#563 – Dick Bernard: The (uncomfortable) Terrorist incident

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On Tuesday evening CBS News a segment played about five anarchists who had been arrested in a plot to blow up a bridge in Ohio. There was a good visual of the bridge, and not much information about the anarchists, except that they were from the midwest. The terrorist act was apparently to be an anti-corporate May Day activity.
Wednesday mornings Minneapolis Star Tribune had a significant story about the foiled plot on page A11. The story has been updated.
I was curious about how this particular story would ‘play’ in the regular and alternative news media that I have access to.
The anarchists were all white men, Americans, identified with the Occupy Movement in one way or another. And they were arrested, not executed.
To date I have seen nothing on the assorted news streams that come from my left.
Similarly, there has been nothing from the right side of the spectrum either.
It is somewhat of a Timothy McVeigh moment, in other words.
If somebody with a funny name and darker skin complexion had bombed the Murrah Building in 1995, even then there would have been outrage against those evil others.
When it turned out that the perpetrators were ordinary white Americans, and McVeigh a military veteran at that, It was more difficult to deal with. It violated a stereotype.
As for the left, it similarly does not fit into a convenient box of news.
They’re lucky the bomb didn’t go off.
There’s plenty of evil lurking around in our own country, and the arrest of these five ordinary white guys is perhaps a good place to emphasize that we have our own evildoers in our midst and they blend right in with the typical American, of whatever hue.
I recall being at a laundromat a couple of weeks after 9-11-01 and while looking for something to read came up with a U.S. News and World Report dated September 25. I looked at the table of contents, and there was an interesting article about terror in our midst, but there was not a single reference to the World Trade Centers, which was very puzzling to me.
I looked again: the magazine was September 25, 2000. A year earlier.
Here’s the article I read that day in 2001: USNews 9-25-2000001
And coincidentally, right after I saved this draft, I noted this article in on-line news.

#560 – Dick Bernard: The Chicks

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Saturday morning a few of us were waiting in line at the Woodbury Post Office. A woman was waiting at the counter, and the clerk had disappeared. An educated guess was that the woman was picking up held mail.
Of course, the few of us were feeling impatient – places to go, things to do….
Presently the clerk came out with a box from which sounds came: “Peep”, “Peep”, “Peep”…. It was a delivery of live chicks.
Immediately the sourness in line changed perceptibly.
There was no grousing when the clerk opened the box so that the woman could inspect the precious freight. They were all okay, being as little chicks are wont to be.
This started a little conversation in line, remembering when people raised chickens. Somebody said that an ordinance had been passed in Woodbury allowing such activities. NO ROOSTERS, however!
I got to thinking back to days of old when we lived in tiny towns in North Dakota. In fact, I had done a blog post about the post office in one of those towns a few months ago.
Someone I knew from that town wrote a comment. Her Dad had been a rural postal delivery driver for years, and she said this, in part: “In the spring, he often had live baby chicks making lots of noise in the back of the vehicle. That meant going up to the houses to deliver them. There were also times when the post office was alive with the sounds of live animals.”
In the same comment she added what we of a certain age and circumstance all know about the post office in small towns: “The post office was definitely a social gathering place when many people waited for the mail to be sorted to the various boxes. There was no delivery in small towns – perhaps there never has been. You often read that people fight to keep their post office as it is a distinction to have ones own address and a time/place to find out how your neighbors were doing.”

Early 1900s postcard from rural Wisconsin to rural North Dakota


I don’t think I was the only one in the line on Saturday who noticed that when those chicks appeared, the tone of conversation of those of us in the line perceptibly changed.
For just a moment we again became neighbors, not quite so much in a hurry.
I’ll remember the care with which the woman and the clerk handled their precious cargo.

Woodbury MN Post Office April 21, 2012


UPDATE April 24: Here’s a little known but crucial piece of information about the contemporary “problems” of the U.S. Postal Service.

#558 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #14 – "The Catholic Vote" and "Making Hay While the Sun Shines"

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UPDATE May 5, 2012 at end.
This afternoon I attended the first of three sessions called “Forming Our Conscience” in the Undercroft (church basement) of the Basilica of St. Mary in Minneapolis. I was most positively impressed. There were 50 of us in the room – more than I expected.
Linked is the outline for the “Forming our Conscience” session I attended, as well as the topics for April 29, and May 6: Basilica Workshop001.
Stop by Basilica the next two Sundays if you wish. I found todays session an excellent use of my time.
There is no need to interpret the words, questions and opinions of speaker and the 50 or so of us in attendance today. The attached outline speaks for itself. That’s the outline for the modified dialogue that Dr. Evans capably led. A surprising amount of ground was covered in the short 1 1/2 hours.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me that I’m lifelong Catholic. Put Basilica of St. Mary or Catholic in the search box on this blog, and you’ll find many references. I’m Catholic.
I go to Church, I usher frequently (as I did again today), and I’m not passive when it comes to expressing a point of view, including to those among my non-Catholic friends who think that there must be some monolith of “typical” Catholics.
When all is said and done, I contend there are really two Roman Catholic Churches, at least as I experience them today: one is the official Church, the power people like the Bishops who are quoted by the major media. Then there’s the rest of us.
We ordinary Catholics seem roughly divided into camps, much like the population at large. So, if we comprise, as we do, perhaps 20% of Minnesota’s population, on our typical days the so-called Catholic view might represent, at best, 10% of the state’s population, and not all of these think alike either. This is a rough estimate, but I think fairly close.
We ordinary folk get little attention, but we have a lot of power and we exercise it in many ways.
The American Bishops attempt to dominate certain kinds of public policy debate and thus impose religious beliefs and doctrines on the rest of the population and this troubles me, even though I’m Catholic.
This dynamic is worse now, than I remember before.
But there is no single ‘Catholic’ point of view. We Catholics adults act like other adults. The Church itself admits that only one-third of us are actually in Church on any particular Sunday.
It is likely not easy to be the Parish Priests who have the job of getting unsolicited ‘advice’ from both ‘sides’, and being leaders, message carriers and diplomats at the same time.
There is, no doubt, tension within the Catholic community about many things. This tension was not on display this afternoon. There were perhaps a dozen different opinions expressed through questions, and we all learned in the back-and-forth.
An observation I had, but didn’t have an opportunity to articulate at the meeting, is the real dilemma when religion dances into the political sphere: politicians make promises they have no intention of keeping. They all do it, as a political survival skill, but it’s incumbent on ‘we, the people’ to be aware of this natural and very practical tendency of the persons who are running for office, and look for the most reasonable alternative.
And my Church hierarchy has a different dilemma that it seems to want to ignore.
In the good old days, whether merited or not, the Church had considerable spiritual power over its flock.
Dr. Evans recalled his days in rural Minnesota when “keep holy the Sabbath day” was still the religious rule. As anyone who’s farmed knows, good weather doesn’t just happen when it is supposed to, and you “make hay while the sun shines”. In the good old days, if it looked like a good day for haying would be Sunday, the loyal Catholic farmers would troop to see the Priest after Sunday Mass to get permission to do the haying. Of course, permission was granted: it was common sense. But the Priest was asked, first.
As recently as 50 years ago this still worked pretty well.
No more.
We are adults, we need to act like the adults that we are.
(click on photo to enlarge)

Part of group April 22, 2012


For past and future posts related to Election 2012, simply enter those two words in the search box and click. A list will come up.
UPDATE MAY 7, 2012:
The April 29 and May 6 sessions were equally strong, with the attendance higher than at the first, approximately 60 at each. The outlines for the subsequent sessions is here. Basilica Workshop002.
It would be nice if everyone could see how a civil dialogue can take place within a church as diverse as my Catholic Church. Dr. Evans outline and remarks were consistent with official Church teaching, while respectfully listening to questions and noting other points of view within this large institution. Most of the 4 1/2 total hours was devoted to dialogue.
We do not all think alike. There is not a “Catholic bloc”.
During dialogue time I raised a single question, essentially as follows: “The 2012 election is exactly six months away. The only objective of any political party is to win, and to do this they and their candidates and supporters will make false promises and false charges against the opposition. We will be inundated with this. What are your thoughts?“
I didn’t expect a definitive answer, and I didn’t get one. There are assorted factcheck websites, and Dr. Evans mentioned one or two of his own. He was justifiably nervous (it appeared he was a bit nervous) about recommending specific news media, so I won’t go there. These days it is probably impossible to find a truly objective media source. All that differs is the degree of bias towards one pole or the other….
One lady mentioned the possibility of checking the actual record of persons actually in office.
I thought to myself, as others brought up their own issues, that even voting records are not a surefire way to the “truth” since in this polarized political world, there is almost no legislation that is politically “safe” to vote for or against: it usually includes some component with which the lawmaker will disagree. “Poison pills” are often inserted in legislation so as to be used against a sitting politician later. In addition, far too many of us don’t think of the consequences of our vote, or even know why we’re voting a certain way, or vote based only on our interpretation of a single issue: all very dangerous practices.
All we can do is urge people we know to pay attention to what is really the most important decision one has to make in a democracy like ours: who we choose to represent us.
We are, after all, the very “politicians” we despise, or more hopefully, respect.

Directly related post here.

#553 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #10 – Enlisting the Middle Class (Proles) to kill itself.

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I’m very near 72 years of age. The people of my and my parents generation created the Middle Class, and have been huge beneficiaries of it, in endless ways, from Medicare to the GI Bill to Unions, and on an on and on. For the younger generation, as Joni Mitchell’s popular song goes, they may not “know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone….”
Still, the “Army” to destroy the Middle Class we enjoyed seems to have been recruited from the same older generation. I see this in endless hateful, destructive and dishonest “forwards” from people I know from my generation and older.
I review and respond to the “forwards” I get. The vast majority are lies, pure and simple, from manipulation of photographs to manipulation of data. So little “truth” comes around, including TV ads, talk radio and the like, that only the foolish will believe any of it.
These days I think a great deal of a book published in England in 1949 entitled “1984” by George Orwell. It is a famous book, and everyone should read it again, especially those who send those forwards. Orwell’s model apparently was the post-WWII Soviet Union of Stalin, with elements of Hitler’s Germany.
It is pretty clear to me, these days, that unfettered American Capitalism would like to achieve the same objective – easily manipulated, passive and compliant Proles – that 1984s “Big Brother” did by using the same methods.
We are todays Proles.

The book, 1984, first came into my life when the actual year 1984 was far in the future and television was in its infancy and still a novelty.
Computers and ease of editing of images and text was unknown at the time I first read 1984.
But 1984 was about all of these things. “Telescreens” were everywhere, broadcasting what Orwell called the “two minute hate” frequently and at any time. These also doubled as surveillance cameras, recording every persons every move.
Nobody, nothing, was safe from Big Brother.
There was even a new language: “Newspeak”:
“WAR IS PEACE”
“FREEDOM IS SLAVERY”
“IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH”.
Big Brother thrived because of cultivated fear of an unseen enemy he could describe, far away. This enemy was one to be feared and hated, and Big Brother was the only savior.
In my opinion, 1984 has become the playbook for contemporary Right Wing politics in this country of ours. The book simply reflects the exploitable weaknesses of humanity, and those don’t change.
I think of this 1984 every time I see the latest insulting and lie-filled “forward”; or see some example where information is manipulated so that some imagined “failure” of the President (or Democrats, or Unions…) is manufactured.
Indeed, since President Obama has been inaugurated, the mission of his enemies has been to make him fail by any means necessary, and then shamelessly lie about why the failure occurred. Similarly, my “class” – liberal, Union, is similarly characterized. Newspeak 2012: “Failure is Success”.
In 1984s world, the citizenry (Proles) was dominated and completely controlled and settled into a life of happy mediocrity: the housewife happily hung out the wash to dry; entertainment was getting drunk on cheap gin in the neighborhood saloon.
Nobody trusted anybody. The Two Minute Hate and “Big Brother is watching you” were very effective.
The main character, Winston, took a stab at breaking out of the mold, and for awhile seemed to be succeeding.
It is useful to remember the ending scene of 1984. Winston is personally confronted by his greatest fear. He surrenders to the fear. He “sees the light”.
The book ends with these words: “He loved Big Brother”.
POSTNOTE: Orwell died in 1950 only 46 years of age and only a year after publication of 1984. He ends his book with Big Brother still in complete control.
Is it so simple in the real world…? Well, we can read history. A long succession of “Big Brothers” learned their omnipotence was not permanent. Many of them ended up dead, and not of natural causes.
What is our fate as a nation? We American Proles will decide, beginning in November, 2012 by how we vote, or whether we vote at all.
We choose if we succeed or fail as a society.
Directly related: here and here.

#549 – Dick Bernard: Part Two. The slow but certain suicide of Capitalism

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I’m not an enemy of Capitalism. From my earliest years some deference was paid to the person who lived in the biggest house in town; who occupied a position of status or rank; the most “successful” relative…. Right or wrong, they were thought to be deserving of being a bit better off.
Today, Capitalism funds my retirement pension (unless its most ruthless advocates achieve a goal of destroying my Union which provides the funding to assure my private pension solvency.)
I also have no apprehensions about Socialism. Indeed, without very strong elements of Socialism in the American economy, Capitalism would die, and Capitalism knows it, but doesn’t have the common sense to know when to quit bludgeoning the middle class and government, which are largely creatures of Socialist largesse – public schools, health and the like.
Examples to debate are endless. The Bible quote in last Sunday’s Passion (see it here) was a most interesting one, cutting the apparent Capitalist of the day considerable slack in how she spent her money.
Oh, if it were so simple.
If I were to pick an exemplar of unfettered Capitalism it would be desperately impoverished Haiti, once the jewel of the French Empire. You can find many examples of extreme wealth there; elite families benefit by friendly laws and have destroyed competition. As one gets richer and richer and richer, defeating a potential competitor is easy.
Poor as it is, I’ve heard post-earthquake Haiti described as a “goldmine”. So, somebody has a monopoly on cement; someone else on school uniforms, etc., etc., etc. And the wealthy in Haiti can enjoy their lifestyle wherever in the world they wish, while the overwhelming vast majority of the people subsist. It is a society of, by and for Capitalism; and in the last 100-200 years it is largely of the American variety. Its cruel circumstances were imported from France and the U.S., largely.

In our own U.S., the Capitalist impulse towards self-destruction is harder to see than in Haiti, but nonetheless it is apparent. We are killing ourselves.
The accelerating imbalance in wealth in America (and elsewhere) is apparent to anyone who cares to look. Last Sunday, 60 Minutes had a segment on burgeoning art markets for the super wealthy.
The wealthy have far more than enough. But, it seems, the more they have the more they want.
A friend of mine, a retired corporate manager and no friend of government or taxes, described this dynamic a few days ago, without intending to do so.
He and his wife spend February and March at one of those Florida Gulf Coast condominium complexes, and they had just returned home.
We were chatting, and the topic got around to where they stay each year.
They rent: $5,000 a month. Two bedroom, 9th floor, Gulf side.
We chatted: The owners of their condo have three or four homes. The 19 floors of their condo has over 100 units; only 6 are year round residents. The condo they rent cost $1.3 million when purchased a few years ago, and probably on a good day would now sell for $600,000. Monthly Association fees are $891, and my friend guessed that the place is rented perhaps four months a year. Most of the year it is empty. There are additional costs for upkeep. There are numerous other similar buildings in this community….
One can gather how a conversation about government, taxes, liberals, unions, etc., would go at dinner in one of the restaurants in this wealthy ghetto. Likely the owners pick as their legal residence the state which has the lowest taxes, and extract every entitlement that they can.
Yes, we have always had the better off, and mostly they were accepted and respected.
But like the semblance of balance necessary to keep a tub of clothes on spin cycle from ruining the wash machine, the obsession with more and more wealth – escalating inequity – is ruining everyone, including the very wealthy.
The wealthy are already a victim of their own greed – imprisoned by their own wealth – but its all they know. The rest of us will just tag along as their (and by extension, our) self-destruct mission continues…unless we decide to do something about it in our still free elections.
Happy Easter.
(Part one is here.)
UPDATE April 4:
John Borgen: Yes, we are a country of the corporations by the corporations for the corporations. Making profit is our holy grail. So many believe they will strike it rich, win the lottery, inherit the big bucks. Consumerism is our religion. Our citizens are drunk on TV, sports, video games, alcohol, drugs, sugar, gossip, blame, selfishness, American elitism.
Ah, the rugged individual! The entrepreneur who cashes in. Only in America!
I heard on the radio,according to the Gallop organization, the top three happiest countries are Denmark, Norway and Finland. The USA
is # 11.

#547 – Dick Bernard: Part One. Palm Sunday, the Passion, Haiti and the Mega-Millions Lottery

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UPDATE April 4: An excellent commentary on the economics of the lottery can be found here. And on another angle, here.
A followup post on this topic is here.
This morning started, as usual, with the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. The entirety of page A4 – no ads – was devoted to two topics: the top two-thirds was headlined “U.N muddies Haiti’s cholera war”; the bottom third was headlined “3 Mega Millions winners, more than 100 million losers.”
The two articles speak clearly for themselves.
Then we went to Basilica of St. Mary, picked up up our palms, and settled in for the long Gospel, the Passion, this years version according to St. Mark, Chapter 14:1 – 15:47. (There are three versions of the Passion, and they rotate each year.)
This year, probably because of the juxtaposition of Haiti’s most recent uninvited and undeserved catastrophe with the frenzy to hopefully win the treasures of the Lottery, one section of the Passion particularly caught my attention.
Here it is as recorded in my Grandma Bernard’s 1912 edition of the Douay-Rheims (Catholic) Bible:
“And when he was in Bethania, in the house of Simon the leper, and was at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of precious spikenard: and breaking the alabaster box she poured it out upon his head.
Now there were some that had indignation with themselves, and said: Why was this waste of the ointment made?
For this ointment might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and given to the poor. And they murmured against her.
But Jesus said: Let her alone, why do you molest her? She hath wrought a good work upon me.
For the poor you have always with you: and whensoever you will, you may do them good: but me you have not always.
She hath done what she could : she is come beforehand to anoint my body for the burial.” (Mark 14:3-8)
Every Catholic who darkened a church door today heard this Gospel, and likely some in other denominations as well.
Last week, some of us were having a little debate about the relative merits/demerits of the Lottery, and the ‘feeding frenzy’ for tickets as the Jackpot went up into the stratosphere.
The conversation got around to the evil of taxes (the winnings are taxed), and giving contributions after winning, etc. There were many points of view, even among the few of us in the little conversation.
Then comes this piece of text which can, doubtless, be ‘spun’ in many different ways, depending on what one wishes to believe.
Personally, I think the Christian Scripture (aka New Testament), including this particular text, is not a comfortable collection of thoughts for the wealthy Christian…and by any measure of this or any other time, Americans are a very wealthy society. That’s probably why the Hebrew Scriptures (aka Old Testament) are much more comfortable to the set that gives deference to wars and kings and such….
But, what does the text from this morning mean?
Or, rather, what did Jesus mean?
Happy Easter.
UPDATE April 4:
John Borgen: I am rereading one of my favorite books, The Hebrew Bible, A Socio-Literary Introduction by Norman Gottwald. In it he continues to observe that the admonitions of the prophets to the Jews and Israelites, for over a thousand years, PRIOR to the time of Jesus, was to remind the well-off that they are not to exploit the poor, the peasants and those less fortunate than they are and to provide economic and social justice for all. The author suggests the book of Psalms upbraids wealthy Judeans and Isrealites for “pauperization of the populace through the manipulation of debt and confiscation procedures…”
The suggestion is that “Yahweh” punished the leaders in ancient times for the lack of economic and social justice which didn’t exist. Gottwald says these kinds of things throughout this interesting and challenging book.

#544 – Dick Bernard: Election 2012 #5. Health Insurance responsibility for all?

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UPDATE March 29, 2012: If you are interested in the ‘national health care’ issue, “My favorite blogger” (see below) has perhaps 10,000 words of summary about the three day circus surrounding the Supreme Court earlier this week (A normal newspaper column is perhaps 600-700 words. My comments below are about 500 words). I’d appreciate your reading my comments, and if you read nothing else, note the first and last full paragraphs of the final (March 28) post of Just Above Sunset. Here are the links: March 26, March 27, March 28. These will take awhile, but are worth the time, and Just Above Sunset is worth subscribing to (it is free, one per day).
My 500 words: If you looked at the subject line and have read this far, you’re interested in and literate on the debate which has culminated in oral argument at the U.S. Supreme Court this week.
My favorite blogger, Just Above Sunset, summarizes at considerable length the views on issues of the day, and his morning post late yesterday, “The Supreme Court Disaster”, as the day before and (probably) tomorrow, will cover all manner of definitive speculation about everything related to the case. Everything said by anyone may be meaningful, or, as easily, meaningless. We don’t know.
But the issue is of huge importance, regardless of the ultimate ruling, and I decided to weigh in with the following comment on this piece of text nearing the end of the March 27 Just Above Sunset post: “But Paul Waldman points out something far more absurd, that Americans want something for nothing.”
So true, so very, very true. We Americans generally have one priority: ME, NOW. Makes no difference our ideology: ME, NOW. We’re used to demanding our way, or no way. I’M RIGHT. YOU’RE WRONG.
My wife and I are senior citizens, with accumulating seniority on Medicare. We both have pensions and we’re on Social Security. We live modestly, but don’t have to live frugally. We’re in reasonably good health. We’re the very fortunate ones in this society.
Today (March 28) we visited the tax man. We itemize: in the medical box is $12,705.66 in premiums and out of pocket expenses for a great assortment of insurances and expenses which we feel are necessary, including Long Term Care. Even Medicare has a premium, automatically deducted from our Social Security. It isn’t “free”….
We have no complaints.
I frequently think back to another day, back in 1963, when I got out of the Army and began teaching school. My new wife had also just begun teaching. We were just beginning our life together. She was pregnant with our first child.
I was back home for less than a month when she began to feel sick. She went to the doctor, and had to quit teaching. It was a steady downhill slide from there. She died of kidney disease two years later, only 22.
We had no hospital insurance. Group insurance was unusual in 1963.
Individual insurance was available. Like today’s kids, we couldn’t imagine ever needing insurance at our young age. By the time we did, it was too late. (Most likely, then as now, my wife would have been un-insurable due to her pre-existing conditions we didn’t realize existed.)
We were saved by public charity (several public and religious hospitals), and later I was saved from bankruptcy by public welfare, and embraced by a caring community.
The hell we went through long ago – our son just turned 48 – created my attitude forever. A caring society matters far more than the “free” individual.
But concepts like insurance for all are abstract concepts for our “me, now” generation. We are an immensely wealthy society (even with the laments about unemployment), and we have difficulty imagining that the others, and the future, matters.
Those wishing for the defeat of “Obamacare” might be careful what they wish for.
(I prefer it be called more accurately “Obamacares”.)
Dick and Barbara Bernard March 1965. Barbara died four months later. We were sponsors at a Baptism of our friends first child.
Photo is of Dick and Barbara Bernard in early March, 1965. Barbara died four months later. She was very ill. We were sponsors at a Baptism of our friends first child.
For access to other Election 2012 posts, simply enter the words election 2012 in the search box and dates/titles of other items will appear.

#542 – Dick Bernard: Sunday noon Mass at St. Boniface, Minnepolis. Messe en Francais

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We went to a most uplifting Catholic Mass today.

Noon Mass at St. Boniface Sunday March 25, 2012


If one went by this photo from the choir loft at the beautiful Church of St. Boniface on Sunday, the Church was nearly empty. It is, after all a large church. (click to enlarge the photos)
But if you could add sound, and be sitting up somewhere closer to the front, your ‘picture’ of this place would be much different.
St. Boniface was very much alive on Sunday noon, as I am sure it is alive every Sunday noon, for the weekly Mass in the French language.
By my count, there were 62 of us in the Congregation, all but five of us Africans whose native land is one or another of the west African countries whose formal language is French. Fr. Jules Omalanga, a most engaging Pastor, is a native of Kinshasa Congo,and Pastor of the Church, and every week at noon has a liturgy for a lively community of Francophones.
Doubtless, a person wandering in off the street would probably be a bit confused to see African people speaking French in this church! It reminded me of a similar experience in 1971 when we took a weekend trip from Oregon to Vancouver British Columbia and stopped for Mass at the first Catholic Church we saw. The church was full of Vietnamese, all speaking French…. Another learning.
(I am French-Canadian through my father, but I was never exposed to the French language as a child, and never was in a place where I could take French in school years. So while I can ‘get the drift’, my participation is more or less following along with the rest of the group. I know when the pastor makes a good humored comment by the laughter, and follow along…. Of course, my computer does not speak French either, so I cannot put that peculiar little squiggle under the “c” in “Francais”, but that is only a small indignity to the language.)
To the right in the photo was a lively and good choir of parishioners. These were adults, men and women, not afraid to sing!

The Choir


St. Boniface is a very old parish, dating back to 1858, the year Minnesota became a state. Its history is here.
Like all parishes of any denomination, the years for ethnic parishes have passed on, and diminishing population have led to many church closings. St. Boniface retains some real and readily apparent vibrancy. It is a beautiful structure, and its weekly African visitors bring a particular richness to its sanctuary. (Its address is 679 NE 2nd Street in near northeast Minneapolis.)
We were at this particular Mass at the invitation of Fr. Jules and Dr. Virgil Benoit, who is planning a major Francophone event in Minneapolis September 28 (at Our Lady of Lourdes and DeLaSalle High School – stay tuned for details. Announcements will be here and elsewhere. It promises to be a stellar event, involving people such as the Africans in attendance on Sunday; locals of French-Canadian ancestry; teachers of the French language; people that love the French language, etc., etc., etc.
Mass – Messe – concluded, Fr. Omalanga walked down the center aisle, holding hands with what seemed like a dozen adoring kids. I thought back to a similar experience at Ste Clare church in Port-au-Prince Haiti, when Father Gerard Jean-Juste had a similar devoted following from his Haitian congregation. One could feel the love.
After Mass Dr. Benoit and two of his African colleagues, both doctoral students at the University of North Dakota, spoke with those interested about the September program.
It was a very good day, indeed.

Fr. Omalanga and children process out after Mass


In front, from left, Moussa Nombre, Amoussa Koriko and Virgil Benoit are introduced to persons interested in the September 28-29 event.


Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, Ste Clare Port-au-Prince Haiti December 3, 2003

#539 – Dick Bernard: Thinking about Peace, near a vigil against War

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Today, March 19, is a tragic anniversary. As my friend, Wayne Wittman, of Veterans for Peace put it: “On March 19, 2003, after a terrific bombardment called “Shock and Awe” we and the other nations we could coax to join us launched an invasion of the sovereign independent Nation of Iraq.”
Our Conductors of War in 2003 likely had the same idea as the Japanese did, December 7, 1941, when they bombed Pearl Harbor: ‘we’ll show ’em our awesome might, and they’ll surrender’.
We all know how the attack on Pearl Harbor worked out for the Japanese; Shock and Awe in Iraq didn’t do so well for we Americans either.
War is the triumph of short-term emotion: stinking, not sound, thinking. But War sells easier than Peace, albeit with a far greater long-term cost.
Yesterday the local Vets for Peace advertised a gathering at the Cathedral of St. Paul followed by a gathering at the USS Ward “First Shot” Memorial near the Veterans Services Building in St. Paul.
I’m a Vet for Peace, I’ve been to many events, and I traveled to the Capitol grounds planning to join the group, which appeared to be about 20 people.
I was there this year, but the attendees probably didn’t know it.
I decided to look at this years event through a somewhat different lens.
Near the First Shot Memorial site is large sculpted soldier called “Monument to the Living…Why do you forget us?” dedicated May 22, 1982.
(click on photos to enlarge them)

March 18, 2012


I’ve seen the sculpted work many times – in fact, I’ve photographed it. It is evocative and haunting.
But this time, for the first time, I noted the date of 1982. Later that same year, strictly by coincidence, I was in Washington D.C. the weekend the Vietnam Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall Vietnam Mem DC 1982001. I was there for a time that weekend. Seldom has there been such powerful emotion on display. I’ve been back there many times.
Between the “Why do you forget us?” sculpture and the State Capitol is the Minnesota Memorial to the Fallen remembering American war deaths in Vietnam 1962-73. I’ve been there many times as well, almost always at Veterans for Peace Memorial Day events. Sunday I looked a little closer.
I found the inscription for Army PFC Joseph Sommerhauser, killed 1968 in Vietnam. He’s the brother of my barber, himself a Vietnam vet, a Marine. Every now and then Tom and I talk about his brother. On the face of the memorial, above Josephs name, is the inscription “We were young, we have died, remember us“, Archibald MacLeish.
Indeed.

For the first time I stopped by the Directory of names on the wall, and this day I looked through it for names of casualties from towns in which I was living at the time of this deadly war.

Here’s what I found:
1962-63 – the few first casualties. (In 1962-63 I was in the Army myself none of us knowing that our newly reactivated 5th Infantry Division (Mech) was preparing for the war in southeast Asia. Some of my snapshots from this era are accessible here See “Photographs of 1/61 in and around Ft. Carson”.)
1966 – William Wilber, age 18, of Anoka was killed
1968 – Charles Clitty, age 19, of Spring Lake Park was killed.
In eleven years of the Vietnam War, only two people from towns I’d lived in were among the fallen. Even in that deadly war, few actually died in my sphere (two of my brothers are Vietnam vets…both lived.)
Of course, in those years, I believe you counted only if you died in a combat zone. Those permanently and totally disabled by war injuries, mental illness, agent orange or such are not reflected on the wall. They don’t include later homelessness, PTSD, suicide or the like. They don’t include the civilian casualties, like the 16 Afganis mowed down by an American soldier on his fourth combat tour in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Nor do they include the damage to the national sense of morality, not to mention pocketbook.
Those who died and listed on that wall are, tragically, the lucky ones.
War is criminal.
Back in the Vets for Peace circle, there appeared to be about 20 or so [one who was there says 35] hearing short talks on topics which I have doubtless heard many times before.
I drove by the VFP gathering on my way out of the area about 2:15, and had this thought which I have had more and more frequently lately: The circle, today, needs to be turned around, and the people in it need to seek out and get in conversation with the other folks who can’t see the problem with war, cuz they weren’t in it, or they don’t know anybody who died over there….

At the First Shot Memorial March 18, 2012



“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”

#534 – Dick Bernard: The Robocall

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On a day like today it is difficult to imagine that ten days ago we were experiencing our single day of snowy winter in the month of February. Our local welcoming presence, the carved bear at the corner of Sherwood and Juliet, seemed to be reveling in the snow.

at Juliet and Sherwood, February 29, 2012


But February 29 was an interesting day….
The phone rang at 6 a.m.
In our house, if the phone rings that early (I can’t recall a similar happening) it’s something serious, or a wrong number.
I picked up the phone and on came a pleasant authoritative male voice: “This is Superintendent _____, _____ schools will open two hours late.”
It was all very appropriate. Ten seconds and he was gone. There had been snow predictions the previous evening.
The only problems: the Superintendent was calling from a school district many miles from ours; and we haven’t had kids in school for many years.
It was a head-scratcher.
A couple of hours later came an anguished e-apology from the culprit, a highly competent and respected school person.
I’m a retired member of a public school related association, and our colleague had loaned our organization her equipment to get out a notice about an event. It was all perfectly appropriate, but she had forgot to delete us from the robo-call list, and was embarrassed.
Several of us got into a brief flurry of good-natured on-line bantering, and reminiscing about past events. One retiree said “Hey, no problem! Reminded me of those gawdawful no-win snow days! Half the town wants a snow day to play with their kids and the other half has a crisis at the office!”
Back in the day when my oldest child started school – 1969 – I seem to recall the drill for such events. Snow emergencies would be announced on WCCO-AM 830 (Minneapolis), so if the weather looked suspect, we’d tune in to Roger Erickson and Maynard Speece, cracking jokes as usual and reading school closing announcements for Minnesota. It was good for us, and certainly good for WCCO Radio! (Seems I recall they had to clean up their usual farm-yard humor act a bit, too. There was a different audience.)
There was no capacity for robocalls, of course. Phone trees (one call ten, who each call ten, etc.) might have been used some places, but they were subject to human whim.
Oh, how things have changed.
We are wired in ways we older-timers cannot even imagine.
Later the same week I was at a major ticketed event at the Ted Mann Theatre at the University of Minnesota.
“Ticket takers” these days scan the tickets, and if you’re legal you can go through.
I was about to check in and the lady – rather her scanner – was not able to read my name tag. Her colleague was having the same problem with his device.
So puzzling.
A techie looking guy came over, looked over the display on the scanners, and left.
Shortly thereafter a pleasant sounding lady came on and asked all of the people in the foyer to turn off their smartphones: the Mann wi-fi was overloaded.
In a minute or two we were on our way in. The program started ten minutes late, with apologies.
Technology is wonderful.
But sometimes I wonder, wouldn’t it be nice….
PS: Two hours after the 6 a.m. call I was asked to pick up our grandson at his school in Woodbury. His school had been closed due to a power outage, and they were sending the kids home. I went to the school, getting there about 8:30. The power was back on. But they were still closing school.
Half of the kids had already gone by the time the power came on; there was no justification for keeping the others. EVERYBODY would be punished.
Our grandson enjoyed the day off….