unsophisticated then, unlike the nearly pinpoint accuracy of today’s forecasts. Now you can watch disaster developing. Then you were more likely caught by surprise.
2. Strong local COMMUNITY and GOVERNMENT existed as it does today*. But community was more isolated and independent then. It was still possible to imagine that your little space was the center of the universe and you could get along without others beyond your horizon. You were not immersed in a global system as we are today. Imagine being dropped, today, into a place without grocery stores and cars and such. For most of us in 2011, such a fate would be hell on earth. We are dependent on outside goods and services to an unfathomable degree. Local support systems are no longer enough.
3. In 1957, HUMAN INFLUENCED CLIMATE** CHANGE was not even the tiniest of concerns. People could remember the droughts of the Dirty Thirties, but hardly anyone thought (as they should have) of human impact on such phenomena. People, then, did not have to worry about denying reality. Now we do. Out of ordinary weather** incidents, as severe flooding, seem more frequent, and ordinary.

Sheyenne River Valley City ND post threatened flood May 14, 2011


A new reality has taken shape: we humans, particularly in the industrialized countries, are a major cause in the matter of climate change…even if many deny such. (Here, and here for some recent opinions. The topic deserves both attention and action.)
4. I’m not sure how VISION impacted in 1957, nor how it compares with today’s looking at the future. What I do know is that in 1956, the Act which led to today’s U.S. Interstate Highway system was easily passed and funded by Congress through then-huge increases in gasoline taxes, whereas today’s political and even business decision making seem short on consideration of the greater good or the longer term. Things like those then new freeways of the late 1950s and 1960s are at the end of their lifespans and and the ubiquitous shelter belts planted in the 1930s and 1940s are dying, and there seems little interest or attention to their renewal. Too many of us have been convinced that short term wants count more than long term needs.
5. POLITICIANS (who accurately reflect our best and our worst attributes) do not make us look very good in the present day. They, particularly those in Congress, truly reflect us.
It’s never too late to change behaviors. We need to.
* – How could 30,000 of us be sitting in a stadium enjoying a baseball game when there was a disaster area just a few miles away? I’ve asked myself that question. We are a city of 3,000,000 people, and government was doing more than an adequate job organizing etc as we watched the game. That is why we have government. Had we all descended on the disaster area, it would have been chaos.
** – Succinctly, as I understand the terms, “Climate” is the long-term average condition; “Weather” is localized incidents. “Weather” and “Climate” are directly related, and their phenomena often deliberately confused. They really don’t care about human rhetoric or denial; they do depend on human behavior.
#
AN END NOTE: It is ordinary, these days, particularly in nostalgic e-mail forwards, to paint the 1950s as an idyllic time in our history. Early in 1950 I turned 10; early in 1960 I turned 20.
There is a great deal truly positive to say about the “Baby Boom” years of the 50s, like the Presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, but there are ample bumps in this road as well.
The 50s had hardly begun when the witchhunt for “Un-American” people began. At the Congressional level, it was the House Un-American Activities Committee; in the Senate, Senator Joe McCarthy. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover was hardly a saint. A lot of damage was done. The 50s were the time of bomb shelters in school basements and backyards to protect against the certain Soviet attacks with ICBMs. Fear always sells well; it sold well, then.
I would suspect that African-Americans, Native Americans (“Indians”) and other people who were ‘different’ than we whites would have a slightly different view of these times than people of my race. The 50s were ‘back of the bus’ times for “Negroes”; and a time when the Indians always lost in “cowboys and Indians”.
Even Catholics and Lutherans didn’t get along well, then.
It is useful to reflect on what the 50s brought to us, good and bad, as we continue into the 21st Century.

#374 – Dick Bernard: Amazing Grace for Cousin Vince

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A week ago today I was walking in to a place called Tar Paper Annie’s, a recently collapsed shack in the woods overlooking Bear Island Lake just north of Northern Lights Lodge near Babbitt MN.
The occasion was the farewell to my cousin, Vincent Busch, who passed away in January of this year. The shore of the lake would become one of the final resting places for his ashes.
I hardly knew Vince. I was nearly 11 when he was born; by the time I was in college, his family had moved hundreds of miles away and our paths rarely crossed. In the circle after the Memorial, at Tank’s in Babbitt, where we introduced ourselves, I identified myself as Vincent’s cousin, but I had no specific memories to share.
Such is how it often is in these days where we live separated by many miles, differing interests, and all the rest. Even “family” can be and are virtual strangers to each other.
But the ritual of saying goodbye is an important one. Death is always a time for reflection: looking back (memories); but more importantly (I’d say) looking at ourselves. Such gatherings are a time to realize that our turn is, inevitably, coming.
At Tar Paper Annie’s, a few feet beyond the ruins, near the shore of the lake, facing the lake, sat a solitary man, sitting on the ground, playing a harmonica. It seemed a sacred place and time for him, so I didn’t interfere.
As we gathered to remember and to say farewell, it became more obvious why he was there. Roger Anderson had been one of Vince’s close friends in high school, and long afterwards. Vince’s sister, Georgine, remembered “Vince would always speak with joy of the times he and Roger would get together and play music“.
As Roger sat in the doorway of the collapsed shack that Vincent had once called home at a very difficult time in his life, Roger played a profound rendition of “Amazing Grace” on his harmonica*. It was, truly, as good as it gets (click on photo to enlarge).

Roger Anderson, Amazing Grace, Tar Paper Annie's, May 13, 2011, Babbitt MN


As we concluded our gathering, Roger played “You Are My Sunshine” at that same place, on that same harmonica.
Yes, it was as good as it gets.
Farewell, Vince.
You made a difference. That’s the best any of us can expect.
My photo gallery of the Babbitt events remembering Vincent Busch is here.
* There are many harmonica versions of Amazing Grace on You Tube. Simply enter the words Amazing Grace Harmonica in the search box. In my opinion, none can compare with Roger’s version on May 13.

#369 – Dick Bernard: Mother's Day 2011

/in , /by

UPDATE June 7, 2011. Here’s the flower we bought at the Work House a month ago, May 7, 2011.

UPDATE August 5, 2011. Here’s the same plant, now dubbed a ‘monster plant’ by our neighbors, on August 5. It’s the best plant we’ve ever had!

August 5, 2011


To all Mom’s out there, a great day.
I know at least one young Mom for whom this day has recent and tragic memories, and to her and all of the many others in this world who have lost a son or daughter long before their normal time, my condolences. Being Mom is not always easy.
Defining “Mom” these days is a bit harder than 100 years ago, as this 1910 postcard found at my grandparents farm shows.

Women’s suffrage was still 10 years in the future.
Friday I was at my bi-monthly ‘blood-letting’, donating blood at the Memorial Blood Center branch here in Woodbury.
The Nurse – herself a Mom – and I were chatting. She mentioned that she planned to go over to the Ramsey County Work House to get her Mother’s Day flowers.

Greenhouses at Ramsey Co. Correctional Facility, Maplewood MN


Flowers for sale at the Work House? I’d never heard of such a thing, but the idea was intriguing so we went over there Saturday morning. It was worth the trip.
Every society has its guys (and gals) who’ve taken the wrong turn on the road of life, and ours is no different. The inmates have Moms, and Dads, too, and while they’re doing their time, particularly if they’re not on work release, there is work. Why not grow flowers?
At this work facility, the decision was made to have a greenhouse in which they raise annual plants, and sell them on weekends beginning on Mother’s Day weekends. The flowers certainly don’t mind who plants and cares for them, and the products we purchased and delivered matched those we normally buy at the commercial greenhouse.
I’m sure there were guards somewhere yesterday, but they were unobtrusive. There were volunteers too (the lady who met us said, with a smile, “be careful, last year I came here as a customer, and here I am volunteering!”), and there were inmates helping carry and deliver the products to our cars. Our helper were a couple of younger adult inmates, very polite. I have no idea what got them their time in the slammer but that didn’t matter. They were polite and helpful.
As I say, these inmates have Moms too.
One way or another every one of us have or had a Mom, and a Dad, who hopefully at least tried to raise us to the best of their ability. Having assumed the role of a “Mr. Mom” for quite a number of years, I sort of know the trade, the perils, the pitfalls. It’s not easy being Mom – or Dad – for that matter.
But this is the day for Mom’s, whether living or dead.
Remember them, perhaps especially the Mom’s of those inmates at the Work House and other such places.
And if you haven’t done so, or done so recently, consider taking up the ‘blood-letting’ routine at your local blood bank. I evaded that duty for years but it’s now a good habit.
Have a great day. Here, thanks to Lucy’s Mom (and my daughter, Lauri), is a little gift for the day to everyone reading (click on the photo to enlarge).

Granddaughter Lucy, May, 2011


(I’m tempted to say, “Lucy in the sky with diamonds“. Great Thanks to the Beatle’s, Yellow Submarine and You Tube. Son Tom and I went to this movie sometime in 1968 at the then-Suburban World Theatre in uptown Minneapolis.)