Dick Bernard: The I-35W Bridge Collapse, Minneapolis MN, August 1, 2007

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We head to “the lake” today for our annual week at Breezy Point north of Brainerd MN. We have the same week each year. My computer takes a vacation, too. Likely, tonight, the local Elvis impersonator (he’s very good) will do his gig by the dock, and we’ll have an enjoyable time.

Ten years ago, August 1, we were at the same resort, watching the news, and up came an announcement of the I-35W Bridge collapse in Minneapolis. We first had to figure out what bridge it was – it’s not a normal route. In my computer photo file – the index says “Apple iPhone 6:38:13 pm” – someone, apparently at the Guthrie theater not far away, had taken a photo of whatever was happening just down the street, later sending it to me. I have a guess. See text below. In due time, the scope of the tragedy became known: 13 dead, 145 injured. The bridge took years to rebuild; there were lawsuits and financial settlements, and talk about our crumbling national infrastructure.

Thursday of this week I crossed the replacement bridge twice, to and from a 5 p.m. meeting at St. Anthony Main. The significance of ten years ago at this very spot didn’t even cross my mind. Life goes on, memories are short. So long as we avoid the personal potholes of life, we can, in our affluent society, largely ignore our responsibility for the greater reality around us. My opinion: our neglect of our infrastructure (which in my definition includes our inability to even work out differences of opinion amongst ourselves) is our slow-moving and continuing 9-11-01 – a disaster in progress.

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Photo of I-35E Bridge Collapse August 1, 2007 via iPhone, quite likely from the Guthrie Theater.

Back on August 1, 2007, I had an e-mail list – no blog – and there were a flurry of comments, from which I reprint two, below. A month later, when the area was reopened for people like myself who wanted to see the scene, I went down and took a few photos, three of which follow.

Here’s from Jody, August 1, 2007, 11:57 p.m.: Tonight, I took my kids to Minneapolis to see the musical 1776 at the new Guthrie Theater. I called it an early birthday present to myself, and their gift to me was to go happily from start to finish.

I decided not to take I-35W. It seemed, I don’t know, like the wrong road to take, though it would be my normal way into town. We took an alternate route and got off the highway at about 6:08. There had not been too much traffic and we were very early for the show. The road we were on, Chicago Avenue, went right downtown and suddenly, as best as I can describe — it was chaos. The fire truck that came by first just about pushed the SUV out of his way to get by. Emergency vehicles were coming at us from three directions. I hardly knew where to be — on the right, off the road, stopped — it was just bedlam. I finally got into the parking ramp where it felt safe. My adrenaline was rushing; it was pretty clear something was wrong. Some emergency vehicles had boats.

The Guthrie overlooks the Mississippi River. We joined an ever-growing crowd at the window. The theater has a long beautiful seating area, comfortable chairs, great view — and there we could see the bridge in the river. We could see the smoke from the burning tractor trailer. Emergency vehicles. People. And there was shock. Horror. Cell phones not working. Huge number of bystanders crowded the banks of the river from all angles to watch.

7:30 show time. The seats were not filled. We waited. The show started late which isn’t typical, I hear. We had front row seats, but the mood was subdued. We made an effort to become involved with the production, which was truly wonderful. Part of me felt guilty that I was sitting there. Why hadn’t we gone down to help — although I’m sure our help wasn’t what they needed.

I am only home twenty minutes and trying to catch up with what happened from the television vantage point.

We talked on the way home about the fact that while if I had taken 35W, we would have gotten off the exit before the bridge — but the family joke is that when I have both kids in the car I get to talking and miss my exit (one famous trip to the airport turned into a long trip).

We’ve had calls and emails from friends all over the place, so I thought I’d write. And now eat some ice cream.

I-35 Bridge scene Sep 2, 2007


(click to enlarge this photo, and you will see a black building closeby to downtown Minneapolis. That is the Guthrie Theater, and the vantage point from there would be very similar to the photo you see at the beginning of the post.)

from Mary, Aug. 2, 2007, 4:34 p.m.: My cousin Lois __ survived the 35 bridge crash. She is my mom’s sister’s oldest girl and we attended her [family] reunion together on July 22nd.

After work, most routes were congested and she tried 35 going north and found it stop and go, She was not able to get off because drivers would not yield to her signal. Fortunately, She had driven (inched) to nearly the north side and her maroon older sedan dropped 60 feet with the failing bridge, landed hovering on the frontage road. She walked out of the scene with a truck driver to the Lutheran Center and was taken to U hospital and treated for spine injury. She chose to go home and is recuperating in Arden Hills.

She is grateful she did not drop into the water and she notes her car has had national press coverage. I saw it in the NYTimes slide series. Sadly, her perception was that the car next to her did not make it. She welcomes prayers during this tragic time.

I drove to work under the bridge for 3 years choosing slow life. Last week I walked to my work at Ted Mann Hall a few blocks from there. To avoid the pollution of slow moving freeways, I use alternative routes often.

I welcome the wake-up call to invest in our infrastructure, protect our people and reevaluate transportation-work viability.

(The photo below is of the north side of the bridge, roughly where Lois would have been. The photo above shows a road going under the collapsed bridge which would have been Mary’s usual route.)

Collapsed I-35W Bridge, Minneapolis, Sep 2, 2007

Looking at the destroyed bridge, Sep. 2, 1007, from the parallel bridge just downstream.

POSTSCRIPT. There is a continuing tsunami of national news swirling around the current administration and Congress. A good summary of the last few days is here. I agree with the George Will “snip” which is included in this summary: “Trump is something the nation did not know it needed: a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation’s excessive fixation with the presidency.” Every one of us has shirked our duties for far too long, expecting – and blaming – the President, whoever that might happen to be, for every thing, real or imagined. Ideologically I’m not a George Will type, though his opinion is well worth a read.

The Empty Chair

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September 19, 2013, I was at the North Dakota farm of my Uncle Vincent and my ancestors. It was a place I had been many times before, and this particular day I took the below photos, and 29 more.

I had ridden out to the farm with Uncle Vince, then 88 years of age. We did this every time I came west during the years they’d lived in town, ten miles away.

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Sep. 19, 2013

I’m not sure why I made this particular trip. My photo logs around that date show no related trips connected with the specific visit to that home place 320 miles from where I live.

My photos that day were the usual ones of the ever more run-down farm. This day I took this specific photo of the metal shed, showing where Uncle Vince, in recent years, spent most of his time when he visited his life long home. I purposely showed the place exactly as it appeared. There was no staging. At the time of the photo, Uncle Vincent was down by the barn, turning off the water to the garden; preparing for winter, as he always did.

What I do remember about that day, and those snapshots, was that I felt I was documenting the coming end of the then-108 years old Busch farm.

Since 2006 Vincent and his sister, Edithe, lived in town in assisted living; Edithe had, about a year earlier, moved into the Nursing Home down the hall.

As had become normal, Vincent continued to come out to the farm to do something: on this day, turn off the water to the garden.

But something else was becoming more obvious. Once again, he had forgotten why he made the trip to the farm, and I had to remind him more than once about what he had come to do.

He was slipping. He was also more and more depressed. He’d just sit in that old chair at the farm and look towards the nearby house and yard he’d lived almost his entire life, and look beyond in the direction of the old hometown, Berlin ND, elevators easily visible, about five miles from the knoll on which the farm stood. He’d just sit there in his chair and look….

Sep. 19, 2013, Berlin ND from the Busch farmstead

I remember one other particular photo that September day. It is below.

Sep. 19, 2013

I was down by the old garden, and took a photo of the old barn – I’d done that many times before. This particular day, as I noticed the car by the barn. I realized with a start that given Vince’s short term memory problems, it was a real possibility that he might drive home to LaMoure without me, not remembering that I’d come out with him. So I hustled back towards the barn.

Visit over, I made the over 300 mile trip back home.

My photos show that on October 24 I was back in LaMoure, then again on November 10, to do the deed that many of us have to do with an elder loved one.

Vince and Edithe Oct 25, 2013

The folks in assisted living had determined that Vincent could no longer live semi-independently in his apartment, and on November 11, 2013, I had to give him the talk, along with the Director, that he had no real choice but to move to join his sister down the hall in the Nursing Home. I accompanied him on that short trip by wheelchair. It was not easy.

These are things that stick in one’s mind: those Fall days in North Dakota will be among my enduring memories.

Fourteen months later, Feb. 2, 2015, Vincent died, having just achieved age 90.

There was always a melancholy sense with Vince; that he felt he’d failed, somehow, let the family down. It’s easy to fall into that trap.

I know better. He honored his family and his community as well. He was a good man.

We’re all on the same train track called “life”, with all that entails.

Three days ago, I went to the funeral of David, a teaching colleague from 50 years ago. Funerals become regular social event for older folks like me. I sent along to the mailing list announcing David’s death an old Ann Landers column that has always been meaningful to me, and offer it to you, now: The Station001

All best for a good life.

NOTE: Here are the blogposts written about the Busch farm and North Dakota generally over the last few years: Dick Bernard Blog Posts on Buschs and N. Dakota

POSTSCRIPT:

Neither Vince nor Edithe ever married, nor had kids of their own, but there were those 28 of us who called them “Uncle” or “Aunt”, and saw them from time to time. Six of us preceded them in death.

Sometimes you wonder, did you make any difference at all? I’m pretty sure Vince, in particular, wondered about that, though he was close-mouthed about his feelings.

Lately, I’ve had a couple of pieces of “evidence”, among many others, that yes, they/we made a difference.

Earlier this month, daughter Joni, was appointed Principal of a Middle School near here. She’s been a school administrator for 13 years, and the new assignment is a particular challenge/honor: she takes the reins at a 66 year old school, while at the same time supervising the construction of its replacement school a few miles away. She’s earned the promotion to what is a difficult job. Here’s the article announcing her appointment: Joni Hagebock001

Just a week or so ago we got the latest issue of the Catholic Archdiocese newspaper, and the entire back page was devoted to Carrie Berran, who we immediately identified as the daughter of another of Vince’s nieces, Mary Jewett. As the article states, Carrie was honored as the national NBA Jr. Coach of the Year for the United States. Not at all shabby! Carrie Berran Jul 2017003.

Carrie Berran

Dick Bernard: Antioch, and a local Festival….

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We were at the St. George’s Middle Eastern Festival in W. St. Paul yesterday. It continues today, noon to 10 p.m., and Sunday noon to 6 p.m. Here’s the website, and schedule of events: St. George Festival001. I’m very tempted to go back. A few thoughts from yesterday. (St. George’s is just south of Butler, between Robert and U.S. 52 in West St. Paul.)

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Yesterday, our friend, Don, 88, expressed an interest in going to a church festival in a neighboring suburb, West St. Paul. It was a good idea, and a nice day. Don’s objective: to ride a camel, for the first time in many years. He felt he was up to it (he was), and off we went.

We were early, and went inside the Church which includes a display of icons. A parish member was there to supervise and answer questions. I had noticed that the Church labeled itself as Saint George Antiochian Orthodox Church. I had a general idea of Antioch, and Orthodox, but asked the gentleman about Antioch and by extension “Antiochian”. Were the two related? Why “Antiochian”?

This was not a new question to the guide. He asked were we generally aware of Turkey and the Middle East? Surely. More or less at the elbow, where Turkey and Syria meet, is the city of Antioch.

(On the below map, note generally where Smyrna and Syria come together).

It was Antioch where this branch of Christian Orthodoxy began, but largely due to too frequent earthquakes, the headquarters of the Church was relocated to Damascus, Syria. “Damascus” brought up an obvious question from one of us, about Syria today….

(click to enlarge, double click for more detail)

But before that, here’s an article about Antiochian Orthodox.

The mere mention of “Damascus” brought a rapid fire, very civil, series of “one-liners”, overlooked by the assembled icons on display below a photo of the founding group of the local congregation back in the 1920a.

St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church Congregation 1920s

Damascus brought up the current Syria issue, which brought up Isis, which brought up Iraq and Saddam Hussein’s relatively benign treatment of Christians, and Mosul, and the Ottoman Turks and the Armenian genocide, and Ottoman Empire (basically the green portion of the 1896 map) and on and on an on. Into the mix came powerfully the less than helpful impact of powerful religious ideologues of all religions. And also into the mix came the issue of the French and British partition of what is now the Middle East in the wake of WW I: Sykes-Picot is how that is often characterized.

None of us were there to solve the middle east, or any other problems.

We were there for a camel ride, and it went well – Don can now cross it off his bucket list, to add to his real-life experiences with camels when he was much younger and a visitor to over 50 countries in the world (including Algeria and Morocco, where the previous rides took place).

But that brief conversation sticks in my mind.

July 14, 2017 W. St. Paul MN

#1275 – Dick Bernard: Upcoming “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”

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Mean weather coming through. Woodbury MN, about 9 a.m. June 11, 2017

Two weeks from today, July 28, is the opening, in selected cities nationwide, of “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power“, the followup to the 2006 film by Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth.

The general opening nationwide is August 3, 2017.

Whenever the Twin Cities is one of those places that plays “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power”, we’ll be in the audience.

Details on show times and places will be available here.

Of course, I have not seen the 2017 film – it is not yet released. Someone who has both seen the new film, and heard Al Gore talk about it, is this person, Hani Nam, from Los Angeles, May 2017.

My wife and I saw Al Gore speak about the issue of climate change in person in 2005 – a dozen years ago! – then saw the film, “An Inconvenient Truth”, at the time of its release one year later, in June, 2006. Here is what I wrote then: Inconvenient Truth 2005, 2006001.

June 16, 2011, five years after the release of An Inconvenient Truth, I attended a talk by a respected local authority on Climate Change, Prof. John Abraham. In the q&a session following the talk, I asked the Professor for his perceptions of the accuracy of the film. You can read his answer at the post I did then, here. Prof. Abrahams comments speak for themselves.

Dec. 14, 2015, I applauded the COP agreements on Climate Change in Paris, here.

It is hardly a secret where we are at this moment in history…indeed, the preview clip of An Inconvenient Sequel hi-lites the problem going forward.

When an “Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power” plays in your area, make a point to not only attend, but to get active.

The solution – the Power – is in every single one of us.

PERSONAL POSTNOTE:

As a society, we seem to have become addicted to denial of reality, because we can to a certain extent deny reality. Most of us have the money to turn up the air conditioning, or turn up the heat, or in other ways to avoid the natural realities of bad weather, as I was able to avoid the bad weather coming through on June 11 (the photo which leads this post). I was in my car, and could turn around when it appeared it was foolish to continue into the rapidly approaching storm. I am also aware, however, that my personal environment, in a heavily populated city, is always potentially at risk. Cynically, best the tree fall on somebody elses house, or someone else lose power for an entire day (as happened about 24 hours ago in other suburbs of my metropolitan area.)

But everyone of us, everywhere, is in the same kettle, it is called earth. We have the same home….

There is one simple distinction which we all need to learn, and that is the distinction between WEATHER and CLIMATE, here provided by the National Weather Service: “Weather – The state of the atmosphere with respect to wind, temperature, cloudiness, moisture, pressure, etc. Weather refers to these conditions at a given point in time (e.g., today’s high temperature), whereas Climate refers to the “average” weather conditions for an area over a long period of time (e.g., the average high temperature for today’s date).”

Weather is that nasty cloud which leads this post. Climate is the much broader and longer term patterns of weather which do not respect human borders, and are the focus of the science of climate change.

In my opinion, an unfortunate semantic mistake was made early on when the conversation focused on the term “global warming”, true in a climate sense, but easily ridiculed by reference to oddities of daily weather. Ridicule does not change reality…it does make conversation and resolution more difficult.

Humans with adequate financial resources can basically and temporarily deny the impacts of climate change. For everyone else, including plants and animals, who live within the reality of heat, cold, wet, dry, the potential for surviving change is less certain.

We advanced humans are effectively cooking our childrens future, and that of other living things as well.

One of the best presentations I personally witnessed was this eight minute presentation by a climate scientist to children at the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College in 2009. Prof Alley and his colleague scientists were co winners of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.

Here are two websites: IPCC and NOAA

Dick Bernard: The Korean Peninsula and Poland, very briefly…

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Book recommendation from Marie: A book you might be reading is: Age of Anger A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra.

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Hubris always ends badly*.

This date the great meeting with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump occurs in Hamburg. The only U.S. representative with Trump will be Rex Tillerson, Secretary of State. Yesterday, Trump gave a major speech to an invited audience in Poland. In the same time period North Korea successfully launched an ICBM which signalled its capacity of delivering a nuclear warhead as far as Alaska.

I’m an old geography major, old enough to have had my college degree a year before I was sitting in an Army barracks in Oct 22, 1962, watching President Kennedy tell we Americans about the Cuban Missile Crisis where Russia was said to be delivering ICBMs whose range was as far as Cheyenne Mountain, below which I was sitting near Colorado Springs Colorado.

It seems a good time for a tiny briefing about Poland and Korea….

KOREA.

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Personal adaptation of p. 104 of 7th Edition of the National Geographic Atlas of the World

Note especially the red rectangle at center in the map. That rectangle is about 125 miles wide, giving an idea of the scale of the map. Note Seoul, and Pyongyang, and Tokyo and Hiroshima, all hi-lited in yellow, as well as the 38th parallel, the demarcation between the two countries** since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War (though it was never a declared war).

The Korean peninsula is not a place for a “loose cannon” on any side…. Note the CIA Fact Book about both North Korea and South Korea. For comparison, Minnesota has a population of about 5 1/2 million; N. Korea about 25 million, S. Korea about 51 million. In land area, N. Korea is slightly larger than the state of Virginia; slightly smaller than the state of Mississippi; S. Korea is a bit smaller than Pennsylvania, a bit larger than Indiana.

Google Maps notes that you can’t get from Seoul to Pyonyang by road. Still the map is interesting. And a guided missile is a very short trip away from both in the area of the 38th parallel. Tokyo and the rest of Japan are not that far away, either. Here’s the Japan briefing book from the CIA.

POLAND.

If there was ever a place for a white nationalist to give a speech, it would be Poland. Here’s the CIA Factbook on Poland. Poland has not been treated kindly by history: Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin….

I have been to Auschwitz, Krakow, Czestochowa and Gdansk (2000 and 2003).

My grandmother was in 8th grade in about 1896 when she learned the geography of Europe. Here is the map from her textbook which shows Europe as it existed then. Most interesting to me is that this map, from a standard text for American Catholic Schools at the time, does not even name Warsaw, already a major city**.

(click to enlarge)

As we learned when we visited Auschwitz in 2000, Auschwitz (Oswiecim in Polish times) was basically a prison camp for 140-150,000 Poles, about half of whom died; adjoining Birkenau was the extermination camp for the Jews. Nearby was a third forced labor camp, Monowitz, part of the I. G. Farben Buna factory (from the book “Auschwitz, Voices from the Ground” purchased at Auschwitz, May, 2000).

Pope John Paul II, the “Polish Pope”, born in 1920, grew up in nearby Wadowice, Poland, and thus felt the full impact of both Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union. His world view was likely shaped by his experiences.

I remember, from the time of our visit, that perhaps 10% of Poles fell as victims of WWII; as well as virtually all of the Polish Jews. (Note here.) Of all countries, Poland was among the most devastated by WWII.

On the other hand, our dear friend, Annelee, who grew up in Hitler Germany, lost her Dad to the war. He was a conscript who refused to become a Nazi, though he would have benefited from such a move. They are not sure where or when he died, though it was likely in Russia. They lived in terror of being taken over by the Russians after the war (they weren’t).

* “Hubris”? Some time back I was giving a ride to my friend, Joe, a retired distinguished international emeritus professor at the University of Minnesota. The car conversation got around to Napoleon and Hitler’s misguided attempts to control all of Europe and Asia, attempts which failed. “Hubris” is how my friend defined their actions. In a different sort of way, yet very similar, Donald Trump is trying to translate a slogan into action: “Make America Great Again”, but I think the world leaders are a bit wiser now. This won’t stop the macho coffee conversations about “kicking ____’s ass” (fill in the blank with whomever or whatever the target of choice might be.

There has never been a good time for hubris. Most certainly not now, when we are a global society, with the capacity to destroy ourselves.

It is time for cooler heads everywhere to prevail, one person, one conversation at a time.

Back to you.

Comments welcome to Dick_BernardATmsnDOTcom.

Another map from the same 1896 text. Click to enlarge. Note that Moscow is not even mentioned.

** – Note comment from anonymous below.

COMMENTS
from Jeff: Old maps are interesting. My German grandparents on my mothers maternal side emigrated from Pomerania, which was then part of Germany, is now part of Poland. I think it was originally East Prussia , which eventually became Germany under Bismarck. A majority of the people in Pomerania were German , some had Polish surnames but were Germans. The maps of Asia are more interesting… Iraq doesn’t exist as it was part of both the Ottoman empire and Persia. Syria didn’t exist, and look where the Ottoman empire extended around Arabia encompassing Israel, Palestine, Jordan the Gulf emirates, parts of Saudi Arabia. Vietnam was a colony of France, India, Burma, Malaysia, Singapore a part of the British Empire…..

Response from Dick: Indeed. Most of us have only the thinnest veneer of knowledge about the world as it was or is, even our own country. It makes for problems…and opportunities for people who benefit from simplistic notions of superiority or such. One of my vivid memories from the trip to Poland was at the Krakow Cathedral in early May, which I think was Constitution Day or such in Poland. There was a Mass there, and after Mass, one of the people we met was an ancient man (WWII vintage) wearing very, very proudly his Polish Army uniform. I should dig out the slide. It was just an old Army uniform, festooned with whatever decorations he had received ‘back in the day’.

“Tribes” are useful, and sometimes important, but more often than not dangerous. A friend gave me a CD by a superb Irish Tenor, including assorted songs, mostly of lament. One which sticks especially is “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, about an Aussie who encounters the Turks (the Ottomans) at Sulva Bay in Gallipoli is WWI. Listen to it here.

A year or so ago we went to the Russia Museum in Minneapolis to see the exhibit on WWI from the Russian perspective. One caption I remember quite vividly. Apparently, the Kaiser and the Czar were first cousins, the German and the Russian rulers. And apparently WWI really started with some argument over something or other. This was before the assassination….

from Jeff: Actually the Kaiser, the Czar, and the King of England were all cousins… It wasn’t that long ago either.

from Fred: Very well put. Excellent idea to use a little geography and cartography to assist the uninitiated.

from Terrance: I have been amazed over the past 25 years since the fall of the Soviet Union how little we learned from the Catholic textbooks about how many people from various little nations, religions and ethnic backgrounds were forced into the USSR. If they weren’t Catholic, they were dismissed in our Geography classes as irrelevant.

** from Anonymous: I read your blog about Poland and Korea and agree with you that we Americans need to be better informed about both. But may I offer a few critical comments?

You stated that “the 38th parallel, [was]the demarcation between the two countries since the end of what has come to be known as the Korean War.” That is not correct. The 38th parallel was the the boundary from the end of WWII until the start of the Korean War. The de facto boundary since that war has been the cease-fire line at the time of the truce which ending the fighting (in 1953). That line was to the north of the 38th parallel in its eastern sector and to the south in the western sector. (In 1980 I crossed it to visit a national park in what passed from North to South Korea in 1953.

The blog was interesting.

from Norm: Great observations and commentary, Dick.

I am not an old geography major albeit old I am. On the other hand, I am and have always been a geography buff going way back to my early introduction to them in National Geographic. I have always loved maps of areas ranging from those of a township to a state to the nation and to the world, whatever their purpose but mainly that show geographical features and political boundaries although the latter change frequently in boundaries, name and existence.

I served nearly four years as a USAF photo radar intelligence officer which was later categorized by the folks in the public sector when describing my work history as that of a cartographer which it essentially was in many cases.

I have always been intrigued as well by how natural geographic features such as rivers, mountains, large lakes and so on can affect the politics of things. For example, the folks on the leeward side of the mountain range having different political views and customs let alone cultures than those on the windward side of the range or on the other side of the river or large lake or whatever.

That is just very interesting to me, Dick.

Dick Bernard: Castile-Yanez

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If you opened this post, you know the names and that the Jury decision in this case was national news last night; and occupied a great amount of space in today’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune (our at home newspaper).

I’ve written twice about this case, both in the summer of 2016. You can read them here; and here.

The most powerful recent writing I’ve seen about Yanez-Castile is this Jon Tevlin column, written June 11, 2017, at the conclusion of the trial and as Jury deliberations were about to begin. It is worth your time.

I deliberately connect the two names, the motorist who was killed; the policeman who killed him.

They are both the victims, but in our “win-lose” society, it will be difficult to see this mutuality of relationship. We tend to take “sides”. Both polarities are valid, but not if one polarity is considered exclusive of the other. Both Yanez and Castile, to my reading, were good people, contributors to society. Castile is dead; Yanez and his family have to remake a life, somewhere, somehow, after a year of almost certain personal hell. In a sense, they died as well.

My hope is that there is lots of room for rational conversation about the issues raised. I can understand the polarities of the opposing camps. The demonstrations at the State Capitol last night were 15 minutes from where I write; when I did the second post cited above, after a Minnesota Orchestra concert last summer, a demonstration was gathering close by Orchestra Hall. The hard work will come when people can have civil conversations about what we can learn from this and other tragedies.

Fitting our gun-wealthy society, Yanez and Castile both had guns, both had them legally. (Tevlin says 265,728 Minnesotans – about 1 of every 20, perhaps one of 15 if you factor out kids – have permits to carry a gun).

Every police calculation has that in mind when engaging with any personal situation.

All of the rest about this issue you can read on your own. My editorial: “no guns, no death”. Of course, that won’t solve the argument.

Then I’ve noticed the other matter, conveniently dropped into the conversation, marijuana….

(The most accurate descriptor of me would be “tee-totaller” from youth to now. A soft-drink guy at gatherings.)

The “pot piece” will be discussed while folks are indulging – a beer, a drink, what have you; probably with a distinction for the drug, pot, what role did it play?

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If you’re into reading, I’d recommend the new book “A Colony in a Nation” by Chris Hayes. Very early in the book – pages 16-19 – the stage is effectively set for this book, whose title comes from Richard Nixon’s speech to the 1968 Republican Convention (p. 30).

Take the time to read the book. It is timely.

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As always, Castile-Yanez will disappear in a few days, as will the protests.

The goal ought always be long-term solutions, which are messy, and take lots of work, but are always worth it.

COMMENTS:
from Gail: Thanks, Dick – you always give us something to think about!

from Norm: A good and thoughtful set of observations, Dick.

Consistent with the concern Shawn Otto expresses in his book, the War on Science, this is another situation where people will focus on what they believe at least in the short term and ignore what the evidence showed or did not show. Obviously, in this case, the 12 person jury of his peers, including two African Americans, did not find that the evidence presented by the prosecution was sufficient to find Yanez guilty of the charges against him beyond the high bar of a reasonable doubt.

And, not surprisingly, the many folks who “knew” that Yanez was obviously guilty claimed that the system was rigged against them and one person even claimed that he/she hated the state of Minnesota in spite of all of the benefits that it provides to many folks thanks to the largess or generosity of its taxpayers.

Interestingly, while so many folks believe that the system failed them once again, not too many years ago, they thought that the system worked just fine when O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the two murder charges brought against him because the prosecution, ill fitting glove and all, had not proven Simpson’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt…even though to many, many folks, the star NFL running back was “obviously” guilty as all hell.

Later, a civilian court did find him responsible for the death of the mother of his children using a less stringent level of doubt.

from a friend of many years: I am having a difficult time seeing any equivalency between losing your life and leaving a grieving family behind …. and losing your job because you are immature or just a scum bag like those folks that were responsible for all the Native American deaths reported in that package of articles that you recently sent me. With the host of ongoing discussions about the deaths of minorities at the hands of law enforcers, I have had a number of discussions relating to this issue with our local sheriff and other local law enforcement officers that I know. A common theme amongst the law enforcers is that they are trained to shoot to kill versus shooting to disarm. There was an elderly Native American wood carver sitting on a bench in Seattle carving a piece of sculpture who was killed by a police officer a couple of years ago because he had a knife and did not put it down quickly enough to suit the officer, and the officer went scot free. We cannot know what was in the heart of Yanez, but to pump five bullets into his victim brings both factors, bigotry and immaturity, into question. If Yanez was gripped by fear, a bullet into the leg of Castile would have quickly brought his hands to his wound. When I was a kid, 11 or younger, I would toss a stone up in the air and shoot it with regularity, taught to do so by my sister, who could do the same. So if we could shoot a small stone moving through the air, why can’t a trained law enforcer hit something as large as a leg? Immaturity or bigotry? When you pump a clip of bullets into a person, the intentions are clearly to ensure that you have killed that person. Yanez or someone in the force that provided him a gun should spend their lives in prison. Think about this false equivalency that you put forth.

from Dick, brief response to my friend, and others: “For whatever it’s worth. I qualified as expert with the M-1 rifle in the Army days, but otherwise my gun career was plinking at gophers with a 22 – that sort of thing. I have never owned a gun, and consider their use whether offensively or defensively as a liability, not an asset, regardless of whether you’re a “stand your ground” homeowner, policeman, or gang banger settling scores. With a gun, you always lose. And that’s why I emphasized the gun in the Castile-Yanez article.”

Every senseless death is a tragedy for an entire constellation of people. The larger problem, I think, is that we all tend to retreat into our preferred response…the many commentaries on this I see tend to start from a particular frame of reference. One really excellent and powerful response I had asked to print, the writer did not want printed, for whatever reason. It would have helped this conversation grow. Hopefully the writer will do more than just share the observations with me. So it goes.

from Dick, June 21: There were three comments to this post; only two of them are above. The third was very powerful but the writer asked that it not be posted, and I respect those boundaries.

Last night, the police car dash cam coverage of the shooting was broadcast for the first time; today’s paper was full of news….

How to deal with this tragedy as a learning opportunity is not at all clear. The tendency is to take a polarized position one way or another.

We all can pronounce what could have/should have happened in all aspects of this case. We have the luxury of this judgement. Philando Castile and Jeronimo Yanez had their deadly and tragic moment. I wonder how I would have reacted, if in either persons position that fateful afternoon in 2016. A couple of years ago I was pulled over for what turned out to be failure to signal a turn. For me, it was not a neutral event. I was very nervous. And I’m just an old white guy justing driving from point A to point B.

It would be nice to have a rational and ongoing conversation, but early indications don’t seem to point in that direction.

I think it will be difficult, and it may be impossible, to learn from this tragedy to help prevent the inevitable next one.

Dick Bernard: Part II. The Scaffold at the Walker Sculpture Garden, Minneapolis MN, and Sacred Sites

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PRE-NOTE, September 11, 2017: PRE-NOTE September 11, 2017: This post, and a preceding one May 31, 2017, here, began with a casual observation driving home from church on May 31, 2017. That observation has led to 1) a lengthy discussion of two related issues – the hanging of 38 Dakota Indians at Mankato MN – the Scaffold; and the massacre at Whitestone Hill in Dakota Territory – which happened in the same time period in 1862 and 1863 at two locations about 300 miles apart in Minnesota and then-Dakota Territory, later North Dakota. Here is the geographic relationship of the two sites. 2) a consideration of how significant events like these are commemorated.

A recent addition to this post is September 11, 2017, and outlines the history of events at Whitestone Hill, from the 2013 150th anniversary of the massacre. Here: Whitestone Hill 2013001

It is hoped that all of the events described can be helpful to all parties seeking to better understand events of history and their commemoration.

NOTE: at the recent Nobel Peace Prize Forum at Augsburg University (Sep 14&16) I heard, for the first time, of the Red Rock at Newport MN, sacred to the Dakota. Sep. 19 I went to see the rock in person. It is only four miles from my home. Here are two photos:

(click to enlarge)

Red Rock at Newport United Methodist Church, Glen Road, Newport MN, Sep. 19, 2017

Sep 19, 2017

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The original June 2 post:

6:13 a.m. June 2, 2017: There are, thus far, 17 responses to my May 31 post on the [likely) now-being-removed “Scaffold” at the Sculpture Garden at Walker Art Center. You can read the responses to my post here.

Here, in pdf form, are the statements of the Artist and the Executive Director of the Walker Art Center on “Scaffold” from May 29 and May 27 respectively: Sam Durant Statement May 29, 2017. These are found under the tab “NEWS” at samdurant.com At the same website, under “PROJECTS”, click on “Scaffold” to see the now removed art work.

POSTNOTE 8:02 a.m. June 2, 2017: There are several letters related to the Scaffold in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune, as well as a column by citizen Timothy S. O’Malley in the June 1 issue of the newspaper. You can access these letters and column here. Click on tab “Opinion”. In today’s issue, as well, is a long article about the controversy in the Variety section.

POSTNOTE about 11 a.m. June 2, 2017
(click to enlarge)

Scaffold, Friday, June 2, 2017 about 11 a.m.

POSTNOTE 9:48 a.m. June 3, 2017: An article in the Minnesota section, and two op eds in todays Minneapolis Star Tribune: here.

POSTNOTE 2:15 p.m. Sunday, June 4, 2017:
(click to enlarge)

Scaffold June 4, 2017 2:15 p.m.

POSTNOTE: Wednesday, June 7: A significant development reported in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune. You can read it here.

POSTNOTE: Thursday, June 8: At the Walker website are two statements about the Scaffold situation: You can read them here May 31 and here June 5.

POSTNOTE: Saturday afternoon, June 10, 2017 I visited the Sculpture Garden this morning, about 10:30 a.m., right after it opened. It is a lovely place, of course. My mission, though, was to see the site of the Scaffold, which I had first seen 13 days ago. Here is a “before and after”.

(click to enlarge)

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Saturday, June 10, 2017

In the two photos you can see the common elements – including where the Scaffold used to be.

Where the Scaffold and its concrete base used to be was freshly laid sod.

I walked around for awhile, and the most vivid sight this hot, sunshiny and very windy day was what I’ll dub the “wind chime tree”, literally what it was. It added its music to the environment.

June 10, 2017

Through out the garden were patches of earth, each of which was identified with a sign, as below:

June 10, 2017

Wouldn’t it be nice, I thought to myself, if the site of that now destroyed Scaffold would have the sod removed, and replaced with the same future possibility as these natural areas….

Visit the Sculpture Garden some time. You’ll enjoy it. And think about how we can do things a bit better.

from Dick, July 6, 2017: A general e-mail from the Walker Art Center about the debate about the Sculpture, received on July 5 from Anne Gillette Cleveland and David Goldstein:
Dear Community Member:

On behalf of the Walker staff, we appreciate your honest feedback regarding the acquisition, placement and recent dismantling of the Scaffold sculpture in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. We humbly acknowledged that we were “learning in public”, as we quickly understood the pain we caused the Dakota people and many others.

Going forward over the next 3-6 months, we will be transparent about how we conduct community outreach for future public artworks, re-build our external relationships with the Dakota people and broader community, and be better stewards of the public’s park across from the Walker Art Center.

Please accept our apology for any harm that we have caused. We hope to earn your respect once again.

Two photos taken on a visit to the Sculpture Garden on July 2:

Horse sculpture at the Sculpture Garden, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, July 2, 2017

At the Sculpture Garden, Minneapolis, July 2, 2017

An example of what I felt was a misuse of a symbol at the International Peace Garden (ND/Manitoba) which I saw in July, 2009. You can read about it here.

It is included in my response to the July 5 memo quoted above: Walker Staff001

Dick Bernard: The Scaffold (a Sculpture, a Gallows); with reflections on Whitestone Hill, a 1997 Commemoration at Mankato and other items.

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June 29, 2017: Recommended by a reader: The Heart of Everything That Is: The Untold Story of Chief Red Cloud, an American Legend

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POSTNOTE 5:20 p.m. May 31 – A decision was made about the Scaffold today. See comments section below.

POSTNOTE 8:30 a.m. June 1 – This seems an appropriate place/time for a general timeline of historical events impacting on this conversation: FAHF Timeline 001. This two-page document was prepared by the French-American Heritage Foundation in 2016 as a beginning sketch of relationships in Minnesota and surrounding areas.

UPDATE June 2 here

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ORIGINAL POST May 31
If you are around the twin cities and follow the news at all, you’ve heard the controversy about the new proposed exhibit at the refurbished Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden. The tentative decision has been made to remove the Scaffold, and today is the official meeting about it. The issue is of such concern to me that I hand-delivered a letter plus photos to the Executive Director of Walker Center Tuesday afternoon. There has been, and will continue to be, news in Minneapolis Star Tribune, if you wish.

Here’s a photo I took of the sculpture at issue on Sunday:

(click to enlarge)

The Scaffold, from Lyndale Avenue, May 28, 2017.

To begin, here are the positions of the sculptor and the Walker Art Center, as found at the sculptors website (click on the tab “NEWS”). This perspective, probably not seen thus far, helps provide relevant background. In part, from the artist statement: “Scaffold opens the difficult histories of the racial dimension of the criminal justice system in the United States, ranging from lynchings to mass incarceration to capital punishment. In bringing these troubled and complex histories of national importance to the fore, it was my intention not to cause pain or suffering, but to speak against the continued marginalization of these stories and peoples, and to build awareness around their significance.”

Before I visited the above website, I had delivered the following personal letter, along with photos, to Walker Art Center. The letter is presented as sent, with slight additions in brackets to help give additional context. I’d be interested in other perspectives, if you wish.

My letter to Walker Executive Director Olga Viso, May 30, 2017:

“We are members of Basilica of St. Mary. Each time we drive home we pass by the Sculpture Garden heading south on Lyndale.  So it was, Sunday, about 11 a.m. We saw the “Scaffold”, and then read about the controversy in the STrib.  Later that afternoon I went back for a closer look. 

The Scaffold should stay. Its message is powerful and it is needed. This is a complex issue.  In my opinion, both the Walker and the advocates for removal are making a serious mistake in taking down this powerful work. Everyone will be the losers.

To be clear, I’ve long had an interest in the disgrace of December, 1862, in Mankato, and the events which preceded it, and the long history of running the Native Americans off their land, however that has been justified. The existence of the Scaffold is essential to an essential conversation.  Yes, it is stark, as it should be. I am grateful that it was contemplated, completed and installed, and yes, for the controversy which brought it to my attention.

September 21, 1997, I traveled to Mankato for the solemn dedication of the Memorial there, indeed I visited briefly with the Sculptor.

At the Mankato dedication, September 21, 1997.

The Dedication Plaque at Mankato 9/21/1997

Perhaps the Mankato executions drew me because one of my earliest Minnesota ancestors, Samuel Collette of Centerville, was a private in the First Regiment of Mounted Rangers, General Sibley’s command, Oct. 6, 1862 – Nov. 28, 1863, and thus quite possibly he was at Mankato at the time of the executions.  Samuel came to Minnesota in 1857, from Quebec.  Depending on one’s particular point of view, in this instance, he was good or evil.  For a year he was part of the militia which drove the natives west of the Missouri River and on to Reservations. [The official narrative of the Rangers, written about 1890: Mn Mtd Rangers 1862-63001].

Both my paternal and maternal ancestors have benefited from white settlement taking native lands in northeast and south central North Dakota. My mothers parents had been in North Dakota four years when the monument was set at the site of Whitestone Hill massacre, about 30 miles from their new farm.  As you likely know, the Whitestone monument is to the dead soldiers who had been part of the unit which massacred the Natives encamped there for the annual buffalo hunt. Years later a simple symbol – an unlabeled boulder down the hill from the monument – was placed remembering the slain Native Americans.  I’ve been there many times [most recently a year ago].  More on the deadly encounter here. [Longer articles can be read at Whitestone Hill 1863001, and Whitestone 1863 at 1976002]

Whitestone Hill ND July, 2005

Whitestone ND Monument July 2005

At Whitestone Hill Aug 1994. Below soldier graves is a plain stone monument to the Indian victims in 1863

Succinctly, I’ve thought a great deal about the Hanging and similar atrocities in our past, and in the world itself…the focus of the Scaffold.

Were I in charge, I’d suggest a timeout of weeks, months or years to talk about what this all means.

Removing the Scaffold, will not destroy it or put it in hiding – I took 19 photos of my own yesterday; removal will do nothing to improve understanding or relationships or anything else.

Looking at the Scaffold for the first time, Sunday, from the other side of the fence and the protest banners, I thought it would present an excellent focal point for better public understanding of our often inglorious history as a people.

The Scaffold, with the Basilica of St. Mary in the background, May 28, 2017.

Put the sculpture in its own “prison” if you wish, surrounded even by concertina wire, but do not remove it. Let us see it, with a large plaque explaining what it is; why it was envisioned and commissioned. Let us talk about its meaning, publicly.

There are analogies, though every such event/place/circumstance is unique.

In 2000, we were with a Pilgrimage of Christians and Jews from Basilica of St. Mary and Temple Israel to Auschwitz-Birkenau and other holocaust sites.

At Birkenau the horrid railroad tracks, examples of the awful barracks, even the remains of the hideous ovens, are kept as permanent reminders of the horrors that happened there.

May 4, 2000. Approaching the entrance to Birkenau death camp, Poland. Photo by Dick Bernard

I have been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. several times.  The memories displayed are not abstract.  There, you are confronted with the reality of the horror.

I am only a citizen….”

Others at that meeting today in Minneapolis will move towards a decision on what to do. My hope is that the Scaffold remains and becomes a point for us to look at ourselves, reflectively, and work towards a better future.

May 28, 2017. Walker Art Center Sculpture Garden Site.

One of the protest signs at the site, May 28, 2017

Your opinion? My e-mail dick_bernardATmsnDOTcom if you want to share thoughts with me, and with others through this post.

COMMENTS:
1. From Norm: I’m with you Dick. There aren’t enough such things to remind us of our past indiscretions.

2. from Virgil: Your position is well explained. I think you know me well enough that I would be an ally to not forgetting history as it has been lived with its particular circumstances for communities and individuals across the globe.

Thank you for your very clear explanation and for creating a platform for facing issues which should influence our thoughts about the place others should have in a world where dominant stories represent positions of a strength that should be tempered through a call such as you are putting forth.

3. from Jerry: Thanks, Dick, for your response to the new art at Walker Art Museum. I agree with you that the scaffold should remain and reasons for it given. We keep trying to hide the history of our relationship with the Native Americans and so much of it is very painful. I need to get over to see the art piece myself.

4. from Jeff: I agree with you on this.

The recent art display on lynching in America at the Museum of Modern Art in St Paul was excellent. Open wounds need to see sunlight to heal.

I think part of the issue is that native americans were not consulted on the piece. They should have had a seat at the Table.

5. from Bill: Dick, as an 8 year old child I had a very personal experience with this 1863 Indian uprising when my neighbors took me to the 75th anniversary of the uprising in Mankato in 1938. I approached a very elderly Indian man and made a comment to him about how bad the Indians were and he responded to me “Little boy, remember there are two sides to every story!” I have never forgotten that wisdom when ever there were sides being proposed in an argument.

As an adult I have read about the circumstances that led to the Indian uprising and have come to the conclusion that the Indians had been betrayed by the White politicians of the day in their promising that land along the Minnesota River would be set aside for Indian settlements only to have much of these lands taken over by the flood of European immigrants occurring about that time. Just one more broken promises of the White Man to the Indians.

6. from Greg: I must confess to being a contributor to [the Scaffold] controversy, albeit unintentionally. I remember attending the Lunch with [my City Councilperson] at which Olga Viso, the Walker Executive Director, described the artwork being added to the garden.

For some sad reason this controversy potential escaped my thought process. Thus, I failed to speak privately with her to politely express my strong opinion the Walker was making a major mistake in proceeding with the installation in the manner they had chosen, apparently without first meeting and speaking with members of the Native American community.

I agree that The Scaffold should ultimately remain. I also understand the reaction of the people who oppose The Scaffold, but this reaction does not seem to be acknowledging the valuable educational value of this art work, and that the Native American community will benefit from such educational value, as will we all.

7. from Jermitt: Thank you once again for your thoughtful and inspiring commentary. As a Nation we continue to fail in our commitments to the Native American Communities. And we continue to cover up our faults. Only through lessons from the past can we prevent similar atrocities in the future. Thank you, my friend.

8. from Janice: Powerful blog. Thank you for forwarding. You articulated my views—although with quite a personal history to back it up. I think it can be a powerful and important part of our city. I hope they can reconcile all the parties. Already, look at all of us who now know of this history, who were ignorant before (me included!)

9. from Johnathan: Beautifully written and expressed – US owns its share of national shame. Sunlight heals wounds. Native American voices must express their perspective on The Scadfold. Asking forgiveness is a means of educating future generations to the worst and best of the human condition. Thank you for sharing a great example of balanced and mindful view of facts…and the realities continued to be faced by Native Americans – and all human beings.

10. from Catherine: I too would like to see the sculpture remain, but I would stipulate that it be under the curatorship of the artist along with the local tribes of wherever it’s being displayed. It’s their history and they have never had proper control over it in the history books or the art world. The scaffold itself is painful — that’s the point — but unless it’s exhibited as a teaching tool and a public apology, it could be downgraded easily by trivial popular culture. That has to be avoided. Years ago the Mpls Art Institute had a controversial show on the costumes of the Native Americans for a secret religious ritual. Out of respect they worked closely with the local native population and had the galleries blessed by one of their elders. Even so there were complaints but overall that gesture was appreciated. I think the Walker meant well but went about it wrong.

11. from Catherine, 4:43 p.m., 8 minutes after preceding: Looks like we’re all too late. It will be dismantled by the Dakota and burned at Fort Snelling. That will be impactful at the moment, but what will remain of the many lessons learned?

11A. from Dick: Thank you, Catherine. I heard the same news at 5:10 p.m. on the news. I’m glad I made the effort, and I think burning the symbol will not be as effective as it being used as a long-term learning tool. But…the decision is made, apparently.

12.from Florence: Recently the daughter-in-law of friends of ours had a painting displayed at an art gallery in NYC. The subject was of a 14-year old boy who had been mutilated and hung to die, accused of raping a white woman, in the 1940’s. Yes, he was black. There was a huge out-cry from the African American community and a demand that the painting be removed and destroyed for dishonoring them. I supported their sentiments in my heart, as I support the sentiments of the Native American community against the Scaffold sculpture. Both artists had good intentions, but failed to talk with people from the injured communities. Those injuries don’t go away with time. We need to “walk a mile in their shoes.” I understand that the Walker Art Center has reached an agreement with the Native American community to remove and burn the sculpture/playground. I’m grateful.

13. from Paul: Dick, I, too, have been pondering this “Scaffold” incident. However, I have a very different conclusion than you.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

You seem to argue that the sculpture, “Scaffold” has good intent. And I can agree it has spurred a meaningful and perhaps eventually productive discussion and long deserved public attention to the history of injustice represented by government conducted executions.

However, another view of the sculpture and its prominent display at the Walker Sculpture Garden is to see it as an example of cultural appropriation by a white artist and the white dominated Walker Art Center.

Mostly we see cultural appropriation when the dominant culture uses artistic or cultural characteristics from a minority race or nationality. Sometimes these are displayed in offensive ways such as a tomahawk or headdress used by a sports team. Other times they seem more benign such as using in a new way some hot sauce borrowed from Mexican style cooking. I think back to when white hippies wore afro hair styles – clearly cultural appropriation. When is it wrong? Sometimes it is obvious, sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it is not so wrong at all.

But what about the “Scaffold” is cultural appropriation? The indigenous people and other groups who have suffered the long-term trauma of past aggressions against their ancestors have a primary claim of ownership to the use and remediation of that trauma in our white dominated culture. The artist and the Walker failed to recognize that claim. While attempting to stimulate the healing dialog that is so needed, they failed. The did not even realize that the people who most need to have the power over the remediation of their cultural trauma were being ignored in the creation and the installation of this sculpture. From their point of view, it is white domination all over again. Just another example of the white power players deciding what is good for them, what is the best way to confront their trauma, what is the best way to start the healing.

At the very least, the artist when he first conceived the sculpture a few years ago, owed to the descendants of the victims for whom he had so much sympathy the opportunity to be part of the creation of the sculpture and it’s presentation. The Walker Art Center likewise owed those same people a chance to know about the sculpture and weigh in on its merits and the way it should be displayed (or not displayed).

Good intentions do not excuse colossal blunders. There is a reason that quote at the start of my thoughts is famous.

Now it is time for the next steps to be taken in concert with the people who are the victimized cultures. The Walker, the artist, other institutions have this responsibility. They should provide opportunity for these steps. They are not the leaders in this. They should be the followers. They can apply their resources to the cause and help facilitate.

14. from Fred: A very thoughtful piece on a terribly complex subject. Your family and personal history makes you well qualified to consider the topic. I hadn’t considered the situation in Minneapolis in the light of the German decision to preserve evidence of the Holocaust. The Mankato scaffold and what it represents should be burned into the minds of Minnesotans and their fellow countrymen.

15. from Dick: Here is the official report of the result of the Mediation which will remove the art work. I will next comment after the structure is burned.

16. from Maryellen: Thank you for your very thoughtful and thought-provoking post on the controversy over the artwork called the scaffold. I read through all the comments with great interest.

The hangings of Dec. 26, 1862 are a haunting thing. It will take a lot more than this artwork to put these ghosts to rest.

This parallel lacks some exactness, but I bring it up for painful contrast: the scaffold is a form of execution and so was the cross. How would the early Christians have reacted to a ‘Cross’ created as a Roman work of art? Even with the intention of reminding everyone of its horror?

And yet, it is true that this ‘Scaffold’ may help, if only by reminding us all.

17. from Barbara: Dick – This is the best response I have heard. And I agree with you.

18. from a boyhood friend in ND: Interesting reading. There have been, and still are, some very horrible people living on this planet. We have talked about the book that I am trying to write about religion and the difficulty that I have on the issue of morality because of how hypocritical people are. I don’t know whether there is an afterlife with a heaven and hell, but if there is a hell, it will be full of folks like our founding fathers for what they did to the Native Americans and their enslavement of other humans. It would also be filled with the Europeans that were responsible for not only for the invasion of North America, but also the invasions of South America, Africa, Australia, and portions of Asia during their colonization movements, and what they did to the native populations.

One thing that I am always curious about is the big deal that the world makes about the German Holocaust. There were more Iranians killed in the Iranian Holocaust that we were partially responsible for, and far more Native Americans, and possibly Armenians at the hands of the Turks. So why do we all make a big deal just about the Jews. Hitler killed more Christians than Jews. Where are all the monuments and museums commemorating the deaths of all those Christians. And what about the hundreds of Christians that have been killed by Israel in Gaza? Over 400 in just the 2014 attack on the UN shelter in place facilities. Don’t they count? I could go on and on, but to no avail. It is unfortunate though that historically evil has generally trumped good.

And thanks for that bible atlas that you got from your friend. I will take good care of it and will return it if Joe wants it back. I got a kick out of your notion that this is a hand-me-down from a Jew to a Catholic, to a Muslim. I would have thought that you would know that to be a Jew, Christian, Muslim or any other of the Abrahamic sects, a prime requirement is that you worship the Earth God of Abraham, and that from our previous discussions of my book, I do not believe that the Earth God of Abraham exists, like so many others that are pursuing a set of beliefs that are more consistent with our current knowledge base. I am what is called a freelance monotheist. That was a term coined by a lady back in the 1990s, whose name I cannot remember. [Karen Armstrong]

19. from George: Being from MN and from a southern MN family I immediately related the scaffolding to Mankato. I see it as an item of horror not of art. Just as I see Kathy Griffin’s attention grabbing ploy to not be comic “art” but in poor taste, and definitely not a threat.

19A. Response from Dick: One of the most interesting comments so far has been from Maryellen (above): “It will take a lot more than this artwork to put these ghosts to rest.

This parallel lacks some exactness, but I bring it up for painful contrast: the scaffold is a form of execution and so was the cross. How would the early Christians have reacted to a ‘Cross’ created as a Roman work of art? Even with the intention of reminding everyone of its horror?”

I happen to be lifelong Catholic. I hadn’t thought of the cross piece before. There is hardly a more ubiquitous piece of art than the cross, including in church art. I’d guess Christians would consider the crucifixion on a cross as a “horror”, but nonetheless it seems acceptable as art. The question is a difficult one, I’ll say. Which makes the conversation even more important.

20. from Stacy: I liked your article and the perspective you have on this. It would be a shame to sweep this under the rug when it is such a opportunity for conversation and reflection.

21. from Sandy: Good and meaningful thoughts Dick! You certainly can speak with great knowledge on historical events and issues. thanks

22. from Rebecca: Because of your interest: Re: the Walker Art Center sculpture, I want to recommend to you the book An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, in paperback this year from Beacon Pr. It won the 2015 American book award. After reading this book last month, I contacted the author, a now 77 year old white/Indian woman scholar of American history who lives in California and is emeritus from one of the California universities. I contacted her just before the Walker art museum scandal had happened. I have invited her to come to the Twin Cities to speak and I will hopefully have an announcement about it at the MAP delegate meeting June 13th.

22A. Response from Dick: Thank you, Rebecca. Re “Because of your interest”, I’d like to share a few thoughts about what brought me to this particular place in my own history awareness and position on the sculpture issue. I’m North Dakotan, living there through college (1940-61). We lived, and thus I grew up, in a succession of tiny towns throughout the state. Basically, I’d say, the towns were Catholic; or Lutheran; there were Germans from Russia (mostly), and Scandinavians. That was our notion of “ethnic diversity”. This was back in the days when Catholics and Protestants had little to do with each other, to the point of outright hostility. There were others: Jews, Moslems, but they were rare and very unusual. It was not an enlightened time.

My mother grew up on a farm, which became very much like my “hometown”, as it was a consistent place in my life. My Dad grew up in a town of a few thousand, and his Dad was chief engineer in a flour mill.

I have said publicly as far back as the 1980s that “Indians” to us were about the same as “Negroes” in the south, even less fairly treated. Indeed, the situation for the Native Americans was probably worse, as they were on Reservations. My earliest memories, experienced, not spoken, were between 1945 and 1951 when, on occasion, we drove through the Ft. Totten Reservation near Devils Lake ND. I say “through”, it may have been beside – I don’t know for sure. What I am sure of is the sense I had as a kid that this was where the Indians lived, and it wasn’t a place you’d want your car to break down.

A few years later we lived a few miles west of Wahpeton ND, and I attended a tiny rural school and I was on the high school basketball team. At least twice we played basketball against the “Wahpeton Indian School” team out at the School of Science gymnasium. I remember the “Indian” ball players as very quick. I think that this was the same school, at about the same time, that author Louise Erdrich‘s father was superintendent. My Dad was school superintendent then at our tiny school. Both times we played on the Indian Schools court. Again, there was nothing spoken. The Indians were in their place, and it wasn’t with the rest of us.

Until the air bases and missile facilities of the late 1950s, there were few if any Negroes in ND.

I read somebodies memories of growing up in northeast North Dakota in the 1880s, and she remembered her French-Canadian mothers admonishment to the children: “Don’t trust the Indians or the Norwegians”!

I don’t have any Native-American ancestry – I’m half French-Canadian (Dad) and German (Mom) but I know of relatives of my French-Canadian grandparents generation who had strong native American ancestry. It is not at all unknown to me.

I first took a very active interest in Native Issues perhaps in the 1980s; in Whitestone Hill in the early 1990s. I am guessing the 1990s was the first time I knew of Whitestone (since it is remote – you need to be going there to really know it exists), and I’m also guessing it was a trip from the rural ND farm the 35 or so miles to see it. It is an impactful place, remote, alone, in its way beautiful. Rarely have I been there with any other visitors on the grounds. If one wishes an opportunity to meditate, Whitestone is a good choice.

My intention is to write more about this issue as time goes on, probably after the lumber is burned.

For certain, feel free to pass this along to the author you mentioned.

Thank you again.

22B. POSTNOTE, DICK June 9, 2017 The Scaffold has been disappeared from the news, replaced in today’s Minneapolis Star Tribune by a long piece in the Variety Section, “Something to crow about”. Where the Scaffold was would have been the first sculpture seen as visitors entered at the “New Entry. It has been disappeared.

The culminating event, the burning of the pieces of the Scaffold, has been postponed.

Personally, I think the apparent leadership of the Native American community and its allies missed a major opportunity for dialogue and reconciliation, and possibly they recognize this now, and too late. The Walker doesn’t distinguish itself either. One can only imagine the behind the curtain discussions, and debate, within both camps.

I may wander down to see the new Garden June 10. At some later date, when/if it is decided to burn the pieces of the scaffold, in one ceremony or in many, I will try to cover that story as best I can, if I am privy to information about it.

I’m satisfied that I did what I could.

The photo below is of artifacts found over many years at the North Dakota farm of my ancestors, probably from plowing. Their home was three miles “as the crow flies” from the James River.

May a path be found to Peace. The June 2 post contains updates as I have found them over the last two weeks.

(click to enlarge)

from the North Dakota farm, found sometime after 1905.

23. from Norm: Thanks for your commentaries on the scaffold as well as your remembrances of growing up in the vicinity or the Fort Totten reservation and/or at least driving through it.

I grew up just a few miles from a reservation in Carlton County occupied by the Native Americans who now operate the successful casino located at I-35 and H-210 west of Carlton and south of Cloquet.

The conventional wisdom when I was growing up as well is that you did not want to have car trouble while driving through the reservation, especially around Sawyer which is on H-210 west of Carlton.

The Native Americans were seen in the same light as were negroes in the south and other parts of the country as well just as you said was the case in the state that you grew up in and where I was stationed for eighteen-months at the Minot AFB until being shipped to Thailand.

To this day, many of the residents of my home town and the surrounding area especially those near the ditch-bank areas northeast of town, continue to hold the Native Americans responsible for the lack of deer in the area because “they can hunt at anytime regardless of the season” and so on. They also hold them responsible for any thefts or damage that occurs to property and residences just outside of the reservation.

I had the good fortune to work with many dedicated Native Americans when I was the chief of EMS for the Minnesota Department of Health for several years. We utilized several talented folks from the Red Lake reservation and others as part of our testing crews as well as for the ambulance transportation services in the Red Lake area and on the White Earth reservation as well…and other places beyond that .

It was a privilege to work with them just as it was to work with all number of committed volunteers all across the state who provided basic emergency medical response services to their communities.

The fact that an Native American couple did come off of the reservation to a home just northeast of Cromwell a few years ago and kill a young couple and then stole their new truck that they later tried to burn on the reservation did add fuel to the fire of that perception no matter that the couple was later tried, found guilty and placed in prison.

Thanks again, Dick.

23A. Response from Dick: Thank you. Re your last paragraph “The fact…in prison”, I always pay attention to how such incidents are treated if by “people like us” versus “other”. A dramatic pre-9-11-01 example was Oklahoma City, where initially the suspect was somebody who apparently looked middle eastern. When it became known that it was two white anti-government guys, the conversation seemed to change, immediately.

We have a very long way to go….

(click to enlarge)

June 11, 2017, about 11 a.m. at southwest corner of the space formerly occupied by the Scaffold.

24. Dick Bernard: I returned to the site again this morning (June 11). A quick storm had passed through, refreshing the space. At the corner of the site of the former Scaffold location, I saw the flag and flower shown above. I don’t know who put it there, what their intention was, how long it will remain…. It was definitely put there on purpose, as would such symbols be seen at the Vietnam Wall in D.C. or elsewhere.

I want to comment briefly on my forbears role in this story, which I hope will continue long after “the ink dries” on these words.

Shortly after Whitestone Hill (1863), the final Treaty transferring Indian Lands to the United States was concluded at Huot Crossing in northwest Minnesota, at the Red Lake River (Huot Old Crossing 1863003). It was to the Treaty land that my French-Canadian ancestors came in 1878, and a number still remain to this day. They settled in Dakota Territory, not far west of the Red River. North Dakota became a state in 1889.

In 1904, my German ancestors came to North Dakota, taking virgin prairie south of Jamestown, perhaps 35 miles from Whitestone Hill, which with hardly any doubt they had never heard about. Whitestone had occurred over 40 years earlier – like the late 1970s compares to today. Indeed, they came across Indian artifacts such as the hammerheads shown above. These were turned over in plowing the prairie. Their farmstead was about three miles from the important James River, and on a rise in the surrounding countryside. Most likely it was a good vantage point in native days, as it is, still.

I doubt that either group, nor any of the ordinary settlers, had any notion of having stolen someone elses land. But, maybe they did?

What we’re left with is the present, over 150 years and many generations after the fact.

It has occurred to me that an appropriate resolution at the Sculpture Garden might be to have a mutually agreed to and designed nature garden (common on the Sculpture Garden grounds) placed at the exact site where the scaffold stood for those few days. That is just a suggestion.

Leaving the garden this morning I decided to take a closer look at what I called the “Chime Tree” yesterday. I was most intrigued by the story accompanying it. Both are pictured below.

The Cottonwood at the Sculpture Garden, June 11, 2017

Explanation of the history of the Cottonwood Tree

I wasn’t sure what kind of tree it was, yesterday, but when I saw the word “Cottonwood”, I thought of a story I had written some years ago about another Cottonwood on the North Dakota farm. Here it is.

Let us keep working towards reconciliation, no matter how long or hard the road.

25. from Mary Ellen: I read everything. So much to process. So many important perspectives. I was stunned by the choice of memorial placed where the scaffold stood so briefly– an American flag and a white carnation. What does that mean?
Yes, keep this going!
Right now I have nothing to add. Still thinking.

25A. from Dick, June 18: I was over to the Sculpture Garden today. The flag and white carnation were no longer there. A mystery perhaps no one else will notice or care about. For me, the Sculpture Garden has taken on greater significance than it ever had before.

Marking Times – Some thoughts on Memorial Day 2017

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Have a good Memorial Day. This morning (beginning 9:30 a.m.) I’ll be at the Vietnam Memorial on the MN State Capitol grounds for the annual Vets for Peace Memorial Day observance. Stop over, if you’re in the area. (See end of this post.)

This Memorial Day musing began with an unplanned detour on a north suburban Minneapolis highway on May 18, and concluded with a powerful musical May 26, about a post WWI farm family and community in northern Minnesota.

I hope my musing might bring back to you some memories from days past. All families have legacies which we inherit, and pass on…. (My own family list is at the end of this post.)

(click to enlarge the map, click a second time for greater enlargement, explanation below)

part of 1940 Shell Oil Co. Road Map for Iowa.

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Some days ago I drove to an annual dinner in my old stomping grounds of Anoka County MN. Road work required a detour, and I found myself on Minnesota Highway 65 in Blaine MN, a route to/from work, which I had traveled daily for three years, 1966-69. The approximate six miles, from about 80th Ave NE in Spring Lake Park (1st Ave is downtown Minneapolis) to what used to be called 125th (Main Street east from Anoka) came on this day to be a reflective trip for me – a time to reminisce.

Hwy 65 at 109th in Blaine MN May 18, 2017

These days, the route is strictly suburban, and middle class; home to the world known National Sports Center. Back then, near 50 years ago, Blaine was just developing. Small tract starter homes were blooming west of the highway, ending about at 109th as I recall. To the east and north were essentially nothing but sod farms, and occasional small businesses and rural homes of the day.

I crossed Clover Leaf Parkway at about 94th Avenue NE, and remembered that back then I saw the large barn of Clover Leaf Farms, then a well known company name in the Twin Cities. The farm is long disappeared, but there remains an interesting history of the place here.

This is how history comes back to mind, unintended. The past is never that far gone.

As I drove up that stretch of “65” (as locals would say), I was listening to Vol IV of a CD collection from the 100th anniversary collection of the Minnesota Orchestra: it had been an impulse purchase at a garage sale a short time earlier. Playing as I drove that stretch was Mozart’s Piano Concerto #25 in C Major – a personal favorite. I stopped at Roosevelt Middle School, the place where I had been a teacher from 1965-72, and looked to see when the selection I was listening to had been recorded. Nov. 15, 1957, it said. I remembered Nov. 1957 in my life: we were at my Grandparents farm in Henrietta Township ND, probably at Thanksgiving, and in the evening we gathered on the lawn to watch Sputnik blink its way across the night sky – in those years, the newspaper printed the track of that first satellite in their areas.

I was a senior in high school.

in 1957, “CDs” were many years from becoming part of our vocabulary; now that same CD is rapidly becoming just another fossil. The computer on which I compose this blog, doesn’t even have a CD player as part of standard equipment.

Bernards, Summer 1956, at Anoka MN roadside park

Ah, Sputnik…it gave fuel to the space race and a real emphasis on science in American schools, and all of the other assorted things, good and bad, that went with the Cold War. Ah, CD’s….

Back home a few days later I was looking through a bag with some remaining items from my Grandfather Ferd and then Uncle Vincent’s desk at that farm, and came across several old road maps I had found there after Uncle Vince died. One of them, a well worn one of Iowa roads and towns in 1940, included the map of the U.S. which leads this post. This was, of course, printed long before the Interstate Highway System, which was designed as America’s autobahns, first and foremost a military defense highway system. I first drove on a section of Interstate in 1958, between Jamestown and Valley City ND. “A million dollars a mile”, they said of its cost, then.

My trip down memory lane, at least this trip, culminated last Friday night when we went to see “Sweet Land, the Musical” at Minnesota History Theatre. We were part of a packed house. Its last show was yesterday, though my guess is that it will be back. But you can still access the movie of the same name, or read Will Weaver’s short story which inspired both film and musical, “A Gravestone Made of Wheat”

Short synopsis: Sweet Land is of the triumphs, trials and tribulations of small farmers in Minnesota, from post WWI when a German war-bride came to marry a Norwegian farmer, when anti-German prejudice was still very high. Years later, the intended husband helped save a neighbors farm, and the community in turn helped them save his own farm. It is story of humanity, about greed and about generosity and the tension between invaluable legacy and valuable land. A further history summary of the era, from the program for Sweet Land, is here: Sweet Land001

The show begins with a for sale sign on the property, whose owners have died; it ends with the land not for sale…. I thought of my own families 110 year old farm which recently has begun a new life in North Dakota.

I thought of all of the inhabitants of that farm, now all but one deceased, and those of the neighbor farm whose owners were brother and sister of my own grandparents.

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For this Memorial Day, I remember all of those people who lived for all or part of their lives on that land in rural LaMoure County North Dakota. May we be good examples of their raising us up.

The children of Ferdinand and Rosa (Berning) Busch: (born 1907-27) Lucina, Esther, Verena, Mary, George (Lt., U.S. Navy, Pacific Theatre 1943-45), Florence, Edithe, Vincent, Arthur (U.S. Army 1945-46).

The children of August and Christina (Busch) Berning: (born ca 1907-28) Irwin, Irene, Lillian, Cecilia, Rose, August (Captain U.S. Marines, Pacific Theatre WWII), Hyacinth, Ruth, Ruby, Rufina, Anita, Melvin (U.S. Army, Korea).

These families felt the cost of war. The husband of one was killed over Italy near the end of WWII; the son of another committed suicide on return from Korean war – he couldn’t leave the war behind; the brother-in-law of another, my uncle Frank, went down with the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor; a neighbor of the family, Francis Long, was killed in action, hardly a year into active duty in WWII. Everyone is affected by war. This day the tendency is to honor the fallen, who we call “heroes”. But among us are survivors, suffering in assorted ways from the effects of war. War is insane. We need to work very hard to rid ourselves of the impulse of war as a solution to problems.

And there are other true heroes who have committed their lives to finding some ways to seek peace.

Last night we watched the always moving Memorial Day program on PBS. At the end of the program Vanessa Williams and choral group sang the Hymn which captioned my 1982 Christmas greeting. Below is the cover, and here is the text of that card: Vietnam Mem DC 1982001

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Listen: “Let There Be Peace on Earth, and Let It Begin With Me.”

COMMENTS:
from Donna: Thanks for your inspirational words once again. This Memorial Day I am thinking of my relatives in Germany where my daughter and sister are currently visiting. Rich and I had the opportunity to visit them in southern Germany last October and it is amazing how welcoming they all were. While there I could not imagine leaving the beauty of southern Germany and arriving in North Dakota. It must have been a rude awakening that first winter. I expressed this to one of my cousins from Germany and he said “well if they hadn’t left they would most certainly been part of World War I & II”. Apparently during WWII my relatives would draw around their feet and then send their foot outlines to my dad and he would send back shoes. Growing up in an the all German community of St. Mary’s I am sure that all of our neighbors and friends had family back in Germany that were caught up in the two wars.

from Annelee (who grew up in Nazi Germany): Dick,Thanks for the Peace and Justice memorial Day 2017. I learned a great deal about the past as you took us down along the highways of memory lane. You brought alive the toils and struggles of your ancestral families on the farms. Then they were asked to give their sons. They were called to serve and they gave their lives.

Times have changed, some for better, some for much worse. Young men throughout the world since then have died and are still dying to serve a cause?

I remember my papa: I don’t know where he read, heard or came to the conclusion on his own.

He always said when our young men were called during WWII, and he learned that that many he knew had died — he shook his head and said
“WAR IS INSANITY AND INHUMANITY OF MEN TO HIS FELLOW MEN— I MAY NOT REMEMBER IT EXACTLY.

WAR IS STILL GOING ON, AND IT WILL CONTINUE AS LONG AS WAR AND ITS COST ARE GLORIFIED AND WE NEGLECT LIFE AND ALL ITS BLESSING PEACE COULD BRING.

from Christina: What great thoughts for this Memorial Day!

Veterans for Peace at Vietnam Memorial on MN State Capitol Grounds, May 29, 2017.

It was a chilly, blustery day, but there was a large group who gathered. Below are a few photos from the annual gathering.

May 29, Veterans for Peace gathering.

Ceremonial Bell Ringing remembering those who have died.

May 29, 2017

Dick Bernard: Reflecting on Benjamin Ferencz

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Someone asked me about my Mom a few days ago. Esther (Busch) Bernard died August 20, 1981, at age 72, cancer. A few months before her death I turned 41. She was a remarkable person…then again, all persons in their own ways were and are remarkable. We all have our own memories of our own missing persons in our own lives. Likely in that can of human hair I found in the possessions at the North Dakota farm where she was born and raised is some of hers. Today is a time to remember and to reflect.

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Today is Mother’s Day, now better known in Minnesota as fishing opener weekend….

Happy Mother’s Day to all Mom’s, in all their infinite variations.

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A few days ago I featured the quotation of an immensely accomplished mother of six, Eleanor Roosevelt, in a newsletter I edit. Mrs. Roosevelt said this: “Believe in yourself. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you stop to look fear in the face…You must do that which you think you cannot do….The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
(p. 4, here: CGS News May 2017001)

Among her many accomplishments, Eleanor Roosevelt was the leader who led the process leading to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations in 1948.

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Today’s post, however, is about a son, Benjamin Ferencz, 36 years younger than Mrs. Roosevelt, but nonetheless tied together with her by a shared history – WWII. I can only begin to explain by these few words. Perhaps you’ll want to follow up. I didn’t know Mr. Ferencz existed till a week ago.

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Yesterday I was organizing a bunch of assorted papers on world peace passed along to me by Joe Schwartzberg, who had previously received them from the family of Martha and Stan Platt, two giants of the twin cities peace community back in the days of Eleanor Roosevelt. The assortment was from the early 1950s to the early 1990s.

The task was one I had avoided for a year or more. There were many musty old file folders, probably from the Platt’s garage, unceremoniously parked in a torn grocery bag, which in turn was placed inside a kitchen garbage bag.

Rummaging through the files among hundreds of items I came across the below letter, referencing a then-upcoming book by Prof. Benjamin Ferencz:

(click to enlarge)

(The book referred to was published, and some copies are still available for the inquiring reader here.)

I knew of Stanley Platt and his wife by reputation, though they are long deceased. I never met either, but they were legendary in peace circles in the U.S.

Benjamin Ferencz?

May 7, long time friend Dr. Joseph Schwartzberg, sent a few of us “this gem of a beautiful interview with Ben Ferencz that [he] just found” which aired on PBS July 14, 2009.

A couple of hours later, CBS “60 Minutes” had a feature segment on the same Ben Ferencz, now 97 and still a stalwart for dealing with the insanity of war.

So, in the space of a week, the unknown Benjamin Ferencz became much more a known in my own life, through a 2009 PBS program, the segment on 60 Minutes, and a 1993 letter.

The quick note is this: a newly minted lawyer as WWII ended, the 27-year old Ferencz happened to draw the short straw as the lawyer who “prosecuted 22 German officers at Nuremberg for murdering over a million people in World War II….” (from the PBS text).

The longer story, accessible in the programs above, is worth your time.

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These days, it is easy to feel there is no hope; that individuals and small groups cannot make a difference.

Making a better world takes all of us, women, men, Moms, Dads, boys, girls, all the time.

Margaret Mead said it best, years ago: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has.”

To all, everyone, Happy Mother’s Day.